This video from the Great Commission Council speaks about the importance of correctly interpreting Matthew 24:14 for global missions. This verse in context is a promise of the unstoppable gospel of the kingdom, not a call to try to speed up Christ’s return by discovering and implementing new and rapid methodologies.
Are the coming of Christ and the gospel’s preaching to all the nations connected? Yes, but we need to be careful how we understand that connection. My kids want to use this verse to say that it’s not really possible that Jesus could come back tomorrow. But given Jesus’ parables, we know that we must be ready for Jesus to could return at any point and we must be ready for his return to be much delayed. See the series How to Wait for Jesus by Don Carson.
Some missionaries want to use this verse to emphasize speed over depth when it comes to global church planting. But God’s work must be done in God’s way, even if the data and research don’t seem to show that we are making enough impact. Like this definition video says, the promise of Matthew 24:14 helps us to keep trusting that faithful work will somehow result in the fulfillment of this promise, even if we can’t yet see how that is possible. Such is the nature of the kingdom.
A small motley crew of Jewish fishermen, zealots, and tax collectors preaching an offensive message couldn’t possibly saturate the entire Roman and Persian empires within a few generations. And yet that’s exactly what happened.
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Some of the most painful lessons of ministry are learned when a wolf in sheep’s clothing infiltrates your church. We had a wolf once, a local man I’ll call Ahab*, and it has taken me years to know how to write about it. The things we learned from exposing him, trying to counter him, and then responding to the carnage he caused have been forever branded on my soul. Wolf attacks leave scars, along with tragic losses among the true sheep. Pray that you never have to fight off a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but if you do, may these lessons we learned from dealing with Ahab help you to spot and deal with your own wolves with both wisdom and courage.
Wolves make excellent first impressions
The first time Ahab and his family visited our new church plant, we were thrilled. Here was a local believing husband and wife who also had believing teenage children – a true rarity in our corner of Central Asia. They were veteran believers, having come to faith nine years previous at a house church I had attended with Adam*, and later were members of another church when they’d lived in a different city. Ahab presented as a humble, happy, and wise middle-aged man from a more traditional background. But the most encouraging thing of all was how well he knew his Bible. To this day I’m not sure I’ve met another local man as well-versed in the scriptures as Ahab is. In spiritual conversation, Ahab demonstrated a deep knowledge of the Word. He had a thoughtful, serious personality, but he was also very fatherly, especially with small children. Our kids adored him with his affectionate greetings and gifts of cookies and pomegranate flowers.
Ahab’s sheep costume was (almost) flawless. Wolves will indeed show up wearing very convincing disguises (Matt 7:15).
Wolves come with mixed reputations
As soon as another missionary heard that Ahab and his family were attending our group, he warned us about him, telling us that Ahab and his wife had in previous years recanted their faith and returned to Islam, in order to receive financial gain. Apparently, there were pictures of them embracing a Qur’an next a smiling Islamic leader that proved this. This missionary also said that the family’s relationship with the Christians in their previous city had broken down completely and they had deceived and burned lots of people. The problem with this intel was that that generation of local believers was positively shot through with division and broken relationships and we also didn’t trust this missionary’s theological discernment. He had recently written off male-female roles in ministry as something that didn’t really matter, among other theological and ministry positions that felt so, well, “evangellyfish.” And we were newly partnering with another missionary who seemed to have more of a theological spine. He had been recently investing in Ahab’s family – and claiming to see evidence of true repentance and growth.
Our mistake here was assuming that a lack of theological likemindedness meant a lack of character discernment on the part of this other missionary – and that better alignment with our new partner meant he was correctly discerning Ahab’s character. These assumptions were dead wrong.
A wolf’s character cannot be hidden indefinitely. Their predatory heart will periodically emerge in predatory actions (Matt 7:16). This means that, like Ahab, wolves will tend to have a controversial past.
Wolves get deeply involved in the ministry and show great potential
We confronted Ahab about these claims of past apostasy and you couldn’t ask for a more (seemingly) humble and genuinely repentant response than the one he gave us. He admitted that the apostasy was true, but short-lived, and claimed to have already repented to everyone of this dark season in their life, and that he was willing to do whatever it took to demonstrate that repentance to us. Given our biases about the missionaries involved, we took Ahab at his word and pressed forward, encouraged.
Ahab soon became deeply invested in our house church. His family were the most faithful and some of the most engaged attendees. They introduced Frank and Patty to our group and even led them to faith. We were so encouraged to finally have some local believers who were committed to gathering weekly with the saints. Ahab soon offered his own home for our house church services and we quickly took him up on his offer. Our team leader was on furlough and pushing us to get the church meetings out of our own homes and into locals’ as soon as possible. This was viewed as one key toward reproducibility. So, all parties involved were thrilled when we moved the weekly service into Ahab’s home. It didn’t take long for Ahab to begin helping us with leading the prayer time and for us to invite him to join our weekly sermon-prep study with Harry*, the other local brother showing leadership potential. This was a weekly gathering that served as a place to invest in men who could be future leaders of the church.
Wolves tend to have a solid season of deep investment in the local church. This is how they build trust and gain influence.
Wolves are unpredictably harsh and judgmental
Every once in a while, Ahab would lash out in harsh and judgmental language when speaking of other local believers, pastors, or missionaries. These statements seemed inconsistent with his measured, wise speech that we typically observed. The tone of these outbursts seemed like it didn’t match the level of the offense nor the grace of the gospel that Ahab professed to be walking in. We took note of this, but viewed it as a discipleship issue that we’d need to help him with over time. In hindsight, it was evidence of secret sin brewing.
Like Judas lashing out at the woman’s gift of pure nard (John 12:5), wolves will sometimes let their true character show via harsh and surprisingly judgmental takes on other believers. This is evidence that there are some very bad things going on in their hearts.
Wolves are followed by lots of smoke, but expertly hide the fire
Ahab and his family’s mixed reputation seemed to follow them like a cloud of gnats they could never quite get rid of. Regularly, we’d hear serious concerns expressed by other missionaries or local believers that just didn’t seem to match what we were seeing with our own eyes. Ahab was one of our promising leaders in training, and nothing that we had witnessed ourselves gave us any solid evidence for the claims being regularly made by those outside of our church plant. But the claims just kept on coming. Surely, Ahab couldn’t be deceiving us so effectively. It must be the other missionaries and believers from other local groups. After all, they were unclear and squishy when it came to the gospel, true conversion, and healthy church, so they must have been confused about Ahab also.
As the wisdom of our forbears says, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Wolves can’t hide all the smoke they generate, but for a time they can expertly conceal the fire from those that they are focused on deceiving. Wise gospel laborers will keep an eye on men whose lives generate an unusual amount of proverbial smoke.
Wolves secretly divide the flock and the leadership for personal gain
“Is Ahab a good man?”
“Yes, he is a faithful member of our church. Why do you ask this?”
“Well, he approached me this week and told me to keep my distance from all you foreigners. He told me not to trust you, but to trust him. Listen, I left Islam to get away from this kind of petty division. If Christianity is no different, then I don’t think I want to be involved with you all.”
This conversation over dinner with a new believer was a turning point for me and my wife. We had been hearing of a lot of smoke, but here at last was something solid, and very concerning. Ahab had allegedly approached a promising new believer in secret and sought to sow division in the church. This new believer didn’t seem to have any advantage in mentioning this to us, but rather to be honestly asking about something that concerned him. Soon other evidence emerged that Ahab was secretly building personal loyalty with other new believers in the church, creating a faction of sorts. He seemed to be doing this by telling the new believers that we foreigners (and me in particular) were receiving fabulous amounts of money for baptisms and that we were withholding funds that were sent for local believers. He was making promises to the other locals that he knew how to get them access to ministry salaries, Christian conferences, and visas to Western countries.
As I looked into things, I learned that Ahab was also involved in slandering me to the other two missionaries who formed our three man church plant leadership until we could raise up local elders. To my great alarm, Ahab’s whispers that I was secretly out for power and control were being somewhat entertained by my gospel colaborers. Ahab’s desire in all of this was to be eventually in charge of the church so that he could receive a good ministry salary from groups in the West, along with funds he could use to set up a patronage network within the church.
When wolves feel secure in their position, they will begin to sow division among the saints and even among the leadership. They are very good at sniffing out existing tensions and then exploiting these (Titus 3:9-11). Their end goal in all these things is their own personal gain.
Wolves are gifted at twisting reality
There were several times that seemingly concrete charges were brought against Ahab. But whenever we would bring up these concerns, Ahab was able to expertly sow doubt in the informant, in the data itself, or even in our own experiences. After this season, I would learn that this kind of behavior has come to be called gaslighting in the West. A gaslighter is able to make you doubt that something really happened, and even able to make you doubt your own senses. We would go into face-to-face meetings with Ahab with clarity and conviction and come away feeling like we weren’t sure anymore what was really true or real. After Ahab had later been exposed, one local brother called him “an artist of lies.” In a culture given to lots of pervasive deception, this was quite the title. After upending reality, Ahab was then able to insert his own narratives into the confusion, with great effect. I remember meeting with my team leader and Harry, desperately trying to unravel the narrative Ahab was pushing on them about me. These two godly men knew me much better than they knew Ahab, and yet he was almost effective in convincing them that in the end, I was the real problem in this whole situation – and the true manipulator. It was terrifying.
Like the serpent in Genesis 3, wolves are able to create doubts about things that once seemed so simple and so clear, about reality itself.
Wolves turn good faith exhortations against those who make them
I remember meeting with Ahab and pleading with him from my heart to turn away from his divisiveness, that the church might not survive what he was doing. I poured out my heart to this man I thought was a brother, sharing very personal things with him and even areas where I had failed or could have done better. I was pulling out all of the stops to try to pull him back from the brink. While his response to me in person was good, he immediately took many of the things I had told him and weaponized them with others. Sometimes this happened even on the same day. I would gave him pearls, truths from God’s word and things from my heart, but he not only despised these, but then used them to attack. As each leader and local believer began to realize what Ahab was up to, he’d proceed to do this with them as well. We had trusted him with our hearts and he was now adeptly using all of this as ammunition to undermine us.
Wolves can be like the swine that Jesus describes in Matthew 7:6, who take precious truths and good-faith exhortations and instead of repenting, use them against you.
When exposed, wolves go on the attack
Humble men respond gently and reasonably when accusations are made against them. Wolves, when accused – or even as soon as they sense someone is beginning to suspect them – go on the attack. This stage is dangerous, but helpful. At last, the true nature of the wolf is being revealed to the broader community. In our church plant, Ahab started by attacking me. My grasp of the local language was stronger, so that meant I was spotting things sooner than my fellow leaders. Ahab picked up on the change in my posture toward him and did what he could to turn the others against me. There was a period where even the other leaders sided with him, but one by one their honest questions and desire to pursue things with fairness meant that Ahab turned on them as well. When this happened, it was like a spell was broken. All of the cobwebs of deceit that had been sewn were suddenly dissolved as the sheep turned on its erstwhile friends – and revealed its fangs.
When wolves in sheep’s clothing are recognized for what they are, they will not run. They will attack. In this attack stage, they will seek to cash in on whatever schemes of division, personal loyalty, and personal gain they have been working on.
Westerners are at a disadvantage when dealing with wolves
Ahab ran circles around us. The other missionaries and I were often caught flat-footed, unable to respond proactively to Ahab, instead reacting as he always seemed one step ahead of us. There are several reasons why I believe this to be the case. First, Westerners operate from a trustworthy-unless-proven-otherwise mindset in their relationships. We are extremely optimistic (some would say naive) in our approach to trusting others. This often works out well for us as that trust extended becomes the thing that actually inspires and creates trustworthiness in the other. But when we are dealing with a wolf, they are easily able to take advantage of this default posture of trust – and to turn it to their advantage. Because of our own cultural background, we just don’t have much experience dealing shrewdly with deceptive and manipulative people.
Second, Western missionaries will often default to trusting a local believer over a Western colleague because of the Western cultural guilt we can carry, plus the emphasis in much of missiology that the locals are always right and foreigners are unwitting contaminators and colonialists. This definitely proved true in our situation, and teammates later apologized to me for their default assumption that in cross-cultural conflict, somehow it is always the Westerner who has screwed things up. Finally, we receive little theological preparation for dealing with those the Bible calls wolves, pigs, dogs, and divisive men – even though these opponents of the gospel feature heavily in the New Testament’s description of ministry.
Wolves and other gifted deceivers are able to take advantage of individuals – and cultures – that operate from a default of extending trust. Westerners especially need to be aware of this and seek to grow in wise defense.
Wolves must be dealt with more swiftly and firmly than other types of sinners
One reason we were so stuck in our response to Ahab is that we didn’t agree on how the Bible would have us respond to someone like him. My teammates and I were at least on the same page that some form of church discipline was needed, but our missionary partner surprised us by saying that he didn’t believe that church discipline would be effective in the local culture. I learned from this experience that even among theological conservatives, it’s important to find out beforehand who is and who isn’t willing to exercise church discipline when the Bible calls for it. If, like we did, you find this out in the midst of dealing with a wolf, then its too late.
I’ve heard it said that some reformed churches have broken church discipline down into an extended process with dozens of steps, often stretched out over months or years. This can be a faithful application of passages like Matthew 18, where the sin is private and interpersonal. But there are other church discipline passages in the New Testament that call for much quicker action. These cases would involve situations such as public scandalous sin (1 Cor 5) and that of the man who sows division (Titus 3:9-11). Because of the danger of great harm to the church, these situations need firm and quick responses from the church’s leadership and members. Someone sowing division and slander in the body needs a quick, united, and firm rebuke. If they don’t repent and change after a first and second warning, then they need a quick excommunication. The danger to the body is simply too great as wolves are able to use extra time to turn the sheep and undershepherds against one another.
When division, deception, or manipulation is exposed in the body, these call for united and quick action. If these things indicate the presence of a wolf, then this swift and firm action is even more crucial.
Wolves cause tragic damage to the flock
We eventually learned that Ahab had begun receiving a secret ministry salary from another evangelical group in our region for having a church in his house. “The workman is worthy of his wages” was the justification for the deceptive claims he’d made to this group that he was the pastor of a separate church. When this emerged, we finally had unity among us leaders to move the church out of his house. When we announced this move at the end of a service (and still in such a way to try to help Ahab save face), Ahab publicly responded by announcing the formation of a new church. Several of the new believers then indicated that they’d already agreed to join Ahab in this breakaway group. They had been seduced by his promises of salaries, conferences, and visas.
Of these local believers, many then proceeded to fall away and to this day are still not gathering with any church, nor growing in their faith. The local brother who first shared with me about Ahab’s secret division is one of these. He washed his hands of us, and to this day is an isolated baby believer. The house church had grown to the point where 20-30 locals were gathering with us on a weekly basis. After this implosion, only 6 continued to gather with us as we changed our location and extracted ourselves from the wolf’s house. Our partnership with the other conservative missionary didn’t survive this season either. Amazingly, even though his eyes were now opened he decided to keep working with Ahab’s family – until he too was irreparably burned by him a couple of years later.
Wolves will seek to devour the flock (Acts 20:29). And the damage they cause can last for generations.
Wolves are inevitable as the gospel advances
Our natural impulse after everything imploded was to use the benefit of hindsight to blame ourselves. There were so many places where we should have, could have, would have done things differently could we go back in time. But one of the truths that comforted me in the wake of the Ahab mess was that wolves are promised as a part of faithful New Testament ministry. Even Jesus had a wolf among his closest followers. Perhaps not every local church will have to fend off a wolf, but many will. When sheep are being gathered and fed, sooner or later, wolves will come around looking to fill their stomachs. When this happens, we can fall back on the fact that we have not only been warned, but the Word of God even equips us to fight off the predators that would seek to devour the flock.
Wolves are inevitable as the gospel advances. Jesus had Judas, the believers in Ephesus had their own fierce wolves emerge after Paul was gone (Acts 20:29). Many of us will face our own “Ahabs.” Wise believers will seek to prepare for this common danger to the church – and act when the wolves are exposed.
God turns even wolf attacks for good
It took a long time to heal from what happened with Ahab. My wife and I had nightmares about the man for about two years afterward. Many of the local believers were scattered, but some eventually came back, now sobered and on the lookout for other “artists of lies” who might try to divide with promises of worldly gain. Our relationships with the other missionaries involved were largely strengthened by the horrible ordeal we’d gone through together, even though apologies needed to be said and trust cautiously built again. And we learned vital lessons that will hopefully serve us and others in many other contexts. In short, God was faithful to use for good what the enemy intended for evil. The costs were real. But so were the ways in which God’s grace and faithfulness shone throughout and after that whole season.
God can even turn wolf attacks into opportunities for the display of his power and glory (Rom 8:28, 2 Cor 8:9). I see this now in part in everything that happened with Ahab, and I look forward to seeing it more fully in the light of eternity.
To support our family as we head back to the field, click here.
For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.
Omar Bradley, an American general in WWII, once said, “Amateurs talk strategy; professionals talk logistics.” This maxim of warfare also proves true when it comes to global missions.
Solid logistics – or the lack thereof – make all the difference in the end. Think of Napoleon’s failed invasion of Russia or the Union’s ultimate defeat of the Confederacy in the American Civil War. Frontline personnel, no matter how gifted and strategic they are, simply cannot win a war unless their supply chains hold up. And no global missionary can succeed without a large network of senders, supporters, and helpers working behind the scenes on their behalf. As William Carey said to Andrew Fuller, “I will go down into the pit, if you will hold the ropes.”
A missionary’s network of partner churches provides the prayer, relationship, and funding vitally needed so that cross-cultural workers can do what they do. But there is another crucial and utterly practical area where missionaries are also dependent on their senders: transitional housing. Yes, missionaries need your prayers, but almost every time they come “home” they also need your help in finding a place where they can sleep, shower, and once again enjoy the freedom of cooking bacon while wearing shorts without the possibility of mortifying their neighbors. Thankfully, there is a strong tradition of the US Church doing this very thing and investing in housing for missionaries. Other sending countries may also be strong in this, but my experience limits me here to addressing the US context.
I remember hearing once in Central Asia that a neighboring country had 700 safe houses in our city for the use of their spies. This was an alarming statistic. Similarly, most pagan Americans would be shocked to hear that all across the United States a massive network of houses for visiting missionaries exists, largely under the radar of the general population. I’ve come to realize just how hidden and odd this staple of the missionary experience is for unbelieving Americans as I’ve tried to explain our housing situation to some of my unbelieving countrymen.
There are many worthy things to focus on when it comes to global missions, but I do feel that the humble mission house is not celebrated nearly enough. So, I wanted to write a little bit about why they are so helpful for missionaries and for the churches that host them. And if you are reading this post and your church doesn’t have a mission house, then I want you and your pastors to think and pray and plan about getting one. It may end up being one of the most significant investments in missions you ever make.
First, mission houses are a financial blessing to missionaries who would otherwise be hard-pressed to afford housing on their ministry income. For over a year now, my family and I have been living in stateside missionary housing. The first was a traditional mission house owned by a large First Baptist Church in our area. The second has been an empty parsonage that we are helping to inaugurate as a new mission house for a nearby rural congregation. Together, the provision of these houses has saved us tens of thousands of dollars of rent that we would otherwise need to come up with. In this Icarus-like housing and rental economy, this mostly free housing has been an extremely generous and helpful gift. Different churches have different expectations regarding rent, but the two that we’ve been at only have us paying for utilities. Perhaps your church budget can’t currently support another missionary. But if you have an empty parsonage, then you have on-hand a very significant means of financial support.
Mission houses can also be a blessing of rest for missionaries. Because my family doesn’t own a house in the US, the housing provided for us meant that we had one less thing to figure out when we came back to the US for a long season of medical work and uncertainty about our future on the field. Local churches gave us places where we could stay in relative privacy, and this in turn meant we could prioritize the medical appointments, the counseling, and the rest and recovery that was needed after seven hard years on the field.
Sometimes, it works out for missionaries to go to the field and to retain some kind of housing in their home country. But this is by far the exception. Most missionaries will need to divest themselves of any property as a part of their transition to the mission field. When they do this, they are putting themselves in a tricky place when it comes to their visits back to the homeland, which might be anywhere from a few weeks to a few years long. Living with family or friends can be a good stop-gap measure, but that kind of situation is usually not super restful for either party – at least not for those of us from the modern West who have been raised to rest most effectively in nuclear family-only contexts.
Third, mission houses are a blessing of presence for the missionaries. These houses are often close or right next to the churches that own them, meaning the missionaries have easy access to a body of believers that worship in their heart language. And this presence of a nearby church body might be coming after years of the only other Christians around being new and immature indigenous believers or overworked missionary colleagues. In contrast, churches of Christians like these who have remained stable and rooted in the home country can be a wonderful source of wisdom and refreshment for worn-out and spiritually-depressed missionaries. We shouldn’t underestimate the power of a body of normal, faithful believers when it comes to manifesting the presence of Christ to a tired missionary family. There are many ways they might do this, from pig roasts and potlucks to timely words of wisdom or passionate singing. Mission houses make it easier for missionaries to be in the presence of hospitable local churches. And when it comes to healing, there’s no better place for a Christian to be.
Mission houses are a financial blessing, a blessing of rest, and a blessing of presence for missionaries. But how do they bless and serve the churches that own them, those that have to foot the bill for these houses’ roof replacements, flooded basements, and blocked-up pipes?
First, mission houses are a blessing of joy to the host churches. Jesus tells us that it is more blessed (i.e. joy-inducing) to give than to receive (Acts 20:35). God has so wired the new heart such that Christians are rewarded with spiritual joy when they host gospel workers in a manner worthy of God (3rd John 1:6). This is just as true on a corporate, church level as it is for individual believers. This joy also comes from the many ways in which church members get to exercise their gifts of hospitality and service in the ongoing care of their own mission house and the rhythms of hosting missionaries in it.
Second, mission houses are a blessing of presence to the churches, just as they are for missionaries. If a local church has a mission house, then its congregation has an increased opportunity to spend face-to-face time with international missionaries. This is true even if the church is hosting missionaries who are sent out from a different church in the area. There is a good and healthy sense of mutual obligation that emerges between a host church and its missionary guests, such that most missionaries will be eager to get to know the members of the church and to try to encourage them as they have opportunity.
When access like this exists, mission houses can then also become a blessing of mobilization and equipping for local churches. When it comes to mobilization, few things are more influential for raising up future missionaries than face to face conversation and relationship with those who are already missionaries. Any church that desires to see some of their children one day sent to the nations should do whatever they can to get what some call RLMs (real live missionaries) in front of their people as often as possible. Mission houses are a great way to do this. These opportunities can then also lead to equipping, as missionaries are often able to serve the church in things like preaching or evangelism and discipleship training.
These are some of the main reasons why I believe we should celebrate mission houses, and key ways in which these practical structures of service can be a blessing both to missionaries and to the churches that partner with them. As I said earlier, the US church has historically been strong in providing this kind of resource. But changes in the real estate market and the culture of US churches mean this crucial resource may become more and more rare, even as there’s already a shortage for the current need. This means that we need a new generation of churches and missionary senders to embrace this humble and traditional part of the missionary’s supply lines.
Because my parents were missionaries and now my own family serves overseas, I have probably spent 3-5 years of my life living in mission houses or their equivalents. Some of them have been fancy and stylish. Some have been pretty run down and should have gotten rid of that shag carpet decades ago. All of them have been a solid blessing, places of refuge, welcome, and rest in the midst of our nomadic ministry lifestyle. And each of them communicated to us the genuine love of the churches that kept them going.
If your church doesn’t have a mission house, then let me challenge you and your church to pray and scheme about one day investing in one. Mission houses are an investment in the supply lines and practical infrastructure of global mission, and thereby in the care and ultimately victory of the Church’s missionaries. This also makes them a brick-and-mortar investment in the nations. They’re not just a simple roof and four walls, but instead, houses that can change the world.
To support our family as we head back to the field, click here.
For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.
As we’ve been visiting different partner churches, we’ve met a number of high school or college students who feel that God may be calling them to serve on the mission field. Many of them have asked our advice about what they should be doing to further discern and to prepare for this kind of ministry. We’ve loved the zeal that we’ve encountered in these students, but as the book of Proverbs says, “desire without knowledge is not good” (Prov 19:2). So, here is some practical advice to accompany the good desires that many students have to serve Jesus on the mission field.
First, tell your pastors and ask them to mentor and guide you. In our individualistic culture, it’s often our default to wrestle with a missions calling on our own and then to begin shopping for various missions organizations and programs – all without ever talking to our spiritual shepherds about it. But any genuine missions calling should be one that is affirmed by your local church and its leaders. The healthiest way to wrestle with desires for mission and to prepare for service is to do so in regular conversation with your pastors, and ideally, while fulfilling whatever kind of requirements they have developed for future missionaries. This kind of a track might be more or less formal depending on the size and culture of your church – and your request might be what causes them to develop one – but good pastors should be able to put aspiring missionaries on some kind of pathway that includes work on the character, knowledge, affections, and skills that qualified missionaries need to possess. Let your pastors know your desires for future missions service as soon as possible, even as early as your membership interview. And if you’re not yet a member of a healthy church, then join one ASAP.
Second, focus on growing in godly character. Be steady and faithful in the regular spiritual disciplines that make for a growing disciple who may one day become a leader. Be regularly in the word and prayer, giving generously, attending and serving your church faithfully, fighting sin, and obeying Jesus wherever you can. The character of a missionary is the foundation of everything else. And character grows slowly, like an oak tree, so be willing to wait as long as necessary for your mentors and pastors to affirm that it is indeed present – even if this leads to a timeline much longer than you were hoping for.
Along with character, pursue the knowledge you will need as a missionary. You need to know your Bible inside and out, so dig deep into the study of the Bible and theology in whatever avenues are available to you – books, classes, podcasts, sermons, blogs, eat it up wherever you can get it. You need to know with second-nature clarity what the gospel is, what a true believer is, and what a healthy church is. Knowledge of the Bible is far more important than knowledge of missions. That being said, knowledge of missions is an important second. To gain knowledge that will serve you as a missionary, read missionary biographies, listen to missions podcasts, pick the brains of visiting missionaries, and read books, articles, and blogs about issues in missions and about the various peoples of the world. You never know when knowledge of certain events in missions history or a basic understanding of a missions controversy or cultural differences might be the key that unlocks wisdom in a given situation – so soak up as much as you can. Knowledge can grow quickly, so watch out that pride doesn’t also grow with it as your knowledge will often outpace your character.
One often overlooked aspect of missions preparation is the need to foster the right affections. This starts with a passion for God’s glory, his word, and his church, but it extends into a passion for the lost peoples and places of the world. Notice how Paul in Romans 15 has a holy ambition to preach Christ where he hasn’t yet been named. Affection is one of the trickier aspects to focus on. How do you grow the affections, the emotions? Well, the Bible says that your heart will follow your money. So, give your hard-earned student job money to missions. Jesus says that if you do this, your heart will follow. In addition to this, make a plan to fast and pray regularly for the nations and for missionaries, on your own and also with others. Then practically, make friends with lost people from other cultures and language groups. As you invest time in relationships with lost friends who are refugees, immigrants, students, or migrant workers, your believing heart will be stirred to see them come to faith. So, friendships with internationals are another key to fostering the affections needed for a future missionary.
Relationships with those from other language and culture groups are also key to developing the skills you will need as an aspiring missionary. Just like any skill, it takes many hours of practice to learn the subtle art of noticing, learning, adopting, and then leveraging differences in language and culture. You will be forced to do a good measure of how to do this overseas, but do yourself a huge favor by developing cross-cultural friendships now and beginning the long and slow process of training your mind and body to navigate the maze of how different kinds of humans equate form with meaning. How do you find these relationships? A few practical suggestions would be to choose to become a patron of businesses run by internationals – groceries, barbers, cafes, restaurants. Also consider ways you can volunteer as an English tutor in your community, something constantly in demand. And consider how you might be able to host internationals for meals and hangout times. Simple genuine hospitality can bless lonely internationals and lead to strong friendships.
In addition to cross-cultural skill, you will also need ministry skill. Learn to share the gospel, to study, to teach, to preach, to disciple, to risk, to strategize, and to fail with courage and trust in the sovereignty of God. Learn how to navigate conflict with other believers and the what and why of your typical responses to conflict. Learn also to endure suffering patiently, and what your particular responses to suffering are and where they come from. Know your weaknesses and learn to appreciate and celebrate the different giftings of other believers. Much of this practical knowledge can only come through opening ourselves up to wise counselors who can help us see things about ourselves that we can’t otherwise see. And speaking of seeing, it’s going to be very hard for you to reproduce something you have never seen, so if you want to be part of planting healthy churches overseas, then you need some experience of being in a healthy church where you are now. Likewise, if you want to plant churches, then consider being part of church planting where you are currently located.
You also need to work a real world job before becoming a missionary, whether that’s full-time or part-time or ministry work in your home country. This is important for several reasons. One, effective missionaries have to work hard at their task. This is no career for those who want to take it easy. It’s helpful to have real-world work experience as a standard by which to compare how hard you are pushing in the less concrete world of missionary work. Two, effective missionaries will have seasons where they need to know how to submit and follow the lead of others. This is much easier if you’ve already had a boss or two and have some experience doing what you’re told. Three, working marketplace jobs can keep missionaries from getting entitled when it comes to their financial support. When you remember and can still feel how hard it is to make a day’s wage, you are going to be more humble and grateful when you are supported by the money earned by other Christians. For current students (who are part of Gen Z), we are seeing that this willingness and experience in working hard is something that is very important. Work-life balance is important, but so is a willingness to sacrifice when needed.
Finally, consider serving overseas in a mid-term capacity before you go career. Mid-term is a category between short-term and long-term, somewhere around three months to two years long. The benefit of serving mid-term is that you are on the ground long enough to outlast the honeymoon phase and hopefully also the “I hate everything here” phase that often follows. You need to experience the grounding that comes from being able to be honest about a place, a people, and a culture. There will be good things, there will be evil things, and there will be things that are fun or that simply annoy you. When you have come back down to earth and can see things more clearly like this you are in a much better place to gauge whether or not God has indeed wired and called you to be a missionary. Plus you also will have the perspective of other missionaries and local believers to lean on. I love mid-term missionaries because they make some of the best long-term missionaries, but they also make some of the best senders and supporters. If God calls them to stay in their home country after their term of service ends, then they will have been overseas long enough for that experience to color their work and ministry for the rest of their lives. If I had it my way, every pastor would serve as a mid-term missionary before they plug into long-term service in a local church.
So, if you are a student who feels like the Spirit is stirring your heart toward missions, pay attention to those desires. And consider how you can accompany desire with the things mentioned here – character, knowledge, affections, skill, local church membership, real world work, and mid-term service. You don’t have to wait around to see if your desires will pan out or not someday. You can actively work to test them and to invest in a possible future missionary ministry wherever you currently are.
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We expect it in the West, but it’s a curious thing when believers from unreached people groups wrestle with the classic “man on the island” question. You know the one – “But if a good man stranded on an island dies with no chance to hear the gospel, does he still go to hell?”
On the one hand, it makes sense that they would wrestle with this issue, especially if they are among the first generation to come to faith from their people. It’s not just some of their ancestors, but potentially all of them who have died and now inhabit a Christless eternity. Every parent, grandparent, great-grandparent, and renowned member of the family tree died with no witness to the gospel message and is now beyond hope. The costs of the exclusivity of Christ land differently when you haven’t come from a Christian heritage at all.
On the other hand, it’s somewhat ironic when these individuals struggle with this question. Because they in some sense are that man on the island, and they have now been unexpectedly reached with the gospel. As members of unreached or unengaged people groups, they previously had no access to the gospel. They were cut off culturally, linguistically, or even geographically from the truth. And then one day they weren’t.
I remember a new believer in Central Asia posing his question about a hypothetical man in India, which to him must have felt like the remote ends of the earth. I smiled, knowing that many in the West might pose the same question, but place their hypothetical man in the very region where we were sitting having our discussion. I wanted to take my friend by the shoulders and say, “Brother, you are the man you are asking about. And look what happened to you!”
Ultimately, everyone struggles at some point with the exclusivity of Christ, no matter their language, culture, people group, or relative remoteness. This means that disciple-makers need to be ready to give an answer to this common question, whether they are mentoring Gen Z believers in the American Midwest or a tribal patriarch in Southeast Asia.
A good way to begin that answer is with a call to look in the mirror. Any believer asking this question was also at one point truly “without hope and without God” (Eph 2:12). Yet because Jesus has other sheep that are not of this fold, and those sheep hear his voice, they were sought out and enabled to hear the voice of the shepherd (John 10:16). Jesus’ sheep are scattered throughout the world and cut off from the truth, yes. But the shepherd will find each and every one of them, just as he found the particular believer asking the question.
There is a second angle by which those struggling with this question can be called to look in the mirror. Often, the emotional weight of the question is based on the assumption that there are people out there who are better than the question asker. “I’ve got this holy uncle,” as it was once put to me. But in the real world, there are no holy uncles. When we look in the mirror, the person who looks back is someone who is deserving of hell because of their sin. And everyone else in the world, when they look in the mirror and their conscience is honest, feels that same truth down in their bones. We all intrinsically know that we have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom 2:15). Yet we are easily deceived into thinking others are not like us. The classic response to the man on the island objection holds up; namely, the question doesn’t work. There are no good men. Only sinners, just like us.
We must ultimately call the one struggling with this question to look from the mirror to The Book. The Bible clearly commands that we take the gospel to the ends of the earth (Matt 28:18-20). From the very beginning, Jesus has tasked his Church with proclaiming the good news, without which salvation is impossible (John 3:18). We are clearly called to do whatever we can to get the gospel to every man who is on an island (1 Cor 9:22). The logic of scripture is clear – unless they follow Jesus, “the way, the truth, the life,” they are lost (John 14:6). If there were some kind of exception to this rule based on never hearing the message, then it completely clashes with the emphasis of Jesus and the Apostles and their global mission. If sinners can be saved by never having the chance to hear the gospel, then the Great Commission makes no sense.
Further, the logic of the scriptures is not that we are first condemned for rejecting the gospel, but that we are condemned for rejecting the light we have. According to Romans, the man on the island has the law of God in some way written upon his heart (Rom 2:11-16). He has a conscience. He has access to creation, which preaches to him daily that there is a creator who is worthy of his worship (Rom 1:18-23). He himself is a witness to this truth, being made in the image of God, and even his pagan ancestors passed down to him fragments of truth that have clung on in his fallen culture (Acts 17:23). Yet universally, each of these witnesses, whether a small or great light, is suppressed by each and every human heart (Rom 1:18). That’s why we are universally condemned, whether growing up on an island alone or with the strongest possible Christian heritage. Hell awaits in either case, unless God miraculously intervenes and causes the sinner to hear the gospel and love the light, rather than suppress it.
How can it be right and just that after 2,000 years, some people’s ancestors were granted access to the gospel while others weren’t? This doesn’t seem fair. Here, we must hold on to the mystery of how God has scattered his chosen sheep throughout time and history. There is much in this mystery of election to which we are not yet given access (Rom 11:32-36). Yet we also need to remember that what we know of church history is only a very small picture of everything that has transpired. As with history in general, the vast majority of records have been destroyed, lost, or were never made in the first place. And yet what has been discovered is far more global in scope than most Christians are aware of. The ancient church didn’t just preach the gospel in the Roman empire, but also far beyond it. Ancient and medieval Christianity stretched from Ireland to Korea, to Ethiopia, India, the Arabian peninsula, and on up to Scandinavia. There are even old claims of Irish missionary monks striking out for North America in their one-man coracle boats.
Far more people groups than we might expect do indeed have a Christian heritage, or at least a period in history when their ancestors were exposed to gospel preaching. In fact, for many of the unreached people groups of the 10/40 window, the churches planted represent a renewed witness rather than the first one in history. As one mission leader said when in Uzbekistan visiting the tomb of Tamerlane, the great exterminator of Central Asian Christianity, “You’re dead, and we’re back.” Even now, medieval Christian graveyards are being discovered in far-flung places like Kazakhstan, demonstrating that the Church throughout the ages took its Great Commission mandate seriously. Certainly, eternity will present some fascinating missions history that has never been told here on Earth. In this, there is a degree of comfort for the believer who feels that until his generation God had left his people without a witness.
The exclusivity of Christ and the man on the island are questions that all believers are likely to wrestle with, regardless of their background. Fallen human logic simply struggles to understand the wisdom of the sovereign God. Yet there is a wealth of answers in the mirror, in the Scriptures, and even in church history that help us equip the struggling believer with solid truth. This is truth that grounds, but even more, truth that lifts our eyes to wrestle with what it will take to reach those islands – to reach the ends of the earth.
Better get the coracles ready.
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We’ve been so encouraged to be members of the Great Commission Council over the past couple years. The GCC is “a coalition of long-term missionaries from around the world who are dedicated to helping sending churches and mission agencies understand the greatest needs in modern missions.”
This year, a number of videos and statements that we’ve worked on together are beginning to be published. I’ll be periodically posting some of these short videos which will focus on topics such as what missionaries wish they knew before going to the field, important definitions, and missiology statements that we’ve been developing.
This video focuses on what one member of GCC wishes he knew before he went to the mission field. It fits well with something a brother at our church recently shared, that a biblical posture towards the lostness of the world should be “urgent, but not frantic.” As this video states, the longer someone is on the field the more they value relationships, knowing the language and culture, and the steadying truths of the sovereignty of God.
To support our family as we head back to the field, click here.
For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.
The Runestone of Harald Bluetooth at Jelling, Denmark
Have you ever wondered about the little Bluetooth symbol on your phone or computer? If you’ve ever thought that the name of the tech and the shape of its symbol are peculiar, that’s because they are. The Bluetooth logo comes from the overlaying of two old Scandinavian runes for H and B. And these letters stand for Harald Bluetooth, a Viking king of Denmark, and the first Christian king of Denmark and Scandinavia. Who knew that all along a little piece of missions history was hidden in plain sight in a technology many of us use every day?
First, King Harald was nicknamed Harald “Bluetooth” either because he had a dead tooth that was conspicuously blue-gray, or because he had a particular fondness for berries, which stained his teeth blue. Or, my favorite theory, because some Vikings sometimes carved black line pattern tattoos into their teeth. King Harald may have had bluish tooth tattoos that flashed anytime he smiled, laughed, or snarled.
There is debate about much of Harald’s life and story, but the traditional accounts state that he became a Christian around the year 960 through what is known in missions as a power encounter. A power encounter is a spiritual showdown of sorts between the power of Jesus and the power of the indigenous spirits or gods. These can vary greatly. Earlier missionaries to Germanic tribes were known for boldly cutting down the sacred trees of the tribes they were trying to reach. One missionary I knew in Melanesia unintentionally stunned the tribe he was working with by emerging unscathed from a car wreck soon after lightning had hit his house. In their tribal beliefs, anyone whose house was hit by lightning was doomed by the spirits to die. But when this missionary’s vehicle afterward tumbled down a mountainside with him in it and he came out of it all just fine, the tribe knew that whatever power he possessed was greater than what they knew. Yet another missionary team in Africa demonstrated Jesus’ power over the spirits by the wives wearing their babies strapped on their backs out in a gathering area at night – something the local women would never dare to do. Even in our experience in Central Asia, we once prayed for a woman and saw her miraculously healed after the mullah’s prayers had failed to accomplish anything. Of course, Elijah’s encounter with the prophets of Baal is one of the most famous power encounters in the Bible.
The power encounter that allegedly led to Harald’s conversion took place because of an argument. During this period, the Viking peoples of Europe were mostly polytheistic, worshipping Odin, Thor, Loki, Freya, and other gods who have now been coopted and Disney-fied by superhero movies. But the true Viking religion was very dark, including sacred groves where they would hang bodies of their human sacrifices from the trees. But at last, in the 900s Christianity was making major inroads. Not only were missionaries actively preaching within Viking areas, but the politically Christian powers of Europe were exerting state pressure from without. Apparently, some Vikings were willing to absorb Jesus into the pantheon, similar to how a Hindu today might “accept Christ” but merely add him to the many gods they are devoted to. Well, a group of Vikings in Harald’s court and one Christian cleric, Poppo, were arguing about whether Christ was more powerful than the Viking gods or merely a kind of peer. Poppo insisted that Jesus was the one true God and that all the Viking gods were, in fact, demons. So, King Harald, observing this disputation, asked Poppo if he would vouch for his beliefs with his own body.
Poppo courageously agreed, not knowing what this would mean. Harald had him locked up overnight and in the morning set up the showdown. He had a heavy piece of iron heated up until it was red hot and then asked Poppo to carry it across the room. Poppo then proceeded to pick up the scalding iron in his hand, carry it calmly across the room, set it down, and then show his hand to Harald, healthy and unburnt. This demonstration is what later Christian chroniclers claim led to Harald’s conversion and baptism and made him the first Christian king of Denmark, which he had earlier unified. He later went on to briefly control Norway as well, as he famously claims on his Jelling Stone, “that Harald who won for himself all of Denmark and Norway and made the Danes Christian.”
Of course, there’s a lot of debate about the legitimacy of this conversion story among historians. They debate whether Harald’s motives for switching religions were really because of personal conviction, like in this story, or whether it was really a politically shrewd move to protect his kingdom from the encroaching Christian powers, the Franks and the Holy Roman Empire. In this world of complex motives, it may have been both. Probably only God knows at this point if Harald was a truly born-again Christian or if it was merely a switch of identity categories in this world, something that seems to have been true of many “conversions” in this period – and can still be true even in our own corner of Central Asia. Many a young Central Asian has become a “Christian” in an Islamic society merely because it felt like the hip and rebellious thing to do.
But there’s also debate surrounding the ordeal of Poppo, the alleged miracle at the heart of the power encounter. Of course, secular historians write this off as the typical Christian embellishment of the period. But many modern Christians also find themselves skeptical of miraculous power encounters like these, even if there were no dispute about motives or the sources themselves. For my part, I do think medieval scribes were prone to overly-embellish their accounts of Christians’ lives. But I also think there is a good case to be made that even in this post-apostolic age, miraculous events will occasionally accompany the preaching of the gospel. This seems to be true especially when the gospel is newly breaking into a people group. Missions history demonstrates much of this going on, particularly in fear-power cultures, where the primary question being asked is not “How can I be forgiven?” or “How can I buy back my honor?” but “How can I not live in abject fear of the spirits’ power?” And though I am a continuationist, even well-known cessationists like Augustine went to great lengths to document that miracles were still quietly happening in his circles in order to confirm the truth of the gospel and to strengthen the faith of God’s people. So, I leave the door open that Poppo’s power encounter may have really happened.
But how in the world did Harald Bluetooth become the inspiration for a new kind of wireless network technology? The answer is to be found in the late ’90s when two engineers from Ericson and Intel were at a bar discussing what to name this new prototype technology. Both of them were history nerds, so one mentioned recently reading about Harald Bluetooth, the Viking king who united the Danes, and how his nickname might work for a new wireless technology that would unite various devices. The name was supposed to be temporary, but it stuck and is still with us today.
Today, Bluetooth tech is everywhere, far more widespread than the name of King Harald ever was. Perhaps the next time you see that peculiar runic symbol on your smart devices, you can remember Harald Bluetooth, who may have been a brother in the faith, and praise God for the way God used him to bring Christianity to his people. And you can remember the power of Jesus, his superiority over any and all spirits and “gods,” and his power to reach even the hardest to reach peoples.
To support our family as we head back to the field, click here.
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Frontier church planting and missions can helpfully expose hidden weaknesses in Christianity where it is more established. Like trying to carve a homestead out of the wilderness, there’s something stark and clarifying about planting churches where there are none. You quickly find out there are certain very important skills and tools that you need, but which you didn’t really prioritize back home.
For us, our time on the field has exposed that many complementarian churches are not training even their most gifted women in how to teach and preach the Bible. They are training their women to value good teaching and preaching from the Bible, and to discern good teaching and preaching from the fluff – and these are very good things. Yet it needs to be said that sitting under good preaching and recognizing it is not the same thing as being trained in how to do it. One might sit under good preaching for decades and not be able to prepare for and deliver a good lesson or sermon. This is because training is needed that shows, behind the scenes, what the process looks like to faithfully study, structure, write, and deliver a sermon or lesson. And then that training needs to be cemented with practice.
When complementarian churches send their women to the mission field, where ministry must often be done in gender-segregated environments and where female missionaries vastly outnumber male missionaries, these women are finding themselves in contexts where teaching or preaching to other women is needed. However, they suddenly realize that they are unequipped to study a text, prepare it to be taught, and then deliver it skillfully. Once again, years of sitting under faithful teaching and preaching will not often lead to the ability to reproduce that teaching or preaching. Nor will years of personal and small group Bible study, as valuable as these experiences are.
This is a curious oversight because we convictional complementarians are not against women teaching and preaching. We just believe that God in his wisdom has designated specific environments for that kind of ministry to take place. There is some variation among complementarians on what is biblical and what is not, but in general, most believe that women are called to teach and preach authoritatively to other women and to children (Titus 2:3-5). And that certain forms of public verbal ministry are also beneficial in the broader mixed congregation as well, such as prayer, testimonies, and other related forms of sharing (1 Cor 11, 1 Cor 14:26, Acts 21:9). All of these common forms of ministry by women are understood as taking place under the authority of the church’s pastors, and can and do take place without women functioning in the authority, office, or role of elders/pastors/overseers. This kind of posture is, in my view, the best way to thread the needle given the nuanced picture the New Testament gives us for women in the church. It’s not a simple all-or-nothing, but a thoughtful yes and thoughtful no.
I assume that most of my readers will be complementarian, but even if that is the case, it must be repeated that we believe these distinctions are those of spiritual role, not of spiritual value or equality, nor necessarily of ability. Men and women are indeed created different in important ways, but they are both made equally in the image of God, and in Christ they are both equal coheirs of eternal life (1 Pet 3:7, Gen 1:27). Men and women can both possess strong gifts of teaching and preaching. But we believe that the Bible teaches that God has ordained that only qualified men take the role and ministry of authoritative teacher and preacher when the church is gathered for worship as a spiritual family. In our postmodern age, God’s reasons for doing this are increasingly hard for us to resonate with and understand, but it’s precisely places like this where we find out if we are Christians of the Book, rather than merely Christians of our particular slice of time and culture.
We should remember that women and children make up approximately three-quarters of most churches. That means that certain women will be spiritually qualified to teach and preach to around 75% of those in the congregation. Men won’t sit under the teaching and preaching of these women, but that’s no reason to assume that women don’t need training for the many opportunities they have to serve the other three-quarters of the church body. Few would say they want lower quality teaching and preaching in our kids’ and women-only gatherings, but if we’re not actually training the women in our churches to teach and preach, then we are in some sense showing that we feel a subpar ministry of the word for the women and kids is just fine after all.
To bring it back to a frontier missions context, if my wife or a woman on my team overseas has the chance to preach the word to a room full of Muslim or believing Central Asian women, I want her to bring it. We need her to be able to teach or preach in a way that is faithful to the text and in a way that is skillful so that the hearer is not distracted by an unclear or poorly structured message. But most of our female colleagues currently being sent to the mission field will need to receive this kind of training after they arrive, because they’re not getting it from their sending churches and seminaries. If we’re not training our missionary women in these ways, some of our most gifted saints, then are we training any women in this way?
My wife and I have raised this issue in a number of contexts over the years and the response tends to be pretty lukewarm. My sense is that there is an emotional discomfort with introducing more formalized teaching and preaching training for women because of a fear that that might somehow lead toward something egalitarian down the line. How exactly this would happen is unclear. But that anxious feeling is enough to keep us from wrestling with the problem until we have clarity – and then actually changing our structures to account for the need. Yet there is nothing about training complementarian women to teach and preach that means they will somehow become egalitarian in the process. In fact, if they are receiving better training in rightly dividing the word, chances are they’ll become even more established in their convictions.
Similar to Christians who won’t partner with others who differ theologically because of a vague fear of compromise, Christians who won’t train women to teach and preach because of a similar angst first need to pursue greater clarity. Once they have conscience-clarity on the places and times where women are called and free to teach and preach, then they can go about the practicalities of equipping them for this ministry without fear. But if that basic work of clarity is not done, the anxious fog of potential compromise will often keep any movement from happening.
But would women preaching or teaching to other women or to children somehow undermine the elders’ ministry of the word? This is the main thrust of the objections we’ve heard over the years. This could indeed happen if such preaching and teaching were happening independently of pastoral leadership (the same goes for lone ranger men preaching and teaching). But healthy churches often train and raise up men to preach and teach who themselves do not become pastors, and this is understood to be simply another way the saints are equipped to do the work of the ministry. When a faithful brother is mentored in teaching and preaching and then goes on to do this at a men’s breakfast, at the homeless shelter, or at a student gathering, this is not viewed as a threat to the pulpit – but instead a submissive extension of it. The same can be true of women preaching and teaching other women inside and outside of the church.
What would it take for complementarian churches to provide this kind of training for their women who are preparing for ministry contexts such as the mission field, church planting teams, or women’s ministries? This will require not just answering the concerns and ambiguous fears we might have, but also creating structures that are more fully consistent with our beliefs.
At the very least, training and practice are needed. Women must be given access to training that will help them learn how to teach and preach expositionally – such as the excellent Simeon Trust workshops. But then, just like any learner, they will need opportunities to practice that skill on the front end in order to become proficient. They will also need opportunities to practice over time so that they don’t grow rusty, but instead steadily improve. The local church is the very best place for these opportunities to be offered.
Practically, many local churches don’t yet have women who can lead this kind of training, so pastors will need to find appropriate ways to listen to and give feedback to women who are learning to teach and preach. Can this be done without violating the principle that women should not teach or exercise authority over a man (1 Tim 2:12)? Given the fact that the pastors are present to train and assess, I would contend that there is no problem with the authority dynamics going on here. After all, a bible college student taking Preaching I is not somehow exercising authority over his professor as he preaches his sermon for a grade. For churches who might not be comfortable with this, there may be gifted women in sister churches who can instead lead this kind of time.
But I imagine the greatest hurdle toward training women to teach and preach is simple busyness. Faithful pastors are often swamped with the many needs of ministry. So, in the place of training, a very understandable trust and grateful relief are extended to the servant-hearted women who fill the teaching roles needed in the church. This may be accompanied by the (faulty) assumption that since these women are sitting under the faithful preaching of the word week in and week out, that will be enough. Or, that these women will be able to train themselves through reading, podcasts, and other resources – and to be fair, some do. But many will struggle, wishing they had the chance to apprentice in this weighty and dangerous work. It’s very understandable that pastoral busyness has prevented women from being trained to teach and preach, but surely even the busiest church could get creative and fit in a Saturday morning training every quarter or so. In the end, we will prioritize what we value.
Let us consider how much better it would be if we intentionally equipped our sisters to teach and preach. This is so that when they find themselves in the appropriate contexts, they are free to bring it – to proclaim the word faithfully and skillfully because they’ve seen it modeled. But more than that, because they’ve also been trained, given chances for practice and feedback, and given the freedom and trust to go out and do it well.
I know this would make a difference on the front lines of the mission field. I’d wager it would make a difference in your local church as well.
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“Don’t you remember? She lost her gall bladder in Turkey!”
“Ohh… right…”
I honestly can’t tell you how many times this conversation was repeated among our kids during our first term. It began as a tongue-in-cheek way to tell our kids that mom couldn’t eat the same way anymore because she no longer had a gall bladder. But it took on a life of its own that eventually had us concerned that our third-culture kids might grow up thinking that people simply lose their gall bladders when they travel – like they might misplace some toy – rather than having them surgically removed. Don’t underestimate the things that can get missed in a TCK upbringing. Until I was sixteen, I thought that spaghetti was grown on farms.
The whole gall bladder saga came about quite unexpectedly. We needed to take a medical trip to Istanbul, Turkey, a year and a half after arriving on the field. There, we would visit a network of hospitals called Acibadem for our needed shots and checkups. Because of these shots, our family came to call this hospital “Ouchy Bottom.”
Before any of our medical work was done, we decided to spend a week of rest in a historic island town near Istanbul where no cars were allowed. It was a good, if very humid, week, dragging our toddlers all over the island. If you are ever traveling somewhere with toddlers where cars are not permitted, always be sure to check that your Airbnb is not a long walk uphill. Also, Turks, unlike our desert people group, seem to think that AC and ice water will make you sick, so these are not nearly as readily available as one might hope in a sweltering July.
During our week there, our daughter accidentally head-butted my wife in the eye, leaving her with quite the shiner – swollen, puffy, and dark purple. I had a lot of people give me the stink eye on ferries and around town that week, thinking that I had something to do with this. I didn’t know enough Turkish to point out the true culprit – the adorable little girl with the pigtails.
All good things must come to an end, and at the end of the week, we left the charming yet sweaty island and moved over to the mainland to commence with the medical work. The kids got their shots and my wife went in for an abdominal ultrasound, something a doctor had ordered out of an abundance of caution. While the area the ultrasound was supposed to focus on proved to be fine, the tech had also accidentally/providentially pointed it at the gall bladder area. So, we were informed that there were some pretty serious gall stones there, and that surgery would be necessary.
One of the strange contrasts between Turkey and our area of Central Asia is that while Turkey is much more developed and modern, and there’s a lot of Western music playing everywhere, there’s actually a lot less knowledge of English in the general and professional population. The doctors had good English, but to our surprise, the rest of the nurses and hospital staff didn’t. In one sense, good on them for being so confident as a people in their own language. But in an age of medical tourism, this can sometimes mean things get lost in translation – like entire organs.
In the consultation, the doctor told us the medical term for the procedure he would do, called a cholecystectomy. Then he blitzed through the scheduling and recovery pieces. My wife and I, having very limited experience with medical gall bladder terminology, thought that this cholecystectomy surgery must entail simply removing the gall stones. We had no idea it meant removing the entire organ. Our Google Translate conversations with the hospital staff didn’t clear this up for us either. Everyone assured us that we were in store for a very simple and normal procedure.
So, a couple of mornings later, the kids and I said goodbye to our wife and mother in her blue hospital gown and shower cap, still sporting her black eye.
After several hours, the doctor told me that the procedure was complete and that I could come and be with my wife when she woke up from the anesthesia.
“Mr. Workman, the surgery was a great success!” the doctor enthusiastically told me as I walked into the room. “Would you like to see the organ?”
“The organ?”
“Yes! I have it in a jar and can show it to you if you like.”
“The stones?”
“The gall bladder, of course, with the stones too. Everything went perfectly according to plan!”
I took a moment to absorb what the jovial doctor had just said. They had taken out the whole thing.
“Oh, right… Um, no, I don’t think I need to see the organ. Thank you.”
“Please excuse me for a moment,” the doctor continued. “Your wife should be waking up any minute now.”
I went over to sit by my wife and thought about the best way to break the news to her. I could let the doctor do it. But no, that was not likely to go well. The doctor was acting far too cavalier for that. I’d better do my best to break it to her gently, but directly.
A few minutes later she stirred, blinking back into consciousness.
“Hey, love!” I said in a low voice, smiling.
“Hey…”
“How are you feeling?”
“Mmm… Okay, I guess.”
“Well, the doctor said the surgery went great. No issues whatsoever.”
The moment had come. I had to tell her. I took a deep breath.
“But… they had to take out the whole gall bladder.”
My wife rolled her eyes over to look at me.
“They what?”
“Yeah, they took the whole thing out. I guess that was their plan all along.”
We both sat there in that hospital room, registering what this meant and wondering how in the world we had missed something like the nature of the surgery itself. In the days that followed, we learned that this had indeed been the medically necessary thing to do, which brought some relief. Still, had we known they were planning on removing an entire organ we would have at least done some more research about alternatives or how this surgery might affect the rest of someone’s life.
In the years since, not having a gall bladder has indeed had a drastic effect on what my wife can and can’t eat, meaning we’ve added that particular organ to our growing list of things we look forward to being made new in the coming resurrection. We do laugh about how it all went down, but it’s a laughter tinged with some sadness also. Our bodies were meant to have functioning gall bladders to help us enjoy the great variety of God’s good foods. Now my wife’s was gone, perhaps still in a jar somewhere in Istanbul, another casualty of the fall.
Despite being the place where we lost mama’s gall bladder, we still love Turkey. A very special part of my calling took place there during a prayer meeting in 2008. My wife and I spent a couple of wonderful days there during our first vision trip to Central Asia as newlyweds. Where else can you can drink chai on a ferry as the sun sets on the Bosphorus, watching the light play on the spires and even more ancient domes of the Hagia Sophia? Or drink some good Japanese cold brew in historic Chalcedon?
Yes, despite misadventures like this one, part of our hearts will always be in Turkey. And now, one of our gall bladders also.
*Spellcheck has made me aware that Americans are supposed to spell gall bladder as one word, gallbladder. But having grown up overseas, I’m with the Brits on this one, so gall bladder it is and shall remain in my writing.
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What are the common barriers that keep the gospel from spreading from one group of humans to another? How can one group have a strong presence of believers and churches and yet live side by side with other groups that are completely unreached? The answer to this question is not as simple as it might seem.
The modern missionary movement mainly used geographic and political lenses when they sought to evangelize the world. William Carey’s An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathen featured a list of the world’s countries, their population sizes, religions, and other statistics. Mission agencies followed suit until the late 1900s, focusing mainly on countries and political boundaries when they sought to organize their missions strategy. This is not without biblical precedent. In the book of Acts, we see that Paul’s missionary strategy is focused on the cities and provinces of the Roman Empire. Paul and Luke are using a geographic lens when they seek to apply the Great Commission (along with a very broad ethnic lens of Jew vs. Gentile). Paul’s ambition is to preach to the Gentiles in places where no one else has yet laid a foundation (Rom 15:14-24).
Political and geographic borders and systems can absolutely provide barriers to the gospel. Consider the great contrast of the two Koreas. South Korea, one of the most Christian nations on earth, neighbors North Korea, one of the most unreached. With the same language, ethnicity, and historically the same culture, what is the barrier? The DMZ and the North’s communist/cult of personality government that seeks to stamp out Christianity.
However, the nation-state lens of modern missions was insufficient to recognize other massive barriers to the gospel. 20th-century missiologists like Donald McGavran and Ralph Winter demonstrated that this political and geographic lens meant that there were thousands of “hidden peoples” who were completely overlooked because of the ethnic, linguistic, or cultural barriers that existed even within countries. A missions agency might consider a country reached because of a strong presence of Christianity among the majority ethnicity, but with their nation-state lens fail to see that the minority ethnicities were completely without a witness.
Starting in the late ’70s, this led to a paradigm shift in missions, where agencies adopted the primary lens of unreached people group (UPG). This ethnolinguistic lens also has biblical precedent, with a strong thread of God’s heart for all peoples (panta ta ethne) evident throughout the Bible. We see this focus on ethnicity and language in passages like Psalm 67:4, Isaiah 66:18, Daniel 7:14, and most famously, Rev 7:9, “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages…”
This lens seeks to recognize three other significant barriers to the gospel: ethnicity, language, and culture. It recognizes that humanity typically divides up into groups that identify as distinct from others around them along significant ethnic, language, or cultural lines. Sometimes ethnicity is the main barrier, where the same language is used and similar cultures exist, but neighboring people groups struggle to influence one another because of longstanding ethnic tensions. This is the case with many ethnic Christian groups in the Middle East and their Muslim neighbors, all of whom are fluent in Arabic.
Other situations show that focusing on ethnicity alone is not enough. Our own central Asian people group share a common ethnic identity with neighboring groups, but their languages are not mutually intelligible. In this case, language is the primary barrier, not ethnicity or culture. A missions agency might see the church take off in one of the dozen or so language groups of this ethnicity and consider their job done. In reality, this language barrier is going to prevent the spread of the gospel to the other segments of this ethnicity unless there is a very intentional effort.
Yet other situations show that culture can be the primary barrier. This is where things can get really murky, yet an honest appraisal of how humanity actually functions shows that this is often the case. Cultural differences provide significant barriers to the gospel. This is where socio-economic, religious, and even generational differences come into play – and evil things like caste. For evidence near at hand, consider how hard it is for middle-class churches to reach the poor and working class, and vice versa. It is very difficult for any of our churches in the West to truly impact subcultures different from ours that live within our own cities and towns, and this is with a shared history of Christianity. How much more might cultural differences prevent gospel impact among groups that have no Christian heritage? Even here there is biblical precedent for acknowledging this barrier. Many of the Jew-Gentile issues that Paul deals with in his letters are not just issues of religious background and conscience, they are issues of differing systems of culture and meaning – head coverings being one example.
The key is to recognize that multiple barriers exist to the spread of the gospel from one group of humans to another. These barriers might be political, geographic, ethnic, linguistic, or cultural. The Bible acknowledges all of them. That means we don’t have to lock ourselves into only one lens; rather, we should make use of all of the lenses the Bible gives us when we are seeking to discern why the gospel might be making inroads in one group and not among others.
Once we’ve recognized the primary barrier or barriers, then we are in a good place to discern if they are significant enough to warrant a separate church planting focus or not. Typically, I believe that geography and language do warrant separate approaches, while ethnicity and culture need to be taken on a more case-by-case basis. This needs a post of its own, but in brief, we must remember that the New Testament church brought Jew and Gentile, Greek and Barbarian together into the same churches, messy and scandalous though that effort was. The splintering of missions strategy into hyper-specialized church planting efforts can often reinforce natural human divisions, rather than overcome them.
Deep divisions cut through lost humanity, cutting off whole countries, peoples, languages, and cultures from the good news of salvation through Jesus. Yet the Bible shows us that these can and will be overcome. To play our part in this we will need to take these barriers seriously, on the one hand, even as we trust that the simple gospel is powerful to conquer each and every one of them. We must work hard to understand and undermine these barriers, though our faith must not be in our ability to figure them out.
Carey understood “the Obligations of Christians to Use Means in the Conversion of the Heathen,” even as his faith was in the sovereign power of God to save the nations. May we follow in his footsteps – til every barrier falls.
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Entrusted to the Dirt 
