Shall We Go Out of Business--As a Foreign Mission Enterprise?

The following statement was recently made by a mission administrator, but, fortunately, not a Seventh-day Adventist administrator : "I wish to state and offer infor­mation and arguments in support of the propo­sition that the — [name of his denomination] is steadily going out of business as a foreign mission enterprise." The denomination in question had a membership in 1940 of approxi­mately 1,500,000. In years gone by, and it was noted for its missionary zeal. It is tragic to think that the administration of such a church is being forced to contemplate the possibility of their historic missionary society's going out of business as a foreign mission enterprise.

The writer here quoted went on to explain that for 1942 their churches in North America were contributing to the mission board con­siderably less than half the amount which they contributed fifteen years ago. As a result their missionary staff in foreign fields declined seriously, until in 1941 they had less than half the foreign missionaries which they had in former years. He says further : "We have not entered a new field in thirty-six years.... God has had to turn away from us and permit new . . . missions, in order that unreached peoples of earth might get the gospel." A pathetic admission to be made by a church adminis­trator! I quote again:

"Year by year we have sent out a pitiful trickle of recruits. Their number never replaced the losses sustained. Steadily staffs have been depleted. The burden has fallen on the faithful servant. . . . Think for a moment of the lonely men and women on God's frontiers. Day by day they toil. Night by night they try to rest, with every nerve aching hearts heavily laden with the tragic human need that surrounds them, and praying God to stir their cebelievers in the homeland to send needed rein­forcements. With courage they rise each morning to undertake impossible tasks. But even among saints there are limits to bodily strength ; so they have broken, many of them. They have had to re­turn home, wrecks of their former selves—the wounded bearers of the cross of Christ."

A few years ago, I attended a missionary convention of this same denomination in an­other land, likewise a home-base country. Delegate after delegate spoke, deploring the fact that the foreign missionary enterprise of that church seemed to be dying. Reports were given of mission stations and institutions being closed down in increasing numbers each year. Knowing that I represented another church, the chairman asked me to tell the conference just how things stood with Seventh-day Ad­ventists, doubtless thinking that the delegates might receive some comfort in knowing that other denominations were suffering from the same symptoms as theirs. I briefly gave them some statistics. In that year we had approxi­mately 450,000 members in all lands. We had about 10,000 evangelistic laborers at work in the mission fields, and had sent out almost 150 new missionaries during that same twelve­month period. We were conducting work, at that time, in 385 countries and island groups, in 714 languages. (These figures are, of course, considerably higher for 1941.)

There were expressions of amazement by the delegates. Some asked, "How can your church do so much more than ours, which is a very much larger denomina­tion ?" One delegate suggested that Seventh-day Adventists must be a very wealthy people. I hastened to assure him that this was not so, and that our standards and doctrines are such that few wealthy individuals cast in their lot with us. Rather, as in Christ's time, it is the poor people, generally, who hear our message "gladly" and join us in our allegiance to God.

Without question, money and finances do have a very definite relationship to the matter of maintaining a foreign mission enterprise. The writer previously quoted made this additional statement:

"We have the men and women ready to go to the ends of the earth for our Lord—splendid youth with unsurpassed talents and consecrated possibil­ities. We have the money. . . . Our annual income is not insignificant. We are well able to double and treble what we now give. Without much incon­venience we could supply the funds needed to send out reinforcements." [And yet] "It seems a con­clusion that cannot be refuted in evidence that the ______________  is at present steadily going  out of business as a foreign mission enterprise."

Do we as Seventh-day Adventists and es­pecially as leaders and workers have anything to learn from the sad experience of this other mission society ? As suggested by that conven­tion chairman, the tithing plan is an inestimable bleSsing to the 'church, a bulwark against the very conditions which cause so much per­plexity and 'embarrassment to other societies. There is a stability, a soundness, in our de­nominational finances which could not exist if we did not use the tithing plan. During recent years there has been a very appreciable in­crease in the tithe income of the denomination. The tithe per capita during the eight years ending in 1940 has shown an increase of 36.8 per cent. We have more members ; so we would naturally expect to have more tithe. The average income is higher than it was in 1933; so we would naturally expect that the tithe per capita would be higher. But there is abundant evidence that not all of our people are faithfully participating in this God-given plan for the support of the ministry.

The Lord, through His messenger, has told us : If all would be prompt in paying an honest tithe to the Lord, which is His portion, the treasury would not lack for means."—Review and Herald, Feb. 19, 1889. But there is a lack of means in God's treasury. At every Autumn Council, the requests for funds, to meet actual needs in the mission fields, are far in excess of the means reported by the General Conference treasurers as being available. The total vol­ume of tithe should be larger, and the per capita of tithe should be higher than it is. 0 that God would convict His people of this unfaithfulness on their part. Our leaders, our ministry, have a serious responsibility in this connection. Concerning this we read:

"His people do not give Him in tithes . . . that which is His own. This robbery of God, which is practiced by both rich and poor, brings darkness into the churches ; and the minister who labors with them, and who does not show them the plainly re­vealed will of God, is brought under condemnation with the people, because he neglects his duty."----Id., April 8, 1884..

Surely, in view of this solemn warning, in view of the consequences upon the individual member, upon the church as a whole, and upon the minister himself, and in view of the ur­gently pressing needs of the work, no minister or leader will now be found guilty of neglect in regard to this responsibility. But the tithe is not the only means of support for the work in the foreign mission fields. Mission offer­ings are a very prominent source of financial supply, and it is in this connection that there is very real cause for concern by Seventh-day ^,Adventist ministers and leaders. I quote a few figures from the statistical secretary's report, as presented at the 5945 Autumn Council: (See PDF)

The tithe figures here show an encouraging gain, and so do the offerings for various church and institutional activities in the homeland. But it will be observed that the overseas mis­sions offerings have declined. This decline, it may be said, is not very marked, but the trend is a dangerous one. In North America alone the ratio of mission offerings to the tithe has dropped from 60.8 percent to 49.9 percent. This decline in ratio is to be noticed in the overseas fields also ; so it is not a condition which should cause concern in North America alone. But this is the great home base for the world field. It is to America that the needy fields throughout the world look, not only for actual financial support, but for leadership, inspiration, and example.

How long can this declining trend in the ratio of the mission offerings to the tithe con­tinue before it can be said that the Seventh-day Adventists are "going out of business as a foreign mission enterprise"? That is a ques­tion which I believe every leader, every min­ister, and, indeed, every church member in the Seventh-day Adventist denomination, should ask himself earnestly at the present time.

As I have already remarked, the trend is a dangerous one, and unless it is arrested soon, we shall find ourselves near the point of going out of the business to which we have been called by Christ Himself in the great commission. The command is, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." But "how shall they hear without a preacher ? and how shall they preach, except they be sent ?"

This attitude on the part of our people is, however, unwarranted. We have never been able to provide fully for the needs of our mission fields in men and means. If, for a while, one or more foreign fields seem closed, and it becomes impossible for us to send men and means to those territories, shall we reason that this fact justifies a slackening in our zeal and endeavors for foreign missions? Instead, shall we not recognize that this becomes the great time of opportunity for pressing toward the triumph of the gospel in lands and fields that are still open to us? While we are seem­ingly shut off from Japan, Korea, parts of China, Malaya, the Dutch East Indies, the Philippines, the near East, etc., should we not concentrate on building up the work in Inter-America, South America, Africa, and other fields which can still be reached with men and means? To this should be added work for foreigners within the home bases.

Let me repeat again that we have never been able to meet fully the needs of our mission fields. If the appropriation hitherto used in the fields now closed to us could be used to supply additional missionaries and facilities for the fields still within our reach, every dollar could be used to good advantage. And what a mighty increase in soul winning would take place in those fields !

In one open mission field which I recently visited, there was a section in which it was said that there were 694 people definitely inter­ested in the advent message and awaiting prep­aration for baptism. Owing to a deficit budget, the brethren were unable to plan for a dollar to be used in 1942 to garner in these hundreds of precious souls who are earnestly seeking and hungering for truth. I am sure that this situation is duplicated scores of times through­out these fields which are still accessible to us. Is not this the time to press into such providences, and to provide for some of these urgent needs which in ordinary times cannot be taken care of ? Instead of this being a time for resting on our oars, is it not an oppor­tunity given of God for concentrating our re­sources in men and means for these undevel­oped fields, pulling our very hardest for them now, so that when the fields now closed are opened again, we can then give them special consideration?

The other denomination to which I referred has lost its foreign missionary vision. Their workers and their church members have be­come engrossed in the needs of their churches and institutions in the homeland. They have no doubt felt justified in thus devoting their means and their interests. But the tragedy of it is that, while they are "steadily going out of business as a foreign mission enterprise," they find themselves going out of business as an evangelical church. Their representative goes on to say, "We need a revival. It will never come while we seek it as a means to help ourselves." He then suggests that this revival, which the church in the homeland so sorely needs, will come only when the church once more undertakes in a larger way its part in the evangelizing of a lost world. He ex­plains that their exhausted and abandoned mission program calls for the sending out of thirty new missionary families immediately. It is his judgment that "no single factor in our denominational life could be more pleasing to God, and more a source of inspiration for all our people to sacrifice, than such a pro­gram."

May God deliver our movement from the experience of this and similar organi­zations. May He help us to realize that when we allow ourselves to neglect foreign mission interests, and we give increasingly less thought and means for our work in the homeland, we are headed for catastrophe both in the foreign fields and in the homeland. The wise man of old said, "Where there is no vision, the people perish." We, as a movement, have been born for a missionary purpose. We have been com­missioned to preach this "gospel of the king­dom" in all the world. If we do not continue to exist for that essential purpose, we have no valid excuse for existing at all.

We have had the foreign mission vision, and we have maintained that vision for about sev­enty years. God has worked wonderfully all over the earth through this numerically small and financially poor people. We have often­times been the amazement of students of mis­sionary endeavor. The mantle is still upon us. We are still God's chosen people—His remnant church. But we need to take heed lest we lose our vision. God will finish His work. He will cut it short in righteousness. But those who triumph with His church will be those who have continued to the end to make a covenant with Him by sacrifice.