Stop Excluding Poor Churches from the Great Commission

When Christians think of missions, they dream big. Whenever missionaries share the gospel, they dream of their listeners repenting and believing the gospel. Then they dream of new disciples growing in maturity and ongoing faith. They dream of disciples forming churches and expressing Christlike love in community under the leadership of mature pastors.

Missionaries share their dreams with these communities, and together they dream of churches multiplying and owning the Great Commission by—sending out their own people to share the gospel and make disciples among other unreached peoples and places for the glory of God.

It’s this final part—the adoption of the Great Commission by a formerly unreached people as they participate in God’s global mission—that won’t happen if we expect non-Western Christians to join in God’s mission as we do.

For two hundred years, God’s people have agreed that sending fully-supported, full-time missionaries is a great way to participate in the Great Commission. And it still is! There are a few factors, however, that we Christians need to think about, not only as we evaluate how effectively we are currently carrying out God’s command to spread his glory among the nations, but also as we consider the future of missions. First, let’s address a disconcerting current reality and then examine a historic example. My hope is that both will lead us toward an optimistic view of the future of missions.

The Best Economy Still Isn’t Enough

Christians currently living in the US are experiencing life inside the most powerful and robust economy ever known to man. That’s not necessarily something to boast about. It just means that Christians in the US are living in a time when they are able to give more to missions than ever before. But how does this compare to what is needed as God’s kingdom expands over the earth?

Consider that Southern Baptists, through the Cooperative Program, effectively pool the financial resources of more than forty-five thousand churches. This allows us to send thousands of fully-supported, full-time missionaries into the world. What we mean by “full-time missionary” is that each missionary engages in the missionary task as their vocation. A “fully-supported missionary” is one who receives most of her support for her livelihood from donations. They enter among a group of people with the purpose of leaving something behind that only God can create—a self-supporting, biblically faithful church. Full-time missionaries can do what they do because of the radical giving, support, and partnership of local churches that send them.

“Thousands of missionaries seems like a tiny drop in the world’s oceans. We need to figure out how to mobilize the masses of God’s people from every nation as missionaries—let them join the effort, advancing the spread of the gospel in the world.”

The stark reality, however, is that the number of full-time IMB missionaries who are currently being supported by over forty-five thousand churches during the most robust economy in the history of the planet may be in the thousands, but it’s not in the tens of thousands. Compared to the world’s growing population and the immensity of the task, around five thousand missionaries seems like a tiny drop in the world’s oceans. We need to figure out how to mobilize the masses of God’s people from every nation as missionaries—let them join the effort, advancing the spread of the gospel in the world.

Fortunately, historical examples exist that, if applied today, could increase the number of laborers, work in any economy, and be sustainable in an ongoing way.

I believe that our past could be the future of missions.

The Moravian Model

History is a helpful starting point for examining and planning for the future. The Moravian missionary movement of the eighteenth century not only increased laborers into the harvest, but it was also economically transferable and sustainable. As a member of the nobility, Ludwig von Zinzendorf, himself a devout Pietist within the Lutheran Church, could not entertain his desire to be sent as a missionary.

Yet, he persisted with a small band of like-minded followers and, together, they begged God to lead them to qualified believers who could be sent out as missionaries. In other words, Zinzendorf worked in cooperation with a cohort of missions-minded, faithful believers to raise up and send out indigenous missionaries to unreached peoples.

In August 1727, the inhabitants of Zinzendorf’s bustling Moravian Brethren community, Herrnhut, developed a new passion for missions. They established a system of intercessory prayer toward that end that would continue night and day. Their community prayer watch is believed to have lasted uninterrupted for more than one hundred years.

The new missions passion at Herrnhut resulted in something new in the expansion of Christianity: an entire community devoted to the propagation of the faith. They were a local church who fully embraced their role in God’s global mission and channeled their devotion to Christ by focusing on one thing: sending out missionaries. Moravian missions officially began in 1728, when Leonard Dober and David Nitschmann dedicated themselves for missionary work in the West Indies, even if it meant they would become slaves.

With a singular devotion to Christ and a particular missions strategy, Dober and Nitschmann migrated to the Caribbean (St. Thomas), worked hard at their day jobs, shared the gospel, and established a church. They faithfully ministered in St. Thomas for fifty years before any other church joined them in the work. According to the church records, they had baptized thirteen thousand converts before a missionary from any other church arrived on the scene. Their work in the Caribbean still continues. Now, nearly three hundred years old, their mission work has been carried forward by indigenous leaders who were raised up from within.

Immigration Missions

The Moravian model of missions described above can also be described as immigration missions. That is, the first Christians who came into an unreached area with the gospel were people who immigrated there. They left everything behind and moved to a place where Christ was not known, bringing with them a proven ability to work and sustain their own livelihood.

Moravian missionaries tended to remain in one location for many years. But their example could also be followed by Christians today who are able to travel and stay in places for short periods. The most critical component in immigratory missions is going with gospel intentionality.

With that in view, here’s what the Moravian approach yielded.

An increase of laborers. Christians from almost any country in the world today can follow their lead. The Moravian movement led to many thousands of new converts. Therefore, an increase of Moravian Brethren sent from Europe wasn’t needed for the ministry to move forward. Future laborers were found in the harvest—new believers who were discipled, gathered into churches, and who then began to make disciples themselves.

Workability in any economy. The work in St. Thomas did not depend upon massive underwriting from Europe. The economy of the island was not as robust as that of Germany, but it didn’t need to be. The local economy resourced the missionaries and their ministry, so external financial support was unnecessary.

Ongoing sustainability. Fifty years passed before any other church joined in the work. Yet, the gospel continued to spread past the first generation of workers. Those who received message carried on the work—a sustainable model.

Poor Christians will likely never be able to send their fellow church members as fully supported missionaries. But often poor Christians can migrate to live among unreached people for the sake of the gospel. According to the Henley Passport Index, Chinese Christians have travel access to countries that American Christians do not. If the only option available to Chinese Christians is the fully-funded model, we will wait a long time before they are able to join their global brothers and sisters as missionaries!

Limitless Sending

Immigration missions is not a perfect solution—it’s just one more option that we should be using as we participate in the Great Commission. After all, we should be using every option available to us! As we endeavor to see a global missions force where we see the nations engage the nations, the Moravian model may well be a useful tool to limitless sending.

How will God tell me to be a missionary?

Is everyone called to be a missionary? More specifically, are you?

How will God tell me how I will work in mission, where I will work, or in what capacity (i.e., full-time, short-time, etc.)? “In the abundance of counselors there is wisdom!” Here’s how the IMB talks about calling:

First and foremost, calling is the gracious act of God by which He draws people to become disciples of Jesus and members of His church. The call to salvation comes through the proclamation of God’s Word in the power of God’s Spirit. Accompanying the call to salvation in Christ is a call to freedom, holiness, and suffering in Christ. The call to salvation forms the unshakeable foundation of a disciple’s primary identity now and forever. (Matthew 9:13; Acts 2:39; Romans 1:6, 8:28–30, 9:22–26; 1 Corinthians 1:9, 24; Galatians 1:6, 5:13; Ephesians 1:18, 4:1–4; 1 Thessalonians 2:12, 4:7, 5:24; 2 Thessalonians 2:14; 1 Timothy 6:12; 2 Timothy 1:9; 1 Peter 1:15–16, 2:9, 20–21, 5:10; 2 Peter 1:3, 10; Jude 1:1)

Call to mission. The call to salvation includes a call to join God in mission. God is on a mission to gather a people for himself from every tribe, language, and people who will enjoy his goodness and display his greatness. All followers of Jesus should be involved in making followers of Jesus and in the ongoing spread of the gospel in the world through establishing and supporting healthy churches.

After the calling to salvation and to be used in His mission, it can be helpful to think of our calling to both station and service. A call to station might be a calling to family, where Christians are called to be faithful sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, and mothers and fathers for the spread of God’s gospel and the display of God’s glory. The Bible also talks about a specific call to singleness for the sake of mission, whether for a period or for the entirety of one’s life in this world. Other calls to specific stations include Christ’s call to meaningful membership in His church, and responsible citizenship in one’s community (1 Corinthians 7:17–40). (See IMB’s Key Terms and Definitions)

A call to service is how God directs us to make disciples in a certain way, at a certain time, among a certain people, in a certain location, or through a certain vocation. “Calls to service may be fluid, operating at varying levels and open to varying assignments from God.”

Often, missionary calls are calls to service. How does God tell us we are called to service?

A friend of mine summed it up like this: “Respect what God is doing in your life.”

As you make decisions about where to serve, think about how God may be speaking to you in the following ways:

• Through the timing of your life: Esther was called “for such a time as this” (Esther 4:14).

• Through the circumstances of your life. Acts 17:26-27 “And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,”

• By giving you specific talents and gifts: 1 Cor 12:4-7 “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”

• Through your local church: listen to the church! Your local church has been given to you by God to help you prepare for mission—full-time or not. They are there to affirm you and to help you at all times (see Eph 4:11–16).

• Through His Word: search the Scriptures. Often, God will direct us where to serve by helping us with direct commands and instructions from his word that align with specific opportunities in our lives. Don’t expect God to speak to you outside of Scripture if you are not spending time getting direction from him from within his Scriptures (Psalm 1).

• Through our desires. In 1 Timothy, the Apostle Paul says that someone who desires to be an elder is desiring a good thing. Notice he didn’t say that his desire is evil or that it automatically disqualifies him from service as an elder. Instead, God can give us good desires for service. Just make sure to check your desires with those around you.

• Through searching our hearts (see Matt 15:8). God says that people draw near with their lips while their hearts are far from God. God wants our hearts! Be careful about sterilizing the decisions you are trying to make from the heart issues in them. God cares about your heart and that you love him much.

• Through prayer: spend time in prayer asking him to give you direction.

It seems that God sometimes calls his people to service through specific and subjective means—but this doesn’t seem to be the norm for all calls to service. Don’t insist that God give you a sign from the sky or a dry fleece (see Gideon’s story in Judges).

As you consider where to serve, respect what God has been doing in your life. God speaks to us in so many ways! And resist the thinking that you need to restart your life. Some full-time missionaries used to be engineers, or accountants, or pastors, or mechanics, or doctors and nurses—but not anymore: now they’re going to be missionaries. We should resist this thinking.

A good friend of mine is a normal guy with lots of colorful tattoos and a shaved head. He happens to be a really talented artist who loves Jesus. He and his family moved to Asia and opened up an art studio. He spent his days hanging out in the local art community among Muslims, putting on exhibits with his art that explained the gospel. Every time he put on an exhibit he explained God’s salvation to a people who had never heard the gospel. What a great example of a call to service: here is someone blessed by God as a talented artist so that a community of people in a Muslim mega-city could know the gospel.

Respect what God is doing in your life - and don’t buy into the thinking that you need to start a new life. Use all the talents and unique ways that God has made you to sing his glories on His mission and for the sake of a dying world who needs to hear the gospel.

Faithful Mission Keeps the Bride Central

A friend of mine said, “Non-Christians don’t read the Bible. They read Christians.” I think he’s right. Missionaries talk every day with believers and non-believers who have zero experience in biblical thinking or church practice. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to walk into your Sunday church gathering as a blank slate? How would you understand the things you see there? How would you train new believers to understand the Bible, church, and God’s mission—especially if they were an oral or non-literate people?

I think the Bible teaches us that the local church itself is a beautiful and simple way to help believers and non-believers understand the gospel and the Kingdom of God.

This is why faithful mission work must keep Christ’s bride central.

As missionaries, we have often attended many different churches in our home countries and we have church experiences that have shaped us in positive and negative ways. Church is simply a part of our lives back home. But somehow when we move overseas, we can get really confused about churches in the countries where we serve. We don’t quite know what to do with them. Though we claim the title “church planter,” we aren’t sure how to interact with local churches where we live, or even the ones we plant. In fact, most missionaries aren’t even trained to work with, in, and through local churches.

As a result, some of the best missionaries ask, “When can I leave this church so I can get on with planting more?” Or they lament, “It takes too long to create health in a new church. My job as church planter is to get churches going and let someone else (like a pastor) develop healthy habits so that I can move on and plant more churches among this people.”

In other words, it often seems that missionaries aren’t primarily concerned with planting healthy local churches. But when I look at the Bible, it seems different—it seems that the local church is a big deal!

In the Bible, the local church is the subject, object, and means of mission.

The Church is the “subject” of mission.

When I say the local church is the “subject” of mission, I mean that the church is the primary actor in mission. I see this throughout the New Testament: whenever there was no church, the apostles would start one and then encourage that church to own the further advancement of the gospel in that place and the surrounding region. Sometimes Paul’s ministry was starting churches, but often his ministry was “strengthening the churches” (Acts 14:22, 15:32, 15:41, 16:5, 18:23).

Yet in missionary work today, we often speak as if the missionary—not the church—is the primary actor in mission. However, when we see healthy churches multiplying overseas, we see that most churches aren’t primarily started by lone missionaries, they are started by churches. And it makes sense: only a community of Christians has the diversity of gifts needed to overcome the obstacles to gospel advance faced by missionaries today.

The Church is the “object” of mission.

When I say the local church is the “object” of mission, I mean that it is the primary goal of missions. The book of Acts shows us how the first disciples of Jesus went about fulfilling His commission. With rare exception, all gospel advance in Acts lead directly and explicitly to the establishment of local churches (exceptions being Acts 8:26-39 and maybe 17:32-34). Too often, missionaries today see the local church as a nice result of missions, but not necessarily the primary—or even necessary—result of missionary work.

One reason is simple: object follows subject. If a well meaning missionary believes the primary actor in the spread of the gospel from nation to nation, people to people, to the ends of the earth is missionaries, then she is going to be looking for missionaries in the harvest. Perhaps for this reason, I’ve seen evangelical missionaries perfectly content to make disciples without ever forming them into churches. By adopting such an attitude, these precious new disciples are doomed to fight difficult spiritual battles alone, contrary to New Testament design (Eph 4:11–16). Instead, new disciples must be gathered into biblically sound, healthy, loving families together with fellow believers. “Church as object” has as its goal a complex community of sinners becoming a complex community of the redeemed.

The Church is the “means” of mission.

When I say the local church is the “means” of mission, I mean it is the primary object lesson, the primary training ground for the advance of the gospel. It is the tool for gospel advancement. The New Testament consistently says the church and relational dynamics within the church are models for teaching important truths like how God loves us or how he forgives (see John 13:34-35, 17:21, Acts 4:13, Eph 4:11-16, 2 Cor 3:18, 1 Pet 4:11; for a fuller treatment of Christian community as message, see “Church in the Dead Zone,” pp. 101-111).

Even so, it is very rare to see a missionary point to the local church as the object lesson when teaching new believers: whether it’s how to walk with Christ, how to proclaim the gospel, or how to make disciples and form churches. Somehow, we have failed to train “church as means” into missionaries. Instead, missionaries develop overly simplistic tools, diagrams, programs, and methods and reproduce those from group to group. I appreciate tools, diagrams, and methods—much like I appreciate photos of my wife. They are helpful, but they are no substitute for her. I prefer my living, breathing bride to images of her. Similarly, I’d like to see our primary method be a living, breathing community of Christians.

There is a well-known law of communication and systems that can help us here. Complex systems need complex examples. Children need parents to learn how to become adults. Church members have marriage to understand the Christ/Church relationship. Christ in the flesh shows us what invisible God is like. And the church models everything a Kingdom community should be and do. The church is designed to teach us what a Christian is and what the gospel looks like when it’s lived out.

It kind of makes sense, doesn’t it? With Bible in hand and the local church to use as an example, missionaries don’t need as many models, methods, and guidelines for new believers as much as they need to double-down on ensuring lasting churches become beacons for the gospel to every corner of their area. A church is irreducibly simple: it’s even a great strategy to teach Kingdom principles to non-literate people.

Fortunately, the missionaries I know love the church. That’s good. So does the Lord Jesus, and he has promised to build his church. Let’s train missionaries to focus on starting Bible-based local churches and then to constantly point to the activities, relationships, and biblical structures of those local churches to explain their own ministries and gospel advance to all nations.

Recovering the idea of the local church as subject, object, and means in mission may require rethinking some of our contemporary missionary strategies. As missionaries we may need to adjust our goals and decrease our independence from local churches. I think it’s worth it: healthy local churches have all the resources needed to advance the gospel and teach new believers . . . and Christ loves His bride! She just so happens to be a God-sent strategy for gospel advance.

Trembling at God's Word

One characteristic of the faithful mission worker is found in Isa 66:2

Isa 66:2 Thus says the Lord: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.

The faithful mission worker trembles at the Word of God. He or she goes to the Bible often and is careful not only to find direction and intimacy with God there, but also to NOT make the Bible say what he or she wants it to say. Faithful handling of God’s word is as much about teaching clearly what the Bible does say, as it is about leaving freedom where the Bible leaves freedom. This means we search the Scriptures and study them so that we don’t add to their teaching.

In mission work, it is often fine to do things that we don’t find in Scripture - things like writing reports, or playing a guitar during church singing times, or meeting regularly for accountability every Tuesday morning with other believers. These are good and wise things we can do that are based upon other things the Bible tells us to do. We will just want to be careful not to teach these or other forms of activities as exactly found in Scripture.

When Joshua led the people of Israel into the land God promised to give them, his mission that God gave him to accomplish, he was given stern instructions. God spoke to him in the opening chapter of Joshua:

Josh 1:6-8 “Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.”

In 1 Samuel, during the days when Eli was judging Israel, the ark of the covenant was captured because Eli’s wicked sons took the ark into battle. They were defeated and killed and the ark was captured by the Philistines. Though the Philistines captured the ark from Israel, the Philistines were unable to keep the ark from God - he punished them until they let the ark go and it returned to Israel and was kept at the house of a man named Abinidab for a long time.

Until David was made king over Israel. Then in 2 Sam 6, David took 30,000 men to Abinidab to celebrate and worship and bring the ark. Abinidab and his sons put the ark on a cart and were driving the cart to return it home. This situation was strictly counter to how the Bible had directed the ark and other furnishings of his sanctuary be carried.

NUM 4 “And when Aaron and his sons have finished covering the sanctuary and all the furnishings of the sanctuary, as the camp sets out, after that the sons of Kohath shall come to carry these, but they must not touch the holy things, lest they die. These are the things of the tent of meeting that the sons of Kohath are to carry.”

One of Abinidab’s sons, Uzzah, was a follower of God, but he was likely not of the correct tribe to carry the ark or even to look at it. When the oxen stumbled, Uzzahs disregard for Gods word proved fatal. He thought that the ark was going to fall out of the cart so he reached out his hand and touched it. Immediately the Lord struck him dead. Uzzah made the mistake of not treating the ark according to how God had told the people of Israel to treat it. He did not tremble at God’s word and suffered a devastating consequence as a result.

As you help prepare others for full-time mission work or when you are considering who to partner with in mission, prepare and partner only with those who show their faithfulness by how they tremble at the Word of God.

Success on Mission

One of the key questions every missionary asks is this: how do I know I’m a good missionary?

The Apostle Paul wrote letters to his fellow worker and disciple Timothy in order to encourage Timothy in his work of spreading the gospel by establishing and supporting healthy churches.

A key theme Paul pressed is faithfulness: above everything else, Paul wanted Timothy to make sure that the spread of the gospel happened in a way that guarded the integrity of the faith that had been passed to TImothy.

2 Tim 2:2 “The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”

Often this verse is used to emphasize the generational fruit of the gospel: there is Paul passing the gospel to Timothy, who in turn passes it to faithful men, who in turn teach others. Praise God that the gospel creates generations of followers!

But don’t miss how concerned Paul is with faithfulness in this. The things you heard from me IN THE PRESENCE OF WITNESSES - a witness is someone who can verify the veracity of a claim or of a process - ENTRUST - a word that is used of a steward to safeguard something important or valuable - to FAITHFUL men - not just to anyone, but to those who are FAITHFUL and have been proven to be faithful - men who are ABLE TO TEACH others.

Likewise in 1 Cor 3, Paul says this:

1 COR 3:5-15 “What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building.

According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.”

Going on, at the beginning of chapter 4 he says:

1 COR 4:1-2 “This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.”

As we prepare for full-time mission, we want to make sure that we are faithful.

One thing we cannot do is define success by the results of the work. Baptisms and conversions can only be accomplished by God - not us. Instead, we should define success by how faithfully we are accomplishing the hard work that God has called us to do.

Being faithful means that we

• work hard: we give of our time, energy, and resources in doing what the Bible says gospel ministers should be doing.

• We also work smart: we don’t do a lot of activity and call that faithfulness - no, we think critically about what we are doing - we consider our work against what the Bible says we should be doing. We allow freedom when the Bible allows for freedom in our work. We don’t just accept all gospel responses that come along - instead we critically evaluate the fruit of gospel proclamation. We continue to learn and adjust our approaches so that we can be more fruitful, always relying on God to bear fruit in our lives.

• We trust God: we rest in God’s gracious power and trust him for all the results that occur. We will resist the temptation to be lazy and we will welcome transparency and full accountability for how we work.

Being faithful IS our work in the Lord Jesus - that is, working hard, working smart, and trusting God - this is our success.