What Kind of Missions Merit My Support?
by Don Kammerdiener Vol. VI, No. 3, April 1993
[Don Kammerdiener is interim president of the Foreign Mission Board in Richmond. He kindly wrote this article specially for The Baptist Banner.]
There are two basic questions which every church must answer concerning missions. The first should be easiest to answer. It is simply, will we be a missionary church or not? Conservative Christians have no difficulty with this question, for the Bible plainly teaches that underlying every occasion of His gracious intervention in human history, there is the purpose of sharing that grace with the world. The patriarchs understood that their calling from God was a missionary calling to be a blessing to all the world. The psalmist dreamed of an answer to the prayer, "Ask of me and I will give you the nations for your inheritance." The prophet Isaiah saw that it was much too small an understanding of faith to think that God had simply desired to lift up the tribes of Israel and Judea. God's calling was to be a light to the nations. In five different ways Christ utilized His last days to explain to the disciples that theirs was to be a missionary faith taking them to all the nations of the world. No one who believes in the authority of the Scripture can deny that the intention of Christ is that His church be a missionary church.
But there is a second question regarding missions that must also be faced: what kind of missions should we support? It is well to remind ourselves that just as the first question is answered by reference and obedience to the Scripture, so we must find the answer to the second question, for the Bible is as authoritative regarding the how of missions as it is regarding the need. Any missionary program may fairly be judged in the light of clear scriptural teaching regarding the basic principles that should guide the missionary task.
The first principle is: the field is the world. It is so easy for us to want to reduce the task by reducing the size of the field to which we are called. Some would reduce the scope of the task by a too-easy definition of victory. These would say, "If people have heard the gospel, or if they have heard of the Christian faith, or if they have been born into a traditional church, the task of evangelism has been completed." Believers in the authority of Scripture will not declare victory by redefinition. Rather they will insist that every human being, regardless of church affiliation or cultural setting, needs to hear the gospel and make a personal response of faith to the person of Jesus Christ. Neither must we reduce our task through tokenism. Conservative Christians have been guilty at times of assuming that the support of certain specific missionaries in determined parts of the world discharges their complete duty to the cause of missions. The Great Commission is much broader in scope. It calls us to go to all the nations without exception.
Because of the enormity of the task, the second principle becomes obvious. A good missions program will be a cooperative one that involves us together in taking the Gospel to the ends of the earth. Cooperative missions will mean that we find balance and proportion in ministry. We will not all go to the same places, but we will project a worldwide ministry which is concerned for all the peoples of the world.
A biblically-based approach to missions will run on the dual track of evangelism and church planting. It is surprising how many people, including some missionaries, have felt that the task could be accomplished simply by preaching the gospel and reporting the number who responded. Yet the New Testament is clear in indicating not simply those who made professions of faith, but those who were being added to the church. The church is the arena in which Christian nurture takes place. The church is that one form of Christian ministry which is identified in the New Testament as the place where Christ's glory is to be found. Biblical missions will always be concerned with the planting and development of churches composed of those who have personally repented of their sin and trusted Christ as Savior.
Furthermore, a good mission program will be holistic in nature. Christians are concerned for the salvation of souls. They are also concerned, even as Christ is, for the physical and emotional needs of human beings. A worthy mission program will be concerned for the cup of water given to the thirsty in Christ's name. It will be concerned for the hunger of those who do not have a fair share of the earth's resources. It will be concerned for ministry to those who are hurting or who are victims of injustice. Missions must be holistic in nature.
Still another key word for understanding a biblically-based mission program is incamational. Some tend to be offended by this word feeling that only Christ in His incarnation and in His unique ministry is worthy of the use of that word. Certainly the work of Christ was unique and can never be duplicated. However, the pattern by which He accomplished His task through total identification with the human race is a pattern that teaches us something about the nature of mission work. The Scripture is clear that Christ is an adequate mediator for us because of His identification with us. He understood our language, our feelings, our temptations and all that is typical of our human condition except that He never fell into sin. People who do not know the gospel need to hear it from someone who understands. The best mission work will always be done by those who take the time to learn the language of the people, to understand their hurts and their needs, to appreciate their culture and their learning and who ultimately can present the gospel treasure in a cultural vessel that is understandable. Good missions is incarnational.
Missions is also a call to sacrifice. A missions program that simply calls for leftover resources will never accomplish what Christ wants in this world. The setting and the structure of missions must be couched in teens so that those who give, those who pray, and those who go understand that their commitment is one of sacrificial and costly participation.
These elements of a biblical missions program are characteristic of the ideals which guide the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. Three thousand nine hundred missionaries are currently at work representing the Foreign Mission Board in 129 countries around the world. As rapidly as personnel and funds are made available, the ethnic people groups of the world are being assigned to a responsible person or persons to project a program of evangelism and ministry. The Board maintains its commitment to that incamational kind of ministry that expects competence in language and cultural understanding so that the gospel may be heard and understood in its clarity and simplicity. The Foreign Mission Board continues to call all those who believe in the authority of God's Word to work together sacrificially so that all may hear and come to a saving knowledge of Christ.
The statistics from 1992 indicate that during that year alone there was a record number of 251,901 baptisms overseas, an all time record. The number of churches with which Southern Baptists cooperate overseas has increased from 17,769 to 32,797 at the end of 1992. The total membership of these churches has moved from 2,145,113 in 1987 to 3,450,888 in 1992. God is blessing the work of the Foreign Mission Board, its missionaries, and its overseas partners.
It may well be that the dimension of a good missions strategy, which is yet to be proved, is our willingness to sacrifice for the cause of missions. At some point the Bible-believing churches of our nation must ask again the question of balance and proportion in our giving. What is a fair balance between what we spend on our local congregation and that which we give for the evangelization of a lost world? Let it be said clearly that this is a time for sacrifice. There are few, if any, of our churches who can stand before the Lord and say we have done all in our stewardship for world missions that fully honors the Lord of the church. May this be the year in which our giving, our praying, and our going will attain those dimensions that will honor Christ.