Missions and the Local Church- A look at cooperative missions and missions sending orginizations

For the sake of review, let me give a synopsis of the things that I am focusing on in this series before moving on to the subject of cooperative missions. I believe that the primary mission sending organization is the local church. Let me put that in a way that may be more biblical. The church's mission is to spread the glory and gospel of God throughout all nations. Now, I have said that one of the stumbling blocks to the church seeing this as their mission is the disconnect that both the church feels when its missionaries leave and the missionaries feel from their church when they leave. I would like to charge both to keep in contact with one another and to hold one another accountable. If you are a missionary out on the field and you are reading this and you haven't heard from your home church in years; send them a letter, or an email that lovingly asks for their support and care. If you are a church member and you haven't heard from missionaries in years but you remember sending them out, take the time to find out who has been sent out and contact them. They'll appreciate it. Most importantly—maintain contact.

Now, with that said, I know that I have also said that I feel mission sending organizations have unintentionally communicated that they are the primary mission sending organization. I, being a Southern Baptist, have looked directly at the IMB and asked what they are doing to connect missionaries to local churches. But, I also see the way they view themselves in the mission sending organization. They want to "lead" Southern Baptist in doing missions. I have suggested that they "serve." Now, what does that mean? Isn't cooperative missions important? Are there different ways of doing cooperative missions? How could the IMB serve the SBC churches in doing missions?

First, let me say that I am very supportive of cooperative missions. I am not against it, and I think that missions sending organizations have done a great service to the kingdom of God. So, by no means am I suggesting we kick the IMB or NAMB to the curb. Cooperative missions is very important especially for those churches that cannot afford to send missionaries out on their own. Now, I could continue to develop this point, but I'll be developing it throughout the post so I'll depart from it for right now.

Second, there are different ways of doing cooperative missions. One way, is through your local association (See this post for the importance of associational missions). There are a few advantages to this. First, it puts you in contact with people that are around you, can get to know you and examine your life. One of the greatest problems I've seen with the way we do missions in the SBC currently is that the IMB or NAMB has to make decisions based upon a few meetings and references. They really don't know the Christian who is applying to go overseas. My feeling is that the church could do a much better job at setting apart those who are to be sent out.

What if churches or associations were sending missionaries? Would we still need the IMB? Absolutely! The IMB could help coordinate these two in doing missions by letting them know of other churches/associations working in a particular area where they are sending people. They could also help by giving money to associations that struggle financially year after year. In this they would be providing a service. There also may be some associations and churches not actively sending missionaries. They could help encourage, educate and equip the church/association for this (wow I just did some alliteration! I have a three point sermon!). They would take less of a leadership position over these churches as they have now, but they would provide a great service to the SBC. Would the IMB be willing to do this?

The IMB could also be Johnny-on-the-spot when catastrophes happen (such as tsunamis) in the areas where missionaries are at work, all the time connecting with the local church/associations to do so. I've been part of several churches, and my father has been a pastor of some that have split just before we arrived. So, I know all too well that sometimes power struggles can happen in a church. The IMB could help a missionary family out who has been defunded because Mr. "I've got money" quits tithing because the new fellowship hall wasn't named after his grandmother. The IMB could help support those missionaries that lose their funding for reasons beyond the fact that the missionaries were not being faithful to what they had been sent out to do.

There are many other ways that the IMB could help serve us, the local church, that I haven't listed here . Nor, have I worked out all the logistical problems of my suggestion. All I want to do is ask, "can we do this differently?" My generation is good at asking questions and picking apart people and ideas (like some have done when they criticize the IMB), but we never provide any answers. I hope that this will cause us to reexamine the local churches role in sending missionaries and provide an answer to some of the question that many are asking.

Finally, let me say one thing to missionaries who feel called to go to a different country (this is a little off subject). You don't need a missionary sending organization, a church, or whatever, to pay your bills for you while you serve as a missionary. You could work overseas, or just buy a one way ticket and put your trust in God to take care of you. Read Bruchko. Here, you'll see a young man who bought a one way ticket to Colombia to work with Indians who had never heard the gospel. He did so with absolutely no financial backing. I do encourage you to seek your local churches support (none would give it to the author of this book) and work with them in what you feel called to do.

Through Christ,
Dougald

PS-Please have mercy on me if I have not said something well! Or, ask me to clarify! :)

Missions and the Local Church: Part 2- Ecclesiology is Essential

Before one can ask the question of what is missions? One must answer the question, what is the church? What is its function? How is one church or local believers supposed to work with another church of local believers? What is the responsibility they have towards one another in Christ?

These are questions I won't answer here, in fact, all I want to do is raise questions in this post. I hope that these questions stimulate us as we think about what the church is supposed to be biblically. One important question that I have is this: Have the church and its mission been separated from one another? Or, has the mission of the church been separated from its mission?

Growing up in several small country churches one of the best things that would happen is to have the opportunity to meet a RLM (Real Live Missionary). I don't remember any of the RLMs that I met actually being from my local church. It wasn't until I moved to a church in Nashville, NC that my father pastored for a while, when I actually met someone who had spent more than two weeks in another country doing mission work. Even my language betrays the bifurcation of the church and its mission. See, I am discussing missions as the work that only happens overseas. I probably should correct that.

But, I digress...My point here, is that no one went out from our church to do missions (even planting churches in our local area--unless of course there was a church split, which usually we arrived after this at churches). There was always a feeling that the RLMs were someone special who God called out from Churches, but usually not ours.

It also seemed that as I began to meet missionaries from different local churches, their connection to the local churches after they had left was slim. Very few people contacted them and the church never really held them accountable. They were, however, held accountable by a missions sending organization and their donors.

Does this communicate a close tie between the church and the one's sent out? What about a tie between the church and its mission? What are your experiences? Do we think that this is a biblical model? How can we change, if in fact, there needs to be one?

The mission organizations have done wonderful things, but I think they have run their course, at least in their present structure. Next time we'll look closer at why I want to change that word "lead" to "serve." And, what it would mean to "serve" Southern Baptist churches in doing missions.

Through Christ,
Dougald

Missions and the Local Church: Part 1-Introduction

I hope to begin a series of posts related to missions and the local church. My overall goal in these posts will be to spell out what I hope would be a change in the way missions is related to the local church. This will require some rethinking (not bashing) of the IMB's functions and other mission sending organizations functions. I will call on my other two compadres to add their comments and posts as well during this time as they are more qualified. I also ask for a great deal of grace in this matter as I am not privy to the private things of the IMB. I do not know them, nor is my goal to expose them.

Mainly, I'm looking at how its ideology functions. What is the philosophy or purpose of the IMB as a missionary sending organization? I'm not asking, "How bad are the practices of the IMB?" My overall goal is to suggest a slight change in thinking where the local church is the primary mission sending organization. I would also like to change the IMB mission statement which says they hope "to lead Southern Baptists in doing missions." I would rather it read, "to serve Southern Baptists in doing missions." This is a slight change in terms, but a huge change in philosophy.

The essential problem is this. Why in the past have missionaries been so disconnected from their local church? Sure, the efforts have been made by some, but not by all, to keep the connection between the missionary and the sending church, but this has not been done successfully. I believe that this is due to the philosophy of both the local church and mission sending organizations. It separates the mission of the church and puts it in the hands of boards, and organizations. This is what we'll be looking at for the next couple of weeks. I hope to lay out what I think the fundamental misstep has been and then suggest some changes. Then, I hope to give a picture of what this might look like in the future for the SBC if the IMB were to serve and the local church were to send.

Finally, let me say that the local churches need to get in contact with their missionaries on the field. We have recently done so at my church and we are beginning a campaign to "Hold the Ropes." It is my hope that we will also become the primary missionary sending organization of for our church members. In short, we hope that churches will be truly planting churches, and not organizations planting churches (I am indebted to Wes Handy for this idea, though he might say it differently or say it in a different context). The mission of the local church is missions. Thus, the name of this blog: Missions as Ecclesiology. The two are not separate. As one of the bloggers that I read has said to me in conversation, "We're on a mission trip right now!" We end that trip when we die. And now I have officially slipped over to rambling.

With that said...Through Christ,
Dougald