The Entropic State of Missions Part 1 of 4

For many years I have observed and assumed that the necessary trajectory of every established church was continual growth through the addition of members, because that is what every church is striving for. It has been implanted in me that to measure the validity of a church was to measure largely by how it increased, and everyone scurries about advertise its success by a display of its numbers. Yet with time I have come to see that such thinking owes more to corrupted assumptions than to the plain testimony of Scripture.

We have sought to modernize the ark, adorning it with many colors, surrounding it with ornaments, spotlights, and glimmering displays, all in the hope of making it more attractive unto men. Yet in so doing, we have often mistaken embellishment for power. For the power never resided in the decorations surrounding it, but in the presence of God to which it pointed. And so it remains today. The more we trust in human enhancements to accomplish spiritual ends, the more we reveal our dissatisfaction with the sufficiency of God's own appointed means. In striving to improve what God hath established, we often succeed only in obscuring it. The further we stray from the original pattern, the less we remain under the influence of its power.

A missionary brother laboring in South America recently related to me a recurring pattern he had observed firsthand. Missionaries arriving from the United States under the banner of a well-known missionary society would enter into an already established church, though one in which neither the pastor nor the congregation possessed a clear understanding of the Gospel. They were readily welcomed and entrusted with considerable influence, being given, as it were, the keys to the church. From there they would furnish the pastor with books, instruct him in the Five Solas and the system of Reformed Theology, and spend a season teaching these same doctrines unto the congregation. After some time, once the church had become established in these theological distinctives, they would depart for another location and report the work as a success. 

I have repeatedly seen the likes of this myself here. Such accounts have often caused me to reflect upon what, precisely, we mean when we speak of a church being established. Is it a church with elders, pastors, deacons, members, and church discipline? Is it one that adheres to creeds? Is it inside a constructed building with air-conditioning? Is it one with a social media account? Is it a regenerated church? Is it a repenting church? Has it seen a greater vision of Christ's beauty enough to fuel a desire to make Him known to people outside the fold? Has it counted such a terrible cost? It is one thing to impart doctrinal knowledge, and quite another to see the actual congregation brought unto an experiential faith in Christ.

Here in the Philippines, foreign speakers are received with a distinction bordering upon royalty. Because they come from the United States or other Western nations, it is assumed that they must necessarily possess greater wisdom, deeper understanding, and superior insight. Our role, as locals, is simply to sit, listen, and learn. Thereafter, efforts are made to incorporate western mindset into the Filipino setting, adopting their methods and assumptions as though they were universally applicable. What hath succeeded in one culture is presumed suitable for all cultures, and foreign approaches are often embraced with little consideration for the distinct realities of the local people.

Underlying this spiritual crutch is a subtle and unfortunate inferiority of spirit. We have, in many respects, been conditioned to believe that spiritual understanding is chiefly imported from abroad, as though the Scriptures available to us were somehow less sufficient than those possessed by others. We behave as though God speaks more clearly to foreign voices, while we ourselves exist merely to receive what they have already discovered. In the West, it is not uncommon for a preacher to receive a curse word or public insult and immediately publish it abroad on social media as persecution for the Gospel. Yet in other corners of the world, far removed from cameras and public attention, there are believers who suffer losses far greater. In remote villages and forgotten places, families who bear the same name of Christ endure violence, displacement, imprisonment, and even butchered for the faith they profess. Of course, such realities ought not to lead us into a contest of suffering, but they should compel us to examine our assumptions. For there is a vast difference between speaking of persecution and enduring it; between discussing the cost of discipleship and paying it.

We must ask: whose faith is being exercised most experientially? The one whose convictions are tested by inconvenience and criticism, or the one who must cling to Christ when the cost is measured in blood and loss? It is often in the furnace of affliction that faith ceases to be a matter of theory and becomes a living, daily dependence upon God. Faith is not proven chiefly in what it knows, but in what it endures while holding fast to Christ.

Part 2