Mission Priorities

The forthcoming International Congress on World Evangelization will challenge world-wide evangelical Christianity to concentrate all its resources on fulfilling the Unfinished Task in view of the glorious return of our Lord. What does this mean practically? As I see it, the following tasks should become our priorities:

1. The most urgent assignment for missions is a thorough clarification of our motivation. The Wheaton Declaration of 1966 and the Frankfurt Declaration of 1970 have warned us that the Church of Christ once again is attacked by a world-wide heretical wave. In its menace to the faith this can only be compared to the Gnostic movement in the first two centuries or to theological rationalism in the age of enlightenment. The issues mentioned in those Declarations must be answered by clear-cut confessional statements that are binding for our missionary activities.

2. The whole of Christianity needs a new awakening and strengthening of its life by the Holy Spirit. Very often even missionaries themselves dangerously neglect the care of their own souls. They may hectically engage in all kinds of meetings and activities without leaving time for prayer, worship, Bible meditation, and spiritual counseling. The secret of missionary fruit is the inner life of the Church. The spiritual program and pastoral counseling system of our churches and missions ought to be reviewed drastically.

3. The still open doors for the Gospel call for an all-out effort in evangelism. Once again the churches and missions should make it their target to reach every living person with the good news within the next ten years. We should make good use of all modern means of communication and prepare excellent programs for radio and TV. But wherever it is legally possible, our evangelistic outreach should culminate in personal visitation and in a face-to-face encounter. This means that the whole believerhood in a locality ought to be involved: “Evangelism-in-depth.”

4. In many parts of the world evangelism needs to be combined with social service. The deepened personal contact with the people will unveil both their spiritual and their bodily needs. Here it will be essential that the diaconal function is not just added to the evangelizing one or even separated from it. Rather, the rootedness of all physical, social, economic, and political problems in the spiritual soil of man’s thirst for God should be made evident. On the other hand, true evangelism will show that no single aspect of human life and human suffering lies outside the concern of Christ and his Church. Here the doctrine of the different gifts and assignments of the members of Christ’s body should be pointed out and developed practically.

5. This brings us to the task of church education. The assignment of mission is not only to gather new converts into the churches but also to help these churches grow into their full maturity. This means both to develop the internal life of the churches by deepening the spiritual knowledge and fellowship, and to relate the churches to the needs of their environment. Bible classes, Bible schools, Christian academies, and leadership-training centers will have to fulfill a decisive role in educating Christians to become responsible members of their churches and vigorous citizens rather than sheep who simply are attended to.

6. One aspect of developing lay activities is Christian youth work. I have the impression that the underevangelized world’s real hope and riches are its Christian youth. The International Fellowship of Evangelical Students has impressive strongholds in most Asian countries today. The question is: How far are churches able to integrate these student movements into their life without paternalizing them? For while total independence might eventually lead toward secularization, total incorporation might stifle the spirit of initiative that is vital to young people.

7. New insistence on the priesthood of all believers must not divert our concern for improving theological education for the ministry of the younger churches. Within the next ten years the nationalization of the ordinary ministry of Third World churches will have to be completed. This means they must have a fully indigenous leadership on all levels, shepherds and teachers who are able to defend and spread the Christian faith both in continuity with the historic tradition and in relation to the specific environment of these churches. The new term coined for this task of adjusting theology to the indigenous situation is “contextualizing.” The danger, however, is that the non-Christian addressee will suddenly determine not only the form but also the content of the message communicated to him.

8. Many people wrongly regard dialogue as the modern substitute for evangelism, the only still legitimate form of Christian mission. But dialogue could also be an attempt to find out how the other person is encountering the ultimate reality or limitations of life. Then dialogue can be regarded as an indispensable stage in communicating the Gospel.

9. This has to do with the unsolved task of developing a truly biblically based theology of religions. This must not simply deduce its statements from some general principles but must take seriously the witness of the prophets and apostles that man’s religions are both expressions of God’s revelation and of activity of demonic forces.

In this way I believe that during the next ten years we shall become witnesses of a double development in the history of religion. On the one hand there will be a growing incorporation into our understanding of Christ of all elements in non-Christian religions that are expressions of man’s abiding relatedness to God and of God’s prevenient grace. On the other hand there will be a growing together of all religions in their demonic, anti-divine tendencies toward one syncretistic world religion. It will be the ultimate expression of man’s rejection of Christ as the only Lord and Saviour.

10. Finally, Christian missions should draw all consequences from our insight that there is only one mission of Christ directed to the whole world. Missions can no longer be regarded as activities carried on by separate Western churches in separate fields in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Any perpetuation of such an outdated view of Western mission will be frustrated by national resentments in the Third World countries and churches. If Christian mission is to continue in the midst of Afro-Asian and Latin American self-assertion, it must be freed from the stigma of colonialism. This means that during the next ten years all mission structures must become truly internationalized in order to express the catholicity of the Church and its mission. Evangelistic teams in each country will be led by national leaders and have an international membership. National missionary societies will merge into international missionary fellowships, serving in several countries, including the countries of Europe and America.

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