Editorial: Who Cares How Old a Missionary Is?

by Jim Reapsome

A college friend of mine who became a physician was turned down for missionary service because he flunked the board’s physical exam. He had only one kidney. Another board, however, accepted him for work in Zaire, where he served with distinction for 35 years.

A college friend of mine who became a physician was turned down for missionary service because he flunked the board’s physical exam. He had only one kidney. Another board, however, accepted him for work in Zaire, where he served with distinction for 35 years.

Today’s missionaries bear little resemblance to their forbears. Yesterday’s missionaries had to have two kidneys; newer ones don’t. Rarely did anyone over 30 get accepted. Today, most first-term missionaries are over 30.

Like the volcanic eruption that ripped off the top of Washington’s Mount St. Helens, the word “missionary” has been blown apart. Today we have short-term missionaries. To someone who went to the field before World War II, that term is an oxymoron if there ever was one. We also have tentmaker missionaries, second-career missionaries, and senior citizen missionaries. We have missionaries who go for two weeks, two months, and two years. We have missionaries who pass out tracts for two weeks, put on mime and music shows, and play soccer for Jesus. We have missionaries who are secretaries, pilots, radio technicians, linguists, doctors, nurses, teachers, builders, administrators, and so on. Very simply, anything that anyone can do here in the States is a missionary vocation if the person volunteers, raises support (or is paid by the denomination), and works for an agency or church—at home or overseas.

The classic understanding of “missionary” has been disfigured and put out with the trash. But I’m not about to bemoan its fate, because this should force us back to the Bible.

Two basic ideas leap from its pages: God calls and God sends. That theme so overwhelmed young Isaiah that he fell on his face and cried out for God’s mercy. Churches, publicists, Web sites, conference speakers, and recruiters do not call and send people; God does. God uses these things as his means. He also employs dreams, visions, prayer, and his penetrating, convicting word.

God called Isaiah in a vision. Jesus spoke to Paul from heaven. God called Samuel in the middle of the night. “Those whom he called he also sent.” That was Paul’s concise description of God’s mission. That’s the pattern we must firmly entrench in our minds and hearts, not some artificial, humanly imposed definition of what it means to be a missionary.

Unfortunately, the legitimate, biblical sense of God’s missionary call has been seriously devalued today. People rush off into all kinds of things because they’ve bought into somebody’s powerful appeal. Do something good. Learn something. Get some experience in another culture. Have fun. Start a business. Adopt an unreached people. Reach an unreached people.

Have all of the people we send to do all kinds of stuff really been called by God? We cannot and should not assume they have been. It’s fatal if we do. One reason God’s work does not see more fruit is because many people are motivated by guilt, emotions, or even adventure—and not God’s call.

I knew a youth pastor who lasted less than six months as a missionary to Africa. He admitted he had been swept along by the evangelical tide that suggested you were perhaps half a Christian at best if you didn’t go overseas as a missionary.

God also does the sending. When we grasp the root idea of our word “mission,” which comes from the Latin “to send,” then we can easily accommodate everyone, regardless of what role they play in God’s work. If that secretary in Vienna has been called and sent by the Holy Spirit and the church—as Paul and Barnabas were—I see no reason why we should not call her a missionary. Same for all those tentmakers. Let’s drop that word and call them missionaries. They aren’t doing what the apostle Paul did anyway. If the Holy Spirit calls and the church sends you to teach English in China, you’re a missionary in my book.

But don’t real missionaries cross cultures? Not necessarily, according to Scripture. Samuel, Isaiah, and Jeremiah went to their own people. Paul was comfortable in two cultures. Jesus was sent by the Father to his own people. “As the Fathersent me, so send I you” says it best and says it all. Other distinctions may be useful for academic purposes, but those finely tuned definitions have been swamped by reality.

“Pray the Lord of the harvest to send workers.” Who cares how old or young they are, what they do, where they go, how long they work, or whether they have one kidney or two, if they are called and sent by God and the church?

—–

Copyright © 1997 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.