Preach and Heal
A Biblical Model for Missions
A book given to me last week by a representative of the International Missions Board has provided additional insight into the need for churches to become disciple-makers and not just recruiters of new members. I see this as a rationale for churches to become covenant churches that take commitment to Christ and church membership very seriously. Charles Fielding is a medical doctor and a missions strategist. His book, PREACH AND HEAL: A Biblical Model for Missions, is an analysis of New Testament principles of doing missions. There is a great deal of stimulating reading in this book, but I want to focus on one of his ideas: the meaning of New Testament discipleship.
One of the problems with the contemporary church, the author suggests, is that there are too many "Christians" and not enough "disciples.” By "Christian" he means someone who claims to be a Christ-follower, when in fact they are not.
"Many churches have a 'discipleship program' in which members learn information about the Bible and Christianity and hope to grow in some way. The unspoken expectation is that they will achieve the spiritual level of a disciple. But compare this practice with Acts 14:21: '. . . they . . . evangelized that town and made many disciples.’
“According to many verses in Acts, the people who came to faith were considered disciples without going through a training course. They were disciples from the moment they gave up all rights to their future and submitted themselves to the authority of Christ as their Lord. In fact, the term 'discipleship' is not found anywhere in the Bible. . . .
“We commonly ask hearers to 'accept Christ,' another phrase that you will not find in the New Testament. If you harvest Christians who prayed some prayer to 'accept' Christ, but need to take them through a training process to make them into real disciples, you will never get to a movement of the Gospel. . . .
“Almost 85 percent of Americans label themselves as 'Christian.' On any given Sunday, however, less than 20 percent of Americans worship God with a church. If you make these kinds of Christians, you will either end up with less than one-fourth of these people meeting with a church or each of these Christians meeting with the church less than one out of every four weeks. That means that if you made 12 Christians, you would have a church of three people. But if you made 12 disciples, as Jesus did, you will have set in place the mechanics to spread the Gospel throughout your entire target region. No amount of persecution or malevolent spiritual force can dissuade the church of authentic disciples from multiplying." [pp. 78-9]
A New Testament church will not merely call for "decisions for Christ" or ask people to "accept Christ." This church will be purpose-driven and it will expect every person who desires to become a member to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.
Unhealthy churches are held back by members who are not disciples, Dr. Fielding says. "In unhealthy churches, you would spend all of your time trying to get half of the people saved. There would be no time for multiplication; the lost half would be holding back the saved half" (p. 79).
Our challenge is to apply the principles of authentic New Testament Christianity in a church environment that settled for making Christians rather than making disciples. I can't imagine that happening without lots of heartburn.
Anybody got any Rolaids?
Core Values for Short-Term Missions Volunteers
Once again, I have picked the brain of Dr. Charles Fielding, a missions strategist and author of the book, PREACH AND HEAL: A Biblical Model for Missions.
Edmond’s First Baptist is committed to doing partnership missions by
establishing churches and supporting existing mission work through
volunteer teams. We need to continually evaluate what we do to make
sure that we are properly motivated and trained to have the greatest
positive impact.
Dr. Fielding writes that “the primary reason for the [mission] trips
for many churches is to change the volunteers, resulting in increased
giving for missions and perhaps leading some church members to become
apostolic workers” (p. 119). Fielding admits that the volunteers will
be changed; but he says that changing church members’ lives is not the
purpose for sending teams on mission trips.
“The reason for all [missionary] work, short- and long-term, is to
make disciples and establish a healthy church in a previously unreached
community. Non-disciples are not able to help in this purpose and are
likely to send the wrong message to nationals. An authentic disciple
is decidedly different from other humans, and an important purpose of
short-term teams is to model that difference” (p. 119).
Dr. Fielding argues against sending immature or unsaved people who
are not true disciples on mission trips. When we do, he says, we
increase the workload of our hosts (the actual missionaries on the
field), and we run the risk of creating problems through immature
behavior. As a veteran of several international missions trips, I can
vouch for the statement that immature and self-centered “Christians”
can create problems for team leaders and career missionaries.
This demands that pastors and missions committees exercise great
wisdom in sending teams of volunteers to missions sites. The last
thing we want to do is to drain the time and resources of the men and
women who have given their lives to the field where we will serve.
Also, we need men and women who are skilled in prayer and who are
already modeling the life of discipleship and self-sacrifice.
Dr. Fielding list seven core values for short-term missions teams (p. 121):
1. They only bring authentic disciples.
2. They are known by their prayer.
3. They are not burdensome to their hosts.
4. They treat national disciples and [missions] workers as their leaders.
5. They are servants, surrendering any personal agenda.
6. They do something for the host missionaries that they cannot do for themselves.
7. They achieve objectives that move the missionary team closer to church planting.
Dr. Fielding notes that some career missionaries do not like
volunteer teams. “With poor planning, volunteer teams actually can be
a hindrance to the work. Volunteers may go home frustrated, feeling
like missionaries don’t really do anything, and [missionaries] may have
to spend hours in repentant prayer because of their thoughts about a
volunteer” (p. 123). By commitment to core values as listed above,
however, volunteers can not only experience the excitement of hands-on
missions involvement; they can also encourage the career missionaries
and strengthen the work of planting churches and making disciples on
the mission field.
Pastor Alan Day
Copyright 2009, Pastor Alan Day
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