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Tuesday, December 04, 2018

Missionary methods

Was he right or was he wrong? This is where thinking Christians need to step back for a moment and recognize that there is a distinction we have to make between motivation and method. That's not an accidental distinction. It's an important distinction.

But we also come to understand that Protestant missions during that period began to learn certain methodologies that became absolutely essential to the modern missionary movement. For one thing, even as we see the example of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew, Christian missionary organizations began to send out missionaries, not one by one, but at least two by two. Understanding that some kind of team effort was important.

But I would also point to a distinction in methodology. Jim Elliot and the missionaries who were with him were part of a larger effort. They were part of a culture, of a church sending culture of missionaries. There were those who would continue the effort, who would learn from what happened to Jim Elliot and would continue to try to make contact with the tribe. There was an infrastructure, there was methodology, there was not a solitary effort because if that solitary effort had been the case in Ecuador, there would not have been the following of the team that was able eventually through persistent efforts to reach the tribe with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

But we also have to understand that hard lessons have been learned throughout Christian history and in particular, in the course of modern Christian missions about how best to try to reach unreached people groups.

And to put the matter bluntly, this is not the way that most modern missions organizations would seek to reach this kind of group. That doesn't mean that they wouldn't demonstrate the same kind of courage, it doesn't mean that missionaries even today are not serving under the threat of martyrdom and often facing the reality of martyrdom. It doesn't mean that there should have been no effort to reach this unreached people group, not to mention the thousands of other unreached people groups still on planet earth.

But it's also true to understand that Christian missionaries and mission sending organizations have learned something about how, over the long term, to be even more effective in reaching these unreached people groups.


The gaping lacuna in Mohler's analysis is that he never gets around to presenting a practical alternative. What's a more effective method for reaching the tribe? Mohler repeatedly poses that question, then leaves it dangling in mid-air. He never answers the question he raised. He takes refuge in abstractions and generalities. 

Take his (at least) two-by-two rule. How would that change the outcome of the encounter with the hostile tribe? If a team showed up at the island, wouldn't the whole team be massacred? 

There's a problem when Christian spokesmen feel the need to comment on issues even though they have nothing constructive to say. Why does Mohler bother to critique Chau's methodology when Mohler has no solution to offer? 

7 comments:

  1. > Take his (at least) two-by-two rule. How would that change the outcome of the encounter with the hostile tribe? If a team showed up at the island, wouldn't the whole team by massacred?

    Indeed, given what happened, and granted that the tribe was known to be hostile, there's actually a case that just sending in one person was a better idea than sending in a team. Better to learn if a lethal response will occur with one person rather than many.

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  2. Frankly I also wonder why so many people feel that they have to have or share an opinion on this particular missionary. I don't get the sense that it's because we have so many would-be missionaries just chomping at the bit to go out and do things rightly. A bit more of Romans 14 - that we'll all servants answerable to our master, not to each other - wouldn't go amiss.

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  3. For all we know God really did call Chau to go to the Sentinelese. And not just Chau, but one or more people, but those others failed to obey the call to go now. So, Chau was forced to go alone.

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    1. AP

      "So, Chau was forced to go alone."

      Denny Burk summarizes what Mary Ho (All Nations) mentions in an interview:

      Why did Chau go alone? Chau was sent out by a mission organization called All Nations and wasn’t on the field at his own instigation. All Nations typically does not send out missionaries alone, and Chau had colleagues who were willing to go with him to make contact with the Sentinelese. Chau knew the danger he was going into and didn’t want to subject his colleagues to the peril. For that reason, in the end, he chose to go alone.

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    2. wow. What bravery!

      I'm reminded of the following passage:

      23 And Jesus answered them, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
      24 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
      25 Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
      26 If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.- John 12:23-26

      This passage, and Jesus' example, seems to have some application to missionary work.

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  4. http://biblethumpingwingnut.com/2018/11/28/bibleintheraw-episode-17-how-martyred-missionary-john-chau-confronts-your-lukewarm-faith/

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