Church-to-field Missionary Teams: Here’s How

by Phil Elkins

Can local churches send missionaries directly to the field? This team of missionaries shows how it was done with careful planning, thorough preparation, and sacrificial giving.

Can local churches send missionaries directly to the field? This team of missionaries shows how it was done with careful planning, thorough preparation, and sacrificial giving.

There are not many people who thumb through the statistics in the Mission Handbook. But recently many who have were startled to read that the third largest sending agency in North America is Churches of Christ. This fellowship of over 16,000 congregations with almost 3,000,000 members has a unique way of sending their 1,623 missionaries.¹ Local congregations sponsor and support one or more families. They have been doing so for almost ninety years.²

The following description is of one of these churches and the team of missionaries it sent to Zambia, Africa. In 1967 five families began asking God to send them as a missionary team. They prayed for a congregation that would have the faith to assume the full support of all the families. They felt they would work most effectively under the direction of one eldership and the support of one church. They wanted to feel a close tie with "senders" who would be deeply and prayerfully involved in their joint witness.

BUILT ON FAITH
After being rejected by several larger churches, the team found a small 225-member congregation in San Fernando, Calif., to share their goals. Following an initial all day Sunday meeting, the elders said they were willing for the potential missionaries to continue to share their mission aspirations with the congregation over a period of months. They felt that if God wanted the church to become financially, prayerfully and evangelically involved with this group, he would make his will known. By the end of that year the elders were convinced that the congregation was ready to make a faith commitment to God.

On the basis of their relationship to Christ and under his headship, the church members committed themselves to support fully all five families. This meant an increase in giving from $1,300 to $1,800 a week.³

PREPARATION
For a year before the team was sent to Africa, they participated in the life and work of the San Fernando church. The missionaries were all completing at least two years of intensive studies in missions at the School of World Mission, Fuller Theological Seminary, or Hartford Theological Seminary. The church mission committee received weekly instructions in mission theory, anthropology and African culture. That study continued under the guidance of Wendell Broom (a student at the SWM and later appointed assistant Professor of Missions, Abilene Christian College) for nine months following the September, 1969, departure of the group.

The following goals and guiding principles for this mission effort grew out of the total study effort:

Goals
A. To initiate an indigenous movement to Christ that will gather in the reservoir of unbelievers.

B. To establish Spirit-filled native churches that will be capable of self-government, self-support, and self-propagation.

Guiding Principles
A. Concerning Evangelism. Our aim is to plant and cultivate churches so -that they will be able to grow naturally and independently in their respective communities.

B. Concerning the Bible. We believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God and accept it as our rule for faith and practice. We believe that God is active today, that Jesus Christ is His Son and our Savior, and that the Holy Spirit is the power at work in us. He makes us effective "ministers of reconciliation."

C. Concerning Preparation. The aim of each member of this group has been to prepare as adequately as possible for the difficult task of communicating the Good News across cultural barriers. Studies have included such areas as: church growth principles and procedures, anthropology, African religions, training the national ministry and linguistics. Each member of the team will complete at least a master’s degree in missions before leaving for Africa.

D. Concerning Support. We believe in the principle of minimum support. We want to live on as little as possible in order to minimize the economic gulf that often develops between missionary and the nationals.

E. Concerning Identification. Our earnest desire is to be "all things to all men" so that we may save some. Our concept of identification necessitates a knowledge of the language, culture and customs of the people we seek to win and love that will transcend problems of personal inconvenience and discomfort. We want to share the Bread of Life in the most intimate and meaningful manner possible.

F. Concerning Church Growth. We are dedicated to planting as many churches as we can in our lifetime. We will not be satisfied with mediocre results, but will always seek to remain objective in our observations and mobile enough to move to the most receptive areas. We believe implicitly that our Father is not willing that any should perish but that all should reach repentance. And that when souls respond to Christ the New Testament church is formed.

G. Concerning Strategy. While trying to maintain a sensitivity to the work of God in our lives and world, we have looked for a group of people who are ready for harvest into the church. We believe God wants us to work with the Tonga tribe, Zambia.

MISSION AWARENESS WEEK
Immediately before the missionaries left for Africa, several days were set aside for the church to engage in prayer, fastings, and teaching on this mission of God. On September 8, 1969, the "sent ones" walked from a large assembly of people they remember as being "in prayer" for them. Prentice Meador, Jr., a minister for the sending church, said, "I can solidly say that this experience has meant a revival of faith for this church. The praise is to God. May he grant that revived churches by scores and hundreds may hasten to the completion of the task our Lord committed to us!"

TACKLING THE JOB
One of the members of the team made a prefield study of church growth within the Tonga tribe.4 He arranged for the team to be sponsored in Zambia by an existing church. The chief of the area and village headmen signed letters to the government requesting our team to come. Within a twelve-mile radius of where the team settled (the primary target area), there were 100 villages with four small congregations that had not grown for several years (a total of 75 Christians). A division of the Tonga tribe inhabiting the area, the Toka-Leya, were 95 percent animistic. By the end of 1973 there were four times as many churches (16) and six times the membership (450). Beyond the immediate area completely new movements were started. In the Moomba chieftaincy, 70 miles to the north, there are now six churches with 240 Christians. Not only has the chief been won, but a third of all of his headmen and both court judges.

The team spent most of 1970-71 learning the language and culture. Thus, the above response came during two years, 1972-73. I mention the results only to show that we feel we were able to find a "ripe pocket" and begin to gather the harvest within a relatively short period of time.

COMMENDING THE STRUCTURE
My thesis is that what the congregation and band of missionaries did should be duplicated on a broad scale by many other congregations. I think it can serve as an effective structure: (1) for reaching the eighty percent of the world that need a team equipped to do cross-cultural communication of the gospel; (2) for increasing the number of missionaries and senders committed to the task; (3) for providing the kind of dynamic relationship between church and mission called for by the speakers at Green Lake;⁵ (4) for providing a way for those trained in church growth principles and the planting of "dynamic equivalent" congregations to put the training into immediate effect; and (5) for teams of highly trained specialists to test new ideas and field approaches without having to modify existing society structures and policies. This structure may also prove to be more in keeping with the western cultural revolution and its emphasis on personal relationships, experimentation, freedom and change.⁶

The latter idea relates to perhaps the greatest fear or objection to congregational sponsorship, i.e., how can such a "splintered" effort be controlled and coordinated? What is really meant is, How can the recognized power structures control and manipulate the missionary outreach of the church from the top down in keeping with established biases? Can we not trust Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit to work through local congregations to guide them to people he has prepared to receive him?

CONCLUSION
One thing should be brought clearly into focus. Whatever structure is used for mission, it should be carefully evaluated in light of its impact on those who are affected by it. Does it produce in the lives of those who are related to it the kind of fruits described in the Bible? Are the missionaries teaching by example and word the new church on the field how to utilize a similar structure for outreach to other cultures? One of the most valuable contributions of Dr. Ralph Winter is his dramatic 66 revelation" that most missions have not and are not helping the "younger churches" to establish a mission structure.

The Tonga team, of which I have been a part for five years in Africa, praises God for the faith of the church that has sponsored us. Their faith and testimony have also been a great witness and example to the new churches. The group feels God has many more highly receptive tribes and peoples needing churches to send effective, reaping teams. We commend what this church and team have done as one effective strategy for world mission.

Endnotes
1. Edward R. Dayton, Mission Handbook: North American Protestant Ministries Overseas, Monrovia, Calif., MARC, 1973.
2. Phillip W. Elkins, Church Sponsored Missionaries: An Evaluation of the Mission Efforts of Churches of Christ, Austin, Texas, Firm Foundation Publishing House, 1974.
3. The team’s salary amounted to $2150 per month. Another church that had been supporting one of the members continued to give $350 per month. In addition, another church gave $25,000 that was used for air fares, building initial housing, and two vehicles. Very simple homes were built. My wife and I chose to live in a mud hut in the middle of the village. We tried to adjust to the local diet and traveled most of the time by foot and bicycle. Every six weeks we would use a vehicle to go to the nearest town 50 miles away to buy supplies and rest with a friend.
4. Stan Shewmaker, Tonga Christianity, South Pasadena, William Carey Library, 1970.
5. Dr. Vergil Gerber, ed., Missions in Creative Tension: The Green Lake ’71 Compendium, South Pasadena, William Carey Library, 1971.
6. Charles H. Kraft, "Christianity and Culture," prepublication draft, Fuller Theological Seminary, School of World Mission, 1973.

——-

Copyright © 1976 Evangelism and Missions Information Service (EMIS). All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from EMIS.

Comments are closed.