The central theme of the Great Commission is to make disciples. That call applies to every Christian, every church, and every mission board. International Mission Board president David Platt has stated that reforms at the board, and financial restructuring, are needed in order to more effectively fulfill the Great Commission.
The IMB has spent $210 million more than Southern Baptists have given to missions in the past six years. Platt faces a formidable task, and one of the first steps in that difficult process is the reduction of 600-800 mission board personnel — with 600 being the minimum number expected.
For the past three years, our Southern Baptist churches have designated more money than they have given through the Cooperative Program. Our own state convention has cut budgets, reduced funding for ministry partners, and designated more funds to the IMB. This comes at a time when the third-largest mission field in the world is the United States.
Is it time for a course correction in how we do missions? Robin Dale Hadaway is a professor of missions at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Last year he wrote an article in the Southwestern Journal of Theology (vol. 57, number 1, Fall 2014), “A Course Correction in Missions: Rethinking the Two Percent Threshold.”
Two percent is the current threshold by which most mission-sending agencies make the determination that a particular people group has been reached. That number, however, seems to be a figure based on little solid research data. The IMB changed its threshold in 1998 from the former benchmark of 20 percent. Hadaway writes: “It is interesting that a few evangelical researchers could change the thrust of missions even among Southern Baptists so quickly and so thoroughly by flipping the proverbial ‘statistical switch.’ If the 20-percent designation was somewhat arbitrary, then 2 percent is astoundingly so.” He recommends 10-20 percent as the marker.
Hadaway also talks about frontier (or resistant) mission fields versus receptive (or harvest) fields. He believes we should be devoting more resources to unreached people groups that are the most receptive to the Gospel, suggesting that our emphasis on resistant places may be making those people groups even more resistant to the gospel.
Our mission strategy must also include discipleship among the people of the world living inside the United States. People are continually coming to America and returning to their countries of origin. David Garrison, who served as a mission pioneer for more than 30 years, said, “There was a time we sent our best to the ends of the earth; now the ends of the earth are sending their best to us.” Today, more than 232 million people live away from their home country. There are nearly 400 different people groups in America. In order to win more of the world to Christ, we must win more people in America to Christ.
The Great Commission does not preclude us from evangelizing and discipling people here and abroad simultaneously. In our age of information and technology, we should be able to reach more people than ever. As Lonnie Wilkey, editor of the Tennessee Baptist and Reflector, wrote, “What’s happening at IMB is not unusual given the times in which we live. They will have to ‘tighten the belt’ as everyone else has.”
Hadaway emphasizes that we must not neglect the discipleship dimension of the Great Commission as we do mission work. His formula for deploying missionaries overseas is: 40 percent unreached, 40 percent harvest, 15 percent training and theological education, and 5 percent administration.
Missions has been a significant part of our identity as Southern Baptists. It can continue to be — if we are willing to adjust our methods and correct our course when necessary.
Dear Dr. Rudy Gray,
I want to thank and applaud you for including David Garrison’s quote and good information about the nations of the world coming to America. They are here. And, they are well connected in parts of the world where sending missionaries is off limits. For example, I am working with a young man right now who has access and the desire to take the Gospel to North Korea.
So, where do we begin? Of internationals in the U.S., the most likely group to return home would be tourists. However, we are not likely to have an opportunity to effectively train a disciple during a brief visit. Therefore, the next most likely group to return (international students) should be extremely valuable for the spread of the Gospel. This is why I believe international students on university campuses all across the U.S. are the most strategic resource for accomplishing the Great Commission. I further believe that even if the students do not return home themselves, their influence most certainly does.
Some facts:
1. There are several barriers to traditional missions – not just money.
a. Language – missionaries usually have to learn a new language.
b. Culture – missionaries have to learn new methods in order to be effective when crossing culture.
c. Distance and separation – from family and support networks.
d. Financial – the expense is great to get a missionary to the field and keep them there long enough to overcome these other barriers and become effective disciple makers.
2. God Himself is overcoming these barriers. He alone is bringing hundreds of thousands of international students (“their best”) to the U.S. every year who:
a. Have already mastered our language – well enough to pursue a college (often graduate) level degree in English.
b. Understand that they are leaving their culture to live in ours – they will allow us to continue being American, and often will even strive to become more like us.
c. Are close – to where we are at home – at their expense.
d. Bring enough money with them – they paid for their travel, and have a guaranteed way to pay for 1) their tuition, 2) living expenses, and 3) a return trip home.
3. Clemson University’s statistics:
a. 1,790 International Students/Scholars enrolled as of September 2015 (up 13.5% from 2014)
b. From 87 nations of the World.
c. Source:
i. We receive and analyze this data annually from the International Student Services Office at Clemson University
ii. Our observation is that the fastest growing segment of this population is from NAME Peoples (North Africa and Middle Eastern Countries) and Central Asian countries (such as Iran – currently the 3rd largest group after China and India).
4. The latest State of South Carolina statistics can be found at http://www.iie.org/Research-and-Publications/Open-Doors/Data/Fact-Sheets-by-US-State/2014
a. 5,215 foreign students in the state (up 2.5% from 2013)
b. $125.8 estimated foreign students expenditure in the state (in millions of dollars)