MSPG 9 - The Church's Task
I don't pretend to be a missions expert, but the church has to start somewhere. The Lord has been teaching me more and more about missions since 2015, and I've spent a lot of time in the last two years exploring this important aspect of the church's life.
Since Elynne and I are planning to migrate soon to study at TMS, I don't have much time to share what I've been learning with others. So in the next five months, January to May, I'm holding a weekly "Missions Study & Prayer Group" (MSPG) to equip them to help in the church's developing missions program.
For overviews and links to all the lessons in this ongoing series, click here.
THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE LOCAL CHURCH
We’ve looked at Paul’s missionary activity and the example of a number of New Testament churches, and we’ve ways the local church can participate in missions:- Praying
- Upholding biblical truth (Ephesians)
- Evangelism (Thessalonians)
- Raising missionaries (Antioch)
- Sending and supporting home-grown missionaries (Antioch)
- Partnering with missionaries sent by other churches (Philippians)
[Read “Two Structures for Global Expansion” by Blincoe and Chismon.]
What do you find helpful about the article? Blincoe and Chismon are right in insisting that it is important to always have a missionary structure (sodality) in order to expand the borders of Gospel proclamation.
Are there any problems with the article? They are wrong in suggesting that the church and missionary structures are co-equal and co-dependent. That is clearly not the case, if one understands biblical ecclesiology.
The task of missions is given, not to a ‘worldwide Christian movement’, but to the church. Moreover, missions should primarily be understood as local churches planting other local churches.
Now, whether it’s in nurturing missional thinking in our own church or in the churches that we will hopefully be planting in the future, we have to remember to aim for growth in two directions...
BREADTH AND DEPTH
TWO ASPIRATIONS
Both depth and breadth of ministry are important aspirations to have in mission work.On the one hand, to sacrifice depth for the sake of breadth would spell disaster. A ministry that focuses too much on expansion will produce a lot of false fruit. Any true fruit that is produced will be poorly developed. Undiscipled disciples are more of a liability than an asset to the cause of Christ in their communities.(Johnson, 68) “I’ve personally visited several countries where well-meaning missionaries became so urgent in their desire for speed and numbers, and so careless in their methods, that new churches were declared planted and then abandoned in a manner resembling spiritual abortions more than births. Their desire for shortcuts meant that the slow work of patient biblical teaching was cast aside. Predictably, these new gatherings easily fell prey to false teaching, cults, or simply dissolution. A decade later the wounds have yet to heal. Most tragically, countless souls in these places now think they’ve seen and tried Christianity, when they haven’t. As a result, they are seemingly inoculated against the real, biblical gospel, even if someone more faithful shares it with them. God forgive us.”But on the other hand, we can prioritize depth to the point that we lose the compulsion to reach far and wide for Christ. Many churches fall into this trap and become nitpicking, narrow-minded, self-satisfied, and critical toward other churches.
We should learn from the poor example of the Particular Baptists in the 18th century. Despite maintaining a high standard of theological and exegetical scholarship, their growth as a denomination was impeded at this time. This becomes all the more alarming when one notes that this was the century of the Great Evangelical Revival in England. But rather than benefiting from this great outpouring of the Holy Spirit for expansion of God’s kingdom, the Baptists were passed over. In fact, they opposed the revival!
Michael Haykin points out several characteristics of 18th century Particular Baptists that explains their regrettable way of thinking. First, “High Calvinism” was widely held by clergy and lay people alike, which strangled evangelistic preaching. Secondly, internal doctrinal disputes consumed the energy of many Baptist churches. Thirdly, they stressed the autonomy of the local church so much that few Baptists learned to think beyond the sphere of their congregation, much less the denomination.
Today, there are many churches who boast about being more biblical than other Christians, but they are actually wasting their potential for kingdom work! They’re as straight as the barrel of a gun, and just as empty! They are like a stagnant pond, full of scum and mosquitos!
Notably, these extremes of pursuing only depth or only breadth could both be prevented by cultivating a wholistically biblical understanding of God, the gospel, worship, discipleship, and ministry. We need to aspire for both.
ONE PRIORITY
As a general rule, missions work should aspire for both depth and breadth of ministry, but it must prioritize depth over breadth. Faithfulness has to be more important than mere numbers, spiritual fruit more than superficial results.But we need to qualify what this means, and what it doesn’t. Prioritizing depth over breadth does not mean that we stop working for, aspiring for, and praying for greater breadth.
To begin with, the Great Commission tell us that we are not only to “make disciples”, but to “make disciples of all nations” (Mat 28:19). In other words, there is to be an ever-present outward push. The church is never to settle for making disciples in just one nation, or a few. She cannot rest until she has fulfilled her Lord’s commission!
We also have Paul’s missionary example. His purpose in life was to “preach the gospel, not where Christ was already named” (Rom 15:20). In other words, he had a strategic emphasis on the expansion of gospel work.
Prioritizing depth over breadth simply means that we are willing to slow down [not stop] when necessary in order to cultivate depth.
This, too, is necessary to fulfill the Great Commission, which tells us that to “make disciples” necessarily involves teaching people to “observe all that I commanded you” (Mat 28:20).
Though Paul was primarily a frontier missionary, he devoted a great amount of time, attention, and resources to cultivating depth in the congregations God had called him to minister to.
His Epistles were intended for discipleship. They contain instruction in doctrine and practical applications that were needed for these believers’ further growth.
In these same letters, we also learn that Paul continuously sought news concerning, and prayed earnestly for, their growth (1 Cor 1:4; Eph 1:15-16; Php 1:3-4; Col 1:3; 1 Thes 1:2-3).
He spent two years in Ephesus (Ac 19:10), and 18 months in Corinth (Ac 18:11). In fact, his ministry to the Ephesians was so extensive that he could solemnly declare to their elders, “I am innocent of the blood of all men. For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God.” (Ac 20:26-27)
Paul also sent his much-valued teammates to minister to already-established churches. He sent Timothy to Ephesus (cf. 1-2 Timothy), Thessalonica (1 Thes 3:2), and possibly to Philippi (Php 2:19). Titus he sent to Dalmatia (2 Tim), Crete (Titus) and probably many other places.
Therefore, we must reject as patently unbiblical such assertions as this:
(Kairos, 5-12) “Risky as it sounds, the primary responsibility for teaching [in newly planted, frontier churches] must be left to the Holy Spirit if spontaneous, ongoing growth is to occur.”This is because we are called to be faithful to the means of grace that God has given us through Scripture.
(Johnson, 72) “We are all called to be faithful in both fruitful and lean times. Success is in the hands of God.”
Example: Partnering with Missionaries
For example, it is better to develop deep relationships with a few missionaries than superficial relationships with many. This will have a number of advantages:The church will be more assured that its investment will bear the kind of fruit it is looking for.
- The missionaries will be better supported in terms of substantial and dependable funding, regular communication, pastoral visits, and hospitality on furlough, among other things. They will also be protected from undue pressure from the church, since faithful work does not always yield immediate visible results.
- The church members will be more encouraged to take ownership of missions work when they are able to develop knowing, caring, accountable relationships with missionaries.
A STRATEGIC EMPHASIS ON EXPANSION
Given Paul’s example (cf. Rom 15:20-21), the great need of the Least Reached People Groups (LRPs), and the church’s historic and persistent neglect of LRPs, it should be a strategic focus of missions to prioritize areas and peoples that are most isolated from the gospel.(Johnson, 63) “All other things being equal, you should generally fund the work among the unreached. I know there are extenuating circumstances, and strategies to reach the unreached from a more reached place exist. Yet the general leaning of the New Testament seems to be toward churches spreading the gospel to “those who have never been told of him.””
A STRATEGIC COMMITMENT TO STRENGTHENING
See Titus 1:5That being said, the Bible clearly indicates that the second task of missions is to strengthen believers in already-reached areas. No mission program can neglect this and claim to be faithful to Scripture.
(Johnson, 63-64) “Putting churches into better biblical order also was high on Paul’s agenda, and it should probably be higher on our agenda too. It can be exciting to send and support workers who are pushing back the boundary of darkness in a community unreached by the gospel. But Paul also demonstrates that it is worth investing some of our best people in church strengthening where the gospel is already known and churches already exist. … Along with helping churches to be biblically structured, Paul wants to establish sound, robust biblical doctrine and to guard new churches against error and false teaching. He is willing to invest perhaps his most valued associate not in his pioneering work in Macedonia but in the ongoing work of building healthy churches in Ephesus.”Strengthening young and immature churches also has very practical benefits.
BALANCING THE TWO
The need to strengthen young churches must not be neglected, and this will take patience and commitment (see below). But at the same time, we have to always be on guard against losing the strategic emphasis on frontier work.Example: A Two-Pronged Ministry in Eastern Europe
Taken from Andy Johnson, Missions: How the Local Church Goes Global, pp. 70-71.“I know a missionary in a large eastern European city with several million Muslim guest workers from all across Central Asia. He moved there to try to reach, train, and mobilize Muslim converts. He encouraged them to return to their home nations to plant disciple-making churches throughout Central Asia. Yet, unlike many missionaries, he didn’t ignore the local Protestant churches in his city, even though they had a reputation for suspicion and disdain toward their Muslim neighbors. While he personally worked to reach Muslim immigrants with the gospel, he also invested in existing churches from the majority culture. He built trust. He looked for local Christians with gospel maturity. Then, slowly, he began to connect them with Muslim converts. They were amazed to meet former Muslims who had genuinely embraced the truth of Christ and were passionate to return home with that message. Then, building on years of experience evangelizing Muslims, he began to help local church leaders develop efforts to evangelize Muslims themselves.
“On a recent visit with this friend, I sat in the small parlor of his Soviet-era apartment. As I drank tea and looked out at the masses milling about in the park below, I asked about prospects for the future. The situation for foreigners was getting more complicated. The possibility of being forced out by the government was looming larger. My friend and his wife were grieved at the idea that they might have to leave the city and people they loved. But then he looked across his tea and told me, with a kind of unflinching confidence, that it was too late. Even if the government deported them right then, their ministry and passion for reaching Muslim immigrants had spread across half a dozen local churches and was spreading farther and faster all the time. Just a few months earlier, some of those churches had, on their own, hosted a meeting to encourage and train other churches in Muslim evangelism. The torch had been set to the wood. Banishing the torchbearer now would accomplish nothing.
“I found myself pondering how things might have been different if this couple had decided to go it alone. What if they had believed their Western methodologies were superior to the existing local churches and so ignored them entirely? What if they had been so committed to rapidly planting new churches that they felt they had no use for the churches doing gospel work for generations in that culture? Thankfully, they didn’t make these mistakes. As a result, I expect their impact will quietly continue among these other churches until Christ returns.”
DISCUSSION
How do you see these two principles of breadth and depth applying to the CCO?What problems can you foresee if the core group has an unbalanced approach to breadth and depth?
How will our understanding of this dynamic affect our interaction with other missions-minded evangelicals?
