A Missions Manifesto For Change…A Challenge to Every Christian, Pastor, and Church

It is apparent that we can no longer reach the world with the current way missions is being done by Bible believing churches. To put it bluntly, we do not have enough money with current trends in giving, world economic woes, tendencies to place priorities on things other than missions, and the preoccupation Bible believing churches have with trivial arguments over things that should not be a priority. These problems tend to be unique to Bible believers. I do not find Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Buddhists, Hindus, or even non-believing Protestant churches arguing over trivial details—most of them are out doing their job proclaiming their message to the world—even if the message is wrong! Why is it that those of us who hold the truth in these earthen vessels tend to succumb to the very clay in which is it held. Here are some realities. These are not my opinions, but are documented facts. You cannot whitewash them or revise their writing and make them any less true. You can disagree and wish them away but they are pretty well settled truth.

1. Sending American missionaries, raising mission support in old traditional ways, and the perception of Americans around the world are rapidly becoming problematic.
2. Churches at home in America have become caught up in the building bigger and better while abandoning the mandate to reach out and witness. Attitudes of preachers and churches have damaged the church’s image to the point that unbelievers are not interested in the religious games we play.
3. Worldwide, American Christianity, because of its rabid political activities is now often viewed as a militant fundamentalism on par with Moslem extremism.
4. American Christianity is so entrenched in old methods and refusal to change to meet the cultural realities around them and spend mucht of their time decrying a culture that left them behind, entrenching themselves in hard line positions, not realizing that no one is listening to them. They do not realize that the erosion of belief is much more an inside job than the encroachment of the world.
5. Foreign mission fields have been polluted by American exceptionalism and transplantation of Americanism, American preferences, that do not work and most times have nothing to do with any concepts found in a foreign country.
6. Good American missionaries increasingly  are at odds with these issues which are unique to America, but which they are pressured to enforce on the mission field. A missionary cringes to receive a questionnaire from a supporting church. Without even opening the envelope they already know that that church is lost for support because the questions asked are such that no answer is the right answer. Good missionaries feel abandoned by the home front, are under supported, have little to no retirement, and are faced with either preaching till you die or leave the ministry. Furlough is anything but a rest as they travel 100,000 miles in a year trying to pacify supporting churches and possibly replace lost supporters. (The average missionary now looses 25% of his supporting churches over the 4 year term on the field). Churches are not even gracious or godly enough to wait to drop a missionary when he comes home. They do it while he is away so they do not have to face him, let him defend himself, and where the loss of funds can do him the most damage.
7. What was once zeal for missions, has changed to zeal for our theological position, mindset, preferences, likes, dislikes. For example, a young missionary raised the requisite $5,000 and moved his family to France as a missionary and set up church services in Paris, only to stand at the door and refuse admission to any woman who wore pants, and to any many whose hair touched his ears. He ended up pastoring his wife and kids for the four years, never made one convert, and yet when he wrote home one would have thought Billy Graham was leading the church for all the great activities. This scenario would be funny were it the exception and not the rule, but I can recount a hundred stories of missionaries who play these games. Unfortunately, the only ones who get hurt by their telling are the many good missionaries who are doing the job, sacrificing, serving, and winning souls.

So what is the answer to the dilemma? What must change if missions is to survive? Change must start in our hearts and spirits and then move to practical realities.

First, a general call to repentance and restitution on the part of pastors, churches, missionaries, mission organizations, etc. who play these games is in order. Mission boards allow wrong doing and even participate in wrong because they do not want to destroy support. Churches and pastors mistreat, use and abuse missionaries, and put them on display like some side show in a circus. I cringe when I think what that must do to the missionary’s children when they are treated like they are freaks. Pastors will work a missionary to death, not even thinking they never get a vacation, a rest, a time to recoup.

Second, as part of the change, we need to put money in the proper perspective and now allow the desire for support to drive wrong doing on the field and at home. Mission boards should drop mediocre missionaries and stop dumbing down good missionaries because they make those who are playing look bad. (I have stories you would not believe!) I know what some pastors are saying—Bro. Mike when you talk like this, you are hurting missions! I do not believe so. I think the time has come to be honest before God. It is time to come clean and admit our sin—yes our sin! As Baptists, missions are our reason for existence—but when we have allowed the current state of affairs in which our ethics reeks and an increasingly larger population of the world is dropping in to hell, it is time to stop and change directions. May I say something—The money is God’s business, and God will not bless our doing bad in order to do a little good. As men of God we need to stand up and say—enough! We are leaving the game!

Third, we must make more strategic decisions of where we send, go, and serve. We are continuing to fall behind in numbers, quality of missionaries, support, etc. We must decide strategically where the best return is on our support, who the best are to support, where to send them and instead of doing a mediocre job in 500 places, work towards doing a good job, with the best missionaries in fewer fields. I know that makes you cringe—but the reason it is now necessary lies in our failure and our sin for allowing these ungodly practices, infights, battles to go on unchecked. Our own desire at kingdom building has brought us to this point and this is the price we pay. There was a time when we could have won the world—but unless God intervenes that opportunity is lost. There are mission fields in this world that unless we make a concerted effort to win a country for Christ, the effect maybe that Islam takes over the world. Do you realize that 1/3 of Russia, China, India, Philippines, Indonesia, Africa, etc are already fallen? Strategically speaking we must target areas where the greatest good can be done for the least money, and with the best people to change a country for Christ!

Fourth, it is time we lay down our battles with each other and work together. I have never seen as many non-cooperating, non-fellowshipping Baptist groups as there exists on the average mission field. This is a great sin. God is not the author of confusion .Someone has well said that the Devil never bothers Baptists because he knows that if he leaves them alone they will kill each other. How true! If we work together our group might not get the credit! Folks, it is not a question of doctrine—we agree on that! Why then can we not work together to win a country? A city? IT is yet to be seen what can be done for Christ when we do not care who gets the credit!

My Christian Friends—I have tried to share what God has laid on my heart for me and my hopes for you. These are not just idle words, but come from a heart broken by the needs of people around the world. A grandmother in the Ukraine who is raising her seven orphaned grandchildren with little or no food, a young preacher boy in Ghana who decided to go to Bible school, but the shame of following Christ in the ministry was so great in his hometown in Kenya that he had to leave to Ghana to follow his heart, a seminary graduate in northern India who is the only Christian in fifty miles and whose heart is to start a church, national missionaries in the Philippines who need organization, help, encouragement, a pastor in Indonesia who desperately needs a place to train preachers—what do all of these have in common? They are strategic places where it is either the Gospel of Christ or else the forces of Al-Queda and Islam take the field! We can no longer afford to play our games while untold millions are still untold. We do not have a minute to waste, one more ounce of life to spend on these silly religious games. I do not know what it will take to break the hold of Satan on our Bible believing Baptist churches, but it must come.

Of all God’s people, we bear the greatest responsibility to God for the souls of men. In the words of D. L. Moody, “It is yet to be seen what one man who is completely sold out to God can produce in this world!” All I know is that I want to be that man and I ask you to join me in this quest. Let us together say—Enough to the religious games and petty divisions and arguments! We want more of God and His Word. We want to be a part of what He is doing and get busy at winning our world for Christ!

In my own life I have begun the process of inspection, reflection, prayer, asking God to turn the searchlight of His Word on my life and to give me courage to seek out brothers from more than 40 years of ministry, to seek forgiveness, to ask restitution, to make right everything that the Holy Spirit brings to light that I might be the chose vessel he wants me to be. Would you join me in that quest? Would you ask God to search you as well? Would you be willing to go to that Pastor Brother who has something against you (which is the Biblical mandate by the way—the pressure is on you as the offended one!) and seek forgiveness and be restored to your brother. Maybe your church needs to seek the forgiveness or a sister church. Maybe you need to lead your church in a funeral where you bury the past—old hurts, offenses. In my heart, I do not believe we can go on until we do these things. It is my prayer that God may use us for his glory as we work for him

Bro. Michael