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Mission is why we are here. Scripture teaches that we exist solely to glorify God. The word glorify means to worship or to bestow honor, praise, or admiration or to light up brilliantly.” All of these create a missional picture. John Piper has famously said, “missions exists because worship doesn’t.” To be worshipers in this fallen world is to be missional, to live and arrange our lives around mission for the sake of God’s glory. Every student is called to glorify God by living on mission.
The Westminster Shorter Catechism asks the question, “What is the chief end of man?” The answer it then states is “to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.” C.S. Lewis wrote in his Reflections on the Psalms, “I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed.” Mission should flow out of a love for Jesus. The greater our love the more we sing His praises. Show me someone who is passionate about living on mission and I will find you someone who is passionate about Jesus. The Psalmist writes,
Sing to the Lord a new song;
sing to the Lord, all the earth.
Sing to the Lord, praise his name;
proclaim his salvation day after day.
Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous deeds among all peoples.
For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise;
-Psalm 96:1-4
Our existence and purpose is wrapped up in both glorifying God, that is reflecting His nature and ascribing all worth to Him, and enjoying Him in a loving relationship which causes us to sing His praises. The natural and appropriate consequence of all of this is that we ought to live MISSIONAL LIVES.
I would define Missional as arranging our lives for the purpose of “declaring [God’s] glory among the nations.” In this season of redemptive history, this necessitates being empowered by the Holy Spirit to imitate Christ in the way we live and declare the gospel of Jesus (His death, burial, and resurrection for sinners) until our dying breath.
Why Missional Student? Well for one, it is my (Phil’s) craft. I am a student pastor at Berean Baptist Church in Mansfield, OH. Additionally, after actively working with students on campuses and in church student ministries for 15 years I am resolutely impressed with the potential that teens and young adults have for the kingdom. There is a curiosity for the truth, optimism for the future, and a great potential for zealous devotion if God moves in their hearts. I desire for students to view their time on campus or in school as an THE opportune time to live on mission for the glory of Jesus.
It is to this end that I am launching Missional Student. A tool that will utilize the web, social media, podcasts, video, student testimonies, and more to equip students to live on mission everyday. We will stop short of nothing but the earth [being] filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14). My hope is to help lay the groundwork for a mission movement unlike the world has seen in generations. A movement that will take Jesus to every school, neighborhood, and nation around the globe as we look forward with great expectation to the completion of the great work of mission to which all of us have been entrusted and called and see this vision become a reality:
“a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice:
‘Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb.’”
Revelation 7:9-10
Let it be so for His glory!
Philip Leineweber
Editor of missionalstudent.com
Pastor of Student Ministries at Berean Baptist Church
Missional Student 
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