Global: From
childhood, at least for those growing up in a church culture, the word “mission”
conjures up long voyages to dark jungles and living with people drastically different
from those among whom the missionary has grown up. Those who were most
successful in these endeavors (measured by the people’s response to and love of
the missionaries) were those who went with an attitude of love and humility,
who lived with the people in the way the people lived, learned new ways of
eating and dressing, learned new languages, and adapted their teaching to that
new language. Books abound that tell stories of people groups who were
resistant until a missionary who was paying attention enough to their belief systems began to
talk about the Everlasting Gospel through the stories of the people themselves.
Most often, the missionaries gained new insights into God’s love and grace, as
well.
A term that has become very familiar in recent
years is the “10/40 Window,” the designation for that area of the world in
which the majority of people have not heard about Jesus. This is the area
between ten degrees and forty degrees north of the equator and stretches from
North Africa to China. It is not only an area that is underserved by Christian outreach,
it is also an area of heavy population density, and of great need. If
missionaries arrive whose only goal is to tell these people “how to get to
heaven,” they will not have as much impact as those who also help them live
healthfully and safely today, where they are, and without trying to erase their
own cultures.
We need to pay much more attention to Jesus’
missionary methods. He arrived with humility, lived with little fanfare among
the people for three decades, which
seems a shocking waste of time to us, wore their clothes, ate their food, spoke
their language, and showed by His every word and action that they were deeply
important to Him and to His Father. Then, when He spoke, they listened.
Local Mission: As important as that 10/40 window is, it is equally imperative
that Jesus is known to all in our own communities. In many ways, this means an
even deeper preparation in learning the languages and customs of the people
group to which one is called. Just because we speak English, and even perhaps
go to church, it does not follow that we think the same or understand our
neighbors when they speak. We have a good track record in speaking to people
from similar, Bible-based, church-going cultures to our own. If someone
believes the Bible is the Word of God, we know how to show them what it says
about various topics they may have questions about, or how it speaks to a need
or crisis they may be facing.
But what if my neighbors are completely secular,
perhaps never having seen the inside of a church? What if they aren’t even sure
there is a God, let alone that Jesus was His (or Her or Its) Son? What if they
are Neopagan, or New Age, or spiritualist or Buddhist? What if every word I am
used to saying about God is like so much gibberish to them? Then I have a few
choices.
I can try to talk to them in the missionary
language of my childhood and then give up, assuming that “they don’t care.”
This is, quite simply, not a godly choice. It’s a judgment we are not equipped
to make.
I can wait for someone else to reach them. This
may be a valid choice. I may not be called by God to evangelize them, but only
to love them openly, pray for them fervently, and wait for God to move.
I can learn their language and try to enter
their world with the hope of inviting them into mine. This is a dangerous
choice, because in “entering their world” we don’t mean living in a way that
denies or compromises our faith, we mean trying to learn to see things through
their eyes, to “walk in their moccasins” for awhile. So I’d better not do it
unless I am certain that God is calling me, personally, to this mission field,
and unless I have close, supportive, strong Christian backup.
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