Featured A list of mission boards that do not meddle

Regarding the calling of a church-planting missionary....

The way I see it--and I may certainly be wrong, as we do not seem to have explicit "job descriptions" from Scripture, but rather only titles and examples--following the example of the first church-planters in the Early Church, the Apostles, when one is called to be a church-planter, he has to take the message from house to house, lead people to the Lord, disciple them, get them together for regular meetings, rent buildings, baptize them, prepare teachings for the group, organize fellowship activities and prayer meetings and children's activities, organize personnel, organize conferences, prepare leaders, organize the musical program,do lots of administration in general, formalize the new mission into a full-fledged church (once it has its own by-laws, is financially independent of other churches, and is able to govern itself in his absence). He will either nominate or appoint a full-time pastor for that new church, so that he can pick up and leave the work in that man's hands, in order to go and start a new church in a new field. Then, after this second mission is underway, he will come back to visit his first one, from time to time, and make sure things are going well. I think that this is why we see the Apostle Paul going back over the same routes, again and again, checking up on his previous work, while, all the while, starting new work in other places.

So, it is much more complex than just evangelizing and showing others how to evangelize, which is most of what my wife and I do.

In fact, I do the follow-up visits, only because it complements the first encounter with a convert by helping him to get on his own two feet for a while, having a personal mentor to guide him for a while. Even though I spend a few months discipling him myself, and taking him to church, for the long-term care he has to be firmly planted in the local church, where the pastor can supervise, and I myself need the cooperation of the whole church, to lighten the burden that I myself feel with him, or the time he takes away from other outings, for example.

To be honest, I get more satisfaction out of the evangelism, than the discipling, (although I try to do both well) and I have no administration skills whatsoever. Planning activities and events is one of the things that I despise, although participating in them is not a problem.

Years ago, I was asked to "pastor" the singles in a small church in Georgia, for about one year. I prayed and fasted nearly every week, prepared teachings, organized small-groups where we would meet at a different house each week, put a different person in charge of the music each week, another in charge of the refreshments, etc. It was extremely frustrating, not to mention unfruitful. I concluded that the purpose of the whole experience was for God to show me through a "process of elimination," that I was not called to that kind of ministry in the long run.

Likewise, in Latin America, I once led a certain man to the Lord, and told him I would come back to visit him on a certain day, at 7:00pm. When I got there, he had about ten other young neighborhood men there waiting, so that they could hear the gospel, also. So I shared the plan of salvation with the whole group again. They all prayed the sinner's prayer, and they all came to church on two or three Sundays.

I went back to the same house, every week, at 7:00pm, to "disciple" the whole group. We started with a few songs, and then I proceeded with a chapter-by-chapter exposition of the whole Book of John. It took an entire year. All along, I felt that the other men were there in this weekly "cell-group" mainly because the host was a sort of "neighborhood chief" that insisted that they come. While they were there, they generally enjoyed the teaching, but, at the same time, I also felt that, if he had not insisted that they attend, they would not have continued to come, throughout the year, regardless of my efforts. In fact, he, himself, generally had to remind them, every Friday night, to be there at his house by 7:00pm.

Gradually the group fizzled out, and I ended up with just the one host again, and he got a new job requiring him to move to another city.

Again, I concluded that my skill at evangelism was good, but that I did not have the calling of a pastor. It required lots of work for me, and produced little fruit. On the other hand, when someone else takes care of my new converts in the long term, it frees me to make new converts with evangelism. If we had a little better cooperation in the local church, I think I would not have to do as much discipleship as I have done, as others would answer the call, for me.

I had two friends in particular that were good at that: they had more patience than I, they seemed to have more time to chat with the new believer, time to call him on the phone, and they even remembered his birthday and sent him a little congratulatory message on the date. I used to tell these two single young men that they had what seemed to be "the calling of a pastor." They laughed. They were not particularly skilled at evangelism, but they were better than I when it came to caring for new believers.

Over the years, these two guys got married, studied in our Bible Institute, and eventually became pastors cherished by their congregations. They never pastored any other church but the one that they started in, and never started any new ones.

What I do envision for myself someday, is for some pastor with "caring" skills, in Latin America, to ask me to compensate his weakness in soul-winning by making me his assistant, in charge of his visitation program, training soul-winners, directing his follow-up program (i.e., making sure every new convert got follow-up visits, making sure members were teaching the right material to the new converts, etc.) I would also enjoy teaching miscellaneous subjects in the pulpit, now and then.

This might limit my ability to conduct workshops in other churches, however, since lately my wife and I have found it more productive to spend an entire month with a little church--taking groups out to evangelize and make follow-up visits with us every afternoon, but teaching the principles only during the regular church services, twice a week--rather than spending only one intensive week for the whole workshop (requiring taking groups out to the streets for five days in a row, and then also teaching nightly for five days in a row). The latter scenario requires the church to cancel other appointments for the whole week, in order to be in church every night, and leaves less time for us to work with them on the street.

Well, excuse my verbosity.

 

Thank you, Jordan. I would like to know what distinguishes All Points from the other big missions agencies, if you don't mind commenting on your experience, and on what others have said.

Trouble is, when you work with only one missions agency for all your life, it is hard to compare to others that you have never known, I suppose.

 

John, yes, I stand corrected.

And from my point of view, as a young adult in those days, I would say that the biggest temptation of all was pre-marital promiscuity.

In fact, the firrst pastor that I had in Atlanta, when I got back from Japan, had a son in the Armed Forces, stationed in Okinawa. There was a new outbreak of protest going on in Okinawa, presumably against the American presence or something, or else the movement to get the Japanese Armed Forces back involved in combat training. My pastor was asking prayer for his son's protection. I told him, "Pastor, the Japanese are not violent these days, so I would say that there is nothing to worry about in that area. If I were you, I would pray that your son not get enticed by any young Japanese woman over there, rather, and have an immoral relationship with any. There is nothing more that the average single Japanese woman would like, than to have a blond-haired, blue-eyed American soldier as her boyfriend."

The pastor did not believe me, and said that his son was doing well in that area, and not to worry.
One year later, his son got involved with a girl, precisely as I had warned, and even brought her over to the U.S., for his parents to meet her, and we met her in church, although it became obvious to me that they had already fallen into sin.

 

Jordan, thanks so much for clarifying. That is precisely what I meant when I asked for information about "Missions agencies that do not meddle." Of course, it was a poor choice of words. What I meant was "Missions agencies that do not usurp the role of the local church," or "Missions agencies that do not 'control" their missionaries."

Of course, I do not mean to offend the other dear brethren who insist that their own missions agencies are never guilty of controling. I think sometimes it comes down to personal experiences and preferences.

Likewise, a young couple that starts off with a big agency, and does not know better, will naturally adapt to whatever policies it has, rather than complain, and risk losing all its support due to one nasty letter from the agency, sent out to all supporting churches.

With your permission I may like to ask you more questions about your experience, in the next few months. So far, it sounds great.

Have you ever had a potential supporter tell you, "We've never heard of All Points. I'm afraid we can't help you, because we only work with recognized agencies..."?

 

Thanks, Jordan.

To be fair, I wish to express my gratitude to the other brothers on this thread, who have affirmed that their own agencies are not of the more "controlling" type that I am afriad of, which may not be as common as I feared, but time will tell. I will also look into the other agencies that you other gentlemen have mentioned. You have made good points that should have been obvious to me at the first, namely, that an agency cannot put its seal of approval on a missionary unless it regularly keeps track of his whereabouts and his work, and not just his doctine. So I do need a balance.

Meanwhile, Jordan, I hope you do not mind if I stay in touch with you about your experiences, perhaps by private messages or e-mail?