Missions in general has many flawed aspects to it from the modern perspective. But one of the most flawed position in modern missionaries and fundamentalism is where men feel they have to have some similitude to men of other centuries. Many do what they do today in missions because of “ol’ timers” like Hudson and Carey all though they aren’t actually doing anything like them. It makes them feel justifiable in their own orthodoxy. The world was largely different then it is today. Many of these men did nothing like we do today. I mean in some cases, not one single thing! And don’t give me your typical retort back saying “God is the same today yesterday and forever!”
The way God moved with men in the time of the 1700-1920’s was not so much a testament to the men, but to the movement of the Holy Spirt of God with the world! Those men were still men and we do not follow their examples or creeds. We have our own authority. We have a book as they did, and many of those forefathers of flesh we love to revel in so much were off the on areas the same way we can be off on areas.
I am fully aware that Christian missions and missionaries for nearly 200 years have been the most redemptive force on the face of the earth. But our overall attitude of going abroad, to far away lands often times has become a Westernized, over saturating, reforming, Kingdom building movement. Not a movement for the expressed purpose of winning souls to Christ and emphasizing growth for converts. In this movement, our own American traditions travel with us to these far away lands, making real conversion much harder to convey to indigenous people.
Now, what the typical outreach, church going, mission minded person does not know is that it is was a inquisitive study, not a doctrinal thesis, by William Carey (1761-1834), that initially gave us our whole foundation for the missions concepts or missions work today. It has a rather long title (An enquiry into the obligation of Christians to use means for the conversion of the heathens).
William Carey’s inquiry began the general debate and concept of missions. I feel obligated to add this fact that William Carey was a Calvinist, which I consider to be a oxymoron for any “mission minded” type. What I mean is; Why go to a people to win them to Christ if in your doctrine (Calvinism) are already predestinated to go to Heaven or Hell, of which a Calvinist believes?
Carey was also a post-millennialist! Which really brings to light his philosophies, and Kingdom building mindset about missions and great commission theology. “...His optimistic perspective on world missions, which he derived from postmillennial theology.” “William Carey was a devout Calvinist in the matters of a systematic approach to Biblical hermeneutics. He maintained the Post-Millennial position.”
Are we kingdom builders too? It brings to light the “reformers” mind with missions. I have respect for the dead and their works, but they arrived at many faulty conclusions in the scriptures! The historical fact remains, that “missions” or the missions concept was practically non existent in practice or concept before Carey and men like Taylor!
So don’t let the modern missions crowd fool you into thinking they are doing it like the old timers, I assure you, they are not doing it like Carey, Judson, Taylor, Wesley or any of them. They just use them, their legacies and a few occasional quotes to bolster their positions. These early pioneers of missions work, such as Carey, and Taylor were for reaching the world, but they in no way shape or form used the guile, and fraudulent practices we do today in doing so in the Independent Baptist society.
Maybe, now hang with me, but just maybe the mission field is not Ghana, Indonesia, China, Japan, Russia, or any 10/40 window that you see with your 20/20 vision. Maybe in these last days a “white unto harvest” mission field is the vileness of the American workplace, or our American cities itself. I mean, think for a second, to the Jew living in Jesus‘ day, America would be THE mission field. A wicked, degenerate, heathenistic, immoral, perverse, Gentile nation.
Maybe we don’t need to send any more pubescent, over-zealous young men across the pond and to the jungles to save the world so we can be proud of our preacher boys and sons. Why not save the world here! Maybe we should try training them, teaching them, edifying them, and seeing what they have to offer their own neighborhoods and societies of which they have been familiar with for years already. What a dumb idea, I know! To STAY instead of GO.
That would be to boring. No one would get noticed. No one would get meetings. No one would get support. A man working a job in a society in which he was raised and saved (born again) should just “Go into all the world” but his immediate area somehow is not in the classification of the world?
Maybe in these last days we need small guerilla fighters of resistance scattered across our land, true Christians, decent folk, good neighbors, honest people, with a local “assembly”, “meeting”, “singing”, “cheerfully giving”, “full of charity”, “worshipping”, “praying”, “studying”, “rightly dividing”, comparing “scripture with scripture”, comparing spiritual with spiritual, doing things “decently and in order”, “providing all things honest in the sight of all men”, “giving none offence”, while preaching the offence of Christ without giving offence. Ya know, all that stuff we read about in Pauls’ epistles and other passages.
The whole community thing! Why is it we only believe in community when it comes to evangelizing!? We only buy into that stuff when it falls in line with our church affairs. This is warped! When we are lights in the community, totally away from the local church, unassociated with meeting times and Sunday, people will develop a truer relationship with you because there is no pretense or assumption. When people develop relationships with people, not just a building with all it’s appropriated times and rigid schedules, is when the holy spirit truly begins to shine through his body.
Now I realize I may be steeping on toes here and entering murky, vague, unspecific waters, but indulge me to discuss missions in a different light for a moment. I know some things may be taken as offense, but there is a darker side of “missions” that no one discusses. There are stories kept on the down low. Things pastors never share in prayer letter reading time on Wednesday nights. Loss of family, mission board abuses, serious health concerns, secret sins hidden and condoned for the greater good, physical danger to family members, rampant adultery, men physically abusing their wives, thefts, family strain, etc.
Now some would just cast all this aside as just “sufferin for Jesus”. Some would just say here that they “are enduring hardness as good soldiers”. They are so good with justifications with this stuff. All this justification and talk of our efficiency, and that being the reasons behind our methods is a very loose argument and largely based on pragmatic conclusions not biblical patterns in order and doctrine.
How is our way of doing missions efficient? It is a legitimate question. If a missionary survives deputation it usually takes longer than 3 years. He has to follow other established rules by other men. Who set this up? Why do we do this? Why not just GO like people claim to be called. Men just call it “their testing grounds” or their “boot camp”. But where is any of these methods mirrored in the word of God or Church history for that matter? Where do you see men do what we do today? Where do you see men jumping through all the hoops of traditions and observances to get to a desired location?
Men often go to fields, not even knowing the language or anything about the culture aside from some statistics that their pastors gave them or they worked up in their preparation. I have seen cases where men go to the field to go to language school, so they are in country for months, not knowing the language! How is this efficient? How is this effective?
Men often go to fields with the dependency rule in tow, which teaches them they need more monetary wealth and possessions then the indigenous people have that they are sacrificing so much to go preach to. If the faith promise dries up, which it often does, or the support is hindered from the states, which is often is, they usually just return back home. Why not stay? Suffer for the cause as a good soldier and all that. Weren’t you called?
Many missionaries are fresh out of Seminary, some newly married, some single, most with much zeal. Often, they have not even lived a testimony of Christ among the lost world they live in, but only the Church they were raised in. Some of these kids have been raised in the ministry. It’s all they know. Their jobs as teenagers were ministry type jobs. It’s as if they can only serve God in their minds by surrendering to some mystic call of the ministry. How did missions, ministry, deputation, support, mission boards and such get defined in these manner? Do we even know when such customs started. Do we care to know. Didn’t any of you men before me inquire?
Some missionary families live in compounds with attack dogs and assault rifles, running water, electricity, off road vehicles, all terrain vehicles, mansions on hill tops, internet, the latest computers and handheld gadgets, phones, other modern conveniences, and an abundance of monthly support, that is usually just wasted in the processes we have addicted ourselves too.
Who wouldn’t proclaim, “I‘m addicted to the ministry”. Who wouldn’t love the ministry? While the people we preach to have none of these things, we justify our need for them. We live in mansions, in their eyes, while they live in shacks. “But we are preaching Jesus!” some would say to argue this point. Whatever man! This IS our witness on a multitude of fields.
I had a prominent missionary tell me, “You have to treat deputation like a business. You have to sell yourself, and present your presentation with Charisma!” It’s a sales pitch. Though a noble one for many, a sales pitch none the less. You are traveling from church to church asking for MONEY. Call it support, call it pledges, its you, asking them for money to do something that you want to do. Yeah yeah, I know, God called you… God lead you. You are still asking for money for your vision. Are you not? Just stay with me.
We support a system that has American men, preaching to Chinese people, in Canada! And everyone just kinda goes, umm, ho hum, thats nice! We pay for 20 something newlywed couples, 6 months removed from marriage to set up home in some far away land, so they can learn the language at language schools in country all at the expense of the body! I know, I’m judging! Sue me. Like you don’t. You just don’t say anything. Don’t feel bad. I didn’t either.
We are so close minded as to how many grifters and charlatans there are in our pulpits around America, traveling the country, or on the mission field. Yeah I said it! It’s all just really shakedowns by professional con-men! Now most are just following the leaders, but they should have enough God and guts in them to come to terms with their cognitive dissonance.
Not to mention the way men are always changing their “calls” around, you have to start to wonder. Did God call you? We just say, “He shut the door”, another catch phrase we like to us. This is disorderly. These are men making the gospel of Christ with charge citing expense for the Lord’s work! And often, the body of Christ, those who support such endeavors, are only presented with a one sided portrayal of the mission field so they readily give. You would not believe some facts of the mission field if I told you! It would seems as bizarre to you as a “Tarantino film” would be to your grandmother, if any of you heathen know what that means.
The door to that country closes, the calling changes to another similar country, perhaps with a suitable dialect to match their learning, and the process begins again. Recycled and wasted efforts. I know the good stories, but spare me, the bad far out weigh the good.
We advocate building funds to the tune of 100,000 for a new church for 20 people, because God led us to expand!? We build a new gym for the 15 teenage members we have? We start a school like everyone else for the 4 kids we have. Expenses you can’t not even believe!
We send Faith Promise over to help the missionary somewhere in New Guinea to the tune of 60,000 a year, preaching to people making 10 cents a week. No one ever considers Paul when he said, “Give None Offense that the ministry be not blamed”! What are we doing?! Men doing shady business deals with premium tax benefits, you can ‘t believe the lengths of which I have heard men justify their business savvy with spiritual promise.
Do we not see the waste and offense we have let go unchecked for centuries? But anytime someone says anything like this, inevitable some one points out this guy and that guys that do this and that. Seriously people! We live in a day where the good missionaries are the exception and the bad ones are the rule. Don’t you get it? We are not in the 1700 and 1800s where there was a great and effectual door. Those days of men simply going to gain men are long gone! Cause all I see is this guy and that. The same old brand, the same old faces. The same old attitude. The same old false gospel.
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