Click here to read a new story– or rather a talk, which Rachel Molano gave to the women’s group about mission. Then if you’ve still got time before you’ve finished your coffee, read on…

Until I was about twenty, if someone said the word ‘missionary’ it meant the following things to me:
a) Someone who belongs to the Victorian era
b) Someone whose thinking still belongs to the Victorian era
c) Someone who arrogantly imposes their culture and beliefs on others.

I was twenty when I finally understood who Jesus is and decided to follow him. Then, even though I passionately believed that only Jesus, through his life and his death, is able to reconcile people to God, I still felt uncomfortable about people going to Africa to lecture others on this subject. (I hadn’t yet realized that Africans now come to Britain to share the gospel with us.)

Then I started to meet people called to serve abroad as, well, missionaries. I met people who had made a conscious decision that even if it meant actual being killed, they would share their faith in countries hostile to Christianity. Some of the most passionate, humble, exciting, hardworking Christians I knew seemed to be planning to spend their lives abroad to live out and teach the gospel.

Of course you don’t have to go abroad to be a missionary – although it seems to help! There seems to be something about transplanting yourself to another culture, in the same way that Jesus allowed himself to be transplanted to our world, that goes with God’s message of love and service. Still, if I wanted a model for living life as a Christian anywhere including at home in the UK, I’d choose a missionary’s lifestyle; being here to serve others, being a living sacrifice. As I heard in a sermon once, there are only two types of Christian – missionaries, and imposters. Ouch.

Perhaps there are still missionaries who go from Britain and America with wrong motives and arrogance; they’re not the ones I’ve met. I hope you find Rachel’s account inspiring, and better still that we all find ways to live it out at home.