TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY MISSIONS: GLOBAL AND APOSTOLIC
By William R. O'Brien

Texas Baptists Committed Annual Convocation

The "age of trial" extended itself into our day. It has gained momentum and intensity with every war, every pestilence, every new super ego attaining political power, every technological break-through, the rise and fall of ideologies, the crumbling of the Enlightenment experiment and heightened religious rhetoric competing for the minds and loyalties of new adherents.

"We live, my dear soul, in the age of trial. I know not what the consequence will be."

John Adams spoke those words to his wife, Abigail, in 1774. (As recorded by David McCullough in his new biography, John Adams.)

If John and Abigail lived today he would probably repeat his same words spoken 225 years earlier with even greater conviction.

Out of the age of trial in the late 18th Century came the modern missionary movement. Within 18 years after John Adams' statement, William Carey was on his way to India. What are the characteristics of our own age of trial? Where is the church? And who from India will come to the USA?

I begin this message with two categorical statements:

1. Civilizationally, we live in a new global era.

2. Ecclesiologically, we live in a new apostolic era.

GLOBAL

John Adams knew nothing of the compression of space and time. For him here and there were defined by boundaries. Within a hundred years the new colonial powers arbitrarily redrew many of those boundaries to enhance their own power. After another hundred years the boundaries were still in place. But power coalesced around three major blocks: first world, second world and third world.

Our 21st Century began by the early 1970s. While mapmakers produced atlases showing the old boundaries, the Internet created a new version of the Exodus and the Passover. The worldwide web liberated minds everywhere and passed over all previous, and now artificial boundaries.

The paradigm has already shifted. Astute readers of trends are not forecasting the future. They are reading the past. Major trends are not foreshadows of things to come. They are merely the wake left after the Ship of Change has already cut through the waters.

Time and space have been compressed. It's a 24/7 world. There is only a now with a bare cutting edge of a future and no past.

Demographic shifts and migration patterns redefine the makeup of neighborhoods all over our nation and the world. Those who appear radically different to us now live next door. Ray Bakke calls it geographic nearness with cultural distance. People, information, money, technology, disease and frustration migrate at a dizzying pace. The response of many churches to the phenomenon is to either withdraw, insulate and reinforce boundaries that define, who is out and who is in or to crusade against people and trends that are tearing up the structures they idolize as sacred.

Moralists cry out with great indignation that our country is on the slippery slope of secular humanism.  They think if we don't turn this thing around our fate will be the same as Rome and other civilizations that rose and fell. But those so-called trends they are warning us about are really the rear-view mirror through which we look at the backside of major shifts. What is even scarier is the prescribed methodology to turn it all around. In a 1992 Time magazine essay Walter Isaacson said it well: "Idealistic crusaders make dangerous statesmen when the morality they seek to impose is self-defined."

Acculturated religionists hiding behind spiritual verbiage find it hard to confess that we already live in a non-Christian culture, locally and globally. Craig Van Gelder states "The church now finds itself increasingly two steps removed from persons shaped by the contemporary culture. The church no longer shares a common language with these persons, and it finds itself living with forms that for the most part have either been marginalized or privatized in meaning." ("Defining the Center Finding the Boundaries." (Missiology, July 1994)

As Western mission models bear the onus of being a product of an increasingly secularized culture they reflect its model and rules of its game more than one would care to admit. Even where mission has been valid and effective, reporting it often carries overtones of triumphalism that make it difficult for the outsider to differentiate it from the action and attitude of a conqueror.

APOSTOLIC

Churches and believers making a difference today are those who live out a spirituality in the market place and public square as minority entities in a hostile culture. If the early, dynamic church was pre-Constantinian, the relevant churches today are post-Constantinian. Christendom is over. Van Gelder states, "We will need to shake off the remaining vestiges of a Christendom perspective which expects the world to take the church seriously, and to refocus our attention to how we should now seek out the world."

Memory and hope, fueled by the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, marked the post-resurrection, post-ascension church. Eager anticipation of gathering and worshipping was matched by boldness in gossiping the good news. Persecution was common. Believers scattered like seed carried by the wind. Where they landed they planted themselves as resident aliens between the pagan and heathen.  No programs or projects. No strategic plans. Just dependence and sensitivity to the Spirit's nudging. They were mere humans like their unbelieving neighbors, but displayed a quality of life so different to them they had a magnetic drawing power that validated both their words and deeds.

We live in the midst of the third major shift of the church--this one into the Southern hemisphere and eastern part of the world. Africa, Latin America and Asia host the most dynamic churches in the world. African Independent churches spring up new almost daily. No missionary presence. Style of worship and expressions of faith are radically different to their Western counterparts. And they are producing their own form of mission outreach. Mostly out of poverty.

Persecution again marches untamed. Last year there were approximately 165,000 Christian martyrs in over 50 countries. This year's projections exceed last year's total. Boldness of first magnitude marks the witness of young and old facing the threat of death. Programs, projects and pragmatism of untested Western churches pale in comparison to the faithful witness of our sisters and brothers in many parts of the world.

So what are we to do? What is the future role of American churches in the world Christian mission? Just a few suggestions to provoke thought and discussion:

LEARN

Learn from the whole of scripture what is the cosmic mission of God. Learn what God is doing in the four-fifths world--where 80 percent of the world's population lives--where the majority of Christ-followers live. Sit at the feet of those whose faith has been sharpened by persecution, grief, and loss. Offer our own spiritual gifts to be integrated with the gifts of others as we learn how to collaborate in bearing witness together.

LOOK

Look for the gaps reflecting the absence of any knowledge of God's love. No church. No believers. No scripture available in the heart language of the people. About one-fourth of the world's people populate these gaps. At present some 95 percent of all Christian debate deals only with missions in the midst of the present Christian world. Another 4 percent concerns mission in the evangelized non-Christian world. Less than 1 percent of all thinking and action concerns missions among the unevangelized. How can expressions of the global church be planted alongside the modern pagan and heathen in credible ways that bear witness to new life in Christ?

LOSE

Lose, slough and get rid of any and all attitudes of arrogance, triumphalism and one-upsmanship in kingdom endeavors. Give up control. Cease to micro-manage the missions' enterprise in ways that reinforce the image of Ugly Churchman.

LISTEN

Listen intently and compassionately to persons created in the image of God who embrace other religions. In a world in migration, pluralism is a reality that should evoke something higher and nobler than outcries of horror. We need to let our transmitters take a Sabbath rest while we engage in active listening to ascertain how God may be present in every situation.  Let us rejoice when we encounter truth and light. In a posture of listening love, let us build relationships that earn the rights of reciprocity--including the spoken witness.

LIVE

Live out a kingdom lifestyle and kingdom priorities. Many of our churches developed around a church-centered focus. If church planting and church-growth are our main goals, we may have broken the First Commandment. It is the missio Dei, the mission of God that we serve--not the church. Further, North American involvement in the world Christian mission must be willing to deal with the problem of affluence and money in a world deeply divided between haves and have-nots. It is even more so because much of the impetus for missions now comes from churches and believers among the have-nots.

LOVE

Love God and love our neighbors. All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments. Neighbors who may be Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or Jewish are not targets for evangelistic strategy. They are neighbors to be loved. We must change our vocabulary if we are to change our mindset.

CONCLUSION

Mission is part of the church's DNA. It draws the whole system toward a common future: fulfilling the purpose for which it was created.

Future Pull is a phenomenon in which a "blueprint of the future serves as the propelling force of creative change...Every single cell grows by being pulled forward by its internal picture of the possible future. That future is inscribed in the DNA, the genes that reside in the nucleus of every cell. That way, every part of the system can pull together toward the common future. In human terms, that translates into living with a powerful vision of the future." ("Breakpoint and Beyond: Mastering the Future--Today" by George Land and Beth Jarman. Adapted for the Futurist, Fall 1995)

The Cross-Resurrection-Ascension-Pentecost sequence ushered in a proleptic reality for the church. Our Servant Lord not only stands with us but also beyond us, beckoning and pulling us toward that for which the church was created.

How can the missio Dei once again capture the heart of the Western church, your church and mine? What kind of radical reformation will it take for our acculturated churches to reach their full potential? Are we helping our people to understand that their missions potential cannot be uncoupled from what God is doing among believers and churches throughout the world that look different, worship differently and bring deeper levels of commitment to Christ than their Western counterparts? Can we be more missio-preneurial, innovative and risk-taking sensitive not only to where the movement of God is, but able to respond to it quickly?

Let us gladly respond to the future pull built into the church. And that pull is toward all those places where Christ is today. After all, he promised that he would prepare such places, that where he was, there we could be also. A third millennium missionary pilgrimage will carry us through the valley of post modernity and into all those places where our servant Lord stoops to conquer.

  September 2001