Bethlehem’s Commitment to Missions

In 1996 Tom Steller & John Piper answered the question, "What is the vision fueling the amazing commitment to missions among the people at Bethlehem? What convictions drive the missions engine of this church?" They listed 14 convictions.

1. God's goal in creation and redemption is a missionary goal because our God is a missionary God.
2. God is passionately committed to his fame. God's ultimate goal is that his name be known and praised by all the peoples of the earth.
3. Worship is the fuel and the goal of missions.
4. God's passion to be known and praised by all the peoples of the earth is not selfish, but loving.
5. God's purpose to be praised among all the nations cannot fail. It is an absolutely certain promise. It is going to happen.
6. Only in God will our souls be at rest.
7. Domestic ministries are the goal of frontier missions.
8. The missionary task is focused on peoples, not just individual people, and is therefore finishable.
9. The need of the hour is for thousands of new Paul-type missionaries, a fact which is sometimes obscured by the quantity of Timothy-type missionaries.
10. It is the joyful duty and the awesome privilege of every local church to send out missionaries "in a manner worthy of God" (3 John 6).
11. We are called to a wartime lifestyle for the sake of going and sending.
12. Prayer is A wartime walkie-talkie not a domestic intercom.
13. Our aim is not to persuade everyone to become a missionary, but to help everyone become a World Christian.
14. God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him; and our satisfaction in him is greatest when it expands to embrace others -- even when this involves suffering.

Read more about these 14 Convictions.