Chapter
2
New Goals
With all this change, one understandable question
is What hasn't changed? Well, let's name a few things:
1) the unique saving power of Jesus Christ; 2) the
changeless truth of God's word;3) the value of godly
men and women surrendering their lives to missions;
and 4) the compelling vision of all people coming
to saving faith in Jesus Christ. These unchanging
truths link every missionary from the Apostle Paul
to the newest IMB appointee. Each one longs to see
a lost world redeemed. Consequently, the IMB vision
statement has never been more relevant than today:
We will lead Southern Baptists to be on mission
with God to bring all the peoples of the world to
saving faith in Jesus Christ.
We
will lead Southern Baptists to be on mission with
God to bring all the peoples of the world to saving
faith in Jesus Christ.
We
still have a long way to go to fulfill this vision.
Each generation of missionaries moves us closer
to that vision by setting goals that draw us ever
nearer. Goals serve as intermediate steps on our
journey. If they are good goals, they stretch us
as far as possible in the direction of our vision.
The
history of Southern Baptist foreign missions is
filled with the pursuit of new and challenging goals
that bring us ever closer to a dream of seeing all
peoples come to saving faith in Jesus Christ. When
we began over 150 years ago, it was the goal of
supporting missionaries in far-away lands that united
us as a denomination and ultimately forged us into
a major global missions force. It's difficult now
to realize just how radical and innovative that
goal was. History records that it met with opposition,
and its success was far from certain.
Through
the subsequent years of the Civil War, Reconstruction,
World War I and the Great Depression, it became
the worthy goal of many Southern Baptists to not
allow our foreign mission enterprise to collapse.
Through decades of economic crises, we managed to
not only sustain the work but to expand into new
mission fields on five continents. By the 1950s,
our agency was well along a course that would eventually
send and support more missionaries than any Protestant
denomination in history. The goal that fueled this
growth was a vision to take the gospel to millions
who had never heard it. This period of growth and
expansion helped to define the current state of
our Southern Baptist foreign missions enterprise
by creating the largest Protestant mission agency
in the history of the world.
After
decades of growth, Southern Baptists in the 1980s
once again looked to their vision of all peoples
coming to faith in Christ and asked if more could
be done. It became apparent that more than massive
numbers of missionaries would be required if we
were to see an entire world reached. This realization
led Foreign Mission Board leaders to draw all of
our missionary efforts into a united goal of evangelism
that results in churches. No matter how specialized
the ministry or missionary approach might be, all
Southern Baptist missions would be strategically
aimed at evangelism that results in churches.
The
impact of this new goal was quickly felt. Initially,
as with previous goals, some questioned it. Does
this mean that my ministry is irrelevant? a missionary
doctor in a teaching hospital asked. The same question
surfaced from missionaries serving as school teachers,
seminary professors and business managers. Over
time, however, most missionaries came to see that
the new goal didn't bypass their ministry contribution.
Instead, it offered a unifying purpose to all our
missionary efforts--lighting the way ahead and moving
us closer than ever to the fulfillment of our Great
Commission vision.
As
our missionaries pursued this goal, impressive results
followed. Within a decade, the number of baptisms
doubled from 110,000 per year to more than 220,000.1
Likewise the total number of churches overseas rose
in 10 years from 11,500 to more than 21,000.2 Over
the next few years, this concerted focus on evangelism
that results in churches came to be seen as normative
and definitive for all missionary personnel serving
with the Foreign Mission Board.
Each
of the goals that have characterized our agency
over the past century and a half have moved us closer
to the fulfillment of our vision. As we embrace
new goals, the old ones aren't abandoned, they are
subsumed into the whole. Today, we are again revisiting
our vision and embracing a new goal. It is the goal
of church-planting movements among every people
group on earth.
A
church-planting movement is a rapid multiplication
of indigenous churches within a people group.
If
our previous goal was so effective, why change it?
Because we believe we can do better. By the early
1990s, our global baptism rates had peaked at around
300,000 per year.3 Despite our best efforts at evangelism
resulting in churches, much of our work around the
world had plateaued. Although we could point to
an increase in the number of new converts and new
churches each year in many countries, we were falling
farther and farther behind the exploding rate of
population growth around the world. As long as we
compared ourselves with ourselves we might feel
good about ourselves. After all, we were recording
some growth each year. But when we looked to the
millions who were going to hell each day without
a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, we determined
that we must do better.
Look,
for example, to Kenya, one of Southern Baptists'
most productive growth fields. Over the decade stretching
from 1985 to 1995, despite Baptist growth rates
in excess of 14 percent, evangelical Christianity
as a whole (including Baptists) grew at a rate of
only 3.25 percent per year. Meanwhile, Kenya's population
grew at 3.34 percent per year. Despite a strong
harvest in this country, born-again believers have
not been able to keep up with the population-growth
rate. In the developing countries of the world,
which have 38 percent of their population under
the age of 15, how can we hope to fulfill our vision?
In
the midst of our search for more effective ways
to reach a lost world, God has revealed some remarkable
breakthroughs in evangelism and church planting
that are happening in some of the most unexpected
corners of our globe. In these situations, evangelism
is resulting in rapidly multiplying churches in
a phenomenal way that is vastly outstripping population-growth
rates.
One
example can be seen among a Hindu people in India.
Initial evangelism and church planting began among
them in the early 19th century. However, 170 years
later there were still only 28 churches among this
population of 90 million people. Furthermore, progress
in reaching the people had ceased, with no new churches
planted among them in over 40 years. Over the last
few years, however, things have changed radically.
Between 1989 and 1991 eight new churches were suddenly
started in this formerly stagnant setting. By 1994,
the number of churches had grown to 78, the following
year to more than 220, a year later to 547! Then
by 1997 there were more than 1,000 new churches
among this predominantly Hindu population. The growth
rate shows no sign of slowing, as 800 new churches
have been planted in the past year. In all, a total
of more than 50,000 new converts have been recorded
in the decade between 1989 and 1998.4
Certainly
one could describe this situation in India as evangelism
that results in churches, but that seems to be an
understatement. A more appropriate term would be
a church-planting movement. A church-planting movement
is a rapid multiplication of indigenous churches
within a people group. We are currently monitoring
more than two dozen church-planting movements around
the world in every imaginable context. Let's look
at a cross-section of five church-planting movements
from diverse backgrounds.
Number
of Churches5
People
Group
at Start
of Movement
5 Years
Later
Today
A Buddhist People 6 (1992) 123 194
A Muslim People 17 (1989) 133 217
A Latino-Tribal People 13 (1973) 45 245
A Chinese People 3 (1993) 550 550
A Hindu People 28 (1989) 78 2,000
While
International Mission Board missionaries around
the world continue their efforts at evangelism that
results in churches, God is surprising us with church-planting
movements in a wide array of settings. It's as if
He is saying to us, Look to the nations, and be
utterly amazed. We are looking. We are amazed, and
we are taking notes.
What
is evident is that only God can start a church-planting
movement. However, we are learning how to cooperate
with God in this divine activity by removing obstacles
that conflict with His desires. Along the way, we
are finding that church-planting movements are not
limited to one type of people or cultural condition.
They have broken out among literate and non-literate
peoples as well as rural and urban peoples. Within
India, we have seen them among Brahmin castes as
well as the untouchables. We are seeing church-planting
movements among Muslims in the Near East, urban
Han Chinese in China, Khmer Buddhists in Southeast
Asia, cultural Christians in the former Soviet Union,
christopagans in Central America and animists in
Africa.6
Church-planting
movements seem to be God's way of racing ahead of
the exploding number of lost people that are being
added to the world's population every day. With
church-planting movements, there is a genuine hope
of seeing an entire world come to saving faith in
Jesus Christ. Any wonder why IMB leadership has
been quick to adopt this new goal of church-planting
movements among all peoples?
In
a real sense, the leadership of the International
Mission Board is continuing its tradition of embracing
new goals that move us ever closer to fulfilling
our Great Commission vision. This new goal of a
church-planting movement among all peoples includes
a commitment to evangelism that results in churches
but raises the bar to a new level of expectations
in hopes that all our missionary personnel will
initiate and nurture church-planting movements among
all peoples.
<Previous
page | next
page>
