Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Skiing and Missions
Recently, Oslo hosted the 2011 Ski World Championship games, at least most of the games involving cross-country skiing. I probably watched the games more than I should have, since it seemed justified when they were happening so close to us, and so I will try to justify the time spent doing that by writing some thoughts from what I saw.
Reuben liked the ski-jumping best. That probably makes sense for a two-year-old. There is much more of a thrill, and the thrill is repeated often with short intervals between the part where the skier flies through the air above the snow-covered slope.
I preferred to watch the longer events, though, the 4 times 10km men's relay, and the 30km and 50km races. For me, those events are more exciting than jumping, since the suspense builds for so long, and the dynamics of the race change as the competitors begin to wear out, or as they near the finish line.
Being a missionary by trade now, my thoughts naturally gravitated to wondering what parallels I could find between skiing and missions. There are probably many that could be listed, but I will focus on one point. I believe that short-term mission trips are like the ski-jumping event, while planting a church among an unreached people group is like a 50km race, or even a 90km race, like the one held in Sweden each year.
Ski-jumping requires a lot of expensive equipment, without which the event would be impossible. What would be interesting about seeing a ski-jumper who had no jump to launch himself off of? Short-term mission trips require much equipment, in the form of pre-evangelism work done by the local church. If Holmenkollen didn't exist in Oslo, ski-jumpers would have to go elsewhere to participate in their sport. If the church did not already exist in an area, short-term mission trips would be impossible, or at least highly ineffective. With nobody on-site to prepare the site, the crowds, and to do follow-up work, the short-term mission trip would be a flop, regardless of how well the foreigner preached.
Ski-jumping is a huge thrill, with lots of excitement and much to cheer about, but it is soon over. Short-term mission trips are like that, too. They are exciting, they draw large crowds of participants and of listeners to the meetings (in many cases, not in all, of course), but they are soon over. The ski-jumping world record is currently held by Johan Remen Evensen, who jumped 246.5 meters in Vikersund, not far from our home. A few weeks later, his performance at Holmenkollen was mediocre and he didn't even place in the top 5 jumpers. To me, that says that ski-jumping is dependent on many small and variable factors that the jumper has little control over, like wind, jump conditions, and what not. Short-term mission trips return very differing results from place to place, and even the best preachers have their times of minimal success, based on factors largely outside of their influence.
The long-distance events are a very different kind of sport. Skiing 50 kilometers is possible basically anywhere there is snow. For the World Championships, there are of course prepared tracks in which a lot of time and effort has been expended, but strictly speaking, cross-country skiers need nothing more than skis and snow to travel 50km. They don't need expensive equipment that has been installed and tested ahead of time to ensure their success. As a sport, there is a lot of money put into cross-country skiing events, but the bulk of the money is spent on the skiers themselves, not on the track they will be using. In the same way, church-planting missionaries can do their work where there is no previous church. In fact, just as a ski jump would be a poor element to have in a cross-country ski track, the presence of an existing church in a location or among a certain people group makes church-planting redundant and more difficult in many ways.
Church planting is expensive, but the largest part of the investment is made in the training and support of the missionaries themselves, not in the single events they are a part of. Some preparation of the area in which a church-planter will be working can be useful, but it is not strictly necessary. An unentered people group has a tremendous appeal to a church-planter, as untouched snow must have to a cross-country skier.
So, which form of missions is better? That is like asking whether ski-jumping or cross-country skiing is better. In many ways it boils down to preference and need. Short-term mission trips have their place, but unless a church is planted in an area, there can be no effective short-term mission trips. How many short-term mission trips are taken to places on the globe in which the church does not already exist? How many short-term mission trips are taken to the Middle East, for instance, compared to those taken to Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Philippines?
Short-term mission trips serve a purpose, often largely that of exposing the foreign participants in a new and strange culture, and helping them to see that there truly are places in the world where people are streaming into the church, in contrast to the lukewarm response to the gospel that a lukewarm church is experiencing in their home countries. I am an individual who got a taste of missions on two short-term mission trips with Maranatha, to Central America, which developed into a desire to devote my entire life to missions. I am thankful for the experiences I had on those trips, but I have a feeling that I am a fairly rare case. Perhaps I am wrong, but the numbers of people taking short-term mission trips are largely unreflected in people devoting their lives to long-term mission service. Hopefully this is beginning to change.
The problem in short-term mission trips can be that they tend to inoculate the majority of their participants from dedicating many years of their lives to church-planting mission service. Just like Reuben gets very bored watching cross-country skiing, we can think short-term mission trips are all that missions consist of. "I know what missions is about. I went on a one-month trip to Tanzania. I loved it, and look forward to traveling to the Marshall Islands next year! After that, I want to visit the Philippines." We have a sense that we are fulfilling the Great Commission when in fact we are largely just supporting the church where it is already strong.
Short-term mission trips can also give a false picture that there are already Christians all over the world, since by nature they will not be arranged to places where the church does not already exist. There is certainly a need for evangelism where the church is already established, and there are billions of people within reach of the gospel who need to hear the message that foreign preachers can share, but their condition is vastly different than those who live within cultures in which the Bible does not exist in their language. The entire world has not been reached with the gospel, and there are still around 2 billion people on this planet who have zero access to the gospel in their language or culture. If somebody has or even will conduct short-term mission trips to such areas, I would predict that they would not do so twice. The results of a short-term mission trip would be dismal at best, in an area where the church can not prepare for and follow up the short-term event.
I like the thrill of ski-jumping. I also like the thrill of short-term mission trips. Yet, I prefer cross-country skiing, and I have also chosen to devote my life to long-term church-planting. I pray often that thousands of others will do the same thing. There are still around 12,000 people groups in the world with no Seventh-day Adventists among them. Short-term mission trips are not going to fix this problem.
"Lord of the harvest, send forth laborers into Your harvest. Send both those who can work for a short time, and send those who can give their lives to the work until the job is done."
Reuben liked the ski-jumping best. That probably makes sense for a two-year-old. There is much more of a thrill, and the thrill is repeated often with short intervals between the part where the skier flies through the air above the snow-covered slope.
I preferred to watch the longer events, though, the 4 times 10km men's relay, and the 30km and 50km races. For me, those events are more exciting than jumping, since the suspense builds for so long, and the dynamics of the race change as the competitors begin to wear out, or as they near the finish line.
Being a missionary by trade now, my thoughts naturally gravitated to wondering what parallels I could find between skiing and missions. There are probably many that could be listed, but I will focus on one point. I believe that short-term mission trips are like the ski-jumping event, while planting a church among an unreached people group is like a 50km race, or even a 90km race, like the one held in Sweden each year.
Ski-jumping requires a lot of expensive equipment, without which the event would be impossible. What would be interesting about seeing a ski-jumper who had no jump to launch himself off of? Short-term mission trips require much equipment, in the form of pre-evangelism work done by the local church. If Holmenkollen didn't exist in Oslo, ski-jumpers would have to go elsewhere to participate in their sport. If the church did not already exist in an area, short-term mission trips would be impossible, or at least highly ineffective. With nobody on-site to prepare the site, the crowds, and to do follow-up work, the short-term mission trip would be a flop, regardless of how well the foreigner preached.
Ski-jumping is a huge thrill, with lots of excitement and much to cheer about, but it is soon over. Short-term mission trips are like that, too. They are exciting, they draw large crowds of participants and of listeners to the meetings (in many cases, not in all, of course), but they are soon over. The ski-jumping world record is currently held by Johan Remen Evensen, who jumped 246.5 meters in Vikersund, not far from our home. A few weeks later, his performance at Holmenkollen was mediocre and he didn't even place in the top 5 jumpers. To me, that says that ski-jumping is dependent on many small and variable factors that the jumper has little control over, like wind, jump conditions, and what not. Short-term mission trips return very differing results from place to place, and even the best preachers have their times of minimal success, based on factors largely outside of their influence.
The long-distance events are a very different kind of sport. Skiing 50 kilometers is possible basically anywhere there is snow. For the World Championships, there are of course prepared tracks in which a lot of time and effort has been expended, but strictly speaking, cross-country skiers need nothing more than skis and snow to travel 50km. They don't need expensive equipment that has been installed and tested ahead of time to ensure their success. As a sport, there is a lot of money put into cross-country skiing events, but the bulk of the money is spent on the skiers themselves, not on the track they will be using. In the same way, church-planting missionaries can do their work where there is no previous church. In fact, just as a ski jump would be a poor element to have in a cross-country ski track, the presence of an existing church in a location or among a certain people group makes church-planting redundant and more difficult in many ways.
Church planting is expensive, but the largest part of the investment is made in the training and support of the missionaries themselves, not in the single events they are a part of. Some preparation of the area in which a church-planter will be working can be useful, but it is not strictly necessary. An unentered people group has a tremendous appeal to a church-planter, as untouched snow must have to a cross-country skier.
So, which form of missions is better? That is like asking whether ski-jumping or cross-country skiing is better. In many ways it boils down to preference and need. Short-term mission trips have their place, but unless a church is planted in an area, there can be no effective short-term mission trips. How many short-term mission trips are taken to places on the globe in which the church does not already exist? How many short-term mission trips are taken to the Middle East, for instance, compared to those taken to Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Philippines?
Short-term mission trips serve a purpose, often largely that of exposing the foreign participants in a new and strange culture, and helping them to see that there truly are places in the world where people are streaming into the church, in contrast to the lukewarm response to the gospel that a lukewarm church is experiencing in their home countries. I am an individual who got a taste of missions on two short-term mission trips with Maranatha, to Central America, which developed into a desire to devote my entire life to missions. I am thankful for the experiences I had on those trips, but I have a feeling that I am a fairly rare case. Perhaps I am wrong, but the numbers of people taking short-term mission trips are largely unreflected in people devoting their lives to long-term mission service. Hopefully this is beginning to change.
The problem in short-term mission trips can be that they tend to inoculate the majority of their participants from dedicating many years of their lives to church-planting mission service. Just like Reuben gets very bored watching cross-country skiing, we can think short-term mission trips are all that missions consist of. "I know what missions is about. I went on a one-month trip to Tanzania. I loved it, and look forward to traveling to the Marshall Islands next year! After that, I want to visit the Philippines." We have a sense that we are fulfilling the Great Commission when in fact we are largely just supporting the church where it is already strong.
Short-term mission trips can also give a false picture that there are already Christians all over the world, since by nature they will not be arranged to places where the church does not already exist. There is certainly a need for evangelism where the church is already established, and there are billions of people within reach of the gospel who need to hear the message that foreign preachers can share, but their condition is vastly different than those who live within cultures in which the Bible does not exist in their language. The entire world has not been reached with the gospel, and there are still around 2 billion people on this planet who have zero access to the gospel in their language or culture. If somebody has or even will conduct short-term mission trips to such areas, I would predict that they would not do so twice. The results of a short-term mission trip would be dismal at best, in an area where the church can not prepare for and follow up the short-term event.
I like the thrill of ski-jumping. I also like the thrill of short-term mission trips. Yet, I prefer cross-country skiing, and I have also chosen to devote my life to long-term church-planting. I pray often that thousands of others will do the same thing. There are still around 12,000 people groups in the world with no Seventh-day Adventists among them. Short-term mission trips are not going to fix this problem.
"Lord of the harvest, send forth laborers into Your harvest. Send both those who can work for a short time, and send those who can give their lives to the work until the job is done."
Our Lives, His Time
“Oh, are you back from Africa already?”
“No, we haven’t left yet!”
This is a question we have often received from people here in Norway when they see us visiting their church, and sometimes even at our own church when we have been away for a few weeks. We have often said that we would be leaving for Benin at such and such a time, but those dates have passed by more times that we can count now. We have had our plans, but apparently the Lord has had other plans.
It is an exciting life that we are living! Hardly a day goes by without some interesting and significant lesson being taught to us, and we have seen God’s hand in so many ways. It seems that God is making it clear that we are on His heart and in His plans, but that we need to learn to surrender our own plans and wait upon Him. We have so often been sure we know what the future would bring, and when we would be in Benin, but now we are learning to trust that we will be there in God’s perfect timing.
Now the significant financial hurdles have been passed, thanks to those of you who have joined our support team both as one-time donors and as monthly supporters. We are currently waiting for the presidential election in Benin to be done, since it can be difficult to travel on election days, and the dates have been changed on several occasions.
“No, we haven’t left yet!”
This is a question we have often received from people here in Norway when they see us visiting their church, and sometimes even at our own church when we have been away for a few weeks. We have often said that we would be leaving for Benin at such and such a time, but those dates have passed by more times that we can count now. We have had our plans, but apparently the Lord has had other plans.
It is an exciting life that we are living! Hardly a day goes by without some interesting and significant lesson being taught to us, and we have seen God’s hand in so many ways. It seems that God is making it clear that we are on His heart and in His plans, but that we need to learn to surrender our own plans and wait upon Him. We have so often been sure we know what the future would bring, and when we would be in Benin, but now we are learning to trust that we will be there in God’s perfect timing.
Now the significant financial hurdles have been passed, thanks to those of you who have joined our support team both as one-time donors and as monthly supporters. We are currently waiting for the presidential election in Benin to be done, since it can be difficult to travel on election days, and the dates have been changed on several occasions.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Two Mites
“Well, thank you!” I replied to my student friend. “We appreciate that.”
Sadly, many people feel that if they can’t give $100 per month, they might as well not give anything. One lady told me, “I can’t give you $100 per month, so I will just give this one-time gift.” Really, we appreciate everyone who gives. Some of our donors give $5 or $10 per month, and we think that is fantastic. A large number of people giving small amounts per month spreads our support over a wide base, making it stable and sustainable.
Of course, we also very much appreciate those who are able to give $50, $100 or $200 per month. It’s just that we are sad to think that many people feel that small monthly commitments are insignificant. Five dollars may seem like a little amount here in the West, but in the mission field, it can go very far.
“Hmm. Five dollars a month is not much. That is like four Euros or something. I could afford that even if I don’t have a job. I spend that much on candy or soda anyway. Maybe I can start giving right away.” A light had switched on in my friend’s mind. Perhaps the truth of the widow’s two mites was winning yet another convert!
http://www.afmonline.org/frontiers/article.php?id=5166
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