The Week in Review

A Paper of Reflection of God’s Mission

God is the originator of mission. God brings men and women into his plan to take their place in missions. Believers are not able to successfully carry out God’s mission without the understanding, training and equipping for missions. When believers do not have the right motives or prepare properly for missions, there can be problems. Author, Bruce Wilkinson’s experienced problems in Africa and returned feeling defeated. The pitfalls of his trip will be discussed using the mission material covered.

God continually seeks to draw fallen men and women back to a right relationship. God’s plan for redemption was in place even before man walked upon the face of the earth. “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:” (Ephesians 1:4).

The question is, who is the originator of mission? Author Gailyn Van Rheenen, in his book, Biblical Foundations & Contemporary Strategies: Missions states, “God the originator of the mission of deliverance, then sought a person to carry out his mission” (15). In this example, Moses has been given the assignment to be God’s missionary of deliverance to the Israelites (Ex. 3:10). Moses looks at himself and finds faults in himself that would prevent the mission from being completed. Moses complains that he would not know what to tell the people and that his speech is not good enough. Moses has the wrong idea about missions. This is the problem with many believers today. Believers think it is in their power they will accomplish the task. God was telling Moses it is not in self, but in God that the mission is accomplished.

Rheenen states it this way, “At least five specific applications of the ‘Mission of God’ can be made: First, if mission flows from the character and nature of God, it cannot be neglected by the church…Second, since the mission is of God, God will equip people for the task…Third, the ‘Mission of God’ enables Christian missionaries to understand themselves under God’s sovereignty…Fourth, the ‘Mission of God’ implies sacrifice…Finally, this perspective enables the Christian communicator to recognize that because the mission is God’s it will succeed” (19).

An important step for a believer to take in becoming successful on the mission field is to understand how Jesus accomplished the mission. Robert E. Coleman, in his book, The Master Plan of Evangelism states, “ Not for one moment did Jesus lose sight of his goal. That is why it is so important to observe the way Jesus maneuvered to achieve his objective. The Master disclosed God’s strategy of world conquest. He had confidence in the future precisely because he lived according to that plan in the present” (24). If a believer is to fulfill the mission of God, he must like Jesus, never lose sight of the goal. “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14). Paul speaks of having Christ as your goal and pressing toward that goal. Everything else is a secondary or defective goal. It is the same with missions. The primary goal should be out of the love for God and his purpose. Secondary motives, which are based on preaching Christ for humanitarian or personal reasons, are not correct motives but they do not have to stop one from being effective for the Lord (Rheenen, 42).

Jesus called men to him and set about showing them by his actions and his words how to live for God. “Hence, Jesus did not urge his disciples to commit their lives to a doctrine, but to a person who was the doctrine, and only as they continued in his Word could they know the truth” (Coleman, 56).

Coleman explains the process Jesus used to prepare his disciples for the mission of evangelizing the world. Jesus selected his disciples, not based on background but on willingness to follow. He then associated with them and allowed them to see him living out the mission. Jesus then equipped them (consecrated and imparted to them) with what they needed to achieve the mission. He also demonstrated to them how to do it. He prayed and gave them an example of what prayer looked like. He next gave the disciples an assignment to go out two by two. He gave them the instruction to follow on the mission. Jesus supervised them with the purpose of reproducing himself within their hearts and actions.

This is still the process that one can use today to equip others to understand the truth of the Bible and prepare them for missions. When presenting the message, one must be willing to meet an individual where they are. This is how Jesus spoke to the people. He gave them models that they could understand. He used the things they were familiar with and explained the deeper things of God. He took time with them and in love showed them the truth of God. In the book, Evangelism Made Slightly Less Difficult, the author Nick Pollard states, “I shall always remember a student telling me how he had become a Christian in one of my missions. He said that it was the open debates which had made the difference for him. But it turned out that it wasn’t any clever answers to the difficult questions that helped him especially. Rather, he said it was the loving and gracious way in which I had treated the aggressive questioners who where trying to have a go at me” (25).

Recently, I read an article about the Prayer of Jabez author Bruce Wilkinson. The article was in Christianity Today regarding his leaving Africa. I want to first state this is not a condemnation of Bruce Wilkinson or his vision only an observation of what pitfalls he encountered because of a lack of preparation.

In an article in Christianity Today titled Mr. Jabez Goes to Africa, the author Timothy C. Morgan, talks about Bruce Wilkinson’s decision to go to Africa. Wilkinson describes how he felt God’s call on him to go into missions. He immediately organized a company, CoMission to educate ministry in Russia (5). He set about creating the finish line (his goal), which was to train 120,000 Bible teachers to influence the top 2 percent of the world population (5-6). By the end of 2002, WorldTeach had 33,374 Bible teachers in 82 nations. WorldTeach was a bottom-up strategy. Strategy as defined by Rheenen is “the practical working out of the will of God within a cultural context. Missionaries ask, ‘How does God desire that we minister within this context?’ Seeking God’s will for the culture, they work with national leaders to develop creative, God-centered, biblically critiqued strategies with well-defined goals” (140).

When one looks at the numbers, this seems to be a great success and the future looks good. However, Bruce Wilkinson leaves Africa in 2005 because he is discouraged, and spiritually broken from the ordeal. What are some of the things that went wrong? Again, this is not a criticism of his method but simply an observation of the methodology he uses.

After his launch of WorldTeach, he began to move towards the next project, which was in Africa. He said God gave him a heart for the children of AIDS/HIV parents of Africa and he wanted to do something about it. In Christianity Today, the article, Jabez Author Quits Africa, Timothy C. Morgan writes, “The center would house, educate, and feed children whose parents had died of AIDS. It would also have a golf course and other tourist attractions. Swaziland, located between Mozambique and South Africa, is one of Africa’s smallest nations and has one of the world’s highest HIV/AIDS rates. Dream for Africa had hoped to house 10,000 children on a 32,500-acre complex by the end of 2005” (1).

While this seems like a great project there are flaws within the planning of this endeavor. First, Bruce Wilkinson’s motives were not the fundamental motives needed for missions. The fundamental motive needs to reflect the will of God (Rheenen, 38). Wilkinson’s motive was to help people’s physical needs. Even though this is an admirable undertaking, this motive is a secondary motive. Rheenen states, “Westerners are frequently touched by the poverty of the world in comparison to their own wealth. They are drawn to missions as a response to human poverty. They desire to use their medical, technical, and teaching skills to upgrade the physical and socioeconomic conditions of people…sometimes, however, this response is no different from that of philanthropists who desire to improve the world” (42).