DISPELLING THE MYTHS IN MISSION

World Congress 2006
Dr. Paul E. Pritchard Jr.

TEXT: Colossians 2:4-10

MYTH #1: MISSION OR MISSIONS?

Mission is the foundation from which solid, relevant theology emerges.  A German theologian named Martin Kahler stated almost a century ago that “mission is the mother of theology.”  Theology began as an accompanying manifestation of the Mission.  Theology is seen as the study of God, his character, his attributes, and his purpose and plan for mankind.  Let us remind ourselves that Paul the Apostle expressed and taught his theology in “missionary” letters to the churches he helped start.  That the Old Testament was written in Hebrew,  and the New Testament in Greek show the missionary heart of God; and nearly every single author in the New Testament where missionaries.  It grieves men to see such stigma; shame and repulse surround the very topic of God’s heart.  To ward off, repel, and draw away in hesitation from mission is to deter God’s Holy Spirit from your ministries, derelict your calling, and ultimately seal the destiny of your earthly ministerial success.

As theological framework emerges culture, tradition, polity and practice must be assessed as to whether they remain biblical.  I am a Biblicist before I am a Baptist.  I believe that the bible is not the basis of mission, but that mission is the basis of the bible.  Your comprehension of mission will depict your theology.  A wrong view of mission equals wrong theology.  Mission is one way God forces us out of our theological comfort zones.

Now to actually be removed, by God from this comfort zone will take first a deep theological probe.  You will not like what you find!  Your ego will be annihilated, your pride slashed, your “office” and title”, that many hold on to so dearly when they really just don’t know what to do taken away and there you will find yourself as humble servant, nameless, powerless, and waiting for a filling.

Illustration:
For twenty-six years of my life all I have known is the mission!  From experience I will say that as a missionary carries his message to the frontier where Christ is not known, and finds that the message from home often doesn’t function as well, this leads to serious reflection…  This reflective process leads him to look carefully at his theological presupposition.

In this very manner Peter, Paul, and every servant, God has ever called he first sends them through a shaker.  He must bring man around to God’s way of thinking.  Example: The Beatitudes.  The very first things he taught.  Why?  To show how erroneous their concept of ‘God’ really was and how backwards and self-centeredly carnal their thinking had become.

Only when a biblically based definition of mission that flows directly from God’s Word and not your culture and mine is clearly taken, then this man-centered view of the bible, the church, and ministry in general, will quickly be cast off.

The mission lies at the center of God’s creation.  To possess the spirit of Christ and he possess you is to find your definition of where you fit in his mission.  Henry Martin said, “The Spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions.  The nearer we get to Him the more intensely missionary we become.”  Fundamentally, a lack of interest in the mission is not caused by an absence of compassion or commitment nor of exhortation or information.  Our gruesome stories, our impacting statistics, our tear-jerking power point shows, or our emotionally manipulative commands to obedience can never remedy the lack of passion that one has for his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Would most agree that an unprecedented chaos, confusion, and contention surround this topic of mission?  An 80% dropout rate in missionaries…  For most missionaries deputation is over 3 years, and 150k to 200k miles.  We don’t like the system, but we’ve created it.  We all seem to agree that we must do missions and that it is the very purpose of His church, yet how have we allowed such failure to engulf and overcome the foremost mission of the God we are divinely called to serve?

Tim Dearborn wrote, “God’s Church falters from exhaustion because Christians mistakenly think that God has given them a mission in the world.  Rather, the God of mission has given His Church to the world.  It is not the Church of God that has a mission in the world, but the God of mission who has a Church in the world.  The Church’s involvement in mission is its privileged participation in the actions of the triune God.”


The focus should not be upon us or upon the gratification that the involvement in missions would bring us, but rather the true focus should be upon the glory that it brings the King.

• Ephesians 1:12 “That we should be to the praise of his glory…”
• II Corinthians 10:17 “But he that glorieth let him glory in the Lord.”
• I Corinthians 6:20 “glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God’s.”

Therefore, the first myth we must dispel is that of the mission itself.  The mission is singular.  We must have one mind, one vision and one focus.  The mission should never be simply numbered among the many programs of the church but rather it should define them.  How many missions do we have:  Mind you, God has only one!  That is to bring worship to his name from every tribe, tongue, and nation.  The centrality of God in our lives relationally must be first, and the mission is the second greatest human activity on earth!

MYTH #2: MOTIVE

Many mission programs are wobbling and waving in the wind.  They are founded on a premise that is unsure…  EMOTION.  “Too long America has propagated missions on the basis of philanthropy, duty and responsibility, gospel expansion.  These are not altogether unworthy motives but they are not the deepest motives nor do they generate the highest degree of spiritual dynamism.”

Mere pity for the people of lost lands, called forth by some heart-rending tale of dire need or by some instance of cruel suffering is not enough.  Emotion is always spontaneous and impulsive.  Most mission endeavors are based solely emotional appeal.  That generates spontaneous generosity as commendable as that may be; it is still inadequate in strategically and systematically reaching the world.

This infrastructure for world evangelization is asking for failure.  Why?  First because it is carnal not spiritual; mission is war.  Spiritual warfare and the pulling down of strongholds are things you do with God’s help and our average mission program needs nothing from God.  It requires no faith, therefore it doesn’t need God.

Our churches today seemingly are in a race to see how many pieces of yarn they can stretch on their mission display board, if they even have one, and are unsighted to the “big picture” mission strategy of the Almighty.  God’s global plan must be taught to even understand God.  Presenting first the biblical foundation from Genesis to Revelation, and then moving from the biblical to the historical, cultural and strategic perspectives of missions.

• For such a myth to be dispelled, we must teach the right motive for mission!

Our conferences must return to biblical foundations for our motives to be God honoring and enduring.  At this rate, Independent Baptist Missions will be virtually non-existent in one more generation.

Slide show, VBS offerings, bulletin boards, mission conferences, offering emphasis, are indeed acceptable means and tools that help create an environment for mission learning.  However, to believe that any on e of these activities will accomplish this world task is hazardous thinking.

MYTH #3: THE MISSIONARY: PASTOR OR PLANTER?

Most of the men who supply the sweat equity for the church planting efforts of this generation are men faced with an identity crisis.  Perhaps the biggest issue we face is not the diminishing force of men, but the actual role.  To do effective mission work on the field the missionary must always be working himself out of a job.  The national pastor is to be encouraged to take the oversight, while the missionary works to lay solid doctrinal foundations and mentor a man for ministry.  To “pastor” that church for an extended period of time in most third world countries is to encourage dependency, delay maturity, and discourage spiritual leadership from ever being established.

When we are true to biblical models, there will always be apostolic teams, commissioned by the church, but called of God who will go where no church exist and plant a church.  While I believe that a true church only God can bring about, it is the direct influence and testimony of ones life that produces a following, and people of like faith in persecuted lands flock together.  Churches are started and many contribute to their faith.  Often times the church the missionary comes from has not prepared him for cultural and social adaptations.  Maybe the narrow-mindedness and perhaps even legalism that has molded him forces him to naturally attempt to reproduce his home church on foreign soil.  The curse of American individualism, freedom, pride, an over rating of authority and an under rating of servanthood, and last but not least our capitalistic corporate view of leadership seemingly has inbreed into us a secular, worldly view of leadership and often times even a superior attitude towards other nationalities.

So then the missionary takes his American arrogance, his bitterness from three years of deputation, his inferior complex that he “can’t” preach, doesn’t deserve but 5 minutes in most pulpits, doesn’t fit in anywhere, has virtually no one that even knows a fraction of what he and his family are to face, the fear of the unknown, the burden of culture and language training and the constant threat to perform or you’ll be cut, to the mission field where he is to begin an immediately prosperous ministry.

• Paul was a planter, a kingdom extender, an initiator, a “foundation layer” vs.10
• Paul worked within the “measure” of gifting and grace God granted him II Corinthians 10:13-15
• Paul was no more or no less important than those that watered vs. 8
• Paul was released from Antioch in the context of a team.
• All were afforded equal and mutual respect as co laborers together
• Paul was given a large vision.  Read Galatians 2:7-10

In addition to that thought, why do we compare the missionary to the ministry of the Apostle Paul, use him as a model to challenge with, yet ignore that role in our modern day churches?  We also seemingly despise the duty of supporting men who model his very methods of ministry, and treat them as our subordinates; when in apostolic times the planter and the pastor labored hand in hand.

MYTH #4: MISSION: PEOPLE OR PLACES?

The Apostle was never confined to a country, city, or suburb.  With all the proselyte work that goes on around us because of the over abundance of churches, we view the work of the missionary through that same lens.

• The missionary ministry  of the Apostle Paul covered 18 different geographical locations
• Paul trained leaders, appointed and ordained elders in every place he was led
• Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles in many nations
• Paul’s people group approach to mission was what defined his call

The myth that paralyzes mission today is that missionaries will often sow seed on already evangelized areas over and over again for fear of their own reputations being tainted or an upset with their churches, or even fear of a mission board out for some revenge.

Many churches I know are mainly concerned about doting the map with red pens instead of developing a logically functioning strategy for global evangelization.

In concert with this same thought, the people were even before properties.  A church is not the building, but the body of blood bought believers.

The materialistic generation we know has been trained to judge success in square footage, or seating capacity, instead of equipped, matured believers who are active in ministry somewhere in the world.

We must change our focus and view our missionaries as apostles, “or sent ones,” sent and administrated by the Holy Ghost to accomplish a global task.  Your local vision as a pastor in that community is equally important but diametrically different than that of a true missionary.  He will not pastor indefinitely in one place but train and mentor pastors from his very first day.  As the Lord did, he too should mentor men for the mission.

MYTH #5: ANYBODY WILL DO

The biblical model for missionary selection is first and foremost the job of the Holy Spirit.  An enormous amount of water has been dumped into this process, watering down the very ministry requirements of perhaps the most crucial part of any ministry…the foundation.

Never would we suggest that anyone would suffice as the pastor of our church, yet we send anybody to the mission field to plant churches and start ministries.  Luke was clear that the men sent and commissioned by the church were first called and chosen by God.  Acts 13:1-5

Availability does not always equal suitability.  Acts 22:10 The Apostle Paul announced his availability on the road to Damascus.  That wasn’t surrender to imprisonment or to beatings but to God.  However, Paul from that day forward began his 11-13 year process of being made suitable.

Acts 15:22-28 speaks of the men they sent to represent the Lord, they were “chief” and “chosen” men who were willing and experienced at hazarding their own lives for the gospels sake.