Thursday, April 1, 2010

America and the Rest of the Word (part 1)

Jerry A. Rankin

Most of our missionaries go through occasions of culture shock upon arrival overseas, no matter how much they study and prepare for their place of assignment. I was unprepared for the congested crowds of people when we arrived in Indonesia in 1971. There were 120 million people on the island of Java where we lived—an island about the size and shape of Tennessee, which, by comparison, has about 6.3 million people.

We worked many years in South Asia, relating to our work in Bangladesh, a country the size of Arkansas with 140 million people. If the U.S. had the same population density of India we would have three billion people. Can you imagine what that would do to our jobless rates and healthcare plans? But it wasn’t just the masses of people, poverty and disease, but the spiritual hopelessness that was overwhelming.

Researchers tell us there are still 1.3 billion people who are isolated culturally and geographically in places where they have not yet even heard the name of Jesus. That is hard for us to comprehend in this age of technology and communication when we can see news events as they occur simultaneously all over the world. But multitudes live where there are no churches and no Christian witness among them. They have no Bible in their language. No missionary is available to engage them with the gospel.

Did Jesus really mean for us to preach the gospel to all creation (Mark 16:15)? Did He really intend for us to be witnesses to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8)? Are we really supposed to go make disciples of all peoples (Matt. 28:19)? If so, how can we neglect the task—allowing masses to live a lifetime and die and enter a Christless eternity in hell—while justifying staying at home and focusing on our own needs and programs?

It is being pointed out that America has the fourth largest population of lost people of all the nations of the world. Many are sincerely saying we should not neglect the lost around us in order to divert resources to other nations. We even claim Jesus tells us to first of all be responsible for reaching those at home. While acknowledging our global responsibility, many rationalize to say we will never reach the world if we don’t give priority to our churches at home—after all, we have to build the foundation for calling out and sending missionaries.

While there are a lot of lost people in America, how many have no access to a church? Our own denomination has 45,000 churches, plus there are tens of thousands of other evangelical churches and millions of Christian believers positioned to witness to the lost where we live.

Southern Baptists, it has been 165 years! How long is it going to take before we are ready to assume our Great Commission task? That foundation is not getting stronger; it is actually crumbling! And it is not going to get stronger until we give appropriate priority to the mission to which God has called us as His people.

Often after I preach for a mission emphasis in a church the pastor will say, “Dr. Rankin, we appreciate your missions challenge. We are trying to build up our programs, reach our community, pay off our building indebtedness…then we are going to get involved in missions.” But it never happens. Churches that are focusing on their own programs and community seldom fulfill the criteria for moving on to a compelling missions involvement.

However, we could document the churches that are adopting unreached people groups, providing opportunities for volunteer mission trips, nurturing a climate for calling out missionaries and giving generously and sacrificially to missions. Invariably they are effective in local outreach and growth.

A church or individual doesn’t try to grow with the intention of eventually being obedient to God’s mission. When we as a denomination, and as local churches, are committed to the Great Commission, God will bless us in what we need to do locally. The reason there is such spiritual lethargy, negligible growth and dying churches is because we are neglecting the reason God has called us as His people.

God confirmed the call of one of our missionaries when he was interviewing for a church staff position. His role was to visit door-to-door because, as the senior pastor described the situation, “There are so many churches in our town we have to compete for members.” The prospective staff member thought, “You have got to be kidding…when billions of people don’t have any church?”

God yearns for the nations to know Him. He is not willing that any would perish. How can we justify the relative disproportion of resources, duplication of efforts, and replowing of the same ground when there are so many places the seed of the gospel has yet to be sown?

A story that impacted my call to missions was one that told of ten men trying to lift a log. There were nine men at one end of the log and only one at the other end. Which end should you go help?

Yes, we desperately need a Great Commission Resurgence to shift the imbalance of resources from America to the rest of the world.

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