“Thinking Like a
Missionary” – Part IV
Message #4 in
TLAM Series
INTRODUCTION:
Today
we are in the 4th instalment of a 6-part teaching series that I have
entitled, “Thinking Like a Missionary.”
As I have explained each week, my goal is to help us begin to see ourselves as
real missionaries, commissioned by God to bring the Gospel to this very real
mission field, which we are calling Ourtownistan. As an aid to renewing
our thinking and breaking out of some old mental, theological, and procedural
ruts I have invented an imaginary scenario and have invited all of you into my
temporary insanity.
The story goes like
this: We are a team of missionaries, sent out under the sponsorship of a
mission agency called the New Life Mission. Our mission leaders have sent us
here to this tiny country of Ourtownistan to share the Gospel of
Jesus Christ, to make disciples, and to plant healthy, self-governing,
self-propagating, self-supporting local churches. We have recently arrived and
are just beginning the process of evaluating our mission field to come up with
a workable strategy to begin to fulfil our mission here. That mission, in
short, is… “To
win people to Jesus Christ and help them grow to be like Him.”
We
are a diverse team—a variety of ages, some married and some not, some with
children, having varying levels of education and ministry experience, as well
as a broad spectrum of spiritual gifts, talents, and skills. However, we are
all part of the same team with the same heart and mind to win the Ourtownites
to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. We love one another, respect one
another, and rely on one another in our commitment to get this job done. We are
all very conscious of God’s sovereign divine call on our lives and we know that
if we are to be successful here it will only be by faith in Him and in the
strength of His might.
TRANSITION:
I
have been telling you that missionaries the world over, have long been
characterized by a set of 15 commitments, or principles, that govern their
lives and ministries. So far, we have looked at the first 7 of those. Let’s
review those briefly.
#1 is that missionaries own the Great
Commission individually. They believe that Christ’s order to “go out and
make disciples” applies directly to them. They do not wait for the rest of the
church to get on board.
#2 is like unto the first in that missionaries
embrace God’s call personally. They do not wait to be hit by a bolt of lightning.
They recognize that mission is all about obedience, not about waiting for some
mystical experience to confirm God’s call. That call already came, 2000 years
ago, and God is just waiting for somebody to pick up the phone!
#3 is that missionaries identify their
source of strength and acknowledge their weaknesses. They understand that
on our own we are nothing but with God we are “more than conquerors.” They rely
not on programmes and tricky methods but upon the Holy Spirit to open doors, to
touch hearts, to empower the message, and to prepare the harvest.
#4 is that missionaries know that they are
dependent on a support team of “rope holders.” Not everyone is on the front
line at the same time. Mission also depends on faithful people doing the
unglamorous behind-the-scenes work. That is because mission is all about
teamwork. Paul said it best in 1 Corinthians 3:6, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God was
causing the growth.” We are all called to be God’s missionaries and
we all have a role to play in completing the mission.
#5 is that missionaries are committed to
go where the people live rather than wait for the people to come to them. I
will say more about that in a moment.
#6 is that missionaries invest the time
and effort to survey their mission field so that they can locate the “entry
points,” the places where they can begin to make contacts, build relationships,
and eventually earn the right to share their faith in Christ.
#7 is that missionaries make the
commitment to learn the heart language that the people speak so that they
can communicate the Gospel in a way that touches the felt needs of the people.
We discussed the fact that by “language” we mean more than just the words in an
idiom. Ireland, Pakistan, and the Philippines all use English as their official
language, for example, but that does not mean they really “speak the same
language.”
MAIN BODY:
Before
I move forward I need to stop and try to clarify something I said last Sunday
that apparently left some folks a bit confused, thinking that I was saying that
we should never invite people from the community to attend church services
here. That is not what I meant to communicate. There is obviously a time
and place for inviting people to come and visit our church. Unchurched people
who are looking for a place to worship, new people in the community who are
believers and looking for a church home, even friends and neighbours who
express interest in our church should all be invited to come check us out.
However,
what I was trying to communicate is that just inviting people to church is
not evangelism, and it is not witnessing and should not be confused
with those things or substituted for them. The church cannot save a person. The
church cannot change a person from the inside out. Only a personal encounter
with the living Christ can do that. Yet for many years the church in America
has been fixated on what mission theorists call the “Attractional Model.” Rather than the church being the church,
emphasizing its NT role of perfecting and equipping of the saints to do the
work of ministry out there in the world, she has shifted all her energies into
finding new and novel ways of attracting people to the church services inside
the walls of the church building. But because non-believers cannot digest the
meat of the Word, many churches have “watered-down” the message to the lowest
common denominator to attract and retain non-believers in the hopes that they
will eventually hear enough and understand enough to slide on in to the kingdom
of God.
The emphasis has shifted
from the church being a training centre for missionaries, to becoming as large
as it can possibly be with every pew filled. It is a case of numbers over
purpose. As a result, we have so-called “mega-churches,” which specialize
in attracting huge numbers of people to see a musical stage show and hear a
brief sermonette that is long on hype and short on hope, and says
nothing about sin, and where the so-called “Gospel message” is often a mile
wide and an inch deep. I am not convinced that that is what Jesus had in mind
when He declared, “I will build My Church…”
What
I said last Sunday, and am reemphasizing today is that this Attractional Model has never
been God’s way of Church Growth, never the NT way. However, from a purely
pragmatic standpoint it has, at times, enjoyed a certain amount of success in
bringing in warm bodies to fill empty pews. That is because up until about the
mid-1960s the USA was still a church-oriented culture. Until then, most people
at least attended church services, even if they were not what we would consider
real Christians.
However, today we live
in what sociologists call the “post-Christian
era.” By that they mean the day of us being a Christian nation is long past.
They point to the fact that people today no longer hold to the Judeo-Christian
ethical system. Huge numbers of Americans say that they are “spiritual but not religious.” The
majority claims no particular religious affiliation and many say that they take
something from all the great religions to build their own belief system.
Clearly, this new reality calls for a return to biblical priorities and
methods. Sam and Sally Seeker do not want to come to church, this one or any
other one for that matter. However, they do want to know if God really exists
and if He has anything to offer them. But they are not going to come here
to find out. We must go to them, in a hundred different ways, to live
out before them authentic Christianity, so that they will come to believe in
Him because they have seen Him in us.
Moving ahead with our list of principles… Principle #8 is that
good missionaries “love the people genuinely.”
I wish that I could say that in an unqualified way, but the fact is, I have
known missionaries who had a pretty negative view of the “natives.” They do not
like their food. They do not appreciate their culture or customs. They get very
impatient with their relaxed attitude toward time and “living up to their
obligations.” In private they are quick to criticize the national leaders and
they disrespect the spiritual level of the national believers.
I am happy to report
that during my years in Brazil I did not run across very many of this kind of
missionary, and none with our particular mission group, but I have known enough
to see the damage that they can do on the field. What I found so interesting
was the fact that the nationals could see right through their little piety act
and could sense that their love was an outward show, not genuine.
In 2 Corinthians 6:6
Paul speaks of “unfeigned love” being
one of the marks of a true Christian. Likewise, in Romans 12:9 Paul writes, “Let love be
without hypocrisy.” People can see through phony love. It does not
pass the sniff test. And phony, feigned love turns people off—to us, to our
message, and to our Christ.
The 9th
principle is that successful missionaries adopt the culture and history
of their host country. What do I mean by that? I think that again
the apostle Paul has the best explanation and it is found in 1 Cor.
9:19-22. “Though I am free and
belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as
possible. 20 To
the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became
like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win
those under the law. 21 To
those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not
free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having
the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, to win the
weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I
might save some.”
You have heard the old expression, “When
in Rome, do as the Romans.” Wise missionaries take that to heart, knowing
that to win people to Christ, we first must sell ourselves. 2 Corinthians 4:1-2
says it this way: “Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we do
not lose heart. 2
But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor
handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth
commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.” Paul understood the principle of living out the
Gospel as we proclaim the Gospel. In other words, before we can share the Good News, we must be good news to the people we
are hoping to win to Christ.
Let me try and illustrate this point. When we first moved to Brazil
back in January of 1978, we had never met a single Brazilian. We had never
heard the Portuguese language spoken. We knew next to nothing about the country
to which we had been sent as missionaries. However, by the end of our second
year on the field we knew more about Brazil than most Brazilians. We knew more
about their history. We had read more of their authors. We had a wider
appreciation of their composers. We knew more about how their judicial system
worked. We saluted their flag and knew their national anthem by heart, with all
the verses. We loved their food and celebrated their holidays and customs. Most
of our friends were Brazilians. We spoke Portuguese in our home most of the
time. We took our vacations with Brazilians and had them in our home almost
continuously. We did all that because we wanted to become “bem brasileiro,” (truly
Brazilian) as Brazilian as we could possibly become, so that we might win
Brazilians to Christ.
I tell you this not to brag but to explain that if we want to win the
Ourtownites to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ we must be just as willing to
become a part of their world. We must find ways to go to them, and to
become a part of this little country of Ourtownistan.
CONCLUSION:
Last
Sunday I left you with a homework assignment: to think about where the
Ourtownites really live and what might be some possible entry points into their
culture, their community, and their families. You have all been here for a
while. What have you observed? How can we get out among them to begin building
bridges of friendship and networks of relationship? Let’s talk about this.
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