On influential blogger Tim Challies' regular list of links to interesting articles or resources today, one entry is:
Missionary.com has launched a great new website. One of the best features is the glossary which provides definitions for many key terms related to missions. You might also enjoy the trailer for the forthcoming Missionary documentary.
The website looks like it has lots of good, challenging and challenging material. However, it didn't get off to a good start with me because its definition of the first word I looked up, "missionary", in its technical glossary, is quite wrong and even unhelpful. The glossary is introduced with an accurate description of what a glossary is for:
Like any area of study, missionary terminology can be complex and surprising. Sometimes seemingly straightforward or even biblical-sounding terms can have an unexpected meaning. Whether you’re new to missions or going deeper, this glossary can help.
But then, what is the definition of "missionary" ?
A missionary is a person who has been called (internally and externally) to leave their home and travels to share the gospel in a foreign nation or with a foreign language group. Their mission is to obey the Great Commission found in Matthew 28:18-20, where Jesus tells us to go out and make disciples of all nations. Characterized by an instinct to evangelize, ability to endure hardship, they know their Bible well, and love Christ and His church. A missionary also needs to have an aptitude for language acquisition and cultural analysis. They often risk great harm to themselves but go, despite the risks, in obedience to Christ.
This is not how the word "missionary" is used, nor is there any reason why it must stop being used as it is actually used and instead used this way. The above is a definition of an ideal pioneering church-planting foreign missionary. Certainly that is one kind of missionary, and indeed the archetype of a missionary, what is at the heart of the overall missionary task. But equally certainly, not the only kind of missionary:
- There are also home missionaries - e.g. people in the London City Mission, Open Air Mission, missions to particular ethnic groups / migrant groups, etc. Such missionaries may be both living "at home" and may be working within their own culture.
- There are missionaries who are not working "on the front line" of pioneering evangelism to people who have never heard, but who are on the second or third lines. Missionaries may be building up an existing church; providing Bible teaching to allow converts to come to maturity, etc.
- There are missionaries in support ministries and mercy missions - medical missions, working with the handicapped, working in administration, providing logistical support and help to other missionaries, etc.
- Missionaries doing evangelism to support existing local churches, and helping local churches to grow their evangelistic competence and confidence.
If the definition from missionary.com's glossary were taken seriously, then this could discourage a lot of people who are gifted and open to being part of forwarding the gospel in situations outside of their "home" situation (even in their own country), making them think that they cannot be missionaries. It would discourage a lot of people who could help the kingdom of God on the "mission field" because they'll believe that they have to have all the core gifts at the heart of pioneering church-planting or they can't be a "missionary". Today's world actually needs people with a huge range of gifts. Lots of lines of nation, culture, belonging, language and gospel reach are now blurred; there are still places that are a simple "they've never heard, there are no churches, there is no written language or Bible" situations; but there are also others which desperately people who aren't necessarily John Paton to assist churches comes to maturity in all sorts of ways.
Paul, being a pioneer evangelist, and one with a commission to plant across the Gentile world and not just in one place, moved on quite quickly after appointing other competent leaders in churches, in order to evangelise new places. But those who remained in a fixed place to bring a church to maturity (whether like Timothy for a longer time after Paul left, or as permanent elders in the churches) were still fulfilling the Great Commission, and everybody has always described them as "missionaries". Indeed Paul himself worked in a team alongside others. He was the great apostle, the pioneering evangelist, leader of the team - but others had different roles as part of it. As they travelled with him, they were also "missionaries", as that word is universally used.
The requirement for an "internal call" is problematic in this glossary. Is it a particular spiritual experience? A continuous burden? How heavy must the burden be, and how long for? Is the experience one that passes some test to authenticate it as infallible when considered alone, or does it require validation, and if so, how? Again, you can see how this could discourage someone whom the Lord has gifted and is opening the door to for kingdom work from moving out and taking action. Some souls are very sensitive, and unless this question is handled carefully, it could delay them for years or forever. Hence, in general, something of this sort belongs in a discussion in a book about missions, not unexplained in what's meant to be a technical glossary. This glossary does say under "calling", "Internal being the conviction that this is what God has laid on your heart to do". This, though, begs for further explanation; something may be laid on your heart, but this specifically requires that God laid it on your heart - is there a process to distinguish between this, or has the glossary just used unnecessary extra wording that has introduced confusion? And has there never been anyone who believed that God wanted them to do something that they actually revolted in horror and fear from when they first went to do it, but that they felt that they were the person God intended to do it anyway? To be fair, the entry does then point the reader to a separate article to discuss it - but as I say, this does stray somewhat from what a glossary should do, which is to define things sharply and clearly in a few words, and remove ambiguities rather than raise them.
Returning to the overall definition, I'm sure if (assuming you're part of a gospel church) you reflect on the "missionaries" that your church supports, you'll see that this narrow definition is unhelpful and inaccurate. A glossary should not re-define how a word is used, and should not do so when it says itself that it is seeking how to describe how a word is actually used in the circles and literature.
The website overall looks very good and run by good people as much as anyone could tell. But I'm sorry to say, dear reader, that the above wasn't the only part that made me sigh inside. And if you can take any more, here is some......At the beginning there was also a link to a trailer video. Given the list of names below, I'd expect the trailer video to be edifying and helpful. But....
Interviews: Ian Hamilton, Mark Dever, Rosaria Butterfield, Nina Buser, Hezekiah, Michael Reeves, Conrad Mbewe, Kevin DeYoung, Me-Melar, John Piper, Wayne Chen
This is largely a list of well-known Western/English-speaking evangelical "Big Cheeses". How they got there and who appoints evangelical "Big Cheeses" isn't entirely clear, but there definitely seems to be a reasonably well defined list, plus some people who have tried very hard but didn't get admitted and ought to mortify their disappointment more than they have. In the trailer video, these "Big Cheeses" say entirely common-place things that any competent pastor or mature Christian who is not currently reading his first few missionary biographies should be able to say. Dear reader, please forgive me for studying maths in a rather earlier stage of my youth, but I begin to notice patterns, and there's one I began to notice a long time ago.
Not too long ago I saw that a large, well-known and influential church was having a "missions conference", and I couldn't help noticing that the main speakers were pastors and not missionaries and had never been missionaries. And (I've now watched the trailer from missionary.com which does this too), the main subject was missionaries who, being from the 18th and 19th centuries, they could never have met, but which it was clear that they'd read a lot about from their doubtless impressive book collections and praise-worthy reading habits (and may we all develop both of those!).
On the above list, I assume that "Hezekiah" is someone working under-cover who can't give his full name. I couldn't find out who "Me-Melar" was, so I suppose that he/she might be too. Wayne Chen was a cross-cultural missionary for 8 years. Nina Buser was for 13 years. The latter both now work for a missions agency and have no doubt learned a lot through that (7 and 8 years ago, respectively).
Again, don't get me wrong - I'm not criticising these people. They're on the right team. They're encouraging a great work. They're trying to stir up others to it as well. And yet I do wonder what is wrong with our evangelical sub-culture that you need a fancy video and "Big Cheese" names to say commonplace things about the well-known 18th and 19th-century missionaries with dramatic scenery, with "something very big is happening" mood music playing, and in voices that suggest that something very profound has been discovered and is now being revealed to us. Why do we need people with lots of strings to their bow in their on-screen bios, sitting in rooms full of books, to tell us that the church should send out missionaries who plant self-propagating churches? Do evangelicals today not actually believe anything they read in the Bible or from their bookshelves until this is done?
Again, don't get me wrong - it's all with the best of intentions, and may the Lord bless it to do much good. But it still is part of a sign that that there's something profoundly wrong with us. I do wonder to what extent we actually believe in the Holy Spirit. We are so used to having any new initiative headed up by the Big Wigs ("pastor, author, conference speaker, seminary teacher, he has travelled to 27 different countries in preaching the gospel, ...") that I begin to wonder if we actually believe that anything can be done without them. How about if instead of having a couple of days in which the important people are contacted by film crews and go through what they're going to say, and film the takes, etc., they spent 2 days in secret prayer for a few more missionaries to be raised up. Perhaps they did that too (by definition, they kept it secret!), but I don't believe it's what normally happens or what people in our evangelical sub-culture would expect to happen. I wonder, in our "heart of hearts", if we really believe that nothing can be done unless the Holy Spirit blesses, or that using the available means is to do with impressive promotional videos rather than seeking God earnestly and stripping what is hindering us in that away.
Don't misunderstand - I'm not picking particularly on the makers of this video or the people in it. I am talking about a "meta-level" trend, of something bigger that's going on. Something that we don't seem to talk about.
This is not a criticism of the website above, but is in a related area of our sub-culture. Why do so many pastors today appear to believe that part of their calling is to be a constant armchair pundit whose expertise extends to an astonishing number of subjects, and whose work as a pastor leads him to constantly share that expertise through various platforms, and develop a large following far beyond the reaches of his actual flock? Why does this strike anyone as normal, rather than a sign of a profound malaise somewhere not far beneath the surface?
This post has been long enough. But to return to where it began, I feel I at least owe you my stab at a proper definition of what the word "missionary" is used to mean in evangelicalism:
A missionary is someone who has been recognised as having appropriate spiritual gifts and evident Christian character, and set apart by the church of Jesus Christ to give themselves especially to work across one or more barriers (nationality, culture, language, etc.) or in a special outreach (e.g. to the unreached in a particular town or towns) in order to either directly work in the advance of the kingdom of God or in supporting/related tasks. At the heart of the missionary task is pioneering missionary work in forming new disciples and churches in places where they are not, but missionaries are commissioned to work in all kinds of domains behind the front-line as well as on it.
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