On the 16 Nov, Dr. Scott Moreau from
Wheaton College was invited to Barnabas School for Missions in Taipei to give a
talk on “the current trend of missions”. This was his first visit to Taiwan:
God is very active in the world all the
time. When we ask what God is doing in missions, we can ask what God is doing
in the world.
There are four clusters to look at:
1)
The pace of missions:
Missions is going very fast today. It
wasn’t always that way. A Japanese theologian wrote a book, “Three Mile an Hour
God”, now we’re doing three-thousand miles per hour! 100 years ago the colonial
power was very strong in the world.
1900: months by boat or foot.
1950: weeks by boat and car.
2016: days or hours by plane. For instance,
15-hour flight from Chicago to Hong Kong. Dr. Moreau’s shortest mission only
took a weekend: Left Chicago Thursday night, arrived in Bulgaria on Friday,
spoke all day long in a church on Saturday, preached in two churches on Sunday,
then went back to Chicago on Monday.
1900: till death do I leave. In the 1900s,
missionaries pack all their things in a coffin and ship all their things in the
coffin. They aren’t planning on dying quickly but they plan on dying where they
serve in their missions.
1950s: career in missions.
2000: short to mid-term missions.
Today: micro-term missions, being there for
a few hours and fly back home.
The pace of communication:
1900: Letters take weeks by boat.
Now: One click of a button on social media
and your family and friends around the world gets an update instantaneously.
Pace of mission and communication is fast.
2)
The economics of missions/Missionomics:
Eras of globalization:
1517-1791: Columbus sailed. Martin Luther
nailed the 95 theses. Catholic church and orthodox churches were very active in
missions, while early reformers were not engaged in missions. The Moravians
were involved in missions, and they fund missions by giving people only enough
money to go to the port! Then these missionaries needed a skill to get on the
boat.
1792-1910: Catholics and orthodox were
still engaged in missions. William Carey wrote a special book, “On a means of
conversion of the heathen”. Carey suggest forming societies, which we call
“mission agencies” today. The purpose of these societies was to collect funds
for the missionaries and send the missionaries overseas. The organization
raised the funds, individual missionaries didn’t need to.
1910: A very large missionary congress took
place in Edinburg. This was the last conference the evangelicals came together with
the mainline church. Conservative ones: Evangelicals. Less conservative:
mainline church.
1911-1974: Rise of organizations of
denominations that come under one umbrella, under ecumenical organizations, eg.
World Council of Churches.
1974: The first year Lausanne had its first
big gathering. Billy Graham was the main brain trust behind this. Some 4000
people came to the gathering. We see new agencies and parachurch groups. Campus
Crusade was one of the parachurch groups that formed. Lausanne had people from
all over the world: the most diverse gathering of the church up til the history
of that time.
1974-present: Migratory missionaries, eg.
Chinese diaspora, becoming missionaries in new places. Some are after better
jobs, some are refugees. Sometimes they are accidental missionaries, they did
not want to be missionaries. They carry their faith with them, so even though
they didn’t intend to be missionaries, they still spread the faith. Missions is
from everywhere to everywhere.
Missions Funding:
1900: Wealthy benefactors.
1950: Generous individuals, many more
person giving less per person.
1980: Charitable foundations, under a tax
code.
2000: Income generating missionaries, the
largest Korean sending agency has 1500 missionaries, about 1490 of those
missionaries generate their money by working. They are “tentmakers”. Only 10 of
them are supported by the church. They are not following the western model of
missions, but developed their own model. The Koreans are very hard working.
They also often have the wife who is the professional worker, and the husband
evangelizes on campus. This is not even a normal Korean model!
3)
Missionaries and agencies:
20th century: Professional
missionaries that go everywhere. Seminary degrees, training to work as
missionaries.
Today: Many people who are amateurs in
missions but still going out for missions. We need more schools like Barnabas
School for Missions. They don’t have the same level of preparation like the
missionaries 100 years ago, not as sophisticated theologically, and may be
learning from error as they serve. “Missions, it seems, has become any
Christian volunteering to be sent anywhere in the world at any expense to do
anything for any period.” Ralph Winter. Winter is actually sad that this is
what happening today.
US tentmakers tripled between 1996 and
2008. The industry has changed in the last 100 years. 1915 missions were
dominated by mainline denominations, but with theological paradigm shifts, many
lost their focus on mission, so that by the end of the 20th century
95% of the missionaries were coming out by the evangelical movement and not
from the major denominations. Today, the evangelical movement is splintering
and going into many different directions. Many of us know we just had an
election in the US, and apparently 80% of evangelicals voted for Trump. Dr.
Moreau joked to his wife that maybe he’ll just stay in his next destination Hong
Kong instead of returning to the US, and ask her to join him there.
Comparing the Edinburgh meeting in 1910 vs.
the Lausanne meeting in Capetown 1974: In 100 years God has raised up a church
that is no longer male, white and old.
1910: People uses the term missions with
“s” all the time.
1960: it lost its “s”.
When we use “s” today, it’s about activities,
agencies, missionaries.
When we drop the “s”, it means everything
that God is doing through the church, not just what the church itself is doing.
We even have a bigger term now, Missio
Dei, mission of God! All of mission is God’s work. You can’t go anywhere in
the world where God hasn’t already been there in some form. He causes the sun
to shine, the rain to fall, everywhere in the world. He reveals himself through
nature, the sciences, and many other ways. God is active outside of the world,
and Missio Dei is the word we use to
describe that.
1900s: Social gospel, we need to meet the
physical needs of people. This is due to a theological shift away from
evangelism. As ministers became more liberal theologically, they back away from
the gospel and started doing more social work. This was the first version of holism;
Dr. Moreau calls it holism 1. Now we’re looking at a newer vision of holism.
Early on, evangelicals said no to this: they separate themselves from those who
preach a social gospel only. Word and deed must go together. The rise of the
Pentecostal movement adds a third component: miracles and signs and wonders as
a part of holism 2. From 1970s until today, evangelicals have been arguing
about this. It will be interesting to see what comes out of this movement. We
have to be careful not to let go of the gospel again this time.
New ways of “doing” missions:
In the early 1900s, we used the word “indigenization”.
The people who developed this idea talked about the “3-selfs”, which draws on
mission thinking. Churches that were self-governing, self-supporting and
self-evangelizing. This is still good work today but has been replaced by the
word “contextualization”, which talks about everything that the church is.
4)
New Partners in the Task
NEMA (Nigeria Evangelical Missions
Association): 90 agencies and churches are part of this. They have a big
vision: they want to send 25,000 Nigerian missionaries to go to Jerusalem.
Currently there are 4,000 workers.
COMIBAM (Ibero-American Missionary
Cooperation Congresses): An organization that helps Latin American church
become a missionary community.
IMA (India Missions Association): They want
to establish Jesus worshipping fellowships among every people group in India
and beyond.
Even US agencies are hiring more non-US
citizens than US citizens!
The center of missions has shifted
completely. In 1910, it was from US and Europe to the rest of the world. Today
it’s from everywhere to everywhere. We’re seeing God do amazing things.
Trivia:
Where is the largest church in the world?
Seoul, Korea. 800,000 members of one church.
In what country are the churches working to
mobilize 100,000 cross-cultural tent-making missionaries who will fan out
across central Asia to the Middle East? China.
What continent has the most evangelical
Christians? Asia (small percentage of Christians in a much larger population,
eg. China has more people than Africa. India also has more people than Africa.).
What continent has the highest growth rate
of Christians during the 20th century? Africa.
What continent has the highest percentage
of Christians actively sharing their faith? Asia (60% of Asia’s 312 million
Christians actively witness to their faith).
What is the largest mission association
(umbrella organization for missions agencies) in the world? India Missions
Association.
Which country has the most students
involved in campus Christian groups? Nigeria.
Which country provides the most members of
Operation Mobilization? India.
Which country sends out the most
missionaries per Christian? Singapore.
In which country has it been reported that
between 1/2 to 1 million Muslims come to Christ in the past 5 years? Iran.
Conclusion: It is God’s mission and He is
doing wonderful things around the world!
Q&A for Dr. Moreau:
Q: Should we receive full theological
training before we go out as missionaries?
A: I would rather you receive missions
training. You can receive good theological training everywhere in the world.
But I am not convinced you can receive good mission training everywhere in the
world. Some people never grow in their knowledge of cultures. To be a good
cross-cultural learner, we need to be humble. But we all have problems in
learning how to live in a different culture. A good missions training with a
theological foundation is better than just good theological training. I am not
arguing against good theological training. Everyone can benefit from good
theological training. However, most theological training does not understand
culture very well.
Q: Middle East is dangerous now. Are there
still many missionaries going to Middle East? What’s the most effective way to
evangelize to the Middle East?
A: Sat 7 is doing missions from outside the
Middle East, but the programs are by Middle Easterners for Middle Easterners.
They address the concerns the Middle Easterners have. One of the ways God is
bringing Muslims to Christ is through dreams. I have yet to find an American
theologian writing a book on dreams. If we begin to address the issues they are
facing rather than carry our issues on to them, it will be easier to evangelize
to them. It’s also a big challenge for me to go to the Middle East. You can
tell I am American just by looking at me. If I go in without an income, they’d
think I am CIA. You might be able to go the Middle East and they might think
it’s strange to see you, but they will not think CIA. We don’t need Americans
and Europeans going to the Middle East. We need Asians, Africans, Latin
Americans to go in. Perhaps God is calling some of you to go into the Middle
East. I would rejoice that. But I hope some of your training includes learning
Middle Eastern culture. It’s a real challenge to go into the Middle East if you
are a single woman, because in Muslim society an unescorted single woman is
always a target. And yet a woman can get into the home of a Muslim family and
speak with the wife, whereas a man can never get into the house. The man can
speak with the man who has to defend his Muslim faith. But the wife doesn’t
have to defend her faith. Many times we see the wife come to faith, who will
lead the children to faith, and perhaps even the husband, but it’s a challenge.
Do not force them to immediately do things like immediately be baptized. Many
Muslims come to church and that’s ok, but they see baptism as a dangerous step.
Let them decide what’s the right timing for it. There has been more Muslims
moving to Christ in the last 14 years than the last 1400 years. God is doing
very exciting things. For more details, read “A Wind in the House of Islam”,
David Garrison.
Q: What’s the pros and cons for professional
missionaries vs tentmaking missionaries?
A: When missionaries rely on outside
funding to keep the business alive, often the business will fail. And the local
person will wonder who this person is that doesn’t make any money and he has a
nice car and is able to fly home on a regular basis. And then they will think
CIA again. If missionaries are trained properly they will find that there are
many business opportunities around the world. But it is very hard work to start
a business. Missionaries with good intentions but no trainings often fail in
what they’re trying to do. Maybe we need to go back to the Moravian model. The
ability to do business well is an important part of being a missionary. The
Korean tentmakers: They did not all start their own business but they went to
look for jobs in companies that would hire them as migrants. Often when the
women are working, they work as nurses, with wonderful qualifications in an industry
that needs a lot of employees. We have not done this yet but I advocate mission
training incorporate good business practice training as well too. That way
people go out as trained missionaries and business people and they are more
likely to be strong and to survive when it gets hard. Maybe you can incorporate
this here, which we cannot do in the US, and you can lead the way in this. The
challenge is that some people may become so focused on doing business that they
forget they are missionaries.
Q: Most of the missionary agencies require
missionaries to do fund raising. For most of these missionaries coming from
third world countries, how can they generate the money if their income is much
lower than the countries they’re being sent to?
A: That’s where I think mission agencies in
the majority world need to set new standards. The traditional William Carey
model is that missionaries do not generate income by work, but generate income
by asking people. While there can be some benefits for Taiwanese going to the
US to raise money, I also see some problems with it. There is an element of
ongoing dependence. Americans can be generous, but they can also tell you how
to be a missionary, so the money can come with some strings attached to it.
Perhaps you have to start new agencies here to do this. One of my students from
Wheaton wanted to be a pilot in the Middle East. He was hoping to fly for a
Middle Eastern airline that he can use that as a platform for his witness. So
he graduated from the program and became a pilot for the United Airlines for
the US. After 8 years, Emirates had 12 spots for the position as a pilot and
20,000 applications for those slots. He got one of them. In part because he had
two passports and his wife had two passports. The airline does not want to
spend half a million training a pilot only to have the pilot leave the country
3 years later. As they looked at his application they probably saw that he has
two passports as well as training in intercultural studies. So he was an expert
pilot as well as expert in intercultural living. He’s not getting any money
from the West for that. He’s getting paid by the Muslims.
Q: What do you see about refugees?
A: In the US, I am trying to help people
welcome refugees. Often refugees have their faith broken and open to a new
faith. They’ve been rejected by their own countries and their own people and
they’re looking to start somewhere. I would like to see that our churches will
help refugees even if they’re of other faith, and that our church will
demonstrate to refugees that God loves them through the church. The success of
a refugee resettlement program is not directly dependent on how many people
come to Christ. It’s dependent on the church demonstrating the love of Christ
for the stranger, the foreigner, the refugee.
The link to the power point slides of the
talk:
