Book Review: The Missionary Call by David Sills

Patrick brought home a huge stack of books from the Finish the Mission conference, and I'm slowly making my way through them.  This week I read "The Missionary Call" by David Sills.  Sills is currently a missions professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville.  I appreciated Sills' academic approach to missions because he does so in such a way that developing the idea of a missionary call remains personal and Christ-centered.

The big question of the book was "what is the missionary call?".  This can be a gray area for many missionary candidates who feel that God is leading them in a specific direction but haven't had a vision or lightning bolt from heaven.  God's calling isn't always as dramatic as we might think, and actually often comes in the still small voice.  A call to missions might begin with an interest in a specific people group, language, or country.  Psalm 37:4 tells us, "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart."  God places in us certain interests and desires, which he will ultimately use for his glory.  In the case of the missions-minded Christian, these interests often lead to spreading the gospel among the unreached people of the world.

One quote from the book that does a good job of summing up the idea of what exactly a missionary call is says, "The missionary calls includes the profound sense of a God-stirred ought, a burden for lost souls in a dying world, a burning desire to see every people group in the world prostrate in worship before the throne of God.  It is a recognition of the gifts and abilities that God has given you mixed with the desire to go where your life can be best spent "to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of you (Philippians 3:12.)"  We must remember that every tongue, tribe, and nation will be represented around the throne of God, and we have been given the Great Commission which calls us to go to them and bring them to Christ!

I appreciated Sills' wisdom in finding the call to missions, especially since in the past few years Patrick and I have felt God calling our hearts to the nations.  This interest began small, but the more we gaze upon the face of God and delve into deeper relationship with Him, the more undeniable his heart is for the nations.  How can we love God without heeding his call to GO?

While this book doesn't give specific stories from the mission field, it gives practical advice for possible hindrances to getting to the field, and living there.  Sills is upfront in the realities and dangers that missionaries face on a daily basis, and he wants his readers to be prepared for life on the mission field.  Whether you are interested in going as a missionary or sending others to the field, I would recommend checking out this book!