Inter-Mission Cooperation among Evangelicals

by J. Herbert Kane

Missionary bodies working overseas have enjoyed a greater measure of cooperation than exists among church groups at home. The nature and extent of this cooperation, however, is not always fully realized.

Missionary bodies working overseas have enjoyed a greater measure of cooperation than exists among church groups at home. The nature and extent of this cooperation, however, is not always fully realized.

It is sometimes assumed that denominations and missions belonging to the ecumenical movement have a corner on cooperation, and that the smaller groups, especially the faith missions, prefer to go it alone. Evangelical boards, because of their theological stand, have refused to go along with the liberal wing of Protestantism. In a few instances some separatist groups have found it impossible to cooperate with anyone outside their own group.

Because of this evangelical missions, especially the smaller ones, are regarded in some quarters as schismatic. They are accused of divisive activities. Even in this heyday of ecumenical tolerance and understanding, they are classified as sects.

However, the amount and extent of cooperation among evangelical missions is enormous. Responses to a questionnaire to members of the Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association and the Evangelical Foreign Missions Association revealed that every mission definitely favors inter-mission cooperation, provided such cooperation in no way compromises its theological convictions.

Evangelical missions did not have their origin in rivalry or competition. Hudson Taylor and Rowland Bingham appealed to existing boards to begin missionary work in the unreached areas of China and Sudan, respectively. Only when their pleas were turned down did they conceive the idea of starting missions on their own. One could not ask for a more genuine ecumenical spirit than that expressed by Hudson Taylor:

The love of Christ overrules national and ecclesiastical boundaries, and the CIM (China Inland Mission) is a living testimony to the fact that born again children of God are truly one in Christ. As an outlet for all men and means, the mission is the servant and helper of all evangelical Protestant churches, especially of those who do not have a work of their own in the Far East.

Imagine this kind of ecumenical thinking forty years before Edinburgh, 1910.

INCLUDES MANY PHASES
Cooperation among evangelical missions has been greatly extended and accelerated until today it includes many phases of missionary work: evangelism, medicine, education, literature, radio, and administration.

Evangelism-in-Depth, born of the Latin America Mission, is an example of inter-mission cooperation on a scale hitherto unknown. For the first time the majority of missions, denominational and interdenominational, in a given country have pooled their resources and accomplished a truly significant work of evangelism.

Missionary radio, launched by Dr. Clarence W. Jones and Dr. Reuben E. Larson of HCJB in 1931, is another area of cooperation that evangelical missions have pioneered with gratifying success. Today all but a few of forty-five radio stations on the mission field are sponsored by evangelicals; a vast amount of cooperation is required to keep these stations on the air. Take the Far East Broadcasting Company for example. Operating twelve transmitters in Manila and three in Okinawa, FEBC is currently broadcasting 135 program hours every day in thirty-six languages. Its facilities are at the service of sixty different denominations and independent organizations. Studios located in Tokyo, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and India utilize the personnel of various evangelical societies in these countries; workers from different missions are on the headquarters staff in Manila.

In Japan evangelical missionaries have banded together to form the Pacific Broadcasting Association, which produces Gospel programs being released over ninety-four commercial stations in all parts of Japan. More recently they have launched television programs in Tokyo.

Coordinating missionary radio in six continents is International Christian Broadcasters, a centralizedcooperative service group that provides information, publications, and conference arrangements for all phases of missionary radio. The official organ of this group is the ICB Bulletin.

DIFFICULT AREA
Perhaps nowhere is inter-mission cooperation more difficult than in the area of theological education. But even here evangelical missions have made commendable progress. Most Bible institutes are sponsored by one mission, but they are open to the students of all evangelical groups. Some Bible schools are sponsored jointly by two or more missions. The Union Bible Institute in South Africa is co-sponsored by six missions. The Evangelical Alliance of Congo, representing twenty missions and churches, opened a seminary of high academic standing in North Congo. The seminary in Medellin, Colombia, organized in 1963, is an inter-mission project under Confederacion Evangelica de Colombia (CEDEC).

The most illustrious example of inter-mission cooperation in theological education is Union Biblical Seminary in Yeotmal, one of the fastest growing seminaries in India. Operated jointly by more than twenty evangelical churches and missions, it has a dozen fulltime and almost as many part-time faculty members representing eight or nine denominations. Most of its one hundred students come from India, but of recent years it has been drawing students from foreign countries as well.

The education of missionary children is a perennial problem for evangelical missions that try to educate the children on the field. The larger missions can afford to operate their own schools. The Central American Mission operates three schools in Central America. The Africa Inland Mission and the Sudan Interior Mission conduct their own schools in Africa. In other parts of the world it is necessary for several missions to band together and sponsor joint schools. Faith Academy in Manila, Morrison Academy in Taiwan, and Muree Christian School in West Pakistan, for example, are sponsored jointly by six missions.

Cooperation is helping to eliminate bottlenecks and to accelerate the gigantic task of providing Christian literature for an ever expanding world population. There are scores of evangelical presses in all parts of the world. Most of these, though owned and operated by one mission, do extensive work for other missions. Where the job is too big for one mission, several groups pool their resources. The Word of Life Press in India is operated jointly by the Christian and Missionary Alliance, The Evangelical Alliance Mission, and the Conservative Baptists.

In the larger fields evangelical inter-mission organizations are bringing their combined resources to bear on the problems of Christian literature on a wide scale. Included in this category are such enterprises as Librairie Evangelique du Congo, Leopoldville, and Literatura Evangelica Latinoamerica (LEAL) in Latin America. In Japan, Taiwan and other countries the Sunday School Union draws personnel from and provides materials for evangelical missions. Evangelical Literature Fellowships have been organized in Ceylon, India, the Philippines, Lebanon, Spain, Ethiopia, South Africa and East Africa.

In addition there are specialized agencies such as Evangelical Literature Overseas, Christian Literature Crusade, Moody Literature Mission, and World Literature Crusade operating on a world-wide basis, conducting workshops, training writers, subsidizing special projects, opening bookstores, and publishing and distributing evangelical literature of all kinds.

AUXILIARY ENTERPRISES
In recent years several auxiliary enterprises have been organized to help evangelical missions do their work more effectively. Missionary Aviation Fellowship, now operating planes in a dozen different countries, is working hand in glove with evangelical missions, providing safe and economical transportation in the more primitive areas of the mission field. In the Amazon basin and West Irian missionary work would bevirtually impossible without the services of MAF. For twenty-five years Gospel Recordings has been cooperating closely with evangelical organizations. During that time, five million records in 3,109 languages have been shipped free of charge to missionaries in all parts of the world.

The Pocket Testament League has distributed tens of millions of Gospel portions in the Far East, Africa, Europe, and South America, always working in cooperation with evangelical groups in these countries. World Vision, besides conducting orphanages in Korea, has contributed in many ways to the evangelical cause in various parts of Asia. Wycliffe Bible Translators, cooperating with scores of evangelical societies in ten different countries, is making a unique contribution by means of six Summer Institutes of Linguistics. Every year Wycliffe brings home from several fields for a three-month period over one hundred experienced field workers to train missionaries and candidates of some sixty different organizations. Four out of every five trained go out with some other mission.

The Navigators, who specialize in follow-up work, have ninety-four missionaries in eighteen countries-all of them working side by side with evangelical groups, strengthening their converts and building up their churches. International Child Evangelism Fellowship has trained workers in fifty-one countries, assisting evangelical missions and churches to conduct a more adequate program of child evangelism. More recently the Bible Club Movement has sent workers to East Africa, where they are serving under the Africa Inland Mission. Youth for Christ, once confined to North America, is now active in forty-eight countries, helping evangelical missionaries to evangelize young people.

More and more missions are lending their personnel to other missions to get the job done faster and better. International Missions, with its main work in India, is understandably burdened for overseas Indians. Accordingly, it has lent workers to the Africa Inland Mission and the West Indies Mission to help reach Indian minorities in Kenya and Surinam.

The Overseas Missionary Fellowship has made it a practice to lend workers to other missions. At present it has personnel on loan to eight institutions in various parts of the Far East. Wherever a church or mission is favorable to the evangelical message, the OMF is happy to cooperate in every possible way. In Taiwan and Indonesia, instead of establishing a church of its own, OMF is seeking to strengthen and revive existing churches by means of a strong Bible teaching ministry.

One of the most exciting examples of inter-mission cooperation is the United Mission to Nepal. Organized in 1953 because of the government’s refusal to deal with more than one mission agency, it now includes some twenty-six missions and churches representing approximately one hundred missionaries of ten different nationalities-all working harmoniously for the cause of Jesus Christ in this Himalayan kingdom.

BEFORE LIBERALISM
In the nineteenth century, and even into the early decades of the twentieth century, cooperation among all missions was a common practice. Articles by John R. Mott and Robert Speer appeared in China’s Millions; Hudson Taylor participated in ecumenical conferences all over the world. In those days evangelical boards and faith missions were often members of various national Christian councils. But as liberal theology began to make itself felt, there came a parting of the ways; liberals and conservatives found themselves drifting farther and farther apart.

One by one evangelical missions withdrew from the national Christian councils. Neither the pattern nor the pace was the same in all countries. In some, such as Japan, China, and India, the liberal element was strong and the separation came earlier. In Korea, Congo, and Ethiopia, on the other hand, the conservative element was prominent. To this day all the missions in Morocco are thoroughly evangelical, and inter-mission cooperation poses no problem at all.

The problem of cooperation between evangelical missions and other groups is highly complex. In some countries an evangelical mission will cooperate with others on the local or provincial level where the liberal element is missing, but will not cooperate with the same groups on the national level where it is present.

Each mission board is autonomous and orders its own affairs as it thinks best. Some missions will pull out of the association at the first hint of liberalism. Others will remain as long as they think they can influence the group for good. Still others remain as long as the prevailing climate is conservative, regardless of how many liberal missions may belong. There are very few evangelical groups that will remain once the administrative apparatus passes under the control of the liberal wing.

Not all missions in the Congo are conservative, for example, but evangelicals on the Congo Protestant Council were strong enough to pull that council out of the International Missionary Council (IMC) when that body decided to join the World Council of Churches (WCC). In Japan, on the other hand, the Christian Council has long been in the control of the historic denominations, and evangelicals have kept themselves aloof. Five different associations of evangelicals in Japan are attempting to find ways of cooperation.

Since the merger of the IMC and the WCC, evangelical missions and the churches brought into existence by them are under increasing pressure to band together. In recent years there has been a sharp increase in the number of evangelical fellowships all over the world. In Africa during the last two years seven evangelical fellowships have been formed in as many countries, bringing the total to ten. India, Korea, Taiwan, West Pakistan, and West Irian all have their own evangelical fellowships. Many of these national evangelical fellowships came to a focus in the World Evangelical Fellowship.

In Central and South America evangelical forces are greatly strengthened by the large number of faith missions in that part of the world. This is one region where evangelicals predominate. Consequently many of the national fellowships and federations, with the exception of the Rio Plate Federation, are predominantly evangelical.

IFMA AND EFMA EFFORTS
In recent years both the IFMA and the EFMA have organized their own regional and other committees to cope with the larger problems facing their respective constituencies. The IFMA has three regional committees-Africa, Europe, and Latin America. It also has a special committee on finance, literature, and student affairs. The EFMA has similar committees to solve problems and to promote the interests of its member missions.

Realizing that evangelicals must stand together, these two groups with a combined strength of 102 boards and 15,000 missionaries are working closely together. The areas of cooperative effort have been enlarged as an outgrowth of a joint meeting of executives of the two groups. Five joint committees have been set up. just getting under way is another committee known as CAMEO (Committee to Assist Mission Education Overseas) with five sub-committees already at work. Evangelical Missions Quarterly was launched in October, 1964, as a joint IFMA-EFMA project.

Such is the encouraging picture of the rapidly expanding inter-mission cooperation revealed by our survey. Many practical problems, however, remain to be faced. These will be considered in a subsequent article.

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EMQ, April. 1965, pp. 3-9. Copyright © 1965 Evangelism and Missions Information Service (EMIS). All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from EMIS.

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