100 Mission Mottos (& Missionary Quotes)

Ponder these powerful mission-minded quotes. Memorize them. Recall them in prayer. Use them in speaking and preaching. Post them on facebook and twitter. Teach them to your kids and teens. And best yet, get inspired to GIVE, to PRAY, to MOTIVATE, and to GO!!!

Mottos for Missions

Get motivated for God’s Great Commission with these 100 inspiring missionary mottos and missionary quotes. As Oswald J. Smith says, “Why should anyone hear the Gospel twice, before everyone has heard it once?”

“Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.”
– Jesus Christ (THE GREAT COMMISSION – Mark 16:15)

“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations…”
– Jesus Christ (THE GREAT COMMISSION – Matthew 28:19)

100 Mission Mottos

1. A man may die leaving upwards of a million, without taking any of it upwards.
– William Fetler

2. A nation will not be moved by timid methods.
– Luis Palau

3. Anywhere provided it be forward.
– David Livingstone

4. As long as there are millions destitute of the Word of God and knowledge of Jesus Christ, it will be impossible for me to devote time and energy to those who have both.
– J. L. Ewen

5. Can’t you do just a little bit more?
– J.G. Morrison (pleading with Nazarenes in the 1930’s Great Depression to support their missionaries)

6. Christ alone can save the world, but Christ cannot save the world alone.
– David Livingstone

7. Christ not only died for all: He died for each.
– Billy Graham

8. Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.
– William Carey

9. Go straight for souls, and go for the worst.
– William Booth

10. Go, send, or disobey.
– John Piper

11. God had an only Son and He made Him a missionary.
– David Livingstone

12. God isn’t looking for people of great faith, but for individuals ready to follow Him.
– Hudson Taylor

13. God uses men who are weak and feeble enough to lean on him.
– Hudson Taylor

14. God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supply.
– Hudson Taylor

15. He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.
– Jim Elliot

16. I am destined to proclaim the message, unmindful of personal consequences to myself.
– Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf

17. I believe that in each generation God has called enough men and women to evangelize all the yet unreached tribes of the earth. It is not God who does not call. It is man who will not respond!
– Isobel Kuhn, missionary to China and Thailand

18. If God wills the evangelization of the world, and you refuse to support missions, then you are opposed to the will of God.
– Oswald J. Smith

19. HUDSON TAYLOR – THE PROGRESSION OF A MISSIONARY CALL:

As child, at age 5:
When I am a man, I mean to be a missionary and go to China.

As a young man:
I feel I cannot go on living unless I do something for China.

Late in life, as a veteran missionary:
If I had 1,000 lives, I’d give them all for China.

– Hudson Taylor, Missionary to China

20. I have but one candle of life to burn, and I would rather burn it out in a land filled with darkness than in a land flooded with light.
– John Keith Falconer

21. I have but one passion: It is He, it is He alone. The world is the field and the field is the world; and henceforth that country shall be my home where I can be most used in winning souls for Christ.
– Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf

22. I have seen the vision and for self I cannot live; Life is less than worthless till my all I give.
– Oswald J. Smith

23. It is easier to be an excessive fanatic than to be consistently faithful, because God causes an amazing humbling of our religious conceit when we are faithful to Him.
– Oswald Chambers

24. I pray, and I obey.
– David Yonggi Cho

25. I want to be where there are out and out pagans.
– Francis Xavier

26. I would rather die for Christ than rule the whole earth.
– Ignatius

27. If a commission by an earthly king is considered an honor, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice?
– David Livingstone

28. If God’s love is for anybody anywhere, it’s for everybody everywhere.
– Edward Lawlor, Nazarene General Superintendent

29. If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him.
– C.T. Studd

30. If missions languish, it is because the whole life of godliness is feeble. The command to go everywhere and preach to everybody is not obeyed until the will is lost by self-surrender in the will of God. Living, praying, giving and going will always be found together.
– Arthur T. Pierson

31. If ten men are carrying a log — nine of them on the little end and one at the heavy end — and you want to help, which end will you lift on?
– William Borden

32. If the Church is ‘in Christ,’ she is involved in mission. Her whole existence then has a missionary character. Her conduct as well as her words will convince the unbelievers and put their ignorance and stupidity to silence.
– David Bosch

33. If the Great Commission is true, our plans are not too big; they are too small.
– Pat Morley

34. If we have not enough in our religion . . . to share it with all the world, it is doomed here at home.
– David Livingstone

35. If you don’t have a definite call to stay here, you are called to go.
– Keith Green

36. If you found a cure for cancer, wouldn’t it be inconceivable to hide it from the rest of mankind? How much more inconceivable to keep silent the cure from the eternal wages of death.
– Dave Davidson

37. If you take missions out of the Bible, you won’t have anything left but the covers.
– Nina Gunter

38. In no other way can the believer become as fully involved with God’s work, especially the work of world evangelism, as in intercessory prayer.
– Dick Eastman

39. In our lifetime, wouldn’t it be sad if we spent more time washing dishes or swatting flies or mowing the yard or watching television than praying for world missions?
– Dave Davidson

40. In the vast plain to the north I have sometimes seen, in the morning sun, the smoke of a thousand villages where no missionary has ever been.
– Robert Moffat

41. It is possible for the most obscure person in a church, with a heart right toward God, to exercise as much power for the evangelization of the world, as it is for those who stand in the most prominent positions.
– John R. Mott

42. It’s better to obey God rather than men.
– Brother Andrew

43. Let my heart be broken with the things that break God’s heart.
– Bob Pierce, World Vision founder

44. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing!
– Helen Keller (she wasn’t a missionary, but this is an inspiring mission-minded thought!)

45. Life is precarious, and life is precious. Don’t presume you will have it tomorrow, and don’t waste it today.
– John Piper

46. Live God LOUD!
– Ron Luce, TeenMania

47. Lost people matter to God, and so they must matter to us.
– Keith Wright

48. Missionary zeal does not grow out of intellectual beliefs, nor out of theological arguments, but out of love.
– Roland Allen

49. Missions is not just for missionaries; God’s call is for all.
– Ann Dunagan, The Mission-Minded Family

50. Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. – John Piper

51. Missions is practicing God’s presence until His passion compels us to obey.
– Ann Dunagan, The Mission-Minded Family

52. Missions is the overflow of our delight in God because missions is the overflow of God’s delight in being God.
– John Piper

53. Never pity missionaries; envy them. They are where the real action is — where life and death, sin and grace, Heaven and Hell converge.
– Robert C. Shannon

54. No reserves. No retreats. No regrets.
– William Borden

55. Not, how much of my money will I give to God, but, how much of God’s money will I keep for myself?
– John Wesley

56. Oh, that I could spend every moment of my life to God’s glory!
– David Brainerd

57. Oh, that I had a thousand lives and a thousand bodies! All of them should be devoted to no other employment but to preach Christ to these degraded, despised, yet beloved mortals.
– Robert Moffat

58. One Way: Jesus! One Job: Evangelism!
– T.L. Osborn

59. Only as the church fulfills her missionary obligation does she justify her existence.
– Unknown

60. Our God of Grace often gives us a second chance, but there is no second chance to harvest a ripe crop.
– Kurt von Schleicher

61. Some wish to live within the sound of church and chapel bell. I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell!
– C.T. Studd

62. Someone asked, Will the heathen who have never heard the Gospel be saved? It is more a question with me whether we — who have the Gospel and fail to give it to those who have not — can be saved.
– Charles Spurgeon

63. Tell the students to give up their small ambitions and come eastward to preach the gospel of Christ.
– Francis Xavier

64. The best remedy for a sick church is to put it on a missionary diet.
– David Livingstone

65. This generation can only reach this generation.
– David Livingstone

66. Sympathy is no substitute for action.
– David Livingstone

67. The Bible is not the basis of missions; missions is the basis of the Bible.
– Ralph Winter, U.S. Center for World Mission

68. The Christian is not obedient unless he is doing all in his power to send the Gospel to the heathen world.
– A. B. Simpson

69. The Church must send or the church will end.
– Mendell Taylor

70. The church that does not evangelize will fossilize.
– Oswald J. Smith

71. The mission of the church is missions.
– Oswald J. Smith

72. (Related to the previous quote.) God’s mission for the family is expanding God’s family.
– Ann Dunagan, The Mission-Minded Family

73. We talk of the Second Coming; half the world has never heard of the first.
– Oswald J. Smith

74. The church which ceases to be evangelistic will soon cease to be evangelical.
– Alexander Duff

75. The gospel is only good news if it gets there in time.
– Carl F. H. Henry

76. The Great Commission is not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed.
– Hudson Taylor

77. The Great Commission is the Great Adventure of Christianity.
– Ron Luce, TeenMania

78. The history of missions is the history of answered prayer.
– Samuel Zwemer

79. The light that shines farthest shines brightest nearest home.
– C. T. Studd

80. The mark of a great church is not its seating capacity, but its sending capacity.
– Mike Stachura

81. There is nothing in the world or the Church – except the church’s disobedience – to render the evangelization of the world in this generation an impossibility.
– Robert Speer

82. The spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions. The nearer we get to Him, the more intensely missionary we become.
– Henry Martyn, missionary to India and Persia

83. The supreme task of the Church is the evangelization of the world.
– Oswald J. Smith

84. The will of God — nothing less, nothing more, nothing else.
– F. E. Marsh (also attributed to Bobby Richardson)

85. To know God and to make Him known.
– Loren Cunningham, YWAM

86. To know the will of God, we need an open Bible and an open map.
– William Carey, pioneer missionary to India

87. Untold millions are still untold.
– John Wesley

88. Walk away from your own preoccupations . . . and see the perishing multitudes.
– K.P. Yohannan, Gospel for Asia

89. We are debtors to every man to give him the gospel in the same measure in which we have received it.
– P.F. Bresee, founder of the Church of the Nazarene

90. We can reach our world, if we will. The greatest lack today is not people or funds. The greatest need is prayer.
– Wesley Duewel, head of OMS International

91. We must be global Christians with a global vision because our God is a global God.
– John Stott

92. What can we do to win these men to Christ?
– Richard Wurmbrand, The Voice of the Martyrs (referring to the men who were persecuting him)

93. Why should anyone hear the Gospel twice, before everyone has heard it once?
-Oswald J. Smith

94. Will you go to His feet and place yourself entirely at His disposal?
– William Booth

95. Will you shed your tears for the souls of the nations?
– Wendi Stranz, Pastor’s wife

96. World missions was on God’s mind from the beginning.
– Dave Davidson

97. You can give without loving. But you cannot love without giving.
– Amy Carmichael

98. You can’t take it with you, but you can send it on ahead.
– Oswald J. Smith

99. You must go or send a substitute.
– Oswald J. Smith

100. You have one business on earth – to save souls.
– John Wesley

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More Missionary Quotes

All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.
– T. E. Lawrence

All my desire was the conversion of the heathen . . . I cared not where or how I lived, or what hardships I went through, so that I could but gain souls to Christ. I declare, now I am dying, I would not have spent my life otherwise for the whole world.
– David Brainerd

Believers who have the gospel keep mumbling it over and over to themselves. Meanwhile, millions who have never heard it once fall into the flames of eternal hell without ever hearing the salvation story.
– K.P. Yohannan, Gospel for Asia

Give me the love that leads the way, The faith that nothing can dismay, The hope no disappointments tire, The passion that will burn like fire; Let me not sink to be a clod: Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God!
– Amy Carmichael

God is a God of missions. He wills missions. He commands missions. He demands missions. He made missions possible through His Son. He made missions actual in sending the Holy Spirit.
– George W. Peters

God is not calling us to win the world and, in the process, lose our families. But I have known those who so enshrined family life and were so protective of “quality time” that the children never saw in their parents the kind of consuming love that made their parent’s faith attractive to them. Some have lost their children, note because they weren’t at their soccer games or didn’t take family vacations, but because they never transmitted a loyalty to Jesus that went deep enough to interrupt personal preferences.
– David Shibley, (The Missions Addiction)

God is pursuing with omnipotent passion a worldwide purpose of gathering joyful worshipers for Himself from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. He has an inexhaustible enthusiasm for the supremacy of His name among the nations. Therefore, let us bring our affections into line with His, and, for the sake of His name, let us renounce the quest for worldly comforts and join His global purpose.
– John Piper

I had utterly abandoned myself to Him. Could any choice be as wonderful as His will? Could any place be safer than the center of His will? Did not he assure me by His very presence that His thoughts toward us are good, and not evil? Death to my own plans and desires was almost deliriously delightful. Everything was laid at His nail-scarred feet, life or death, health or illness, appreciation by others or misunderstanding, success or failure as measured by human standards. Only He himself mattered.
– V. Raymond Edman

Life is pitiful, death so familiar, suffering and pain so common, yet I would not be anywhere else. Do not wish me out of this or in any way seek to get me out, for I will not be got out while this trial is on. These are my people, God has given them to me, and I will live or die with for Him and His glory.
– Gladys Aylward

Lord, I give up
All my own plans and purposes,
All my own desires and hopes
And accept Thy will for my life.
I give myself, my life, my all,
Utterly to Thee
To be Thine forever.
Fill me and seal me with Thy Holy Spirit.
Use me as Thou wilt,
Send me where Thou wilt,
Work out Thy whole will in my life
At any cost,
Now and forever.
– Betty Scott Stam (Martyred in China, in the 1930s)

‘Not called!’ did you say? ‘Not heard the call,’ I think you should say. Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear Him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father’s house and bid their brothers and sisters and servants and masters not to come there. Then look Christ in the face — whose mercy you have professed to obey — and tell Him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish His mercy to the world.
– William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army

People who do not know the Lord ask why in the world we waste our lives as missionaries. They forget that they too are expending their lives … and when the bubble has burst, they will have nothing of eternal significance to show for the years they have wasted.
– Nate Saint, missionary martyr

The command has been to ‘go,’ but we have stayed — in body, gifts, prayer and influence. He has asked us to be witnesses unto the uttermost parts of the earth … but 99% of Christians have kept puttering around in the homeland.
– Robert Savage, Latin American Mission

The biggest hindrance to the missionary task is self. Self that refuses to die. Self that refuses to sacrifice. Self that refuses to give. Self that refuses to go.
– Thomas Hale – missionary to Nepal

The concern for world evangelization is not something tacked on to a man’s personal Christianity, which he may take or leave as he chooses. It is rooted in the character of the God who has come to us in Christ Jesus. Thus, it can never be the province of a few enthusiasts, a sideline or a specialty of those who happen to have a bent that way. It is the distinctive mark of being a Christian.
– James S. Stewart

When James Calvert went out as a missionary to the cannibals of the Fiji Islands, the ship captain tried to turn him back, saying, “You will lose your life and the lives of those with you if you go among such savages.” To that, Calvert replied, “We died before we came here.”
– James Calvert

Would that God would make hell so real to us that we cannot rest; heaven so real that we must have men there, Christ so real that our supreme motive and aim shall be to make the Man of Sorrows the Man of Joy by the conversion to him of many.
– Hudson Taylor

God’s mission for the family is expanding God’s family.
Missions is not just for missionaries; God’s call is for ALL.

Ann Dunagan, The Mission-Minded Family