Posts by Aaron Kauffman
Back to Basics
Global Christians are not just the hapless victims of Western expansion. They are active recipients of new life in Jesus, who makes himself at home in every culture and restores people in all their beautiful diversity to the kaleidoscope image of God they were created to bear.
Read MoreThe Mission Imagination
How is the Holy Spirit continuing to lead us into new horizons in mission today? I’ll name just two. First, the “receivers” of mission have become the senders. Second, the mission field has come home. How is VMMissions responding? By leveraging our resources to get behind what God is doing.
Read MoreMoving Together in Mission
A few years ago while recovering from surgery I picked up a book gathering dust on my shelf called In His Image. I found the combination of medical insight, missionary zeal and biblical wisdom to be fascinating and moving at the same time, especially fitting to read while my own body healed.
Read MoreInvest in God’s Harvest
At VMMissions, we step out in faith with the God who can do more than we ask or imagine. This spring, we invite you to invest in God’s harvest with a gift to VMMissions. Can you help us raise the $65,200 we need by the end of April to keep pace with our budget?
Read MoreDoxological Mission
God’s mission is first and foremost about the pursuit of God’s glory. It includes us, but it is not primarily about our needs, ambitions or hopes. God’s burning desire is for all of creation to know God’s glory and to give him the praise he deserves so that we might enjoy him together forever.
Read MoreBridge Builders
What if the God of the universe did not wait for us to bridge the gap between us—and I’m staking my life on the belief that it is—then we have a message that everyone deserves to hear. And they deserve to hear it in the cultural idiom that will make sense to them.
Read MoreFaithfulness + Patience = Fruitfulness
I confess I feel some discomfort with measuring “success” in missions. Depth of transformation is not an easy thing to quantify, nor do we often see immediate results. Perhaps the key is faithful witness combined with patient trust in the Lord of the harvest.
Read MoreThe Gospel is for Everyone
We launched A Church of Many Cultures in 2021 with the goal of raising $3 million for three new areas of ministry: Business for Transformation, Global Church Planting, and a Mission Training Center. I am happy to share that as of this month, we have raised nearly $2.7 million.
Read MorePutting on God’s Glasses
In leading a 103-year-old mission agency, I confess it can be hard to see where we’re headed sometimes. We do our best to craft careful plans. But to see the present clearly and make sense of it, it helps me to put on the lenses of God’s future.
Read MoreSeeds are Bursting Forth with New Life
Patience is hard. We see a broken world in need of Christ and want change to happen right now. But seeds lie dormant for a long time before springing to life. Thank you for providing the support that allows our ministries to bear lasting fruit for God’s kingdom.
Read MoreGentle Boldness
A key mentor of mine has been the Anabaptist missiologist, David W. Shenk. He encouraged me to explore my own call to mission as an adolescent. Even after I moved away, he made it a priority to meet with me for breakfast whenever I was back in town.
Read MorePatient Ferment
I celebrate the move in Christian missions toward indigenous leadership and simple approaches to discipleship that can easily multiply among new believers. It is a welcome change from models that foster unhealthy dependency on foreign workers.
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