Editorial: Missionary, Go Home

by Jim Reapsome

The tranquil cornfields of central Illinois stretched on mile after mile along Route 150 west of Peoria. Suddenly, a bizarre black-and-white sign MURPHY GO HOME popped up from the greenery. How unneighborly, I thought about the good farmers of Illinois.

The tranquil cornfields of central Illinois stretched on mile after mile along Route 150 west of Peoria. Suddenly, a bizarre black-and-white sign MURPHY GO HOME popped up from the greenery. How unneighborly, I thought about the good farmers of Illinois.

Reminded me of how most of us felt when “Missionary, go home” first exploded on the world missions scene in the early 1960s. Then in 1974 at the first Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization some leaders from Africa didn’t tell us to go home; they said, “Missionary, stop coming.” Their call prompted some interesting debates.

MURPHY GO HOME got me to thinking about the phenomenal expansion of Western missionary work following World War II.

What we knew as foreign missions was on the ropes in 1945. Just before war broke out, a group of lay experts from several major denominations decided that the church’s missionary duty was finished. We had done the Great Commission, nations around the world had their own churches, and that was that. Besides, some theologians and Bible scholars had gutted the Bible of its evangelistic imperative anyway.

But God’s sovereign purposes to draw people into Christ’s body moved ahead despite their pronouncements. He touched former GIs and sailors. He aroused students. He stirred up the Bill Brights, Loren Cunninghams, George Verwers, and Ralph Winters. He stirred up preachers and professors. Suddenly, world missions wasn’t history anymore; it was a mighty tide of thousands of people giving their lives in a multitude of ways for the sake of the 2 billion who had never heard of Jesus Christ. Some of the old agencies were buried, but new ones with energetic, visionary leaders sprang up in their places.

How can we possibly tabulate what God has accomplished in the last five decades? We’d like to be able to count everything that’s happened, but we can’t. It’s enough to say that Jesus Christ has been preached, honored, and obeyed with great vigor, pain, hope, and sacrifice all across the world. Yes, more than a few have given their lives in God’s great international cause.

The trite generalization is that Christians in what used to be called receiving countries now outnumber those in sending countries. We see dynamic churches in Korea, China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Nigeria, Mongolia, Nepal, Zimbabwe, Russia, Kenya, and El Salvador, to name just a few. Another generalization reveals that these churches have in turn seized the Great Commission for their own obedience. We have to discard sending and receiving countries as a useful distinction.

If it was premature earlier on, is it now time to go home, or to stop sending? What should be our focus in North America especially as we look into the 21st century? If the past decades have been so good, why not keep doing more of the same?

Careful reflection on a church-by-church basis would require that we withdraw in some places. These churches are up and running. Not only so, they surpass us in zeal and sacrifice. They preach the word, they evangelize, they send their own missionaries. Our presence isn’t needed, and in some cases it’s a hindrance to growth. In other churches, it is time to stop sending more people. If we would check with their pastors, they would kindly say enough is enough. We can’t use any more people. Go somewhere else, please.

I wish our churches and agencies would pay more attention to these churches, and redirect their concerns elsewhere. Prayerfully and scientifically, we have to pick our spots much more carefully. When we send people, we should know they are not overloading existing churches, but are offering specialized ministries as servants at the invitation and direction of the churches.

I believe we should look sharply at our investment in support services. “Missionary, go home” and “Missionary, stop coming” could well apply here. We need to reduce our commitment to maintenance, and look for places where there is nothing and start from scratch. Scratch missionaries are the best way to go in many places.

The critical need for the 21st century will still be for visionary entrepreneurs who will search the world, working hand-in-glove with the churches, to discover ways to bring Jesus to huge assemblies of people suffering under political, religious, and economic barriers. We can’t write them off because we’ve done so well since the end of World War II. But neither can we march ahead without searching for the significant meanings behind MURPHY GO HOME.

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