Missions in the US
I honestly had a problem with Patrick Johnstone at our OIL retreat. Not only did I question his view on psychology, the human past, and the role of repentance from his Seminar “Free to Serve” (I’m still building my own thinking on the subject so I’m not quite sure what to think) but I question his view of modern missions in the US. The message I walked away from his missions challenges was “There is a job out there that needs to be done and if you want to be a good kingdom soldier, you need to pray about going into long term missions.” I have problems with this on multiple fronts.
Going into full time missions work was something I struggled with for about a year during my sophomore – junior years. The culture at CFC is very strong and it seems like many people become pastors or missionaries. I was under the incorrect assumption that unless you are a pastor or missionary, you are a second class kingdom citizen. I though lay people, senders, or anyone who wasn’t a pastor or missionary was a tier below. They were not really involved in kingdom advancement. God showed my how it really is. While there are specially blessings for those in full time ministry, God doesn’t think any less of those who he has called into the workplace. Not everyone can be a pastor or missionary. We need senders and prayer supporters. Every missionary there needs to multiple supporters – financially and in prayer. I felt like Mr. Johnstone was belittling this fact. He made little mention of people supporting missions – only going on missions. There was no call to be a sender – only a sent. People could be misinformed like I was, especially in a strong culture like CFC. I feel like he didn’t give the whole picture of the calling to missions which includes the calling to be a sender.
Looking at US Culture and Society, the growth trends of evangelicals in South America, Asia, and Africa, and the fact that he himself said that US is becoming one of the largest receiving countries of missionaries, it makes me question why are we sending out missionaries. We need to take care of our own house. Operation World says the US is 84.5% Christian. That’s not what I see when I look at my country. I look at our churches and I see bodies but through spiritual lens – how many of these bodies are really alive? A goal of missionaries is the enable the local church to become self sufficient. If indeed the US is becoming the largest receiving country of missionaries – what is our local church doing? We need to start taking care of our own ‘house’. We need revival in our own country.
My last point sort of ties the two together. The cost associated with sending and supporting missionaries is high. You have to pay for travel, insurance, pensions, education, food, shelter, etc. Native missionaries can live much cheaper. They are used to the living conditions that missionaries have to adapt to. It takes years to learn the language, whereas native missionaries already know the language. Mr. Johnstone said it takes something like 10 years for a missionary to become effective! I’m pretty sure a lot of that is overhead of getting adjusted, learning the culture and language, etc. I’m sure it takes much less time for a native missionary to become effective. I don’t think it’s wrong for the US to send out missionaries. It’s good because we do have things to offer like training and teaching not available in other countries. However, the cost and time to train an effective US missionary can go much further spent supporting native missionaries. None of this was mentioned in his call to missions. With recent trends it makes more sense to me for the US to transition from sending missionaries to training and supporting native missionaries. The age of traditional missionaries is coming to an end.
Personally I would love to be called to missions. It would be hard but I would go. I know at one point I told God, ‘Here am I, send me.’ And he said ‘Ok, stay here and support missions.’ I’m trying to do my best – supporting some full time missionaries and organizations, short term missionaries, and doing my best to faithfully pray for the missionaries I support. It gets harder as I start making more money to increasing my support. Aside from supporting financially, there will possibly be an opportunity for me to use my career skills on the mission field in Kapsowar, Kenya. I really hope I get to go. But for the majority of people, God will not call to missions but we are all called to support the advancement of the Kingdom. I felt like Mr. Johnstone neglected the calling of the majority and rather pushed people to full-time missions because of his own past.