‘A rising tide lifts all boats:’ Why your church should back this mission

Almost 40 years ago, I entered the workplace as a new Christian and soon formed a friendship with Richard, who had joined the company as part of the same intake of school-leavers.

I began to share my faith and witness as best I could. A few months later, my local church held a mission weekend. I invited Richard to one or more of the special events that were taking place. To my delight, he said yes and came along. To my far greater joy, Richard gave his life to the Lord that weekend. This was a wonderful introduction to God using a local church mission to bring someone to faith.

The Lord Jesus calls His church to a lifetime of evangelism. Now is the time of God’s favour, now is the day of salvation (2 Cor. 6:2). Every day is a day for sharing something of the good news of Jesus with those around us as the Lord gives us opportunity. Every week is a good week to invite someone to church or an evangelistic course, or to look at a Gospel with us. But there are also benefits to mission weeks and mission weekends – special times of intensive evangelistic endeavour that focus the church and congregation members on outreach. Not an alternative to everyday witness to Jesus, but a time to build on and encourage regular evangelism.

A mission in the life of a local church can be likened to the crew in a boat race quickening their rate of stroke. It only makes sense for them to do this if they have been rowing purposefully up until that point and if they intend to continue rowing purposefully once the burst of speed is over.

In 2022, A Passion for Life encouraged churches across the whole of the UK to “quicken their rate of stroke” by joining in a nationwide mission inviting people to “Find life that lasts” in the Lord Jesus. In 2026, we will be promoting a similar nationwide mission, focused primarily but not exclusively on the month of March, the month before Easter next year.

But why a nationwide mission? What are the potential advantages? There are many, but here are just four real benefits.

1. It’s good to be part of something bigger.

There is a great encouragement simply in being “on mission” together across the country. As one church leader put it after the LIFE ’22 mission, for “people like myself, in small congregations – you make us feel like we’re part of a bigger group – we’re not alone!”

Whatever size church we are in, it spurs us all on to be reminded that we have brothers and sisters across the country who are working to make Jesus known as part of the same mission. And there are real, tangible and practical benefits to being part of something bigger. We can pray together and for one another (we are already holding monthly online prayer meetings, with Christians from Inverness to Truro coming together to pray as we look ahead to the mission in 2026). We can share ideas and be inspired by the experience and plans of others. Churches can benefit from high-quality resources that might normally be beyond their reach or expertise to produce. And we can be encouraged as we hear the stories of the Lord at work in places near and far.

2. We can have a bigger impact together.

When we join together as part of a nationwide mission under a common banner, we can have a much bigger impact. Many voices are louder than one!

Just imagine the same mission message – the offer of LIFE in Jesus – on display and being proclaimed across the whole country. Where people go to work or college, where they shop, where they go to take their children to school, where they spend their leisure time, they keep seeing the mission advertising. Social media campaigns and sharing complement the print advertising. Door-to-door visiting, gospel distribution, street evangelism etc. are adding to the impact. Interest is aroused. Curiosity piqued. It creates a great context for Christians to invite their friends, contacts, neighbours and colleagues to come and hear more about the true and everlasting LIFE Christ alone can give. And if you have family and friends in other parts of the country or colleagues across the other side of the city, you can direct them to mission events close to where they live.

3. It can boost regular evangelism.

Remember, it’s all about quickening our stroke rate with the intention of continuing to row purposefully once the burst of speed is over. Or, a mission can get us rowing purposefully again when we have begun to coast along with barely a pull on the oars.

Keeping our focus on reaching the lost with the gospel is hard. The devil does not want us to do it and opposes us at every turn. He works to see that our churches are distracted and deflected from outreach and drained of motivation. Responding to the invitation and opportunity to join in a nationwide mission can re-energise, remotivate and refocus us on reaching the lost.

When our churches join in with a nationwide mission it can initiate conversations about evangelism, stimulate fresh thinking, and provide a great context for training, encouraging and mobilising church members. 89% of churches that participated in LIFE ’22 reported a positive impact on their evangelistic culture! One church leader reported: “It got evangelism on the agenda more in an easy and non-guilt inducing way!”

4. A rising tide lifts all boats.

To stick with the boating metaphor, many churches are not even in the water when it comes to evangelism. They are stranded on a sandbank.

For every church with paid evangelists, people being invited to church every week and bustling door-to-door teams, there are plenty more who struggle to get their evangelistic efforts going. This is often not from lack of theological conviction, but from discouragement and losing heart, lack of resources and time, or weariness. Maybe the church leader or the lone “enthusiast” for evangelism would love to drag the boat into the water and get some rowing started. The rising tide of a nationwide mission can be a great help.

The leader or evangelism enthusiast can say: “Hey, there’s a nationwide mission happening and there are going to be some great resources to help us. Let’s join in.” Or when churches band together in a town, city or region, the larger churches can shoulder some of the burden and help to lift other, perhaps smaller, churches off the sandbanks. Or the other way round. The zeal and commitment of smaller churches puts to shame the larger church that has grown complacent and lethargic, and generates a valuable lift in evangelistic focus.

This is not just theory. There are regions where the legacy of the LIFE ’22 mission really has been churches sliding off the sandbanks of evangelistic inactivity. Purposeful rowing has started, and been sustained, and people have come to faith as a consequence. Furthermore, lasting partnerships have been forged and a real sense of unity in a shared mission has been generated.

There are more. But these are four great benefits in our churches joining together for a nationwide mission.

To find out more about the LIFE ’26 mission, visit www.apassionforlife.org.uk