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Working Smart

Posted by in Baptist Life, Church & Missions

The convention is behind us, as well as the vote on the GCR Task Force Report. Now, it’s time to move ahead with plans to work together on seeing the Great Commission fulfilled. As has already been stated on various occasions, the real responsibility for the task before us lies primarily in the hands of the individual congregations that cooperate together through the SBC. It also lies with each of us as individual believers, as we seek to be the best stewards possible of the gifts and resources the Father has placed in our hands for making disciples of all the nations.

Although a great majority of Southern Baptists (and you as SBC Impact readers) live and work in the United States, a major part of the GCR Task Force Report has to do with our joint efforts in international missions. And, a big part of this has to do with our being more generous, and allocating more resources toward the sending of more missionaries to more places around the world. Jerry Rankin makes some very good observations to this effect on a recent post here. Indeed, there is much, much more we as Southern Baptists could do to impact the world with the gospel if we were as generous and as conscientious as we ought to be with the resources God entrusts into our hands.

But I would like to submit that a good part of our faithful stewardship in our joint efforts to fulfill the Great Commission has to do not only with giving more money and sending more missionaries, but also with the way in which we work. Just like in many other endeavors in life, in general, it can be just as important—if not more so—to work smart as it is to work hard.

As we look at the task of world evangelization from a broad perspective, we see that the most effective and cost-efficient workers are more often than not indigenous evangelists, church planters, missionaries, and pastors. Some, such as K. P. Yohannan, have taken this to the point of suggesting a moratorium on the sending of foreign workers from the West in favor of a redistribution of resources for the support of local indigenous workers.

Personally, while I do not agree completely with Yohannan’s thesis, I believe there is much in what he, and others like him, say that should not be lightly cast aside. As Southern Baptists—even if not quite 16 million strong—we represent a relatively large amount of human, financial, creative, and spiritual resources. However, I don’t believe that God ever intended for us to take on single-handedly the responsibility for evangelizing the whole world and making disciples of all nations. His intention for us, rather, is to take our place as one part of the Body of Christ, and to work responsibly, side by side, together with the rest of the Body, toward the fulfillment of the Task.

Southern Baptists have struggled a bit down through the years with finding the correct balance in all of this. In 1994, when I and my wife were appointed as IMB missionaries to Spain (after previously serving four years with another organization), IMB work was subject, in many countries and contexts, to a series of written agreements with national Baptist unions, under which indigenous Baptist leadership set strategy and supervised the ministry of IMB missionaries on a local level. The problem with many of these agreements was that they contributed to a system of unhealthy dependence, and often confused the role of missionary, pastor, and denominational worker. As a result, many times, missionaries were given assignments as pastors of local churches, promoters of denominational programs, and/or the overseas equivalent of associational DOMs. In the work of the kingdom, there is nothing at all wrong or non-strategic about the ministry roles of pastor or denominational worker. It is just that, in general, these are not truly missionary roles, and, according to sound missiological principles, in the great majority of cases, should be reserved for locally based, indigenous believers.

Under the leadership of Jerry Rankin, the IMB recognized the inherent problems with these arrangements, and began to make needed adjustments by way of what has since come to be known as New Directions, or SD-21. Another important plank of New Directions was the idea that the fulfillment of the Great Commission around the world, as well as in any particular region, or among any particular people group, is a God-sized task, and that God, when He does things, does not usually do them in such a way that any single organization, such as the SBC, or the IMB, might be able to accomplish them all on their own, merely through prudent allocation of resources and careful strategic planning. No, a God-sized task requires the joint participation of all of the various members of the Body of Christ, and the use of spiritual resources, such as prayer, spiritual warfare, and Christian unity.

At the same time, however, an unfortunate consequence of the implementation of New Directions, in many contexts around the world, was a de facto distancing of IMB work and the ministry of IMB field workers from that of national Baptist unions, our traditional ministry partners of the past. In some places, primarily in Asia, certain regions and people groups which had up to that time been largely closed to traditional mission work became the focus of church planting movement (CPM) methodology. As much of this exciting new work was taking place in areas in which the IMB had not previously worked (at least not openly, to any great extent), the emphasis was placed on IMB missionaries winning totally unreached and unchurched individuals from scratch, discipling them, and equipping them to be the leaders of entirely new networks of churches, or CPMs.

Though it is hard to argue with the results seen through the great number of baptisms and new churches started as a result of following CPM methodology, an important missing element in IMB work in many of these places became evident with time. For example, in the country of India—one of the main focal points of work among unreached people groups, and CPM methodology—there are approximately 21 different Baptist unions and conventions. Yet, from the time the IMB began a serious focus on this part of the world up until just 2 or 3 years ago, there had been very little meaningful contact between IMB workers and these long-standing groups of indigenous believers.

In recent years, from what I have been able to gather, there has been a helpful move toward a middle-ground position in between the pendulum swings of the old restrictive working agreements with Baptist unions and the subsequent de facto distancing of ourselves from close working relationships with our traditional Baptist partners. Specifically, for example, from what I understand, in the case of India, and South Asia, a new role of liaison between the IMB and the various indigenous Baptist unions has recently been created.

Around the same time all of this was taking place within the IMB, however, something else was taking place within the SBC Executive Committee. As Southern Baptists, on an official denomination-wide level, we had, up to this time, related to other Baptist groups around the world by way of our participation in the Baptist World Alliance (BWA). However, as a result of a growing concern among some SBC leaders that the BWA as a whole—and especially some of the member unions and church networks—did not adequately reflect the same values as Southern Baptists, the decision was made to pull out of the BWA.

Wisely, various leaders involved with this decision also realized that it would not be a good thing to completely isolate ourselves, on an official level, from like-minded groups of believers around the world. As a result, the new Global Evangelical Relations department of the SBC Executive Committee was launched, under the direction of Bobby Welch.

In my opinion, a positive aspect in this development was the inclusion of other Bible-believing evangelical groups among the entities with which we as Southern Baptists seek to relate on an official basis, and not just those with “Baptist” in the name. The truth is many of these groups share more of a common set of values with us as Southern Baptists than some more liberal-minded Baptist groups around the world.
At the same time, I believe, it is a bit naïve to think that, in spite of the goodwill and diligent effort given to the cause, one man working out of one office can adequately represent us as Southern Baptists before the myriad of different Baptist unions and other Evangelical groups around the world. The bulk of responsibility for relating to our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world, and to the various organizations they represent, I believe, must continue to fall upon long-term on-site missionary personnel of the IMB.

Ideally, there should be no conflict of interest between these two spheres of influence and work. The Global Evangelical Relations website even states as much here: “This relationship building in no way whatsoever has anything but positive connections with the International Mission Board.” However, with the approval of the GCR Task Force Report, one of the consequences, as claimed by some (such as Morris Chapman here), will be the defunding of SBC Global Evangelical Relations as a part of the fallout of the transfer of a certain percent of CP budget allocations from the EC to the IMB.

In addition to the passing of the GCR Task Force Report, some of the most important decisions before us as Southern Baptists in the coming days have to do with the naming of new presidents for the IMB and NAMB. We already know that Frank Page will be the President of the EC. In my opinion, one of the most important considerations in these appointments (especially that of the IMB) will be the general philosophy with respect to how we relate to and cooperate together with other groups of Baptists and Evangelicals around the world.

Although situations and contexts vary from country to country, and people group to people group, I believe it is crucial that the IMB continue to encourage on-field missionaries to relate with and develop positive cooperative ministry initiatives with already existing evangelical churches and entities in the places in which they work. In many places, there are bridges of trust which must be re-built after misunderstandings caused by the abrupt rescinding of previous ministry agreements, and our withdrawal, as Southern Baptists, from the BWA. But, we cannot afford to operate with the mindset that we as Southern Baptists are going to go out and save the world all on our own.

In some ways, individual churches, through short-term mission teams, and on-going partnerships with other churches and ministries around the world, have an important role to play in all this. In many cases, however, the strategic wisdom and experience long-term workers—both with the IMB, as well as other organizations—have to offer in regard to this can be of vital importance in avoiding missiological blunders and poor stewardship of resources in cross-cultural situations most local churches in the States are not familiar with.

As we move ahead toward the carrying out of our stated objectives for fueling a Great Commission Resurgence, let’s give a concerted effort to being more and more generous with our resources, and more and more conscientious with regard to how we allocate those resources toward Great Commission work around the world. But, let’s not only work hard. Let’s do our best to work smart, as well.