Fierce Pragmatism in Missions—Carnal or Consecrated?

Back in 1964, in the very first issue of Church Growth Bulletin, Donald McGavran set the tone for a new pragmatism in missionary thinking with these striking words:

Christian mission wanders in a rosy fog of vague objectives and promotional hopes. Its objectives are frequently phrased in words—outreach, extension of the Gospel, witness, opening a province, beginning a work, carrying on mission work—as vague as they are wide. “Outreach”—to what end? Beginning what kind of “work”?

Instead of ambiguous and slippery terms, Christian mission needs to speak positively and exactly about the growth of the Church. Not what missionaries did, but how churches grew. Not national trends, but how congregations arose. Not nationalization, urbanization, devolution and mechanization, but how well are we getting on with disciplining a particular part of a particular nation. Not “what do they hear?,” but “have they confessed Christ?” [1964:10, 11].

No matter what form a particular mission strategy might assume, McGavran would ruthlessly haul it before the bar of missiological judgment, asking the stinging question: Has it produced?

Produced what? For McGavran, one of today’s top missiologists, the question of priorities in missionary objectives has never been negotiable: faithful obedience to Jesus Christ as Lord implies bending all efforts, energies, and resources toward bringing men and women to follow Christ in true discipleship, and to join themselves together in the fellowship of local churches. This is not some vague, misty goal. People and churches can be counted. If tens are being won where thousands could and should be won, the strategy being used fails the pragmatic test.

Is this new kind of missionary attitude advocated by McGavran and others carnal? Some think it is. Others, and I am among them, feel it is commendable.

Some of the criticism of the “fierce pragmatism” McGavran advocates has taken the form of spiritual judgments. It is thought by some that true Christian work depends so much on the intangible ministry of the Holy Spirit that it cannot be geared to pragmatic considerations. Pragmatism seems to these critics to be a very earthy way of doing God’s business.

But pragmatism can be consecrated. While human methods may easily intrude and become obstacles to the free working of the Spirit of God, a practical approach can profitably be mixed with spirituality in proportions that please God and advance his cause. Spiritually speaking, only a pragmatism that is Spirit-directed and Spirit-filled can be considered as a characteristic of Christian work. The Holy Spirit cannot be left to one side, crowded out by human means.

Pragmatic missionary strategy, properly related to the triune God, has five major components:

1. A well-honed set of objectives. On the preliminary and theoretical level, a lack of proper goal-setting has been perhaps the major retarding factor in modem missions. Typically, missionary objectives have been vague and imprecise.

The danger of wrong objectives cannot be denied. But far greater is the danger of no objectives at all. Hesitancy to set precise objectives in missionary work may often be traced to a lack of faith in God’s dealings with his people. Overstressing the transcendence of God, the mysterious workings of his providence, and the sovereignty of the ministry of the Holy Spirit—all true and good Christian principles—can squeeze out other equally valid elements of God’s way of relating to his servants. God has not set his Church adrift without definite navigational principles. The Bible, the Word of God, gives Christian workers clear indications of what God’s will for them is, and what God’s own objectives in Christian work are. God has given us enough information in the Bible to allow missionary strategists not only to set forth objectives but also to enjoy a good degree of assurance that these objectives but also to enjoy a good degree of assurance that thase objectives are right because they reflect God’s revealed will.

“Evangelism” can be defined in three general ways. Even missionaries who accept the biblical definition of mission may be working toward quite different evangelistic goals, according to their understanding of the term. Those who define evangelism simply as “Christian presence” may live among a people for years, may establish rapport with them by good works of one kind or another, but may never get around to telling them that God loves them, that sin has blocked this love and made them enemies of God, and that God demands that all men everywhere repent of their sins and trust Christ for forgiveness. Nevertheless these missionaries call their silent witness “evangelism.” Others may communicate the message to others, but with communication itself as their objective. They feel that all those who hear the message of the Gospel have been “evangelized,” whether they respond or not. Not so, claims a third group, not satisfied with stopping at proclamation only. Evangelism to them means actually bringing a man or woman to new birth in Christ. Anything short of this may have been a good evangelistic attempt, but not successful evangelism.

When a person is brought to Christ and becomes a new creature, he is then a “disciple,” according to one understanding of the New Testament concept. But some have narrowed this term so that it signifies not simply a Christian but a Christian who has gone on to reach a certain level of maturity or sanctification. This definition is important for missionary strategy, since the very bedrock of God’s revealed will for missionary goals is to “make disciples,” according to the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19, 20). Without clearly defining “disciples,” the missionary can hardly know whether he is “making” them or not.

On all levels, the Church must condition itself to make the sacrifice necessary to produce what solid research is needed for properly honing future objectives. Churches, denominational agencies, interdenominational mission boards, and associations of missions should earmark a minimum of 5 per cent of the annual budget for research. Missionaries should discipline themselves to do whatever is necessary to draw an accurate statistical picture of what is happening on their particular field, and such analyses and reports should be required by superiors.

2. Ruthless progress evaluation. Once proper objectives are set, the major hurdle toward a pragmatic missionary strategy is past. But even the most carefully formulated objectives cannot be taken for granted. The words “success” and “failure” could be effectively applied to missionary work. If the objectives are being accomplished, the missionary work is a success. Otherwise, why not be realistic and call it a failure?

Such judgments require a careful system of evaluation. Missionary work, like business, can be deceptive on the surface. Businessmen who think all is going well because of much activity, effusive praise, and slaps on the back may suddenly discover that expenses have been exceeding income and that bankruptcy threatens them. More missionary work may be close to bankruptcy than any of us care to believe.

Some evangelical missions suffered this kind of a jolt in 1969 when the results of an extensive study of the Protestant Church in Latin America appeared (Latin American Church Growth, published by Read, Monsterroso, and Johnson). For years the evangelicals had considered themselves among the most evangelistic of the groups working there, the ones really producing church growth. Then the published research exposed the fact that the churches associated with them in most cases were growing more slowly than the Pentecostals on the one hand and the older denominations (including Seventh-day Adventists) on the other. Happily the missions in the Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association and the Evangelical Foreign Missions Association reacted positively to this unsolicited evaluation and called an emergency consultation of leaders in Elburn, Illinois, in 1970. The resulting “Elburn Recommendations” are convincing proof of the good effects that such a levelheaded evaluation can have.

In a day when world events seem to be pointing to the return of our Lord soon, when the population explosion has already given us two billion human beings yet to become Christians, with more to come, it is time to introduce a new note of responsibility into the missionary enterprise. How can this be done? Experience has shown that it will probably not be initiated by grass-roots missionaries, for three reasons: (1) they are not convinced that progress evaluation should have high priority, (2) progress evaluation requires more hard work in statistics and analysis than they are willing to invest, and (3) they feel threatened by an intrusion that may end up in casting a shadow over the effectiveness of their own ministry through the years. Therefore the initiative must come from the top—from mission executives who have the courage and stamina to introduce a system of evaluation among those who are following their leadership, from pastors who can see missions from a broader perspective without emotional involvement, or from the army of Christian laymen who support missions either directly or through their churches and who from their own work experience know the value of objectives and progress evaluation.

3. Mobility in changing circumstances. One of the obvious results of an evaluation may be to inform a missionary or even a whole mission that it is on the wrong track. When this happens, the most effective missions will already have a built-in flexibility so that they can rise to the challenge rather than cringe from it as a menace.

Rarely will progress evaluation reveal that a mission has always been ineffective. Most often it will simply show that the mission has not kept up with changing circumstances. The world has moved ahead, but the mission has stood still. Certain missionary methods effective in the fifties are inadequate in the seventies.

To make clear the theological perspective of changing circumstances in missionary endeavor, we must emphasize the concept of God as the “Lord of the harvest.” Seen in the proper missiological light, the doctrine of divine sovereignty is at once a comfort and a challenge. The sovereign God prepares the soil for the seed to be sown. As the Parable of the Sower illustrates, all fields are not equally fertile. The history of missions shows that down through the ages God prepared one people here, and another people there for the fruitful reception of the gospel message, and that when the Gospel was faithfully preached in the prepared field, fruit came forth thirty, sixty, and one hundred fold. Conversely, when the gospel seed was sown on soil not made ready by the sovereign God, little or no fruit resulted.

Not even the most erudite theologian can explain why God does this, why he seems to prepare one soil and not another. The Spirit moves like the wind, which cannot be brought under human control. But missionary strategists who have had experience in working with the Lord of the harvest have developed a sensitivity through which they can detect where God has prepared soil for fruitful evangelism. They then direct their efforts to planting the seed of the Word there, and God gives the increase. But they are pragmatic enough to take a long second look at supposedly fertile fields when a progress evaluation shows that the harvest has been scant.

At this point mobility is necessary. In the United States, the wheat harvest begins in May in the South and continues through August in the North; farm laborers who want employment know they have to be in the right field at the right time. There is no work for them in North Dakota in May; they can spend a whole month there and not harvest a bushel.

It is not easy to convince missionaries that mobility will greatly increase their productivity. But if they could be as mobile as the wheat harvesters, a much more significant portion of the two billion could be won for Christ in our decade.

God often uses secular instruments to accomplish his purposes. He used Cyrus and Pharaoh in dealing with his people in Old Testament days. He may also use rulers today, or revolutions, or natural disasters, or migrations, or urbanization to prepare masses of people for the message of Christ. Wise missionary strategy will be conditioned to recognize the hand of God when it moves, and to move with it into the productive fields where people will become disciples of Christ and churches will be multiplied.

4. A workable methodology. Locating the fertile soil will not in itself guarantee an effective missionary strategy. Any farmer knows that he can go wrong by sowing too much seed, not spacing the rows properly, cultivating too early or too late, applying wrong amounts of fertilizer, allowing pests to multiply, or moving in to harvest wheat with a cornpicker. If he makes any of these mistakes, he does not wonder why he gets little or no fruit. Missionaries too can blunder in their methodology. Without attempting to be exhaustive, I will mention four of the more common ways of doing this:

Choosing the wrong soil in an otherwise fertile field. Statistics on the growth of the Church in a certain geographical region may indicate that the soil of a country or a state or a province is generally fertile, and that the sowing of the gospel seed can be expected to bring forth a harvest. But unless the people in the region are completely homogeneous, more refined soil testing is needed. Probably the Church will be growing among certain kinds of people but not among others. In some cities the working class and residents of the newer districts are responsive while the university students and upper class couldn’t care less about committing their lives to Christ. If making disciples is the goal, the mission will concentrate its efforts on the more fertile patches of soil within a given field.

Using an individual approach in a group-oriented culture. Many Western missionaries have a hard time understanding that other peoples may be less individualistic than they. Individual action on important matters is repugnant in many cultures; family and clan unity seems every bit as important to them as eternal life. When a missionary violates this principle and takes the one-by-one approach, he should not be surprised that his ministry is unfruitful. Because it seems like an easy road, and because it may work in the homeland, some missionaries begin evangelistic work with women and children, supposing that the fathers will come later. In one case, leading children to Christ without proper consultation with the parents brought the wrath of a tribe down so fiercely upon the missionaries that they lost their home, their airplane, their belongings, and their opportunity to win an entire people to the Lord.

Using institutions for pre-evangelism. It is difficult to generalize on the effectiveness of institutional work in missionary strategy. Such projects as schools and hospitals have borne fruit for the Kingdom in some places, and where they do, they represent good methodology. In many other places, however, the institutions have produced very little fruit through the years, and as evangelistic methods have failed the test of pragmatism. At times they have been justified as instruments of so-called pre-evangelism; the hope was that they would generate Christian good will among otherwise resistant peoples so that the Gospel would eventually spread. In many cases this has not happened in an entire generation or more, but the institution has become so embedded in the missionary operation that it is practically impossible to abandon. The institution then becomes an end in itself. This is all right if the objective set for the mission is social service, but if making disciples is the objective the mission should look for a better method.

Failure to communicate the gospel message. Many missionaries who do not take the pains to master the language and culture of the people whom they intend to evangelize, preach and preach and write home about what a difficult field they are working in. In one case missionaries preached the Gospel in the official language in a town for twenty years with seven conversions. When they left, a local evangelist moved in, preached in the dialect, and within months had a growing church of one hundred. The soil was fertile all the time, but a poor methodology blocked healthy church growth.

One of the most valuable exercises for a missionary is to make a careful study of evangelistic methods being used in his area, determining which ones God has obviously blessed and which ones he has not. If the missionary acts on what he discovers, he may find he has developed a strategy that will get results.

5. A church-centered mission. It was no coincidence that the emphasis in missiology introduced by Donald McGavran was labeled church growth. Churches are the most tangible products of missionary work, more so even than individuals. The normal outcome of evangelistic work is the salvation of people who gather together in churches. Planting churches that vigorously reproduce themselves is the goal of pragmatic strategy.

Interdenominational missions have brought immeasurable blessing to people in all parts of the world. God has used their horizontal structures in magnificent ways. But they have certain built-in weaknesses, one being that they tend to be weak on ecclesiology. Some have overcome this tendency and have planted large and healthy churches in the third world. Others have shied away from churches and assumed the role of “service” missions. A revealing study recently made by a prominent member of an evangelistic basketball team that had toured the Orient for many years showed that 86 per cent of the ministry of that group had been unrelated to churches. This is not untypical of service missions.

If evangelism (as distinct from, for example, theological education or social service or a missionary children’s school) is the stated objective of a mission, churches must not be bypassed. Churches should be planted, nurtured, and brought to maturity, a primary sign of maturity being that the church itself has taken responsibility for helping to win the two billion to Christ. The strategy needed for tomorrow’s mission will not only use the growth and multiplication of churches as a primary criterion for its own effectiveness, but will impart a hunger for an equally pragmatic strategy in the churches it plants.

Is there room for pragmatism in missions? Yes. We need more of it, not less, if we hope to meet the challenge of tomorrow. As McGavran has said, we are now in the “sunrise of missions.” A glorious daytime of abundant harvest lies right ahead. Many are predicting the greatest ingathering of reborn Christians into the Church that history has ever known during the decade to come. God has many requirements for those who wish to share in the fullest blessings of the harvest. One of them is that they courageously approach the opportunities ahead armed with a Spirit-directed, pragmatic missionary strategy.

POWER FAILURE

The rain fell up as if inhaled;

mudpuddles rose like grey umbrellas.

People and dogs went flying. Cats

went soaring, all fours aimed at heaven.

Swept into a maple, I clutched tight

the underside of a branch and hunched

my shoulders against the leaping gravel.

Above me a crow swooped upside down.

There was no wind, just a cessation

of gravity. Until gradually

it was restored. A bicycle with its rider

steadied itself in the air and, soft

as milkweed, drifted down through the leaves

of my maple, scooted along Garfield Avenue.

Wet but unhurt, we all eyed one another

and said not a word about what had happened.

FRANCIS MAGUIRE

George M. Marsden is associate professor of history at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has the Ph.D. (Yale University) and has written “The Evangelical Mind and the New School Presbyterian Experience.”

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