Testing the Mission Call

In our denominational literature the needs of the mission field are stressed in the most im­pressive manner. We often see pictures por­traying the peoples of different lands standing with outstretched arms, with open mouths, and in an attitude of intense eagerness for the com­ing of the missionary. As our young people contemplate the urgent needs in the mission field thus brought to view, they find in their hearts a ready response and a glad desire to go and render the help for which the heathen are so urgently calling. But when they reach the mission field, they do not find the people waiting for them with outstretched arms and with an eagerness to hear the message of eter­nal life as anticipated, and the immediate reac­tion tends to discourage them, and they begin to question the reality of their call to the mission field.

This is not a new experience in mission work, and should be recognized as a part of the mis­sionary's test and training. The apostle Paul, the pioneer foreign missionary of the Chris­tian church, saw in panoramic form a native of far-away Macedonia, who besought him, "Come over into Macedonia, and help us." It was very similar to the presentation of need in mission lands as brought to us by the de­scriptions and illustrations today. But it is well to notice that Paul did not respond to the call as coming from the Macedonians, but from this presentation "assuredly gathering that the Lord had called as for to preach the gospel unto them." Acts 16:9, 10. The needs of the people may be presented as a very urgent call, while the people themselves may not sense their need to a sufficient degree to make a call or even welcome the one who comes to bring them the "good news" of salvation.

The missionary must know that God has called him. If he goes simply because it would seem that the people call and need him, he will be disappointed. But if he knows that God has called him to go to the place of portrayed need, this knowledge will sustain him through tests of faith which would otherwise be well-nigh unbearable. It is imperative that the outgoing missionary shall have taken time to decide the real basis upon which he is called. He must not go simply because he reads of a great need and because the Mission Board has asked him to go; but in his personal relation to God there must be the conviction that God has called him, and that he goes in response to the call of God, not at the imaginary beckoning of the heathen.

Another test of the genuineness of the call to the mission field lies in the contact which is made with fellow workers. Here again Paul's missionary experience is exemplary. When he started on his second missionary tour, he and Barnabas disagreed as to the methods of opera­tion and administration, and this led Paul to set forth a great principle which he discovered as essential in Christian service. He states the matter thus: "There are differences of adminis­trations ["ministries," margin], but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all." 1 Cor. 12:5, 6. The more fully the missionary understands that God has hundreds and thou­sands of ways to do the same work and produce the same results, the more successful the mis­sionary will be, and the happier will be his asso­ciation with fellow workers.

The missionary is brought into close contact with workers of different training, who have lived under different circumstances, and whose experience has taught them methods of work different from those which he may have seen employed; and he must be able to associate with fellow workers and to work with them, even though there may be a diversity of administra­tion and operation. In this respect there is decided difference between working in the homeland and in the mission field. Where the work is well established and thoroughly organ­ized, it is a comparatively simple matter to make a transfer adjustment where workers do not find it easy to blend their efforts or to co­operate in the most effective manner. But in the mission field, this is impossible.

Seoul, Chosen.