Revolution in World Missions

Appendix One, Questions and Answers. One of the most meaningful moments in our meetings is the question and answer period. Many ask some very provocative questions, which shows that they've been thinking seriously about the implications of the message they just heard. Some questions seek details about our policies and practices on the mission field. Certain questions come up repeatedly, and the following are my responses. Question, what are the qualifications of missionaries you support? We are looking for those who have a definite call upon their lives to go to the most unreached areas to do evangelism and church planting. It is not a job. A hireling quits when the going gets tough. Our commitment is to train and send out men and women who seek only God's approval and God's glory. Those who will not be bought with money or seek their own even in the work of the Lord. They must also be people of integrity in the area of commitment to the word of God and correct doctrine, willing to obey the scriptures in all matters without question. They must maintain a testimony above reproach, both in their walks with the Lord and also with their families. We look for those who are willing to work hard to reach the lost in and around the mission field on which they are placed. Each missionary is also a shepherd of the flock that the Lord raises up. He will protect these new believers and lead them into maturity in Christ through teaching God's word and equipping them to win the lost in these regions. Question, to whom are native missionary evangelists accountable? We take several steps to ensure that our accountability systems work without failure. In each area, the missionaries meet at least once a month for a few days of fasting and prayer and sharing together as they build the kingdom in their part of the field. In all cases, native missionaries are supervised by local indigenous elders under whom they work. In turn, these field leaders spend much time meeting with godly senior leaders. These leaders who oversee the ministry are men of integrity and testimony, both in their lives and ministries for many years. Question, are financial records audited on the field? Yes, financial records are inspected by our field administrative offices to ensure that funds are used according to the purposes intended. A detailed accounting and writing is required for projects such as village crusades, training conferences, and special programs. Missionary support funds are signed for and received both by the leaders and the missionaries involved, and these receipts are checked. All financial records on the field are also audited annually by independent certified public accountants. Question, it seems the 1040 window has become the focus of most mission organizations. What is Gospel for Asia's perspective on reaching the unreached people groups in this area? In my native language, there is an ancient saying, no picture of a cow in a book is going to go out and eat any grass. There has been a tremendous amount of talk and tons of information pumped out regarding the 1040 window and the more than two billion people waiting to hear the gospel. We need to move on from information to implementation if we wanna see these people reach with the gospel. 97% of the world's unreached people live in this so-called resistant belt. This specific region has become increasingly known as the 1040 window. A closer look at the 1040 window shows us that there are more unreached people groups in Northern India than in any other part of the earth. Gospel for Asia is more than 25 years old now and supports more than 16,000 native missionaries. These workers live in some of the needy Asian countries, which for the most part are located in the 1040 window. Although from our beginning, we have been working among the unreached peoples in this part of the world, it has only been in the past 10 years or so that we have honed our strategy to reach the most unreached. Toward the end of the 20th century, serious plans and strategies were developed worldwide by many denominations and agencies to try and finish the task of world evangelism by the year 2000. All of this was exciting, but even after several years into the past decade, how much progress has been made? In 2000, there were 155 discipleship opportunities, that is offers or invitations to become Christ's disciples worldwide. Unfortunately, 84% of these invitations were extended to people claiming to be Christians and 15.9% to people who have already been evangelized but are non-Christians. Only 0.16% were extended to individuals who have never heard the good news. The year 2000 has come and gone. Did anything change? Yes and no. The strategies and initiatives brought about a huge awareness of and motivation for reaching the unreached. But today the goal remains elusive and yet to be achieved. I believe with all my heart that unless we immediately reverse these numbers by diverting the majority of our resources directly to the 1040 window, selflessly partner with each other and find a willingness among local churches to support and encourage indigenous native missionary movements, another year will come and go and nothing will have changed. This is the reason why the Lord has impressed upon our hearts that we must believe Him to see 100,000 additional missionaries recruited and trained for evangelism and church planning in these most unreached areas. And just by looking at what the Lord has done through our 54 Bible colleges during these past few years, we are convinced that by the grace of God, we will be able to mobilize at least 100,000 radical soldiers in the heart of the 1040 window and reach the most unreached. Question, how are native missionary evangelists trained? Gospel for Asia has established 54 Bible colleges in the heart of the 1040 window. Currently more than 8,000 students are enrolled after which they will go to unreached areas to plant churches. The training for these students is intensive. Their days begin at 5 a.m. The first hour is spent in prayer and meditation on God's word. Teaching and practical training take place throughout the remainder of the day. Around 11 p.m., their day ends. Each Friday evening is set apart for fasting and more than two hours of prayer. Every weekend, the students go to the nearby unreached villages for evangelism. Usually before the end of the school year, they end up starting dozens of house churches and mission stations throughout these weekend outreach ministries. Before they finish their three-year training, each student will have carefully read through the entire Bible, at least three times. The students spend the first Friday of every month in all-night prayer, praying especially for unreached people groups and other nations. Through these times of prayer, the reality of the lost world becomes very close to their hearts. Throughout the three years at the Bible college, each student is given the opportunity to pray for dozens of totally unreached people groups. At the same time, each one seeks the Lord's face as to where he will have them go to be a missionary. In all of our training, our first priority is to help these students become more like Christ in their character and nature. The most important thing we want to see happen is that they know the Lord intimately in their lives. Second, we seek to teach them the word of God in such a way that they are well-equipped not only to do the work of evangelism, but also to be effective pastors and teachers in the churches they establish. An inductive Bible study course is required for graduation. Third, during their three years, the students receive a tremendous amount of practical training for all aspects of ministry, including personal evangelism, developing a congregation, and other areas of pastoral care to help them be effective in the work of the Lord. Question, many mission agencies seem to focus only on evangelism, but do not get seriously involved in church planting as Jesus commanded in the Great Commission. Is GFA just concentrating on evangelism or are you a church planting organization? Reaching the most unreached in our generation, this powerful vision is the single purpose God gave to Gospel for Asia from our very inception. How could we possibly fulfill such a calling? Most unreached people groups live in the 1040 window, in nations that severely restrict or are closed to foreign missionaries. The Lord clearly directed us to use the most effective approach under these circumstances, helping nationals reach their own people and fulfill the Great Commission as commanded in Matthew chapter 28, verses 19 and 20. They do this inter-culturally, near-culturally, and cross-culturally as well. No doubt the Lord has had his hand on each stage of GFA's growth, from our small beginning, supporting a few workers on the field, to providing tools such as literature and bicycles, then vans, films, projectors, and generators. We then began adding thousands of native missionaries in seven different nations to our support list and set up a network of leaders, coordinators, and accountability systems. The Lord enabled GFA to start one radio broadcast in an Indian language and create a follow-up system. Since then, that has expanded to 83 broadcasts heard daily by millions of people. As part of the follow-up, GFA began producing and distributing books, tracts, and other literature. To mobilize hundreds of new workers for the pioneer fields of Asia, GFA began a three-month intensive missionary training course This later expanded to a two- to three-year Bible college and has now exploded into 54 Bible colleges and a three-year seminary. These schools annually produce thousands of new workers to go to the unreached mission fields. As a direct result, GFA has begun a church planting ministry. This ministry is specifically set up to care for the new converts won by the workers who were sent out from our colleges. In the past, all these different developments within Gospel for Asia looked like seemingly unrelated puzzle pieces. But now we see that each phase of GFA's growth and expansion was part of a strategic plan. It was the Lord's preparation to bring this ministry to a point at which He could commission us to train and send out 100,000 workers and plant churches in the most unreached areas of the 1040 window. We never imagined that we could come full circle from a supporting and funding organization to a training and church planting movement. You see, in the beginning, we sought only to identify and support existing indigenous groups who were reaching the unreached in their own culture or a nearby culture. We assisted them as much as we could by providing financial help and ministry tools. The new direction for our ministry came during a pivotal GFA leaders' meeting in India in 1988. 25 of our leaders met together for a time of serious evaluation and soul-searching to discern if we were indeed reaching the unreached with our efforts. Our research revealed a harsh reality. The existing missionary force was not effectively targeting those who had never heard the Gospel. That day, after much prayer, we sensed the Lord calling us to start a new phase in ministry. As a result, we made a very conscious and deliberate decision to train native missionaries and then send them out to plant local churches. This is how the 54 Bible colleges came into existence. That is why in villages where no one had ever gone with the name of Jesus, our graduates and workers have now planted more than 21,000 fellowships in the past few years. As a mission, we have come full circle and we rejoice over the fruit we have already seen, but the majority of the work is yet to be done. Millions are desperately waiting to hear the Gospel. We are determined to move forward, believing the Lord will indeed enable us to send out 100,000 workers into the ripe harvest fields of Asia. Question, what are the methods used by the native missionaries? Although films, radio, television, and video are becoming more common in Asia, the most effective methods still sound more as if they come from the book of Acts. The most effective evangelism is done face-to-face in the streets. Most native missionaries walk or ride bicycles between villages, much like the Methodist circuit riders did in America's frontier days. Street preaching and open-air evangelism, often using megaphones, are the most common ways to proclaim the Gospel. Sometimes evangelists arrange witnessing parades and or tent campaigns and distribute simple Gospel tracts during the week-long village crusades. Because the majority of the world's one billion illiterates live in Asia, the Gospel often must be proclaimed to them without using literature. This is done through showing the film of the life of Jesus and also using cassettes, flip charts, and other visual aids to communicate the Gospel. Trucks, vans, simple loudspeaker systems, bicycles, leaflets, pamphlets, books, banners, and flags are the most important tools for our missionaries. Easy to use and train with, they are now being supplemented with radio broadcasting, cassette players, film projectors, and television. These type of communication tools are available in Asia at a low cost and can be purchased locally without import duties. In addition, native evangelists are familiar with them and they do not shock the culture. Question, with your emphasis on the native missionary movement, do you feel there is still a place for Western missionaries in Asia? Yes, there are still places for Western missionaries. One, there are still countries with no existing church from which to draw native missionaries. Morocco, Afghanistan, and the Maldive Islands come to mind. In these places, missionaries from outside, whether from the West, Africa, or Asia, are a good way for the Gospel to be spread. Two, Christians in the West have technical skills that may be needed by their brothers and sisters in the two-thirds world churches. The work of Wycliffe Bible Translators is a good example. Their help in translation efforts in the more than 6,800 languages still without a Bible is invaluable. So when two-thirds world churches invite Westerners to come and help them, and the Lord is in it, the Westerners obviously should respond. Three, there are short-term discipleship experiences that I think are especially valuable. Organizations like Operation Mobilization and Youth with a Mission have had a catalytic impact on both Asian and Western churches. These are discipleship-building ministries that benefit the Western participants, as well as Asia's unevangelized millions. I personally was recruited by Operation Mobilization missionaries in 1966 to go to North India. Through cross-cultural and interracial contact, such ministries are especially helpful because they allow Westerners to get a better understanding of the situations in Asia. Alumni of these programs are helping others in the West to understand the real needs of the two-thirds world. And of course, there is the simple fact that the Holy Spirit does call individuals from one culture to witness to another. When he calls, we should by all means respond. Question, why don't indigenous churches support their own missionaries in the two-thirds world? They do. In fact, I believe most Asian Christians give a far greater portion of their income to missions than do Westerners. Scores of times, I have seen them give chicken eggs, rice, mangoes, and tapioca roots because they frequently do not have cash. The fact of the matter is that most growing churches in Asia are made up of people from the poor masses. Often, they simply do not have money. These are people from among the one-fourth of the world's population who live on less than $1 per day. Many times, we find that a successful missionary evangelist will be almost crippled by his ministry's rapid growth. When a great move of the Holy Spirit occurs in a village, the successful missionary may find he has several trained and gifted co-workers as Timothys, who are ready to establish sister congregations. However, the rapid growth almost always outstrips the original congregation's ability to support additional workers. This is when outside help is vitally needed. As God's Spirit continues to move, many new mission boards are being formed. Some of the largest missionary societies in the world are now located in Asia. For example, Gospel for Asia alone currently supports more than 14,000 native missionaries, and this number is increasing at an astonishing rate. But in light of the need, we literally need hundreds of thousands of additional missionaries, who will, in turn, require more outside support. Regrettably, there are some indigenous churches that do not support native evangelists for the same reasons some Western congregations do not give, lack of vision and sin in the lives of the pastors and congregations. But this is no excuse for Western Christians to sit back and lose the greatest opportunity they have ever had to help win a lost world to Jesus. Question, is there a danger that native missionary sponsorships will have a reverse effect by causing native evangelists to depend on the West for support rather than turning to the local churches? The truth is, of course, that it is not outside money that weakens a growing church, but outside control. Money from the West actually liberates the evangelists right now and makes it possible for them to follow the call of God. After generations of domination by Western colonialists, most Asians are acutely conscious of the potential problems of foreign control through outside money. It is frequently brought up in discussions by native missionary leaders, and most native missionary boards have developed policies and practices to provide for accountability without foreign control. In Gospel for Asia, we have taken several steps to make sure funds get to the local missionary evangelist in a responsible way without destroying valuable local autonomy. First, our selection and training process is designed to favor men and women who begin with a right attitude, missionaries who are dependent on God for their support rather than on man. Second, there is no direct or indirect supervision of the work by Western supporters. The donor gives the Lord's money to the missionary through Gospel for Asia, and we in turn send the money to a group of indigenous leaders who oversee the financial affairs on each field. Therefore, the native evangelist is twice removed from the source of the funds. This procedure is being followed by several other organizations that are collecting funds in the West for native support, and it seems to work very well. Finally, as soon as a new work is established, the native missionary is able to begin branching out to evangelize nearby unreached villages as well. The new congregations he establishes will eventually gain enough financial stability to fully support him while still giving sacrificially to support evangelism. Eventually, I'm sure the native churches will be able to support most pioneer evangelism, but the job is too big now without Western aid. The quickest way to help Asian churches become self-supporting, I believe, is to support a growing native missionary movement. As new churches are planted, the blessings of the Gospel will abound, and the new Asian believers will be able to support greater outreach. Sponsorship monies are like investment capital in the work of God. The best thing we can do to help make the Asian church independent now is to support as many native missionaries as possible. Question, how can Gospel for Asia support a native missionary evangelist for no more than $1,800 per year when my church says it takes more than $50,000 per year to support a Western missionary on the field? There is a vast difference between living at the same level as an Asian peasant, as native evangelists do, and living at even a modest Western standard. In most of the nations in which we support local missionaries, they are able to survive on $2 to $4 a day. In most cases, this is approximately the same per capita income of the people to whom they are ministering. A Western missionary, however, is faced with many additional costs. These include international air transportation, shipping of many possessions to the field, language schools, special English language schools for children, and Western-style housing. Native missionaries, on the other hand, live in villages on the same level as the others in the community whom they are seeking to reach for Christ. The Western missionary is also faced with visa and other legal fees, cost of communication with donors, extra medical care, import duties, and requirements to pay taxes in his home country. The cost of food can be very high, especially if the missionary entertains other Westerners, employs servants to cook, or eats imported foods. Frequently, host governments require foreign missionaries to meet special tax or reporting requirements, usually with payments required. Clothing, such as shoes and imported Western garments, is costly. Many native missionaries choose to wear sandals and dress as the local people do. For a Western missionary family with children, the pressure is intense to maintain a semblance of Western-style living. Frequently, this is increased by peer pressure at private schools, where other students are the sons and daughters of international businessmen and diplomats. Finally, vacations and in-country travel or tourism are not considered essential by native missionaries as they are by most Westerners. The cost of imported English books, periodicals, records, and tapes is also a big expense not part of the native missionary's lifestyle. The result of all of this is that Western missionaries often need 30 to 40 times more money for their support than does a native missionary. Question, it seems as if I am getting fundraising appeals every day from good Christian organizations. How can I know who is genuine and really in the center of God's will? Many Christians receive appeal letters each month from all kinds of religious organizations. Obviously, you cannot respond to all the appeals. So what criteria should you use to make your decision? Here are a few guidelines we have developed for mission giving, which I believe will help. Do those asking for money believe in the fundamental truths of God's word? Or are they theologically liberal? Any mission that seeks to carry out God's work must be totally committed to His word. Is the group asking for money affiliated with liberal organizations that deny the truth of the gospel while keeping the name Christian? Do their members openly declare their beliefs? Too many today walk in a gray area, taking no stands and trying to offend as few as possible so they can get money from all, whether friends or enemies of the cross of Christ. The word of God is being fulfilled in them, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. 2 Timothy 3, verse five. Is the goal of their mission to win souls? Or are they only social gospel oriented? The liberal person believes man is basically good. Therefore, all that is needed to solve his problems is to change his environment. One of the biggest lies the devil uses to send people to hell is, how can we preach the gospel to a man with an empty stomach? However, the Bible says all, rich and poor, must repent and come to Christ or be lost. You must know which gospel is being preached by the mission group asking for your support. Is the mission organization financially accountable? Do they use the money for the purpose for which it was given? At Gospel for Asia, every penny given for support of a missionary is sent to the field for that purpose. Our home office is supported with funds given for that purpose. Are their finances audited by independent auditors according to accepted procedures? Will they send an audited financial statement to anyone requesting it? Do members of the mission group live by faith or man's wisdom? God never changes his plan. The just shall live by faith, Galatians 3, verse 11. When a mission continually sends out crisis appeals for its maintenance rather than for outreach, something is wrong with it. They seem to say, God made a commitment, but now he's in trouble, and we must help him out of some tight spots. God makes no promises he cannot keep. If a mission group constantly begs and pleads for money, you need to ask if they are doing what God wants them to do. We believe we must wait upon God for his mind and do only what he leads us to do, instead of taking foolish steps of faith without his going before us. The end should never justify the means. Finally, a word of caution. Do not look for a reason for not giving to the work of God. Remember, we must give all we can, keeping only enough to meet our needs so the gospel can be preached before the night comes when no man can work, John 9, verse four. The problem for most is not that we give too much, but that we give too little. We live selfishly and store up treasures on this earth that will be destroyed soon. While precious souls die and go to hell. Question, how can I help sponsor a native missionary? To help sponsor a native missionary through Gospel for Asia, all you need to do is the following. Visit Gospel for Asia online at www.gfa.org, that's gfa.org, or call us at 1-800-WIN-ASIA. You may also use a mail-in card if one is available to you. Send in your first pledge payment. Most of our friends help sponsor missionaries for $30 a month. As soon as you receive your packet of information about your missionary, pray for him or her and for your missionary's family every day. You will receive gift statements as you continue supporting your missionary. You can return the lower portion of the statement to send in your next month's support, or you may sign up for credit card payments or automatic bank withdrawals.