Mission Quotes

1. “I have but one can of life to burn and I would rather burn it out in a land filled with darkness than in a land flooded with light”  John Keith Falconer

2. It is high time to make known the glad tidings in these dark regions of sin and spiritual bondage. Samuel Marsden

3. We have all eternity to tell of victories won for Christ, but we have only a few hours before sunset to win them.  Anonymous GOC

4. Its amazing what can be accomplished if you don’t worry about who gets the credit. Clarence W. Jones

5. If we are going to wait until every possible hindrance has been removed before we do a work for the Lord, we will never attempt to do anything. TJ Back

6. “Brother, if you would enter that Province, you must go forward on your knees.” J Hudson Taylor

7. Here am I, Send Me! Isaiah

8. He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. Jim Elliot

9. I have but one passion – it is He, it is He alone. The world is the field and the field is the world: and henceforth that country shall be my home where I can be most used in winning souls for Christ. 

      - Count Zinsindorf

10. I used to think that prayer should have the first place and teaching the second. I now feel it would be truer to give prayer the first, second and third places and teaching the fourth. James O. Fraser

11. This Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. Jesus 2 –32 – forever

12. We talk of the second coming, half the world has never heard of the first. Oswald J smith

13. His authority on earth allows us to dare to go to all nations. His authority in heaven gives us our only hope of success. And His presence with us leaves us no other choice. John Stott

14. Tell the students t five up their small ambitions and come eastward to preach the gospel of Christ. Francis Xavier

15. Some wish to live within the sound of a chapel bell, I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.  CT Studd

16. Will the heathen who have not heard the Gospel be saved?… “ It is more a guestion with me whether we who have the Gospel and fail to five it to those who have not, can be saved. CH Spurgean

17. The Great Commission is not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed. 

-CH Spurgean

18. I have but one candle of life to burn, and I would rather burn it out in a land filled with darkness than in a land flooded with light" -- John Keith Falconer

19. "God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply" -- Hudson Taylor [ video ]

20. "God isn't looking for people of great faith, but for individuals ready to follow Him" -- Hudson Taylor

21. "The Great Commission is not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed" -- Hudson Taylor

22. "If I had 1,000 lives, I'd give them all for China" -- Hudson Taylor

23. "Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God" -- William Carey, who is called the father of modern missions [ more info ]

24. "The spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions. The nearer we get to Him, the more intensely missionary we become." -- Henry Martyn, missionary to India and Persia

25. "He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose" -- Jim Elliot, missionary martyr who lost his life in the late 1950's trying to reach the Auca Indians of Ecuador [ info on video ] [ brief biography ]\

26. "We are debtors to every man to give him the gospel in the same measure in which we have received it" -- P.F. Bresee, founder of the Church of the Nazarene

27. "In the vast plain to the north I have sometimes seen, in the morning sun, the smoke of a thousand villages where no missionary has ever been" -- Robert Moffat, who inspired David Livingstone

28. "Can't you do just a little bit more?" -- J.G. Morrison pleading with Nazarenes in the 1930's Great Depression to support their missionaries

29. "Lost people matter to God, and so they must matter to us." -- Keith Wright

30. "The Bible is not the basis of missions; missions is the basis of the Bible" -- Ralph Winter, U.S. Center for World Mission

31. "Some wish to live within the sound of a chapel bell; I wish to run a rescue mission within a yard of hell." -- C.T. Studd

32. "If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him." -- C.T. Studd

33. "No one has the right to hear the gospel twice, while there remains someone who has not heard it once." -- Oswald J. Smith [ more on Oswald Smith ]

34. "This generation of Christians is responsible for this generation of souls on the earth!" -- Keith Green

35. "There is nothing in the world or the Church -- except the church's disobedience -- to render the evangelization of the world in this generation an impossibility." -- Robert Speer, leader in Student Volunteer Movement

36. "If you found a cure for cancer, wouldn't it be inconceivable to hide it from the rest of mankind? How much more inconceivable to keep silent the cure from the eternal wages of death." -- Dave Davidson

37. "If God calls you to be a missionary, don't stoop to be a king" -- Jordan Groom (variations of this also credited to G. K. Chesterson, Thomas Carlyle and Charles Haddon Spurgeon)

38. "World missions was on God's mind from the beginning." -- Dave Davidson

39. "Let my heart be broken with the things that break God's heart" -- Bob Pierce, World Vision founder

40. "No reserves. No retreats. No regrets" -- William Borden

41. "The reason some folks don't believe in missions is that the brand of religion they have isn't worth propagating." -- unknown

42. When James Calvert went out as a missionary to the cannibals of the Fiji Islands, the ship captain tried to turn him back, saying, "You will lose your life and the lives of those with you if you go among such savages." To that, Calvert replied, "We died before we came here."

43. "Someone asked Will the heathen who have never heard the Gospel be saved? It is more a question with me whether we -- who have the Gospel and fail to give it to those who have not -- can be saved." -- Charles Spurgeon

44. "God uses men who are weak and feeble enough to lean on him." -- Hudson Taylor, missionary to China [ video ]

45. "The gospel is only good news if it gets there in time" -- Carl F. H. Henry

46. "Our God of Grace often gives us a second chance, but there is no second chance to harvest a ripe crop." -- Kurt von Schleicher [ Apple pickers' parable ]

47. "Missions is the overflow of our delight in God because missions is the overflow of God's delight in being God." --John Piper

48. "You can give without loving. But you cannot love without giving." -- Amy Carmichael, missionary to India

49. "Only as the church fulfills her missionary obligation does she justify her existence." -- Unknown

50. "As long as there are millions destitute of the Word of God and knowledge of Jesus Christ, it will be impossible for me to devote time and energy to those who have both." -- J. L. Ewen

51. "The mission of the church is missions" -- Unknown

52. "Sympathy is no substitute for action." -- David Livingstone, missionary to Africa

53. "The command has been to 'go,' but we have stayed -- in body, gifts, prayer and influence. He has asked us to be witnesses unto the uttermost parts of the earth ... but 99% of Christians have kept puttering around in the homeland." -- Robert Savage, Latin American Mission

54. "People who do not know the Lord ask why in the world we waste our lives as missionaries. They forget that they too are expending their lives ... and when the bubble has burst, they will have nothing of eternal significance to show for the years they have wasted." -- Nate Saint, missionary martyr [ devotional thoughts ]

55. "We must be global Christians with a global vision because our God is a global God." -- John Stott

56. "Believers who have the gospel keep mumbling it over and over to themselves. Meanwhile, millions who have never heard it once fall into the flames of eternal hell without ever hearing the salvation story." -- K.P. Yohannan, founder of Gospel for Asia Bible Society

57. "We talk of the Second Coming; half the world has never heard of the first." -- Oswald J. Smith

58. "Tell the students to give up their small ambitions and come eastward to preach the gospel of Christ." -- Francis Xavier, missionary to India, the Philippines, and Japan

59. "The mark of a great church is not its seating capacity, but its sending capacity." -- Mike Stachura

60. "'Not called!' did you say? Not heard the call,' I think you should say. Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father's house and bid their brothers and sisters and servants and masters not to come there. Then look Christ in the face -- whose mercy you have professed to obey -- and tell Him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish His mercy to the world. -- William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army

61. "It is not in our choice to spread the gospel or not. It is our death if we do not." -- Peter Taylor Forsyth

62. If God's love is for anybody anywhere, it's for everybody everywhere. -- Edward Lawlor, Nazarene General Superintendent

63. "Never pity missionaries; envy them. They are where the real action is -- where life and death, sin and grace, Heaven and Hell converge." -- Robert C. Shannon

64. "People who don't believe in missions have not read the New Testament. Right from the beginning Jesus said the field is the world. The early church took Him at His word and went East, West, North and South." -- J. Howard Edington

65. "It is possible for the most obscure person in a church, with a heart right toward God, to exercise as much power for the evangelization of the world, as it is for those who stand in the most prominent positions." -- John R. Mott

66. "In no other way can the believer become as fully involved with God's work, especially the work of world evangelism, as in intercessory prayer." -- Dick Eastman, president of Every Home for Christ (formerly World Literature Crusade)

67. "What's your dream and to what corner of the missions world will it take you?" -- Eleanor Roat, missions mobilizer

68. "We can reach our world, if we will. The greatest lack today is not people or funds. The greatest need is prayer." -- Wesley Duewel, head of OMS International

69. "Love is the root of missions; sacrifice is the fruit of missions" -- Roderick Davis

70. "Missionary zeal does not grow out of intellectual beliefs, nor out of theological arguments, but out of love" -- Roland Allen

71. "I have seen, at different times, the smoke of a thousand villages - villages whose people are without Christ, without God, and without hope in the world."            - Robert Moffat

72. "The command has been to "go," but we have stayed - in body, gifts, prayer and influence. He has asked us to be witnesses unto the uttermost parts of the earth…But 99% of Christians have kept puttering around in the homeland."            - Robert Savage

73. "While vast continents are shrouded in darkness…the burden of proof lies upon you to show that the circumstances in which God has placed you were meant by God to keep you out of the foreign mission field."            - Ion Keith-Falconer

74. "I wasn't God's first choice for what I've done for China…I don't know who it was…It must have been a man…a well-educated man. I don't know what happened. Perhaps he died. Perhaps he wasn't willing…and God looked down…and saw Gladys Aylward…And God said - "Well, she's willing."            - Gladys Aylward

75. "Brother, if you would enter that Province, you must go forward on your knees." 

           - J. Hudson Taylor

76. "The man…looking at him with a smile that only half concealed his contempt, inquired, "Now Mr. Morrison do you really expect that you will make an impression on the idolatry of the Chinese Empire?" "No sir," said Morrison, "but I expect that God will."            - Robert Morrison

77. "Here am I. Send me."            - Isaiah

78. "And people who do not know the Lord ask why in the world we waste our lives as missionaries. They forget that they too are expending their lives…and when the bubble has burst they will have nothing of eternal significance to show for the years they have wasted."       - Nate Saint

79. "Jehovah Witnesses don't believe in hell and neither do most Christians"       - Leonard Ravenhill

80. "Had I cared for the comments of people, I should never have been a missionary."       - C.T. Studd

81. "Young man, sit down: when God pleases to convert the heathen, he will do it without your aid or mine." 

           - said to a young William Carey

82. "Oh, that I had a thousand lives, and a thousand bodies! All of them should be devoted to no other employment but to preach Christ to these degraded, despised, yet beloved mortals."      

            - Robert Moffat

83. "We must be global Christians with a global vision because our God is a global God." 

      - John Stott

84. "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." 

           - Jim Elliot

85. "A tiny group of believers who have the gospel keep mumbling it over and over to themselves. Meanwhile, millions who have never heard it once fall into the flames of eternal hell without ever hearing the salvation story." 

           - K.P. Yohannan

86. "I have but one passion - it is He, it is He alone. The world is the field and the field is the world; and henceforth that country shall be my home where I can be most used in winning souls for Christ." 

           - Count Zinzindorf

87. "God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supplies." 

           - J. Hudson Taylor

88. "He must increase, but I must decrease." 

           - John the Baptist

89. "If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him." 

           - C.T. Studd

90. "The greatest missionary is the Bible in the mother tongue. It needs no furlough and is never considered a foreigner." 

           - William Cameron Townsend

91."Prepare for the worst, expect the best, and take what comes." 

           - Robert E. Speer

92. "The saddest thing one meets is a nominal Christian. I had not seen it in Japan where missions is younger. The church here is a "field full of wheat and tares." 

           - Amy Carmichael

93. "I used to think that prayer should have the first place and teaching the second. I now feel it would be truer to give prayer the first, second and third places and teaching the fourth." 

           - James O. Fraser

94. "It is just as proper, maybe even more so, to say Christ's global cause has a Church as to say Christ's Church has a global cause." 

           - David Bryant

95. "If you are sick, fast and pray; if the language is hard to learn, fast and pray; if the people will not hear you, fast and pray, if you have nothing to eat, fast and pray." 

           - Frederick Franson

96. "What are we here for, to have a good time with Christians or to save sinners?" 

           - Malla Moe

97. "I tell you, brethren, if mercies and if judgments do not convert you, God has no other arrows in His quiver." 

           - Robert Murray M'Cheyne

98. "It's amazing what can be accomplished if you don't worry about who gets the credit." 

           - Clarence W. Jones

99. "Two distinguishing marks of the early church were: 1) Poverty 2) Power." 

           - T.J. Bach

100. "Do not think me mad. It is not to make money that I believe a Christian should live. The noblest thing a man can do is, just humbly to receive, and then go amongst others and give." 

           - David Livingstone

101. "From my many years experience I can unhesitatingly say that the cross bears those who bear the cross." 

           - Sadhu Sundar Singh

102. "I pray that no missionary will ever be as lonely as I have been." 

           - Lottie Moon

103. "All my friends are but one, but He is all sufficient." 

           - William Carey

104. "How little chance the Holy Ghost has nowadays. The churches and missionary societies have so bound him in red tape that they practically ask Him to sit in a corner while they do the work themselves." 

           - C.T. Studd

105. "I have always believed that the Good Samaritan went across the road to the wounded man just because he wanted to." 

           - Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

106. "The more obstacles you have, the more opportunities there are for God to do something." 

           - Clarence W. Jones

107. "Expect great things from God. Attempt great thing for God." 

           - William Carey

108. "God's part is to put forth power; our part is to put forth faith." 

           - Andrew A. Bonar

109. "All the resources of the Godhead are at our disposal!" 

           - Jonathan Goforth

110. "The Indian is making an amazing discovery, namely that Christianity and Jesus are not the same - that they may have Jesus without the system that has been built up around Him in the West." 

           - E. Stanley Jones

111. "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come." 

           - Jesus

112. "All roads lead to the judgment seat of Christ." 

           - Keith Green

113. "Christians don't tell lies they just go to church and sing them" 

           - A.W. Tozer

114. "I will lay my bones by the Ganges that India might know there is one who cares." 

           - Alexander Duff

115. "Today Christians spend more money on dog food then missions" 

           - Leonard Ravenhill

116. "It will not do to say that you have no special call to go to China. With these facts before you and with the command of the Lord Jesus to go and preach the gospel to every creature, you need rather to ascertain whether you have a special call to stay at home." 

           - J. Hudson Taylor

117. "We talk of the second coming, half the world has never heard of the first." 

           - Oswald J. Smith

118. "God cannot lead you on the basis of facts that you do not know." 

           - David Bryant

119. "And thus I aspire to preach the gospel, not where Christ was already named so that I would not build on another man's foundation." 

           - Paul

120. "Why do we insist on building the largest and most impressive structures in our city when people on the other side of town are hungry, jobless and worshipping in storefronts?" 

           - K.P. Yohannan

121. "If every Christian is already considered a missionary, then all can stay put where they are, and nobody needs to get up and go anywhere to preach the gospel. But if our only concern is to witness where we are, how will people in unevangelized areas ever hear the gospel? The present uneven distribution of Christians and opportunities to hear the gospel of Christ will continue on unchanged." 

           - C. Gordon Olson

122. "I spent twenty years of my life trying to recruit people out of local churches and into missions structures so that they could be involved in fulfilling God's global mission. Now I have another idea. Let's take God's global mission and put it right in the middle of the local church!" 

           - George Miley

123. "Oh dear, I couldn't say that my church is alive and I wouldn't want to call it dead. I guess it's just walking in its sleep!" 

           - Church member

124. "When he landed in 1848 there were no Christians here; when he left in 1872 there were no heathen." 

           - said of John Geddie

125. "At the moment I put the bread and wine into those dark hands, once stained with the blood of cannibalism, now stretched out to receive and partake the emblems and seals of the Redeemer's love, I had a foretaste of the joy of glory that well nigh broke my heart to pieces. I shall never taste a deeper bliss, till I gaze on the glorified face of Jesus himself." 

           - John G. Paton

126. "Save others, snatching them out of the fire." 

           - Jude

127. "The evangelization of the world in this generation." 

           - Student Volunteer Movement Motto

128. Other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring" 

           - Jesus

129. "Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn't." 

           - John Piper

130. "His authority on earth allows us to dare to go to all the nations. His authority in heaven gives us our only hope of success. And His presence with us leaves us no other choice." 

           - John Stott

131. "Today five out of six non-Christians in our world have no hope unless missionaries come to them and plant the church among them." 

           - David Bryant

132. "Tell the students to give up their small ambitions and come eastward to preach the gospel of Christ." 

           - Francis Xavier

133. "Christ for the students of the world, and the students of the world for Christ." 

           - Luther Wishard

134. "We who have Christ's eternal life need to throw away our own lives." 

           - George Verwer

135. "Some wish to live within the sound of a chapel bell, I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of Hell." 

           - C.T. Studd

136. "When I get to China, I will have no claim on any one for anything. My claim will be alone in God and I must learn before I leave England to move men through God by prayer alone" 

           - J. Hudson Taylor

137. "God has huge plans for the world today! He is not content to merely establish a handful of struggling churches among each tongue, tribe and nation. Even now He is preparing and empowering His Church to carry the seeds of revival to the uttermost ends of the earth." 

           - David Smithers

138. "The mark of a great church is not its seating capacity, but its sending capacity." 

           - Mike Stachura

139. "Answering a student's question, 'Will the heathen who have not heard the Gospel be saved?' thus, 'It is more a question with me whether we who have the Gospel and fail to give it to those who have not, can be saved.'" 

           - C.H. Spurgeon.

E. Stanley Jones - The Gospel

"An Individual Gospel without a social gospel is a soul without a body; and a social gospel without an individual gospel is a body without a soul.

One is a ghost and the other a corpse"  E. Stanley Jones

Missions slogans and quotes from missionaries

"I have but one candle of life to burn, and I would rather burn it out in a land filled with darkness than in a land flooded with light" -- John Keith Falconer

• "God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply" -- Hudson Taylor
• God isn't looking for people of great faith, but for individuals ready to follow Him" -- Hudson Taylor
• "The Great Commissionis not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed" -- Hudson Taylor
• "If I had 1,000 lives, I'd give them all for China" -- Hudson Taylor
• "God uses men who are weak and feeble enough to lean on him." – Hudson Taylor, missionary to China
• "Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God" -- William Carey, who is called the father of modern missions
• "The spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions. The nearer we get to Him, the more intensely missionary we become." -- Henry Martyn, missionary to India and Persia
• "He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose" -- Jim Elliot, missionary martyr who lost his life in the late 1950's trying to reach the Auca Indians of Ecuador
• "We are debtors to every man to give him the gospel in the same measure in which we have received it" -- P.F. Bresee, founder of the Church of the Nazarene
• "In the vast plain to the north I have sometimes seen, in the morning sun, the smoke of a thousand villages where no missionary has ever been" -- Robert Moffat, who inspired David Livingstone
• "If a commission by an earthly king is considered a honor, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice?" -- David Livingstone
• "Sympathy is no substitute for action." -- David Livingstone, missionary to Africa
• "Can't you do just a little bit more?" -- J.G. Morrison pleading with Nazarenes in the 1930's Great Depression to support their missionaries
• "Lost people matter to God, and so they must matter to us." -- Keith Wright
• "The Bible is not the basis of missions; missions is the basis of the Bible" -- Ralph Winter, U.S. Center for World Mission
• "Some wish to live within the sound of a chapel bell; I wish to run a rescue mission within a yard of hell." -- C.T. Studd
• "If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him." -- C.T. Studd
• "No one has the right to hear the gospel twice, while there remains someone who has not heard it once." -- Oswald J. Smith
• "Any church that is not seriously involved in helping fulfill the Great Commission has forfeited its biblical right to exist." -- Oswald J. Smith
• "The mission of the church is missions" -- Oswald J. Smith
• "We talk of the Second Coming; half the world has never heard of the first." -- Oswald J. Smith
• "This generation of Christians is responsible for this generation of souls on the earth!" -- Keith Green
• "There is nothing in the world or the Church -- except the church's disobedience -- to render the evangelization of the world in this generation an impossibility." -- Robert Speer, leader in Student Volunteer Movement
• "If God calls you to be a missionary, don't stoop to be a king" -- Jordan Groom (variations of this also credited to G. K. Chesterson, Thomas Carlyle and Charles Haddon Spurgeon)
• "If you found a cure for cancer, wouldn't it be inconceivable to hide it from the rest of mankind? How much more inconceivable to keep silent the cure from the eternal wages of death." -- Dave Davidson
• "World missions was on God's mind from the beginning." -- Dave Davidson
• "In our lifetime, wouldn't it be sad if we spent more time washing dishes or swatting flies or mowing the yard or watching television than praying for world missions?" -- Dave Davidson
• "Let my heart be broken with the things that break God's heart" -- Bob Pierce, World Vision founder
• "No reserves. No retreats. No regrets" -- William Borden
• "If ten men are carrying a log -- nine of them on the little end and one at the heavy end -- and you want to help, which end will you lift on?" -- William Borden, as he reflected on the numbers of Christian workers in the U.S. as compared to those among unreached peoples in China
• "The reason some folks don't believe in missions is that the brand of religion they have isn't worth propagating." -- unknown
• When James Calvert went out as a missionary to the cannibals of the Fiji Islands, the ship captain tried to turn him back, saying, "You will lose your life and the lives of those with you if you go among such savages." To that, Calvert replied, "We died before we came here."
• "Someone asked Will the heathen who have never heard the Gospel be saved? It is more a question with me whether we -- who have the Gospel and fail to give it to those who have not -- can be saved." -- Charles Spurgeon
• The gospel is only good news if it gets there in time" -- Carl F. H. Henry
• "Our God of Grace often gives us a second chance, but there is no second chance to harvest a ripe crop." -- Kurt von Schleicher
• "Missions is the overflow of our delight in God because missions is the overflow of God's delight in being God." --John Piper
• "God is pursuing with omnipotent passion a worldwide purpose of gathering joyful worshippers for Himself from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. He has an inexhaustible enthusiasm for the supremacy of His name among the nations. Therefore, let us bring our affections into line with His, and, for the sake of His name, let us renounce the quest for worldly comforts and join His global purpose." -- John Piper
• "You can give without loving. But you cannot love without giving." -- Amy Carmichael, missionary to India
• "Only as the church fulfills her missionary obligation does she justify her existence." -- Unknown
• "As long as there are millions destitute of the Word of God and knowledge of Jesus Christ, it will be impossible for me to devote time and energy to those who have both." -- J. L. Ewen
• "The command has been to 'go,' but we have stayed -- in body, gifts, prayer and influence. He has asked us to be witnesses unto the uttermost parts of the earth ... but 99% of Christians have kept puttering around in the homeland." -- Robert Savage, Latin American Mission
• "People who do not know the Lord ask why in the world we waste our lives as missionaries. They forget that they too are expending their lives ... and when the bubble has burst, they will have nothing of eternal significance to show for the years they have wasted." -- Nate Saint, missionary martyr
• "We must be global Christians with a global vision because our God is a global God." -- John Stott
• "Believers who have the gospel keep mumbling it over and over to themselves. Meanwhile, millions who have never heard it once fall into the flames of eternal hell without ever hearing the salvation story." -- K.P. Yohannan, founder of Gospel for Asia Bible Society
• "Tell the students to give up their small ambitions and come eastward to preach the gospel of Christ." -- Francis Xavier, missionary to India, the Philippines, and Japan
• "The mark of a great church is not its seating capacity, but its sending capacity." -- Mike Stachura
• "The true greatness of any church in not how many it seats but how many it sends!" -- Unknown
• "'Not called!' did you say? 'Not heard the call,' I think you should say. Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father's house and bid their brothers and sisters and servants and masters not to come there. Then look Christ in the face -- whose mercy you have professed to obey -- and tell Him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish His mercy to the world. -- William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army
• "It is not in our choice to spread the gospel or not. It is our death if we do not." -- Peter Taylor Forsyth
• "If God's love is for anybody anywhere, it's for everybody everywhere." – Edward Lawlor, Nazarene General Superintendent
• "Never pity missionaries; envy them. They are where the real action is -- where life and death, sin and grace, Heaven and Hell converge." -- Robert C. Shannon
• "People who don't believe in missions have not read the New Testament. Right from the beginning Jesus said the field is the world. The early church took Him at His word and went East, West, North and South." -- J. Howard Edington
• "It is possible for the most obscure person in a church, with a heart right toward God, to exercise as much power for the evangelization of the world, as it is for those who stand in the most prominent positions." -- John R. Mott
• "In no other way can the believer become as fully involved with God's work, especially the work of world evangelism, as in intercessory prayer." -- Dick Eastman, president of Every Home for Christ (formerly World Literature Crusade)
• "What's your dream and to what corner of the missions world will it take you?" -- Eleanor Roat, missions mobilizer
• "We can reach our world, if we will. The greatest lack today is not people or funds. The greatest need is prayer." -- Wesley Duewel, head of OMS International
• "Love is the root of missions; sacrifice is the fruit of missions" -- Roderick Davis
• "Missionary zeal does not grow out of intellectual beliefs, nor out of theological arguments, but out of love" -- Roland Allen
• "I have but one passion: It is He, it is He alone. The world is the field and the field is the world; and henceforth that country shall be my home where I can be most used in winning souls for Christ." -- Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf
• "If you take missions out of the Bible, you won't have anything left but the covers" -- Nina Gunter
• "If the Church is 'in Christ,' she is involved in mission. Her whole existence then has a missionary character. Her conduct as well as her words will convince the unbelievers and put their ignorance and stupidity to silence." -- David Bosch
• "Missions is not the 'ministry of choice' for a few hyperactive Christians in the church. Missions is the purpose of the church." -- Unknown
• "The concern for world evangelization is not something tacked on to a man's personal Christianity, which he may take or leave as he chooses. It is rooted in the character of the God who has come to us in Christ Jesus. Thus, it can never be the province of a few enthusiasts, a sideline or a specialty of those who happen to have a bent that way. It is the distinctive mark of being a Christian." -- James S. Stewart
• "The average pastor views his church as a local church with a missions program; while he ought to realize that if he is in fact pastoring a church, it is to be a global church with a missions purpose." -- Unknown
• "The Christian is not obedient unless he is doing all in his power to send the Gospel to the heathen world." -- A. B. Simpson
• "The will of God -- nothing less, nothing more, nothing else." -- F. E. Marsh (also attributed to Bobby Richardson)
• "If the Great Commission is true, our plans are not too big; they are too small." -- Pat Morley
• "If missions languish, it is because the whole life of godliness is feeble. The command to go everywhere and preach to everybody is not obeyed until the will is lost by self-surrender in the will of God. Living, praying, giving and going will always be found together." -- Arthur T. Pierson
• "The history of missions is the history of answered prayer. From Pentecost to the Haystack meeting in New England and from the days when Robert Morrison landed in China to the martyrdom of John and Betty Stam, prayer has been the source of power and the secret of spiritual triumph." -- Samuel Zwemer
• "'Go ye' is as much a part of Christ's Gospel as 'Come unto Me.' You are not even a Christian until you have honestly faced your responsibility in regard to the carrying of the Gospel to the ends of the earth." -- J. Stuart Holden

Verses on missions: Christian missions in the Bible

Old Testament and missions

• Genesis 12:1-3 (repeated in Gen. 18:18, 22:17-18, 26:24 and 28:12-14)
• Exodus 9:14-16 -- purpose of the plagues
• Exodus 19:6 -- Israel was to be akingdom of priests
• Numbers 14:21 -- glory of Lord fills the whole earth
• Deuteronomy 4:6-8 -- show your understanding to the nations
• Deuteronomy 10:19 --You are to love those who are aliens
• Deuteronomy 28:10 --all the peoples on the earth will see that you are called by the name of the Lord
• Deuteronomy 32:1 -Hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.
• Joshua 4:24 --so that all the peoples of the earth might know
• 1 Samuel 2:10 --The LORD will judge the ends of the earth.
• 1 Samuel 17:46 --the whole world will know there is a God in Israel
• 1 Kings 8:41-43, 59-60 (also in 2 Chronicles 6:32-33) --so that all peoples of the earth may know your name (Solomon's prayer at dedication of Temple)
• 2 Kings 19:15 --Hezekiah prayed . . . : O LORD, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth.'
• 1 Chronicles 16:31Let the earth be glad; let them say among the nations, The Lord reigns!'
• 1 Chronicles 16:24 --Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples
• 2 Chronicles 6:33 --so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you
• Psalm 2:7-10 --You are my Son . . . I will make the nations your inheritance
• Psalm 7:7-8 --Let the Lord judge the peoples
• Psalm 8:9 --How majestic is your name in all the earth!
• Psalm 18:49 --I will praise you among the nations
• Psalm 22:26-28 --all the families of the nations will bow down
• Psalm 19:1-4 --their words to the ends of the world
• Psalm 22:27 --All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord
• Psalm 24 --The earth is the Lord's
• Psalm 33 --Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord
• Psalm 45:17 --The nations will praise you for ever and ever
• Psalm 46:10 --I will be exalted among the nations
• Psalm 47 --God reigns over the nations
• Psalm 48:10 --Like your name, O God, your praise reaches to the ends of the earth
• Psalm 49:1 --Hear this, all you peoples; listen, all who live in this world
• Psalm 50 --From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets
• Psalm 57 --I will sing of you among the peoples
• Psalm 59:13 --It will be known to the ends of the earth that God rules over Jacob.
• Psalm 65:5-8 --the hope of all the ends of the earth . . . where morning dawns and evening fades you call forth songs of joy
• Psalm 66 --All the earth bows down to you . . . Praise our God, O peoples
• Psalm 67 --your salvation among all peoples
• Psalm 68:32 --Sing to God, O kingdoms of the earth
• Psalm 72 --all nations will serve him
• Psalm 72:9 --the desert tribes will bow before him
• Psalm 72:17, 19 --All nations will be blessed through him . . . May the whole earth be filled with his glory
• Psalm 77:14 --you display your power among the peoples
• Psalm 82 --all the nations are your inheritance
• Psalm 83:18 --You alone are the Most High over all the earth.
• Psalm 86:8-13 -- all nations will come and worship
• Psalm 87 -- the register of the peoples
• Psalm 96 --sing to the Lord, all the earth . . . Declare his glory among the nations
• Psalm 97 --The Lord reigns, let the earth be glad; let the distant shores rejoice
• Psalm 98:3 --All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.
• Psalm 98:9 --He comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples with equity.
• Psalm 99:1-3 --He is exalted over all the nations. Let them praise your great and awesome name
• Psalm 102:15 --The nations will fear the name of the LORD, all the kings of the earth will revere your glory.
• Psalm 102:22 --when the peoples and the kingdoms assemble to worship the Lord
• Psalm 105:1 --make known among the nations what He has done
• Psalm 106:8 -- reason for dividing the Red Sea
• Psalm 108:3 --I will sing of you among the peoples
• Psalm 108:5 --Be exalted, O God, above the heavens, and let your glory be over all the earth.
• Psalm 110:6 --He will judge the nations,
• Psalm 113:3 --From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets, the name of the Lord is to be praised
• Psalm 117 --Praise the Lord, all you nations
• Psalm 126 --it was said among the nations
• Psalm 135 --our Lord is greater than all gods
• Psalm 138:4 --may all the kings of the earth praise you, O Lord
• Isaiah 2:3 --Many peoples will come and say,Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob.
• Isaiah 6:3 --They were calling to one another: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.'
• Isaiah 11:9 --fill the earth with the knowledge of the Lord
• Isaiah 11:10 --in that day a Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples, the nations . . .
• Isaiah 12:4 --Make known among the nations what He has done
• Isaiah 24:16 --From the ends of the earth we hear singing: Glory to the Righteous One.'
• Isaiah 25:6 --the LORD Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples
• Isaiah 42:4 --in His law the islands will put their hope
• Isaiah 42:6 --I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles.
• Isaiah 34:1 --Come near, you nations, and listen; pay attention, you peoples!
• Isaiah 37:16 --O Lord Almighty . . . , you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth.
• Isaiah 42:4 --He will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth. In his law the islands will put their hope.
• Isaiah 43:6 --I will say to the north, 'Give them up!' and to the south, 'Do not hold them back.'
• Isaiah 45:6 --from the rising of the sun to the place of its setting men may know there is none besides me.
• Isaiah 45:22 --Turn to me . . . all you ends of the earth
• Isaiah 49:1-6 --I will make you a light for the Gentiles
• Isaiah 49:22 --The Sovereign Lord says:See, I will beckon to the Gentiles, I will lift up my banner to the peoples.
• Isaiah 52:10 --The Lord will lay bare his holy arm in the sight of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God.
• Isaiah 56:7 --my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations
• Isaiah 59:19 --From the west, men will fear the name of the Lord, and from the rising of the sun, they will revere His glory.
• Isaiah 60:3 --Nations will come to your light
• Isaiah 62:11 --The Lord has made proclamation to the ends of the earth
• Isaiah 66:19 --They will proclaim my glory among the nations
• Jeremiah 3:17 --All nations will gather in Jerusalem to honor the name of the Lord
• Jeremiah 16:19 To you the nations will come from the ends of the earth and say,Our fathers possessed nothing but false gods, worthless idols that did them no good.
• Ezekiel 36:22-23 --The nations will know I am the Lord
• Daniel 2:47; 4:1-2; 6:25 --Surely your God is the God of gods
• Daniel 7:13, 14 --all peoples, nations and languages should serve Him
• Jonah's story -- the missionary book of the Old Testament [ e-book on Jonah ]
• Micah 1:2 --Hear, O peoples, all of you, listen, O earth and all who are in it.
• Micah 4:2 --Many nations will come
• Micah 5:4 --His greatness will reach to the ends of the earth.
• Habbakuk 2:14 --The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the water cover the sea
• Zephaniah 2:11 --Nations on every shore will worship him
• Zephaniah 3:9 --Then will I purify the lips of the peoples, that all of them may call on the name of the Lord.
• Haggai 2:7 --Desire of all nations
• Zechariah 2:11 --Many nations will be joined with the Lord in that day and will become my people
• Zechariah 8:20-23 --Many peoples and inhabitants of many cities will come
• Zechariah 9:10 --He will proclaim peace to the nations
• Zechariah 14:9 --The Lord will be king over the whole earth.
• Malachi 1:10-11 --My name will be great among the nations, from the rising to the setting of the sun

New Testament and missions

• Matthew 4:8-11 -- Temptation of Jesus
• Matthew 6:9-10 -- The Lord's prayer
• Matthew 10:18 --On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles.
• Matthew 13 (Ezekiel 17:23) -- parables of sower, weeds, mustard seed, fishing net
• Matthew 24:14 -- the gospel will be preached in the whole world
• Matthew 28:19-20; Mark 16:15 - The Great Commission (which many say is a re-statement of God's promise to Abraham in Genesis 12) [ Rev. Susan Fitkin's reflection on the passage ]
• Mark 11:17 (Isaiah 56:7) -- a house of prayer for all nations
• Mark 13:10 --the gospel must first be preached to all nations
• Mark 16:15 (see Matthew 28:19-20)
• Luke 2:32 --a light for revelation to the Gentiles
• Luke 10:2 --harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few
• Luke 10:27 --love your neighbor as yourself
• John 3:16 [ text of verse ]
• John 12:32 --I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.
• John 21:4-14 -- some Biblical commentators have said the 153 fish equals the number of all the tribes and nations which the ancients thought existed on earth
• Acts 1:8; 2:5-12 13:47 (Isaiah 49:6) -- witnesses in all the earth
• Acts 3:25 --He said to Abraham, Through your offspring, all peoples on earth will be blessed.'
• Acts 9:15Go! This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings.
• Acts 11:18 --They praised God, saying, So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life.'
• Acts 13:47 --I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth. (Isaiah 49:6)
• Acts 14:27 --They reported all that God had done through them and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles.
• Acts 28:28 --Therefore I want you to know that God's salvation has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will listen!
• Romans 1:5 --We received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to obedience.
• Romans 3:29 --Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too.
• Romans 10:12-15 --How can they hear?
• Romans 15:10Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people. (Deuteronomy 32:43]
• Romans 15:11Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and sing praises to him, all you peoples. (Psalm 117:1)
• Romans 16:26 -- So that all nations might believe
• 2 Corinthians 4:15 --grace that is reaching more and more people
• Galatians 3:8 --The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: All nations will be blessed through you.' (Genesis 12:3; 18:18; 22:18)
• Galatians 3:14 --He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles.
• Ephesians 1:10 --To bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.
• Ephesians 2:11-19 --you are no longer foreigners and aliens
• Philippians 2:10 -- Every knee shall bow
• 1 Thessalonians 2:15-16 --to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved
• Hebrews 6:13-14 -- God's promise to Abraham
• 2 Peter 3:9, 12 --not wanting anyone to perish
• 1 John 2:2 --He is the atoning sacrifice . . . for the sins of the whole world
• Revelation 5:9 --you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation
• Revelation 7:9 -- Every tribe, tongue, people and nation
• Revelation 14:6 --The angel had the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth -- to every nation, tribe, language and people.
• Revelation 15:4 --all nations will come and worship before you
• Revelation 21:23-24 --The Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light
• Into whatever groups we divide humanity -- races, nations, languages, cultures -- it is clear that God loves all of them and wants people from all those groupings to be reconciled to Him.
• The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest -- Luke 10:2 (New King James Version)