That is the question, more or less, posed in a Wall Street Journal piece I read this morning. The essay, How Missionaries Lost Their Chariots of Fire by Brad Greenberg, starts by looking at the difference between the much ballyhooed World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh circa 1910 and the 100th anniversary in 2010. The missionary world as Greenberg describes it has changed a great deal, from a triumphalistic conquering of the world for Christ (which looked suspiciously like conquering the world for the West) to a “good works and go home” evangelism. Here is a stunning statistic (emphasis added):
Today, Christian missionaries need to balance both actions and words. The overwhelming majority of American missionaries today are "vacationaries." Joining mission trips of two weeks or less, they serve in locales where Christianity already predominates.
The purpose, then, of their visit is to battle the ills of poverty and to stretch their own spirituality. According to studies by Robert J. Priest, a missiologist and director of the doctoral program in intercultural studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 82% of short-term missions today go to countries in the most-Christian third of the world. Only 2% land in the Middle East.
Have we lost the vision of going out to the world with the Gospel? Are missionaries today by and large not living the way that Paul did, living among the unreached and by word and deed reaching them with the Good News of Jesus Christ? I don’t mean to slander those who do short-term mission trips because it is more than I am doing. I just wonder if we see “mission” as something we go and do and then come home from instead of “mission” being who were are, wherever we are. Read the article and tell me what you think…
2 comments:
Here's my own thought on the issue, for what its worth.
I believe the church today is founded on something other than the Gospel, and therefore most of what stems out of that has issues. Mission work is one of those things. As the article states, the 1910 missionaries had as their motivation hastening the return of Christ. We all realize now how stupid that was, but at that time it was an accepted school of thought. In my opinion, we need to get our own house right, so to speak, before we can began worrying about other parts of the world. Once we have learned to approach God, and our relationship with him, from a proper perspective, and get our own experience founded on the Gospel, and the truth of scripture, then we can, as He leads us, begin reaching out to other cultures.
I will say that my personal focus has shifted from primarily reaching out to the lost, to now looking after fellow believers as my primary focus, with evangelism a secondary focus. Galatians 6 states: "And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. 10So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith." Building the community of believers has become my primary focus (or, allowing the Spirit to grow the community), as I believe a healthy Body is essential to successful evangelism, and especially successful discipleship after evangelism has succeeded. My heart has been increased for believers in other locations, especially in other countries, although there has been no direction to do anything specific at this point, except pray. I think the day is coming when the community of believers networks across the entire globe, like one huge, organic man, acting and moving, as a whole, under the direction of the head, Christ.
Short term missionaries have very little in common with long term missionaries. Short term missions is usually "come and see missions so your heart can be transformed out of self seeking - once you see the need you will believe you can help meet the need..." To say this represents all other parts of missions is not accurate.
The see and then believe is a concept contrary to God's instructions. We are to walk by faith, not by sight. To teach someone to walk by sight is to set them up for misdirected faith. God has designed His revelation to be the source of increase in faith. "Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God."
But hasn't seeing the field helped many believers decide to go to the field? Perhaps. God's grace is able to use our misdirected shallow efforts for His purposes, but there is always greater reward when we obey God's Word. A missionary friend of mine says that it is increasingly harder to raise support because so much money is funneled for "short term" missions efforts or as in the article vacationaries.
We are to go and make disciples..., not go and see what's happening. Seeing the need is a very resource consuming substitute for hearing the Word of God deep in your soul so that you are willing to sacrifice yourself and go.
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