Real missionary work rooted in gospel
Real missionary work rooted in gospel
The Rev. Wally MorrisCharity Baptist Church
Published: November 8, 2008 6:00 a.m. People of Praise
In 1793, 98 percent of Protestants lived in Europe and North America. After 100 years of aggressive missionary activity, by 1900, that percentage had decreased to 90 percent, still very high.
Today, however, Christianity has spread to the Southern Hemisphere, Africa and Asia. Despite persecution, the number of Christians in China and India has grown. In fact, some of the athletic equipment used during the Olympics in China was made by political prisoners and Christians in “re-education” work camps.
Yet, in North America and particularly in Europe, Christianity is struggling to survive as Islam is rapidly replacing Christianity. What Muslims tried to do centuries ago is now being accomplished through immigration and the theological bankruptcy of European Christianity. Islam is growing in Europe because the Christian churches of Europe do not have anything substantial or meaningful to offer people.
Last fall, another man in our church and I went to Africa to visit some missionaries whom our church supports. In that remote location, we saw the hardships of Africans and of the missionaries who bring them the gospel of Christ.
Although missions may include social and medical programs to relieve the suffering of people, basic missionary work must always be the gospel of the saving grace of Jesus Christ.
Medical missions have a long and noble history of reaching people with the gospel. Christ himself established the precedent for medical missions by his healing ministry.
But too often, social work and construction programs become an end in themselves, and the gospel never seems to get mentioned.
We saw evidence of well-meaning but ineffective social programs in rural Africa, such as the wells and pumping stations that European and American agencies had built but which no longer worked because no one maintained the equipment.
Ironically, North America and Europe are now the mission fields. Many people in our affluent country consider Jesus Christ irrelevant to real life. And the Jesus whom many worship on Sunday (and even Saturday night!) is a Jesus who is basically a glorified buddy, a super-spiritual pal who makes us feel good while we make minimal changes to our life.
In Africa, we saw humble believers in the resurrected Jesus Christ, believers who live simply and sparsely but who also have a dedication to Christ that shames our complacency and excuses.
We saw Christian men walk or ride a bicycle several miles just to attend a Sunday afternoon Bible study. We saw a Christian man, trained as a schoolteacher but, instead, doing simple masonry work because his local village refused to pay him. We saw missionaries willing to invest years of their lives to build a small group of believers so that the next generation will have something to build on.
Too often, missions work focuses on picking up garbage, constructing a building or home, or digging a well. Although in limited and specific circumstances, these may have their place, missions work must always focus on the supreme king of kings and salvation in Christ alone, a salvation that transforms every area of life, thus creating the social change that many try to achieve without the gospel.
Unfortunately, because of skewed emphases, much missions work is hardening people to the very gospel they need to hear. When we went into a village to tactfully and carefully present the gospel, the village elders wanted to know whether we had come to build them a well. When they discovered that building a well was not our purpose, some were not interested.
Although the social and physical needs of people are very real and heartbreaking, those needs are not the most important. We saw villages that had a working well but that also had lazy, abusive men with two or three wives, signs warning about AIDS, and taunting of white people by children. I’ll let you figure out who taught the children to do that.
We saw the simple, mud-brick church, sacrificially built by a small group of African believers. And we also saw the grooves in the outside walls of the church where herdsmen had driven their cattle as close as possible to the wall, hoping the wall might collapse as the cattle’s large horns dug into the walls.
Those Protestant churches that still believe the Bible must instill and inspire our young people to consider missionary work – not the social work that so often passes for missions, but the hard, spiritual work of the resurrected Christ who died on the cross for our wretched sin against a holy God.
That is missions work. Anything else is a shallow and ultimately ineffective substitute.
The Rev. Wally MorrisCharity Baptist Church
Published: November 8, 2008 6:00 a.m. People of Praise
In 1793, 98 percent of Protestants lived in Europe and North America. After 100 years of aggressive missionary activity, by 1900, that percentage had decreased to 90 percent, still very high.
Today, however, Christianity has spread to the Southern Hemisphere, Africa and Asia. Despite persecution, the number of Christians in China and India has grown. In fact, some of the athletic equipment used during the Olympics in China was made by political prisoners and Christians in “re-education” work camps.
Yet, in North America and particularly in Europe, Christianity is struggling to survive as Islam is rapidly replacing Christianity. What Muslims tried to do centuries ago is now being accomplished through immigration and the theological bankruptcy of European Christianity. Islam is growing in Europe because the Christian churches of Europe do not have anything substantial or meaningful to offer people.
Last fall, another man in our church and I went to Africa to visit some missionaries whom our church supports. In that remote location, we saw the hardships of Africans and of the missionaries who bring them the gospel of Christ.
Although missions may include social and medical programs to relieve the suffering of people, basic missionary work must always be the gospel of the saving grace of Jesus Christ.
Medical missions have a long and noble history of reaching people with the gospel. Christ himself established the precedent for medical missions by his healing ministry.
But too often, social work and construction programs become an end in themselves, and the gospel never seems to get mentioned.
We saw evidence of well-meaning but ineffective social programs in rural Africa, such as the wells and pumping stations that European and American agencies had built but which no longer worked because no one maintained the equipment.
Ironically, North America and Europe are now the mission fields. Many people in our affluent country consider Jesus Christ irrelevant to real life. And the Jesus whom many worship on Sunday (and even Saturday night!) is a Jesus who is basically a glorified buddy, a super-spiritual pal who makes us feel good while we make minimal changes to our life.
In Africa, we saw humble believers in the resurrected Jesus Christ, believers who live simply and sparsely but who also have a dedication to Christ that shames our complacency and excuses.
We saw Christian men walk or ride a bicycle several miles just to attend a Sunday afternoon Bible study. We saw a Christian man, trained as a schoolteacher but, instead, doing simple masonry work because his local village refused to pay him. We saw missionaries willing to invest years of their lives to build a small group of believers so that the next generation will have something to build on.
Too often, missions work focuses on picking up garbage, constructing a building or home, or digging a well. Although in limited and specific circumstances, these may have their place, missions work must always focus on the supreme king of kings and salvation in Christ alone, a salvation that transforms every area of life, thus creating the social change that many try to achieve without the gospel.
Unfortunately, because of skewed emphases, much missions work is hardening people to the very gospel they need to hear. When we went into a village to tactfully and carefully present the gospel, the village elders wanted to know whether we had come to build them a well. When they discovered that building a well was not our purpose, some were not interested.
Although the social and physical needs of people are very real and heartbreaking, those needs are not the most important. We saw villages that had a working well but that also had lazy, abusive men with two or three wives, signs warning about AIDS, and taunting of white people by children. I’ll let you figure out who taught the children to do that.
We saw the simple, mud-brick church, sacrificially built by a small group of African believers. And we also saw the grooves in the outside walls of the church where herdsmen had driven their cattle as close as possible to the wall, hoping the wall might collapse as the cattle’s large horns dug into the walls.
Those Protestant churches that still believe the Bible must instill and inspire our young people to consider missionary work – not the social work that so often passes for missions, but the hard, spiritual work of the resurrected Christ who died on the cross for our wretched sin against a holy God.
That is missions work. Anything else is a shallow and ultimately ineffective substitute.
posted by Young Saeng Korean Presbyterian Church at
11:21 PM
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