Dear Theophilus,

This is mission.

What you are doing right now, let your heart make it a gift and offering for it to be mission for the Lord.

Every little thing that you do can be mission. The Lord has called us to go into the nations and to bring His Good News, and every moment can be one of claiming territory for Him.

I am currently working as a missionary at Catholic Youth Summer Camp, serving as our kitchen director in Michigan. The funny thing that I have seen in my time as a full-time missionary is that you know that you are ‘signing up’ for some things as mission, but then you do things that are complete left field that you couldn’t even imagine doing.

And it’s in those moments where I catch myself wondering why I am doing this or how did I end up here and the Lord has so gently responds in saying, “Ell, am I not worthy of mission here in this too?”

He desires for every moment to be one of mission, of bringing Heaven to earth so that His children would look and see Him and desire to grow in relationship with Him.

This is mission. Where your feet are right now, with the people around you that you are called to love, to serve in complete union with God. And often times I see myself gauging mission, of what is more important or not. Who am I to say that certain things are and others are not?

Wherever the Lord has called you to serve is your mission field. And it is so important. It is important because there is no one like you, with your heart and passions and desires, serving here and now in a place that so desperately needs it. Your mission, whatever it is matters and is making an impact.

And I believe that we as Christians get so caught up in vocation, in waiting for our time to come in vocation or become so hyper focused in it, that we miss the million of other opportunities that the Lord has before us in each and every day to serve as a missionary.

You are called to be a missionary right here and now. You don’t have to wait until you find your spouse to begin mission. You don’t have to wait until you get the right job to being mission. You don’t have to wait for the big, booming voice of God to call you to begin mission.

Mission is here and now.

He sees the ways that we are desiring to grow into missionaries and the people that He has created us to be, and He doesn’t leave us up and dry. He speaks His word and gives us the grace to act on what He says.

Theophilus, the Lord is more loved and blessed by us acting in obedience with love than in a million sacrifices that we could offer to Him.

We see in scripture that Jesus was ‘obedient unto the point of death, even death on a cross.’ Jesus had every right not to take up this mission, to find another mission that was not as messy or sacrificial, but He knew who He was, and He knew His Father, and He trusted that He would be provided for and this was the mission that laid before Him.

And we as a people are called into mission, and often times we believe that mission has to be a huge thing, of speaking in front of thousands of people, or going to third world countries, or that it has to be exactly of what we think is what we are called to do. But mission is here and now. The simple answer to say yes to mission is to hear what He is speaking and where, and to act obediently in it.

And often times, I believe I catch myself saying, ‘oh Lord, I will be obedient to mission with you, but only unto the point of not stepping into that conversation, or bringing you this part of my heart, or glossing over the person that I know needs someone to see them.’

We must be obedient unto the point of death, even death on the cross, of total public, humiliation, because if that is what the Lord has spoken to do, we are called to do it.

We are called to love and serve in the way that He did: in complete offering, pouring out, and obedience.

Mission is here and now in front of us.

We must believe and trust in the word that the Lord has spoken when He says that ‘the Kingdom of God is at hand’, for us to really act like that it is within arms length, present before us here.

And I have caught myself recently comparing where I use to serve in a position that I got to see the Lord’s glory up close and personal, and now am working more of an office job, behind the scenes. It was whiplash and so much doubt crept into my heart.

But the Lord in His gentleness said to me, “Ell, this is still mission.”

That even if it looks different than what it was, than what I thought it had to be, it was still mission because I had been obedient to His word and was serving Him and letting His Kingdom come here and now in this moment.

And so the Lord invited me into seeing each and every moment as an opportunity of mission. That nothing could be wasted when I gave it to the Lord. That His Kingdom could come here and now and bring total and utter transformation.

At first, I only caught myself saying this and other people noticed too, but I out loud have begun to say, ‘this is mission’.

And it was for the weirdest things, and I felt like at first I said it as a joke, but slowly the Lord showed me and moved my heart in speaking that it was all mission. That even though it wasn’t how I expected it to come, it was exactly how He wanted it to be.

From me cleaning up whip cream that exploded everywhere, or helping stop fire alarms, or going to a Detroit Tigers baseball game, to running in the rain, to having a beautiful, unexpected conversation with someone, to buying 12 packs of soda for campers, to riding on a pontoon boat to go feed 100 people that are about to encounter Jesus face to face in this Eucharist: this is mission.

For all things are mission when we offer it to the Lord, trusting that when we enter in with obedience, knowing that the Kingdom of God is at hand, that He is going to show up, His victory will take root and change it forever.

Mission leads to encounter. I don’t want any moment of my life to go to waste in not stepping into mission if I would hinder the fact that someone could encounter the love of Jesus.

Theophilus, we don’t have to do this perfectly either in every moment. We don’t have to let this weight of mission weigh us.

In every single day, I catch myself slacking or not trusting that what I am doing can bring forth the Kingdom of God.

But we must have faith. We must trust that even the Lord can take the littlest thing and make it something big and beautiful. That the Lord can use broken vessels and still pour forth in abundance.

Because, this is mission.

Here and now. And He wants you to start today in such little ways. Hear, cling, and act on His word, and He will show up.

He loves the ways that we enter into mission in the here and now.