* Report given at the Autumn Council, October 25. We feel sure it will be of interest to every worker.—Editors.
THE world situation today lays awesome responsibility on the church. It is fitting, therefore, that at this biennial council we spend time in assessing the past, evaluating the present, and looking hard into the future. Whatever the subject under consideration, this triple viewpoint will overshadow, and rightly so, our council business.
Let us look at the world situation as it is today:
1. There is the exploding world population to challenge the church.
2. Mankind's woefully misplaced loyalties confront the missionary venture with perhaps the greatest challenge. Godless social, political, and economic concepts are before us.
3. Pagan religions are on the march, experiencing an unprecedented upsurge.
Buddhists are expanding and adapting their program, setting Buddhist doctrine to Christian hymnody. For instance, "Buddha loves me, this I know."
By systematic revision the Hindu sacred
writings are being made intelligible to the masses.
Already building bigger shrines, Shintoism hopes to restore emperor worship to Japan in the next decade.
4. Moslemism now claims to have in Africa alone more missionaries than Protestantism has in all the world.
5. Roman Catholicism, despite its aberrations, maneuvers skillfully to speak for a reunited Christendom.
6. Defective Protestantism has become involved in latter-day false revivalism, while promoting commitment to so-called psychic phenomena, bringing the apocalyptic fulfillment into ever sharper focus.
7. On many fronts the church marches today in the trough of embattlement.
Does this awesome present and forbidding future promise good or evil for the Christian church? Religious leaders presently are giving considerable thought to various aspects of the question.
Enormous upheavals, they say, can be creative or catastrophic. In support of this view the decline of the Roman Empire is recalled. In Europe this decline gave Christian forces an opportunity to establish a new home base—an accomplishment that from a human viewpoint was to save the church from disaster. At the same time a great new culture was born, while in Asia and Africa the Roman decline opened the way to the Moslem conquest and to Christianity's greatest defeat to date.
Outside evils and inside stresses can and have hurt the Christian church. Twice in China and once in North Africa long-established churches were destroyed. Here as elsewhere the providence of God is mysterious.
However, we are confident in the prophetic picture of a glorious triumph. The everlasting gospel in an eschatological setting will go to all men. We believe that the messengers of God's last work will continue on the march until the earth is "filled with his glory."
There is much to substantiate this view. Certainly the year 1959 justified our confidence. Our mission to the world was pursued with unabated vigor. Six world divisions (five in addition to North America) were home bases from which 461 faithful workers marched into lands beyond. The record shows that 280 workers (60.7 per cent) left the shores of North America, while 181 (39.3 per cent) were placed under appointment by other division committees. In addition, six workers in North America for advanced training returned to their homelands as national workers. In all, this was one of the church's best years, and we thank God for it.
This year the victorious march has continued. During the first nine months of 1960 a total of 343 workers from and to all divisions were placed under appointment for the first time, or were returned to overseas responsibilities.
Possibly a breakdown in categories of workers would be interesting to the council. We shall give this for the North American home base:
These workers were well prepared. Of particular interest has been the larger numbers of educational workers and the heartening numbers of physicians (52) on deferred appointments. This augers well for a new day.
We should also draw attention to the constantly increasing list of administrative workers - particularly in ratio to others. This makes a new problem in the area of furloughs and leaves of absence.
In the course of the past two years a number of adjustments have had to take place in the outlook and operations of this world church.
1. The nineteenth-century concept of missions is more and more fully replaced by the "world church," the "world work," concept of God's cause.
No longer is this organization a church based on North America or on some other geographical site, with missions in all the world. This movement is becoming not only in word but in deed a world missionary church. Thus every part of the world is at the same time a mission field and a home base.
2. The strength of this church depends much on the capacity and efficiency of local leadership. In order to facilitate the proper use of national leadership in lands of recent development, definite adaptations have been made. Smaller organizational units have been set up, so that leadership in larger numbers might more easily encompass and prosecute the task entrusted to it.
3. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries inaugurated a glorious epoch in the world expansion of the Christian church. Because of religious, political, cultural, and economic factors this program of expansion—called the era of missions—was based chiefly on Western Europe. It was initiated there and took root in Western European support. For evident reasons this responsibility weighed more and more heavily upon the Anglo-Saxon world.
In the midst of this development God's providence brought forth the Second Advent Movement on the fair shores of North America. I think it must be clear to any observer that this was a blessing to the church in its worldwide program.
The Advent Movement has reached out into 189 (soon 190) political units. Many areas of earth are now able to assume, at least partially, responsibility for their home base and the world field. This is evidenced in the statistics presented a few moments ago. More and more our workers are going forth from all divisions.
4. Furthermore, the color spectrum has been completely altered throughout the world. On this changing scene we believe that untapped resources in many races, including the Regional workers of North America, can be called upon to enhance and further the cause of God in "every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people."
In the light of these adjustments and the changing international scene, certain plans will be brought forward to strengthen the framework of the church's operation. In the discussion other items will emerge.
Indeed, the changing world situation lays an awesome responsibility on the church. There must be no neglect of the divinely entrusted task. We must ever shun neglect in all forms and degrees. Our thrust in the world must remain evangelical. In apostolic terms it must be a proclamation, a service, a fellowship, a teaching, a healing.
To neglect or to invalidate one or the other of these imperatives is to jeopardize all and to emasculate the mission of the church. To include proclamation, service, fellowship, teaching, and healing in proper balance and emphasis is the purpose of God's remnant church. It is this complete mission that must undergird us, and it will make us not just a church with missions in all the world but truly a world missionary church.
