Missions Class

We enjoyed our week in the World Mission of the Church class (1/2 to 1/9). There were some fun assignments (memorizing all of the countries in the world and some great Scripture memory sets), and our prof was outstanding, as well. We're now spending some time seeking the Lord for our summer plans and future in general (that's always interesting :) We may be heading to Mozambique, but still need much prayer about that step.

It was interesting to hear Dr. Tennent's comment (made first by Ralph Winter) that we really have to distinguish in doing missions between those peoples with and without the Gospel. Dr. Winter's point (at Lausanne in '74) was that even if every believer talked to every person in their immediate sphere, and all of these people understood the Gospel that only 2/3 of the world would be evangelized. At that time, more than 1/3 of the world had no Christian witness among their people, whatesoever, let alone a viable church. Since that time, progress has been made, but there are still so many without any witness in their culture. We don't know what that means for us at this point, but our hearts break for those without a viable church in their culture.

Likewise, it was interesting to hear a group of Chinese pastors speak about their experiences with the company that we once worked with. Although they appreciated the group's work, they were not bashful in saying that the group has left many in difficult situations because of a lack of connection to any house church. For us, many of the aspects that were unsettling in the last year in relationship to our group seemed to be clarified in the class. In our view, para-church groups exist to aid the church. When para-church groups are not attached to a local church, they are not in line with God's plan. Accordingly, we see thousands come to faith, but the group's studies done in the past few years indicate that the vast majority (upwards of 90% and by some estimates 98% or so) fall by the wayside. Our group says, "we can only focus on campus ministry!" Certainly, one has to know one's limitations and one's call, but the Missio Dei, the mission of God, is to build the church - it is not principally evangelism, it is principally making disciples that are a body of witnesses that will eventually be married to Christ. Working to raise up college students is tremendous - when they get plugged into the existing body. But they are not, by and large. Would we exhort our group to leave China? No! But, it's work must be in tight partnership and in most ways subject to the needs of the growth of the church. It should serve the church. Serve seems to be the key word. Currently, we have many requirements and non-negotiables as to who we will work with (they've got to be mission sending, agree with our company values of support-raising, etc. etc.) Arguments are made that the company is serving the global body of Christ by doing evangelism and seeing people come to faith, and that is true in some regard. Likewise, another branch of the group has been developed to do church planting and other efforts. But missiologically, it seems that the group is still at odds with the Missio Dei and concentrates on its own distinctives prior more than the idea that it should only exist to serve.