Are the churches going out of the missionary business?
The Future Of The Missionary
The cause of world missions—the basic mission of the Church—is under terrific pressure today.
Atheistic Communism would destroy the Christian witness. Militant nationalism often opposes or subverts Christianity to her own ends. World uncertainties reduce the number of workers willing to venture into the arena of a global witness.
Within the missionary enterprise itself, moreover, tensions, frustrations and doubts arise as national churches emerge. The problem of the relationship of missions and missionaries induces much heart-searching and actuates new policy decisions. How, in these changing times, can the unchanging Gospel be trumpeted world-wide without unnecessary impediment by wrong attitudes and decisions? This is the issue these Christian leaders address.
This question is prompted by the increasing emphasis many boards are giving to interchurch aid as a substitute for direct and pioneer missionary outreach. While the pattern varies, its main features seem fairly well established. In any given field where an indigenous church body exists, the formal organization known as the “Mission” is to be dissolved. Missionaries are to be incorporated into the national church structure and made subject to its ecclesiastical direction; new missionaries are to come only on invitation of the indigenous church. All funds for the work are to be placed in the hands of the national church and administered through its own appropriate boards and committees. The personal support and expenses of the missionaries are to continue to come from abroad; sponsoring boards are to function primarily as subsidizing agencies that provide needed personnel and funds.
The underlying idea seems to be that such a plan eliminates the ambiguities of the present church-mission dichotomy, and demonstrates “partnership in obedience.” Through direct involvement it is expected that the national churches develop a stronger sense of missionary responsibility and of personal dignity. We personally find it difficult to see how the policy in question will serve these ends.
1. Actually, no dichotomy of church and mission exists if the nature and function of these bodies are properly understood. The mission is not a church and it exercises no ecclesiastical powers. These belong exclusively to the national church itself, whose autonomy in this area is absolute and unquestioned. In its relation to the indigenous church, the mission is simply a “task force,” an organized body of friends who stand ready to help wherever requested.
2. The plan does not really offer a true “partnership.” Rather, it calls for the complete dissolution of one of the participating parties. Real partnership implies an arrangement whereby each body respects the entity and autonomy of the other. Both work in a spirit of mutual esteem as coordinates.
3. As far as encouraging a missionary mind within the indigenous churches is concerned, the plan of “integration” seems more likely to produce just the opposite effect. Under such a system churches can hardly be expected to develop any sense of their own missionary responsibility. To accept substantial annual subsidies from outside sources would tend to confirm their status of “receiving churches” instead of challenging them to make their distinctive contribution, however small, to the mission of the church in the world. Any genuine missionary interest of the church must express itself in the outpouring of its own life and means rather than in depending upon resources from abroad.
4. The idea that dignity can be given per se to the national churches by giving them administration and control of all missionary funds seems also to miss the mark. Whatever “indignity” may exist comes from within, from the subjective shadow of the posture of dependence in which the churches find themselves. “The only cure for such a problem lies in a true autonomy. This is not something that can be conferred or withheld. It is a status and quality that must be achieved. No church can attain dignity in its own eyes when its rightful responsibilities are being carried by others, and the more generous the help the deeper the sensitivity is likely to be. The national church needs to develop its own self-respect by hard work, stewardship, and sacrifice, and by an honest acceptance of its own responsibilities and burdens. Only then can it hold up its head without shame, can it accept thankfully the comradeship and help of those who labor to assist it.
To fulfill its highest usefulness the missionary movement must be so organized and construed as to encourage newly emerging churches to develop to the full their own individual capacities. The missionary enterprise must not be allowed to degenerate into a sort of collectivism that undermines local initiative and responsibility. This precaution is critical. There is evidence that the idea of the world Christian community, and of corporate responsibility of the whole for every part, has been used by certain “younger churches” to justify their continued dependence upon subsidies and grants-in-aid. As a result, development in stewardship and self-support has been retarded. In extreme cases such help is all but demanded as a right. Even the capacity to be grateful seems almost to have been lost.
The seriousness of this situation lies not in the fact that it may cost us money. At stake, rather, is the character of the churches themselves. To discourage their growth in maturity and self-reliance brings serious injury to their well-being and integrity.
One of the chief weaknesses of the “integration” idea is that it prolongs the “colonial” pattern. In this day of intense nationalism, how can the national churches escape the stigma of religious “colonialism” as long as fraternal workers from abroad sit prominently in their councils, and budgets are replenished year by year with liberal infusions of aid from foreign sources? What would happen to such churches, geared to a policy of subsidization, if political changes required the sudden and complete withdrawal of all outside help? This is something that the national churches themselves need to consider seriously. If the missions are enjoined to abandon the role of colonials, then by the same token let the national churches abandon the role of the colonized. The full independence and autonomy of the national churches must be safeguarded. Let them stand on their own feet, and allow the missions to continue with their chief business, namely preaching of the Gospel to the unevangelized.
The Primary Objective
One other observation seems necessary to set this whole matter in proper perspective. Let it be said quite frankly that assistance to the indigenous churches is not the missionary’s first concern. While such assistance is important, it is a secondary function for him. His primary concern must be for those “other sheep” whose spiritual lostness and need called him in the first place from his home and his native land. In few countries where missionaries are at work today have as many as five per cent of the people been won to the evangelical faith. Any philosophy of missions which diverts attention from this unfinished task and interprets our continuing role principally in terms of interchurch aid must be classified as a major retreat in missionary strategy. Established work should be turned over as rapidly as possible to the indigenous church while the mission moves on to the “regions beyond.” It is inconceivable and illogical that the existence or formation of a relatively small body of believers in any country should deflect the initiative of those whom God has called to preach the Gospel to every creature. We cannot in good conscience relinquish to any national church organization either the right or the obligation to determine for us where our missionary responsibility begins or ends. Our mandate comes from Christ, not from any indigenous church. We were “sent” before we were “invited.”
It is tragic indeed that some churches seem almost to have abandoned the idea of direct missionary endeavor. The so-called independent or “faith” missions are partially filling the vacuum, but no more urgent need confronts the churches today than that of fresh evangelistic fervor, of pioneering zeal and of outreach. We are in danger of becoming “church-bound,” of substituting a sort of ecclesiastical foreign-aid program for the real thing, and consequently of losing the biblical missionary vision which historically has fired the hearts of our people.
We must guard against any situation which would limit our missionary efforts simply to helping existing national churches. Instead of following a circumscribed “church-limited” policy, we should concern ourselves with the unbelieving people of the whole world. We must throw off a kind of bondage to established churches. For it is quite obvious that our work of outreach and extension will soon reach the saturation point if each national church remains permanently dependent on our resources.
Let us start anew. Let us devote ourselves to a pioneering ministry. Let us stop coddling the national churches into dependence.
