Send Me! Your Journal to the Nations
Getting There - Step 5
Calling for the Return Of the Rare Breed
The Long-Term Servant
Bill Taylor
It was an incredible experience, and I knew that my son David and I were witnessing a piece of history, as well as peering into the future that night in Kijabe, Kenya.
David and I had finished participating in the Third International Conference on Missionary Kids (we’re both MKs), and we were on the way to visit the Missionary Training College, which trains Africans for cross-cultural service, in Eldoret, Kenya. En route we stayed overnight with friends at Rift Valley Academy, a large MK school in Kijabe. We providentially sat in on the fellowship conference that was being held there for East Africa AIM (Africa Inland Mission) missionaries.
A Legacy of
Longevity
That
night AIM celebrated with gratitude the decades of service of six veteran missionary
couples who were retiring. They shared gripping stories - of their first trek
to Africa, of the Mau Mau Rebellion years, of what it meant to be pioneer missionaries,
of the changes experienced in their lifetimes. Now they faced the uncertainty
of retirement in a far-off land, the country that had issued their passports
- “home.”
But what astonished me was the service longevity of these men and women. It averaged 45 years per person! Among the 12 of them, they represented 540 cumulative years of service, which translates into 6,480 months, 28,080 weeks, 197,100 days! What a legacy! It was an honor for us to observe these veterans and think of that glorious day in the Throne Room of the Lamb when they will celebrate with African believers from different tribes, languages, and even nations.
Glimpse of
the Future
That
same night
the AIM multinational missionary force welcomed 25 single, short-term missionaries
from the U.K. who were dedicating two years to teach God’s Word in Kenyan
schools. They were young, bright, committed, cross-cultural servants, dressed
in British funky styles, who would have to minister only in English (not the
mother tongue of their pupils), since their time was limited.
Were we peering into the future? Was the day of the veteran, the “lifer,” the really long-term missionary, over?
U.S. statistics in 1996 indicated that we were sending some 33,074 fully-supported long-term missionaries (serving more than 4 years); 6,562 short-term missionaries (serving from 1 year up to 4 years); 507 non-residential missionaries (based not in their country of service but traveling there regularly); 63,995 short-termers (2 weeks up to 1 year); and 1,336 bivocational associates (sponsored or supervised tentmakers). That gives us a total, including all categories, of 105,474 missionaries. Only 31% are long-termers, and 67% are short-termers. The remaining 2% are the tentmakers and non-residential missionaries.
Why have the scales tipped from the older decades, when the overwhelming number of missionaries were “lifers”? A number of reasons come to mind:
• God does different things at different times of history.
• Our society has changed.
• Different needs have emerged.
• The amazing Two-Thirds World missionary movement has exploded on the scene.
• Today’s missionaries come from many countries (not just the U.S. and Canada).
• Our culture reflects a new mentality of lower institutional commitment and higher mobility - hence a “shopping mall” mindset that wants it now but also wants the freedom to change its mind tomorrow.
A Continuing
Need
Do we
really need more long-term missionaries? Couldn’t we send out hundreds
of thousands of short-termers to complete the task of world evangelization?
Wouldn’t we get a better investment return on our missionary dollar if
we supported fewer North American career missionaries and countless thousands
of “native missionaries”?
No! It would be neither biblical nor right to phase out the career servants. What’s more, as Christian stewards, we reject the cost-effectiveness mentality of getting more missionary “bang” for your buck.
Lest I be judged as anti-short-term, let me clarify. I fully support, personally and financially, short-term missionaries. The Holy Spirit is using them in marvelous, unique ways, particularly if they work in the field in partnership with established churches or veteran missionaries or qualified national leaders. I respect them for their commitment, knowledge, skills, and servant spirit.
I’m for short-termers. But there are some things that can only be done by the career, long-term missionary. That’s why we still need many more “lifers.”
Distinctives
of Long-Term Service
1. Short-termers
can love the national people, but it takes the patient work of the long-term
servant to learn the people’s “heart language” with excellence.
Speaking the language in which the people think, dream, sing, argue, and love
opens the door to their hearts and souls in an irreplaceable way. The story
of Jesus then flows over a bridge of integrity-built relationships.
2. Short-termers can minister effectively during their limited stay, but it’s the longer-term servant who, over time, builds relationships of confidence with the people, understands their culture, and sensitively contextualizes the gospel within that vibrant reality.
3. Short-termers may leave a legacy, but the one who stays longer is able to invest over the years in lasting discipleship and leader development. He or she will witness the rise and expansion of churches, the emergence and training of new leaders, and then the transfer of responsibility and authority.
4. Short-termers are missionaries also; but it is the long-term missionary who can invest in the new generation of the Two-Thirds World (or European or Russian) missionary force - the veterans with experience will invest in their new partners.
5. Married short-termers experience brief or partial family immersion in culture and ministry. The career family, by contrast, experiences the joy of birthing and raising their family in another culture, with all its positives and negatives.
6. Short-termers can faithfully distribute copies of the Word of God, but it takes a long-haul servant to translate the Scriptures and prepare them for publication and distribution.
7. The most recent Population Data Sheet reports 5.8 billion people in our world, with only 1.175 billion in the so-called “more developed” world and 4.6 billion in the “less developed” world. In the providence of God, the growth of the church is not contingent on degrees of socio-economic development. Rather, it comes from the sovereign movement of the Spirit and the obedience of God’s sensitive children. The 1997 edition of Operation World, by Patrick Johnstone, reveals another dimension: a world of some 11,874 unreached people groups in our global family, and about half of them in the unevan-gelized/unreached world. And they are un-reached in part because they are tough to reach.
How will these people groups hear the gospel in their own language and within the context of their own cultural reality? Through obedient servants.
Yes, the short-termers can invest a brief segment of their lives - perhaps showing the “Jesus” film, perhaps sharing their testimonies, perhaps helping gather research or assisting long-term workers in many other creative ways. But the church will be established among unreached peoples primarily by the long-term missionaries who are willing to invest at least 10 to 20 years of their lives - perhaps even to give their lives - for the sake of reaching their corner of the world with the gospel of Christ.
Forget the
Statistics:
Meet
Some Real People
I recently
spoke on the phone with Carl, a dear friend who is currently on home leave from
his Middle Eastern field of service. Carl and I met during the years I taught
at Trinity International University. I saw him mature in Christ and marry Sally,
an equally faithful disciple. I witnessed their profound commitment to Christ
and their willingness to obey Him in cross-cultural ministry.
From the start, Carl and Sally were “lifers” with their faces set toward the Muslim world. Neither came from an evangelical background. Both had come to Christ during their university years. They completed their formal biblical studies, joined a solid mission agency, raised their support from committed churches with which they established relationships, then moved to the Middle East. Was it easy to leave their beloved families? Not at all! But they left anyway because of the impelling Spirit of God.
Carl and Sally have now lived for over nine years in their adopted culture. They went to the field with one young son; their family has since grown to include two more boys.
Has it been simply marvelous and wonderful in the new country? Not on your life! But I shall never forget something Carl said years ago.
“I plan to live my life in the Middle East,” he told me. “After the two required years of Arabic study, I know it will take me another eight years to gain high proficiency. But that’s what it takes. And my desire is to know God’s Word released with power. I also plan to study the Koran deeply in order to understand my Muslim neighbors.”
Carl and Sally and their three boys. A longer-term missionary family.
Then there’s Doug. He dropped by the house yesterday. We had a rich time together. He’s a recently married, long-term cross-cultural servant who’s committed to Poland. Doug’s objective is to see new churches established, to see leaders trained in the context of their ministry as well as in the emerging evangelical seminary in Poland. He went out single, and God recently led him to a young woman who shared the same passion and who served initially in Romania.
Doug jolted me with the statement, “You know, Bill, I didn’t go to Eastern Europe to save souls; I went to know God better. And that is what has happened to me through the long and hard work of learning the language, studying the culture, and understanding the people of Poland. I know God better.”
That’s similar to the strong words another friend of mine says: “The purpose of missions is not to fulfill the Great Commission. Rather, it is to increase the number of people on earth who worship the one true and living God with reverence and awe, giving Him the glory He deserves.”
Sure, a short-termer could say the same thing. But there’s really nothing like experiencing this goal and outcome over the course of years, decades, a lifetime of service.
The Payoff
Is there
a special payoff, a compensation for long-term (even “lifer”) missionary
service? Let me answer it in the words of another colleague of mine. “We
have a job that’s extremely dangerous and extremely costly, with little
compen-sation, except the satisfaction of obeying Christ among the people of
the world in a distant and strange country.”
Also, as the church in a given area is born and grows and learns to reproduce itself, the long-term missionary has the satisfaction of watching the whole process, analogous to observing a baby born into your family, then witnessing the growth and development of that child into its own reproductive maturity. These, then, are some of the benefits of the long-term missionary.
My mom and dad are lifers who went to Costa Rica in 1938. They still serve cross-culturally as Hispanic church planters (now in their “home” country) at the ages of 84 and 88.
My wife and I served 17 years as missionaries to Latin America. Our three children were born there, studied in a trilingual school, and watched with us as the book of Acts came alive in the Guatemalan church of which we were a part. That church first met us as foreign missionaries, but when we left Latin America, they sent us out as part of their own missionary force!
Did we have tough times and wonder what was happening to us? Of course! But we hung in for a longer haul. We wouldn’t trade our experience. These are just a few of the benefits of longer-term missionary service.
Is the career missionary a vanishing species in our North American society? Some might suggest so, but I’d cry out, “No!” And I invite thousands of select short-termers to convert their rich experience into long-term cross-cultural service. You may feel that life is just too indefinite or that global socioeconomic trends are too discouraging, and we just can’t plan that far in advance. The answer there is quite clear: no believer knows the future. But if you can plan for short-term service in an uncertain world, that experience equips you to aim for a long-term ministry of at least 5-10 years. You might even go for 45 years!
Commit for the long term. Let God direct you to a life of cross-cultural ministry that, while deepening your reliance on Him and your relationship with Him, brings many more people into the rainbow coalition of white-hot worshipers surrounding the Lamb on the throne!
Some Key Questions
and Issues
If you
want to be a career missionary, what elements should you keep in mind? Here’s
a checklist:
1. What are your deepest motives for desiring missionary service?
2. In what ways have you been tested spiritually?
3. What aspects of the global mission task seem to require longer-term missionaries?
4. What does your interest and gift inventory report? What do you enjoy doing, and what are you naturally skilled at doing?
5. What kinds of specific education and training do you need in order to channel your interests and sharpen your skills/gifts? How long might this take?
6. In what ways is your church committed to these same passions? How can you be an integral part of the life of your church as you follow in obedience your path to the nations of the world?
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Excerpt from Send Me! Your Journey to the Nations Copyright 1999, World Evangelical Alliance, all rights reserved, reprinted by permission. The entire Send Me! workbook may be purchased online at www.wearesources.org.
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