What does First B Jackson teach about missionary work?

At First B Jackson, the teaching on missionary work begins with the conviction that the mandate to go belongs to every believer, not to a special class of people. When Mahindra, a missionary from Durban, South Africa with thirty-two years of experience through Crossroads KwaZulu-Natal, spoke from John 13, he pressed that point plainly: the question is not whether an opportunity to serve will come, but whether we will be awake to it when it does. He pointed to Jesus picking up a towel and washing His disciples' feet on the night before His death as the model, noting that a bucket and a towel became a holy act because Jesus brought His Father into it. He asked the congregation directly: what is your water bucket and towel? It might be a phone call, a conversation, or a prayer for a neighbor. His own daily prayer, he said, is that the Holy Spirit would make him profoundly aware of God's presence so he does not miss what God is already making available.

Ted Rabinold, who has served in Tanzania for over thirty years and is supported by First B, anchored the theological case for missions in Colossians 1:19-20, arguing that Christ's blood on the cross reconciled three broken relationships: our relationship to God, our relationships to one another, and our relationship to creation. That framing matters practically because it means every believer's ordinary daily work, farming, teaching, a trade, carries real spiritual weight. Ted drew on Martin Luther's line about the humble milkmaid, that she serves God by providing milk and butter to people made in God's image, to push back against the idea that pastors and missionaries occupy a different spiritual category than everyone else. The goal in Tanzania, he said, is always that the disciples on his team can do the work together without depending on outside expertise or equipment.

Norris, a longtime missionary supported by First B whose work spans the Middle East, Nigeria, Uganda, and India, taught that the most effective tools in missions are also the most transferable ones: love, prayer, forgiveness, and blessing. A core conviction behind his training approach is that if something cannot be replicated by someone with no computer, no workbook, and possibly no literacy, it will not spread. Across the Middle East alone he described over a million new followers of Jesus coming through discovery Bible study groups led by local, ordinary people. He was careful to say no single expert deserves credit. The pattern everywhere, he said, is God finding ordinary, overlooked men and women, preparing them before anyone arrives, and doing His work through them.

Taught from John 13:1-5, 12-17 · Colossians 1:19-20 · Matthew 28:18-20 · Isaiah 53 · Acts 13:1