Over at Eric Carpenter's blog he raises a very good point, namely that if there is one place the church should be unified it is in missions. He says in his post,Church Unity and World Missions, that our agreement in the Gospel should lead invariably to unity in the field of world missions and he is planning on series on that topic. I am looking forward to his series but I also am reminded that even though we ought to be unified when it comes to reaching the lost around the globe, this is an area where factions and denominations still are largely disunified. Would the Southern Baptist Convention support and send a Presbyterian missionary to Belize? Would a Reformed group send and support a charismatic missionary? Or do we only send out missionaries that meet our standards for doctrinal purity?
Maybe I am being overly cynical or perhaps my inexperience in world missions is showing. I know that there are groups, especially aid and mercy groups, that cross denominational lines but I have to wonder if we are as concerend with reaching the lost with the Gospel as we are with spreading our own theological positions to the ends of the earth? Check out Eric's post and subsequent series, maybe we can find out together...
1 comment:
From my years as a missionary's kid, I can say that I thought our organization (Trans World Radio) was pretty denominationally diverse. Not that everyone got along all the time, but there were everyone from KJV-only types to charismatics. The teachings that were aired were moderately conservative (J Vernon McGee was one of the main ones), I think because of a desire to present a consistent set of teaching for severely under-reached parts of the world like China and the Middle East.
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