Manifesto
Centuries of missions efforts have accomplished incredible results with the help and by the grace of God. Sacrifice, separation, martyrdom, isolation, imprisonment, loss of husbands, wives and children, etc. have marked the path to countless decisions for Jesus Christ, unbelievable transformations of individuals into Christians, joyous celebrations of God’s working, tearful reunions with family and friends, etc. How great is our God and worthy of the glory brought to Him by faithful, fearless, heroic missionaries of the past and present!
HOWEVER…in a world exploding with population growth and a church where the missionary workforce is shrinking, our strategies for the Great Commission MUST CHANGE! The following is not a repudiation of all that has been done. Rather it is a challenge to the status quo. With that in mind, may I ask:
Are we done with everything but the essentials of the Great Commission (EVANGELISM, DISCIPLESHIP, LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT AND CHURCH PLANTING)?
Are we done with volunteers for missions?
Are we done with the current concept of short-term missions?
Are we done sending to the mission field inexperienced recent graduates of Bible Colleges and Seminaries?
Are we done sending to the mission field those who have never done at home what they say they will do on the mission field?
Are we done creating missionary roles that ought to be filled by national believers?
Are we done with Sending Churches sitting back and watching their called man of God struggle to raise support in order to get to the place where God has called him?
Are we done with the shotgun approach to distribution of our limited resources that leaves the critical work of missions unfunded and called men of God chafing at their inability to follow God’s leading?
Are we done with simple addition in missions?
Are we done with missionaries who have no measurable plan?
Are we done with missionaries simply relocating from the community that they left to another community?
Are we done sending missionaries to do something, giving themselves fodder for newsletters to send home?
Are we done teaching through an interpreter?
Are we done looking at national believers as unskilled or unable to do ministry without American missionaries watching them?
Are we done with missionaries doing the work of members of the national local churches?
Are we done running programs that ought to be done through national local churches?
Are we done with Sending Churches abdicating their oversight responsibility to the mission agency?
Are we done with missionaries leaving the field without due cause?
These questions come from 30 years of missionary service where I was a participant in the status quo. I was a ‘volunteer for Jesus’. I was a traditional missionary, doing, doing, doing while nationals watched, without ever considering getting one of them to do what I was doing. I was the teacher who had never taught a class until I arrived on the mission field. I was given leadership of a mission agency but could not inspire volunteers.
Thankfully, I was introduced to a multiplying strategy that works because it is not about what I do, but how multiplied national believers can do far more than I ever could. Now I hope to stimulate the conversation about how to avoid the dramas of my experience; how to share from my observations the changes needed in missions; and how to promote what could/should be done.
