Martin Luther had little interest in world mission. He believed that the universal gospel commission had been given exclusively to the apostles; pastors in his day need worry only about their own parishes. Basically, the world had been evangelized except for some faraway places, to which God would carry the good news in His own time, by His own means. The church in Germany need not worry about sending missionaries to faraway lands. In fact, the Christians taken prisoner by the Turks could be considered missionaries.
Luther's associate Melanchthon followed a similar line of reasoning. He did, however, allow that civil authorities might concern themselves with the propagation of the Christian message.1
Like Luther, early Adventists had a narrow view of the church's responsibility to people outside the area in which it was operating. When in 1859 a Review and Herald reader asked if the third angel's message was to be preached outside of North America, Uriah Smith answered that it would not be necessary.
Since the population of the United States was made up of immigrants from many parts of the world, Revelation 10:11 had already been fulfilled.2 Smith's view seems narrow to us, but he was already far more open to the idea of mission than his predecessors, who had held the "shut door" theory that it was useless to preach to anyone who had not gone through the 1844 experience.3
One can only wonder whether present-day Seventh-day Adventist churches that habitually omit the mission report from their Sabbath school programs may not be unwitting heirs of Luther's and the Adventist pioneers' understanding of mission. In any case, they may be missing out on one of the most exciting aspects of being a world church.
What mission?
The announcement of a global strategy to reach the unreached brings up questions that urgently demand answers. The most important questions are: What is the mission of the Seventh-day Adventist Church? Must the mission be worldwide? And if so, why?
People understand the mission of the church in many ways. For some, the church's mission is to "save souls." For others, mission means feeding hungry babies. Or mission may be interpreted as the task of providing a better life for the unfortunate. What, then, is the mission of the Seventh-day Adventist Church?
The gospel commission, given in all the Gospels and in Acts, includes many activities. The most prominent are going, making disciples, baptizing, preaching, teaching, and witnessing. John, who always seems to put things a little differently than do the other Gospel writers, records another dimension of Jesus' order: "As the Father has sent Me, I also send you" (John 20:21).* Mission is doing what Jesus did, as Jesus did it.
Jesus went about healing, teaching, and preaching. But He also visited people in their homes, ate at their tables, slept in their beds. Mission must include proclamation, service, and fellowship. Mission must meet the needs of human beings: whole mission to whole persons. This kind of mission not only carries with it the promise of a future reward; it makes people happier, healthier, and holier now.
Within this scheme, each church member can and should be a missionary. Ellen White states it clearly: "Every true disciple is born into the kingdom of God as a missionary."4 She also wrote: "Every son and daughter of God is called to be a missionary; we are called to the service of God and our fellow men... . [Christians] may engage in life's common vocations, or go as teachers of the gospel to heathen lands . . .; but all are alike called to be missionaries for God, ministers of mercy to the world."5
Mission as envisioned in these quotations can take place anywhere on the globe. One need not cross the salt sea or even the railroad tracks to be a missionary. The only crossing demanded is passing over the line between belief and unbelief. The validity of this mission for the church and its members cannot be con tested, for, as Swiss theologian Emil Brunnerput it, "the church exists by mission as fire exists by burning." Mission is the church; the church is mission.
Why worldwide mission?
The issue in Global Strategy is world wide mission, foreign mission, mission in other lands, other languages, other cultures. Must the church in Smalltown, U.S.A., or Bigcity, Australia, be involved in what happens in Africa, Asia, or Latin America? Must church members hear stories of faraway mission lands and give offerings to help people they have never seen or heard of except through those stories? In short, why should a church that is fulfilling its caring, Christlike mission at home be concerned with a global strategy for mission?
Three reasons that the Seventh-day Adventist Church should have a world wide mission vision come to mind.
1. Christ expects it.
The Old Testament model of mission centered on a people whose well-being would attract the attention of all who observed them. Israel was to have been prosperous and holy, blessed and happy. Its neighbors would ask "For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as is the Lord our God whenever we call on Him?" (Deut. 4:7). Israel would be the head and not the tail (Deut. 28:13).
Ellen White wrote: "It was God's purpose that by the revelation of His character through Israel men should be drawn unto Him."6 Israel was not only to at tract its immediate neighbors to God, but it would be "as a light to the nations" so that God's salvation might "reach to the end of the earth" (Isa. 49:6, RSV). In other words, it was God's purpose to accomplish a worldwide mission through Israel.
The New Testament does not abandon the idea of the blessing that comes with belonging to God's people or of the attraction their lifestyle would have for observers. But in the New Testament, mission is no longer mostly centripetal. Now there is a command to go. Mission becomes centrifugal.
Christ told His disciples clearly that "forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem" (Luke 24:47). The apostles were sent to "Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth" (Acts 1:8). His followers were to take the good news of hope, joy, peace, and love wherever there were people. And Mat thew 24:14 makes it clear that this instruction included more than the familiar Mediterranean world: "And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a witness to all the nations, and then the end shall come." Jesus said that worldwide mission was to be a sign of the nearness of His return.
Revelation reiterates the universality of the mission of Christ and His church. The eternal gospel is preached to "those who live on the earth, and to every nation and tribe and tongue and people" (Rev. 14:6). The 24 elders praise the Lamb for purchasing with His blood people "from every tribe and tongue and people and nation" (Rev. 5:9). And Revelation says that when all is over, a great multitude will stand on the sea of glass, praising the Lamb. It describes this multitude as coming "from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues" (Rev. 7:9). The message of salvation has reached the ends of the earth.
Christ's followers, those who have accepted the task He left them, cannot limit mission to their own environment. Their commission is to reach the ends of the earth. They dare not fail to satisfy the Master's expectations.
2. The church needs it.
When we talk of worldwide mission, we must consider that the church consists of two parts: the one here and the one over there, the sending church and the receiving church. Both need mission.
The church here at home—wherever on the globe that may be—cannot afford to insulate itself from the rest of the church. I am reminded of the story of the eccentric, rich, old gentleman who had so much silver he had his maintenance crew plate it onto the outside of his windows. After that, all he ever saw was himself. He no longer saw the sunshine, the flowers, or the children playing under the trees. Instead, he sat and watched himself getting old.
Giving, caring, sharing these are God-ordained ways of loving and serving. When the church here at home looks beyond its own needs, it grows stronger. At times we think we give be cause we love. The fact is that only when we give do we really learn to love.
The church "here" cannot afford to lose the love and support that come from "out there." In a small church in South America I heard an elderly member laboriously read the mission story about some project in the United States. When she finished, she put down the mission quarterly and looked into the eyes of the 20 or so members. "Please," she begged, "we must give generously. They may live in the United States, but they need us and they need our offering. They are our brothers."
Some people have implied that the church in North America is more or less single-handedly supporting the foreign mission program of the church. But a closer look at the Statistical Report and the Annual Council minutes for 1988 challenges this notion. The General Conference budget for 1989 designated somewhere in the vicinity of $80 million for the church's work in the divisions outside of North America. 7 Of that amount, some $33 million (41 percent) came from those divisions, leaving $47 million (59 percent) to North American Division support. The latter figure represents only 14.5 percent of the approximate $323 million total in contributions the church received and used in the divisions outside of North America. The rest of that amount came from the people in those divisions.
Some have also thought that what the North American Division gives to the rest of the world siphons off much of what it receives in contributions. But again, this is largely a misconception. In 1988 the North American Division took in approximately $619 million. The $47 million that went from it to the other world divisions amounts to less than 8 percent of the total contributions it received.
It is true, however, that the church out there—wherever on the globe "there" may be—needs the care and concern of the church in North America. The Statistical Report for 1988 shows that 87 percent of Seventh-day Adventists live outside of the North American Division. At the same time, that 87 percent of the membership was able to provide only 30 percent of the total tithes and offerings given in 1988. The worldwide mission of the church does need the offerings of the more affluent brethren. To a great extent the church in the "Two-thirds World" is poor.
But beyond that, the church out there needs the heart that comes with the treasure. As you will recall, Jesus did not say that one should put one's treasure where one's heart is. To the contrary, the heart follows naturally where the treasure has been placed (Matt. 6:21).
Many of the people groups targeted by Global Strategy are almost as distant from an existing "local" church as they are from North America or Germany. Statistics for 1987 show that in the North American Division, on the average each ordained or licensed pastor had a non- Adventist population of 91,026 to reach. Parallel figures for the Southern Asia Di vision show each pastor as being responsible for reaching 2,110,149 people a virtual impossibility! In the territory of the Northern Union Section of the Southern Asia Division, 333 people groups numbering more than 1 million each are yet to be entered. Worldwide there are another 1,050 people groups in areas in which there is no division organization. The local church simply is not there.
The church here at home must help to take the message where there is no church.
3. The times demand it.
Missiologists note that there are important changes taking place that will affect the preaching of the gospel as we near the third millennium. Although the studies have been done by other churches, much of what they say applies to Seventh-day Adventists as well.
A shift in who comprise the agents of mission is one of the trends of the times. Missionaries stay shorter periods, come from places still considered mission fields, and include volunteers of all ages, as well as "tentmakers" who, like Paul, make their own living.
Missionaries, both professional and volunteer, are going out for shorter periods than before. Some go for a set time—usually no more than six years. Others go to finish a project; their terms of service may be as short as two weeks. Their contribution to the church in which they serve may not be as great as that of a long-term missionary, but the home church to which they return—glowing with enthusiasm and full of stories benefits greatly from their mission experience. Student missionaries, Adventist Volunteers, Maranatha builders—all are part of this growing body of short-term missionaries.
The trend of the decade is for ever-increasing percentages of missionaries to come from countries other than the traditional "sending" fields. At a 1989 conference on the education of children of Protestant missionaries, one of the great concerns was how to provide appropriate schooling for the children of hundreds of Korean missionaries in Africa and Latin America. Today Seventh-day Adventist missionaries from the Philippines can be found in hospitals, schools, and administrative offices in Africa; Korean pastors serve in South America; and South Americans teach at the Far Eastern Division's seminary in the Philippines. In fact, many foreigners serve the church in North America. Of course, when the largest proportion of the church is out side of North America, why should this not be so?
Other nontraditional agents of mission are laypeople who choose to serve outside their home countries. Some may be professionals employed by international firms; others are teachers; some simply live the gospel on farms or mission stations of their own. These may not be serving under the umbrella of the church, but they are contributing to its growth.
A second shift is seen in the support structures of mission. The world's financial power is moving from "Christian" hands in the North Atlantic region to Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and the Arab oil states. At the same time, the center of Christian population is shifting from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern, where 70 percent of Christians already live. Yet church administration remains in the Western world. Missiologists foresee the diminishing of North Atlantic funds for mission and increasing poverty among Southern Hemisphere Christians. Exactly what these changes may mean to evangelism, they are not sure, but they fear that the changes might easily stir conflict within the church.
In view of these expected shifts in power, personnel, and finances, missiologists are suggesting the need for "globalization." After eight years of study, the Association of Theological Schools in the United States is urging that all seminaries emphasize globalization during the 1990s.9 They hope this emphasis will "liberate churches and theological schools from institutional myopia and parochialism." 10
Nearsighted concern for one's self must give way to concern for the whole world. The focus on maintaining the church at home must be exchanged for support of mission worldwide. The special place accorded to pastors must give way to the shared ministry of all believers and for this to happen, the church must see to the equipping of the laity. Dialogue between gospel and cultures must intensify, with the church finding and implementing the best means of reaching people for Christ.
In the face of these changes, Global Strategy is a call to the Seventh-day Adventist Church worldwide to stop looking inward. It is a call to share and care. It corresponds approximately to what General Beckwith told the Waldenses in 1848 when their missionary zeal began to dwindle. He said, "Voi sarete missionari o non sarete nulla." ("You will be missionaries, or you will not be at all").
*Unless otherwise noted, Bible texts in this article are from the New American Standard Bible.
1. Gustav Warneck, Outline of History of Protestant Missions From the Reformation to the Present Time (Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson, and Ferrier, 1906), pp. 8-20.
2. Answer to A. H. Lewis, Feb. 3, 1859, p. 87.
3. Gerard Damsteegt, Foundations of the Seventh-day Adventist Message and Mission (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), pp. 105-115.
4. The Desire of Ages, p. 195.
5. The Ministry of Healing, p. 395.
6. Christ's Object Lessons, p. 290.
7. The budget designates $71,343,300 for overseas mission, and I'm allowing an additional $8,656,700 for General Conference costs for administering overseas work (of the total $14 million designated for GC administrative expenses).
8. On the trends of mission for the 1990s, see Robert J. Schreiter, "Mission Into the Third Millennium," Missiology 18 (January 1990): 4-12.
9. See ATS Bulletin 38 (1988): 22-33, 101-120.
10. Norman E. Thomas, "Globalization and the Teaching of Mission," Missiology 18 (January 1990): 14.
