That the Kingdom May Flourish

That the kingdom may flourish * Miriam Adeney’s editorial on the dangers of short-term mission projects was fantastic. She concisely dissected the critical issues and handled them in a fair and open manner. Too often churches and sending agencies are divided over the issue of short-termers vs. career missionaries. If the guidelines Adeney suggests are followed, I believe many of these problems can be overcome.

I grew up on the mission field and am currently preparing for career missions in Eastern Europe. I have learned from experience that education of volunteers is the key. Those who are untrained become a stumbling block to the indigenous church and a burden to the missionary. Often, especially in “popular” countries such as Russia and Kenya, the resident missionary becomes a tour guide for the volunteers. This is a waste of time and valuable human resources. On the other hand, groups that are well trained and clearly understand their goals and limitations can be highly effective. It is apparent from current trends that volunteer mission efforts will continue to grow in popularity. My prayer is that Adeney’s advice will be heeded and the kingdom will flourish.

Kyle Kirkpatrick Baton Rouge, La.

* I found Adeney’s editorial short-sighted. The writer assumes the missions pie, in dollar terms, is only so large. Is this in fact true? The writer also assumes that “North America” is some sacred sending unit that cannot be disturbed by others in its role as “preeminent sender” of long-term missionaries. Could the “mantle” have moved to another nation or region? Is God stuck using North Americans? Does any organization, academic institution, or missions agency have a selfish interest in maintaining the supposed North American dominance in sending missionaries?

A big part of the failure of the long-term missions establishment to enlist new missionaries includes, but is not limited to: (1) a remarkable lack of understanding the times, (2) post-W.W. II white male leadership lost in the “Marshall Plan” mentality of missions, (3) the American obsession with “church growth,” (4) the insistence on the “faith mission” approach to funding missions organizations, (5) theological paradigm paralysis, and (6) pastoral leadership devoid of any real interest beyond the doors of their own churches.

In the end, it’s really not about McMissions, it’s about McChristianity in North America! Old wineskins do not hold new wine well, if at all.

Marty Melvin Ventura, Calif.

Adeney is right on target. Our son and family are career missionaries and have had some wonderful experiences and assistance through short-term volunteers. Others come totally unprepared, with a pre-set agenda that has no connection with the culture. The worst offenders are some of the splinter “mission” groups headed by individuals with the hit-and-run evangelistic mentality. Many come with the mindset that the career people are ineffective, and they are going to “really do missions.”

Let’s keep the volunteer program going and evaluate its aims against the nine questions posed at the end of the editorial.

Clifford J. Ellison Richmond, Va.

While much of the article dealt with the serious concerns that should be a part of any Christian institution’s foray into short-term ministry, what proved discouraging was the underlying notion that an upsurge in short-term extension ministry strength means a downturn in career missions. I do not see a strong correlation between these two realities.

Adeney, a well-regarded missions expert, missed some obvious reasons for short-term ministry progress with the advances in travel, communications and relational networks, closer resource and financial scrutiny, the rise in spiritual gift understanding and deployment locally, nationally, and internationally. She left out the increase in cross-cultural ministry partnership and networks through innovations in technology often facilitating short-term mission interchange around the particular skill or project. Speaking to the plummeting numbers of career missionaries, she omitted the outdated communication patterns of many mission agencies that have done little to reach future and therefore younger ministry practitioners and mission funders, or the poor examples of benevolent but careless practices and attitudes that have resulted in oppressive ministry structures.

Adeney’s article also gave the impression that there is only so much ministry funding, and that expenditures other than career missions only reduce the already diminishing fund stream. We serve the owner of the “cattle on a thousand hills.” There is not a shortage but a surplus of resources: our challenge is to invoke new ways of thinking to access ministry capital.

Further, there was the implication that not supporting career missionaries spells an automatically “misguided” missions program. Different from the norm needn’t be termed fallacious. The Willow Creek Association is presently being used by God to impact thousands of national and international church bodies with a fresh vision to reach the unreached. The extension ministry of the church has strengthened the leadership and outreach of hundreds of indigenous Christian workers and opened up specific opportunities for meaningful exchanges. Although as a church we do not take part in a member or nonmember’s deputation, one cannot infer that we are against attenders seeking sponsorship dollars from our congregation. We have been able to define true calling through a person’s present ministry partici-pation, and their support has come through the service structures in which they currently relate. When missionaries leave for career service from this church, they go with the support of the individuals who have been supporting them via small-group structures. You rarely hear of a member’s lack of spiritual or financial support when they have honed their skills and support base first here at home.

Our short-termers are those who added value to the ongoing partnerships we have established. Editorial writers and their readers should rejoice that a church is prodigious enough in faith and service to envision the appropriate deployment of thousands in short-term ministry.

Steve Haas Director of Extension Ministries Willow Creek Community Church South Barrington, Ill.

Evangelicalism is no monument * Thank you for your issue on evangelical Up & Comers [Nov. 11], an excellent companion to your Movers & Shapers issue [Sept. 16]. It was encouraging to see that the evangelical movement is not merely a monument to past glories.

I especially appreciated Leighton Ford’s emphasis on the continuity between the pioneers of the post-W.W. II generation and the new visionaries of Gen X. We need not be a movement without roots or vision, but we can benefit from the voices of past, present, and future.

Ironically, however, Ford’s observation about the lack of fortysomething and fiftysomething visionary leaders can serve as both an encouragement and a warning to X’ers. After all, that generation was the one that was so idealistic in the 1960s and would change the world for the better. Now it seems that few boomers really had a vision for reaching their own generation with the gospel in ways that were contextually and culturally relevant.

As a 24-year-old evangelical Asian-American, I was particularly impressed that your profiles of Up & Comers included so many women and minorities. I sense this would not have been the case a generation ago. I am glad evangelicalism has grown inclusive enough to have leaders who can identify with and minister to our diverse postmodern culture.

Albert Hsu Glen Ellyn, Ill.

If CT were publishing in New Testament times, would you print bios of a few fishermen, a tax collector, and a handful of other nonnotables who would eventually turn the world upside down? I hope the people you chose to publicize do not take their stardom too seriously. They need to pray that God will keep them insignificant so he will be able to use them in truly important ways. The defenseless Christian public has already had inflicted upon it the insufferable presence of far too many Christian celebrities whose pictures and pontifications assault us on every side.

Edward Kuhlman Grantham, Pa.

* One statement in Leighton Ford’s letter needs correction. In lauding the pioneering spirit of the post-World War II evangelical leaders, Ford states that “Oswald Smith … started annual mission conferences, which were copied by many other churches.” The first annual missions conference, which included the receiving of a faith promise pledge, was held at Old Orchard, Maine, under the leadership of Albert B. Simpson, founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, in the summer of 1891—one year after Oswald Smith, certainly a great missions leader of this century, was born.

Gary Higbee Kirkland, Wash.

Needed: Substitute, not reinforcementChuck Colson and Nancy Pearcy’s article “Why Women Like Big Government” made two astute observations but then strangely failed to make a more obvious one [Nov. 11]. The first observation was that “the widespread breakdown of marriage and family has left increasing numbers of women without adequate economic support … [which has] … ‘led more women than men to be dependent on and supportive of government welfare programs.’ ” The primary (but not the only) cause of this breakdown of the family is the failure of men to fulfill their roles as guardians and providers of the home.

The second observation was that the ideal fix is for men to fulfill “their duties to their own families and communities.” This is what God intended, and in growing numbers of homes his intention is being realized as more men are providing emotionally and materially secure homes for their families.

But in too many homes this is not happening—and the writers failed to address this adequately. They accurately state that, ideally, the government’s role “is to reinforce, not substitute for, the moral responsibility of fathers.” But government cannot reinforce something that does not exist. When a man abandons his wife and children they must search for a substitute provider, not merely a reinforcement. As long as this continues to happen, social welfare programs will be needed.

Joel Bruhn Lafayette, Ind.

In response to Chuck Colson’s piece on the gender gap: A-men!

Cynthia G. Yates Bigfork, Mont.

What Colson and other conservatives do not seem to realize is that Scripture also describes a major responsibility of government as the care of widows, orphans, and the poor. It is not illegitimate for Christians to demand civil leadership for the relief of distress.

Fred Graham East Lansing, Mich.

Colson’s “Why Women Like Big Government” is in consonance with the socially popular theme that all of society’s problems are caused by men—that these problems stem from family breakdown which can only be corrected by “a big change in men’s hearts”—”staying married, raising kids,” and so on. American men are probably the most domesticated group of men on earth and far more sensitive to women than men were 40 years ago. Women have been integrated into almost every aspect of public life, unlike any society in history. With an unparalleled atmosphere of social equality for women, as well as partnership in the home, divorce has skyrocketed in America! Yet, men are still exhorted to do more. American society blames and ridicules men without letup; but we should at least receive fairness and charity in the church.

Stanton Carter Livermore, Calif.

Pinnock’s fine balanceI appreciate Roger Olson’s favorable review [“Romancing Pentecostalism,” Books, Nov. 11[ of Clark Pinnock’s Flame of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit. Olson speaks of Pinnock’s book as the long-needed bridge between conservative evangelicals and Pentecostals. It is interesting that Olson is mainly concerned to assure non-Pentecostals that they may safely walk across the bridge. All Olson does, however, to allay the concerns of non-Pentecostals is to assure them that the scriptural “underpinnings” of Pinnock’s bridge are safe and sound, so they may journey across without leaving the foundation of sola scriptura. This assurance is important, but non-Pentecostal concerns relate more substantively to such Pentecostal distinctives as baptism in the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues, and spiritual gifts. How does Pinnock handle these matters?

Pinnock, I believe, demonstrates fine balance in all these areas. First, in conservative evangelical fashion he speaks vigorously against “second blessing” doctrine; on the other hand, he defines baptism in the Spirit as power for effective witness, of which, says Pinnock, Christians may be experientially deficient. If conservative evangelicals can agree with him on this latter point, they may not be so hesitant to cross the bridge.

Second, Pinnock first says tongues are exaggerated by Pentecostals and denies that tongues must occur in connection with Spirit baptism. However, he adds, tongues, though not normative, are normal. Can conservative evangelicals accept this? What about Pentecostals? Pinnock, I believe, points to a good place on the bridge for Pentecostals and conservative evangelicals to come together even if they are not quite sure in this regard.

Third, there is the matter of spiritual gifts. Pinnock speaks favorably of the importance of openness to all of them, “a flowing that manifests itself as power to be a witness, heal the sick, prophesy, praise God enthusiastically, perform miracles and more.” Thus he speaks against “the cessationist mindset” among some evangelicals. The critical issue is whether cessationist evangelicals will join their noncessationist colleagues and cross to the other side.

Pinnock has provided a long-needed bridge.

J. Rodman Williams Regent University School of Divinity Virginia Beach, Va.

* How far does one have to go before he/she is considered to be outside the realm of this big tent we call evangelicalism? Apparently pretty far. Olson quotes Pinnock: “Revelation is not a closed system of propositional truths but a divine self-disclosure that continues to open up and challenge.” What then is revelation? An open system of unpropositional truths? Pinnock argues that God isn’t to be defined by biblical categories like holiness but by “the dance of trinitarian life.” What does that mean? Pinnock describes creation as “God’s risky adventure.” He calls it risky due to the fact that he has rejected God’s foreknowledge outright. Pinnock wrote in Predestination and Free Will: “God is omniscient in the sense that he knows everything which can be known. … But free actions are not entities which can be known ahead of time. God can surmise what you will do next Friday, but cannot know it for certain because you have not done it yet.” He adheres to this view despite the overwhelming biblical report that God has perfect knowledge of the future. I suppose those passages haven’t found their way into Pinnock’s open system of revelation.

Scott Brown, Associate Pastor Hill ‘n Dale Christian Church Lexington, Ky.

Missionaries not “anti-Mormons”An error was made in the headline of a story concerning my wife and myself in your news article “Anti-Mormon Evangelists Sue” [North American Scene, Nov. 11]. It is true my wife was beaten by security guards at the Utah State Fair, and a civil-rights suit is in process, but it is unfortunate that CT used “anti-Mormon” to describe our work. The term anti-Mormon originated in the 1840s as a pejorative hate-term for the mobs in Missouri and Illinois who persecuted Latter-day Saints and shot Joseph Smith. This does not describe our mission, nor the dozen mission works we know of in Utah. The term means “against the people,” which is the opposite of our gospel message. Missionaries to Mormons are not “anti-Mormons.” We must not confuse the Mormon people with Mormon doctrine.

Rev. Kurt Van Gorden Victorville, Calif.

CorrectionThe song “There’s No Chain,” written by Dennis Jerigan (copyright 1992, Shepherd’s Heart Music/Word), was incorrectly attributed to University Baptist Church band in the November 11, 1996, issue (p. 40).

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