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JoyaTeemer — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:38:45 GMT

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''Editor’s Note:'' Readers should be aware of the forum’s format. D. A. Carson,
Christopher J. H. Wright, Michael A. G. Haykin, and Ted Cabel have been asked
specific questions to which they have provided written responses. These writers are
not responding to one another. The journal’s goal for the ''Forum'' is to provide significant
thinkers’ views on topics of interest without requiring lengthy articles from these
heavily-committed individuals. Their answers are presented in an order that hopefully
makes the forum read as much like a unified presentation as possible.

'''SBJT: You travel to quite a few different countries each year. Would you care to mention some of the mission trends you yourself see on your travels? '''

'''D. A. Carson:''' You are asking a question
that demands, at very least, several long
essays, rather than a few paragraphs—
partly because the trends themselves vary
greatly from country to country. All I can
do here is provide a rather subjective and
impressionistic list of several things that
instantly spring to mind.

(1) At one time, the overwhelming
majority of missionaries came from the
West (not least from English-speaking
countries) and went everywhere else.
No longer is this the case. More missionaries
than ever before are being
sent out from non-Western countries.
Indeed, increasingly missionaries are
from everywhere to everywhere. Korea
(to mention but one prominent missionsending
country) sends out a formidable
number of missionaries (at the moment,
between 12,000 and 15,000). In addition,
Korea sends “tent-makers” into other
Asian countries that would otherwise
be completely “closed.” Many African
churches send missionaries cross-culturally
to other tribes and to other African
countries—and, increasingly, to Western
countries, primarily to serve those who
have emigrated from African countries
to the West. Worldwide statistics are
complicated and not always easy to come
by, and one is not always sure how accurate
they are—but in any case, this first
development is not in dispute, and one
must rejoice over it, even if some of the
reasons for getting to this point (e.g., the
decline of the West) are disappointing.
Jesus has told us he will build his church;
he has not told us that such building will
necessarily take place in our hometown
or school district. It helps to get things
into perspective if we take time to read
up on worldwide developments in order
to gain a worldwide appreciation for what
God is doing.

(2) No less important is the array of
related changes on the horizon. We are
on the cusp of massive transformations
of perspective. We have expected the
majority of world Christian leaders to be
white and Western, to be (relative to most
of the world) affluent and capable. But
there are now far more believers in the
Two-Thirds world than in the West. I have
preached in churches of 30,000 people in
Asia; a big church in France draws 150
people. The West still produces more
well-trained vocational theologians than
any other part of the world, but this owes
much to economic factors, and I suspect it
will change in the years ahead. It is only
a matter of time until the leaders of the
Two-Thirds world become better known
around the world. Witness, for example,
the courageous and influential stance of
the Anglican Bishop of Nigeria on the
debate over homosexuality in the world
Anglican communion. Many churches
in São Paulo, Brazil, have something to
teach us about energetic racial integration.
When we in the West go somewhere
as missionaries, even if we ourselves
come from humble backgrounds we are
perceived as coming from the affluent
world; our ministry is naturally read as
a “reaching down.” When someone from
a Two-Thirds world country becomes
a missionary to a country of similar
socio-economic class, that missionary
is naturally read as a peer. When that
same missionary serves in a more affluent
country, he or she is naturally read as
“reaching up.” As a result, expectations
change, social dynamics change, modes of
influence change. Moreover, for better and
for worse, Christian missionaries bring
some of their culture with them. In recent
decades, there have been more efforts
by our missionaries than in the past to
disentangle the gospel from the export
of American and other Western cultures,
but the challenge is considerable. Now,
however, with missionaries coming from
many different countries, we are finding
pockets of churches served by, say, Korean
missionaries that have absorbed not only
the gospel but also substantial dollops of
Korean culture. It is all very fascinating,
sometimes confusing, invariably complicated.
It’s a grand thing that Jesus is
building his church—often by means of
his people, sometimes despite us. What
is undeniable, however, is that massive
changes lie just ahead.

(3) God is sovereign, and he loves to
overthrow human prognostications and
expectations. The growth of the church in
Korea during the past century has been
utterly spectacular (though it is now at
a standstill); during the same time, the
growth of the church in Japan has been
miniscule. Why? Oh, I know, after the
fact we are prone to jump in and offer
our after-the-fact sociological analysis.
But no one predicted these divergences.
How could they? God does what he does,
and often in defiance of human expectations.
When the last missionary came
out of China about 1950, there were only
just over one million Christians (with a
generous interpretation of “Christians”)
in that great country, and many pundits
wondered how bad the situation would
become. Instead, the church has flourished,
with best estimates as to the number
of Christians in the Chinese homeland
hovering around ninety million. With the
“war on terror” focusing on Afghanistan
and Iraq, many have said that it would
be decades (one pundit suggested one
hundred years) before American missionaries
would see any growth of the gospel
in Muslim lands. And, indeed, there are
some additional restrictions on Americans
in some lands; there is also a growing
turning to Christ in many of these same
lands, as Muslims, fed up with the terrorism
and not finding the resources to
understand it, let alone stop it, in Islam,
are turning to the good news of the King
of Peace. It is simply too dangerous to
pass on to you many stories and relevant
statistics, but before the war on terror is
over, we may yet see such an overthrow
of current expectations throughout the
Muslim world that a new generation of
pundits will be as astonished as the current
generation is about the growth of the
church in China.

(4) The astonishingly rapid expansion
of digital technology is changing things
for the better and for the worse. On
the positive side: It is increasingly possible
for students in remote parts of the
world to tap into an array of sources that
vastly outstrips what has been available
in the past. Publishing possibilities are
changing—from desktop publishing to
digital journals to blogs. Not long ago I
was speaking in an Asian country where
the leaders who organized the event put
the entire series onto streaming video
that was simulcast, via cable, on large
screen monitors in ten other cities. The
same series was digitally recorded for
later distribution in churches. As far as I
could see, this was typical of this group’s
imagination and energy: They were
comfortable with using technology to
leverage the distribution of Bible teaching.
On the other hand, the net can also
be used for the distribution of the most
amazing rubbish. Sinful addiction to pornography
is on the rise in many parts of
the world. One can visit remote hamlets
and find people tuned in to porn (not to
mention the mediocre junk of mindless
“entertainment”). I recall a Slovak leader
commenting to me that three weeks after
the Berlin wall came down, for the first
time in his life he saw porn openly sold
on the streets of Bratislava, the capitol.
Now it is available in every community
by digital transmission. Globalization
has both positive and negative features,
of course, but the negative ones must not
be overlooked. Moreover, the wrong kind
of reliance on technology is in danger of
forgetting that if anything of spiritual
value is accomplished, it is by the Spirit
of the living God, not because we have
money and techies. Unless one is careful,
technology can end up depersonalizing
Christian ministry. But for better and for
worse, technology is changing mission, as
it is changing everything else.

(5) It is perennially important to work
hard at the proper relation between
ministry of the Word and social concern.
Exclusive focus on the former is in
danger of fostering a docetic view of the
Christian life; exclusive focus on the latter
is in danger of abandoning the actual
proclamation of the good news. Although
there are some important principles to
work out, the actual balance of time allotment
must depend in part on the local
situation. When people are crying on a
devastated beach after a tsunami, it is not
the best time to distribute Bibles, absent
fresh water, food, and shelter. Yet an
ostensibly Christian organization which,
decade after decade, distributes tons of
blankets and food, founds orphanages,
and combats HIV, without ever offering
Bible studies or explaining what doing
this in Jesus’ name ''means'', and what the
gospel is about, is indistinguishable from
UNICEF or ''Médecins sans Frontières'', and
is no more Christian than they. Around
the world, organizations are wrestling
with these and related issues. I am most
impressed by Christian witness that is full
of the Bible, full of Jesus, full of excellent
teaching, full of sacrificial service, full
of ministering to the whole person, and,
where possible, the community itself, in
the conscious outworking of the transforming
gospel. But what this looks like
varies enormously around the world, for
obvious reasons.

(6) In some ways, the most disquieting
region of the world, from a Christian point
of view, is Europe—Western Europe, Central
Europe, and Eastern Europe. Inevitably,
God has not left himself without
witness, and there are many wonderful
examples of faithful and effective Christian
witness throughout Europe. But the
degree of raw atheism, the focus on materialistic
hedonism, the condescending
dismissal of and even revulsion against
confessional Christianity, the rising numbers
of Muslims (owing in substantial
measure to a low birth rate and a high
immigration rate), are transforming the
continent which was at one time a powerhouse
of Christian thought and mission
into one of the neediest mission fields in
the world. Doubtless this reflects God’s
judgment on faithlessness—but surely we
must cry, “O Lord, in wrath, remember
mercy.”

(7) There is an urgent need to consider
better ways of distributing missionary-
designated dollars. Recently a large
church in the US spent half a million dollars
to send its very substantial number
of high schoolers to a short-term summer
project in a Latin American city. Doubtless
these kids did some good; doubtless they
were exposed (many for the first time) to
a part of the world where they confronted
real poverty for the first time; doubtless
they were enriched by the lives of brothers
and sisters in Christ who, regardless of
their own temptations and failures, were
not defined by endless Western toys. But
that same Latin American city has a small
but extraordinarily strategic seminary
with a handful of teachers. The school is
too poor to pay them more than a pittance.
The result is that these professors, some
of whom are well-trained, take on many
speaking and pastoral responsibilities
simply so that they can survive—and as a
result, they do not read much, they write
nothing, they do not exercise the strategic
kind of ministry that they ''could'' exercise
if they were not burning themselves out
in overwork. For $50,000, three of these
professors could be adequately supported.
That would mean that the large church
in America that spent half a million on
their summer mission project would
need to reduce that project by a mere
10% in order to make a massive strategic
difference within the country itself. Or
they could simply find the money elsewhere.
Sadly, I doubt that they will even
perceive the need. And as leaders increasingly
emerge in these Two-Thirds World
countries, there is going to be an urgent
need to rethink a number of our mission
spending priorities as we try and do ''what is best for brothers and sisters elsewhere'', and
not merely do good to our brothers and
sisters at home.

The SBJT Forum: Being Missions-Minded - Revision history

JoyaTeemer: Created page with '{{info}} ''Editor’s Note:'' Readers should be aware of the forum’s format. D. A. Carson, Christopher J. H. Wright, Michael A. G. Haykin, and Ted Cabel have been asked specif...'