This article is part three of a three-part series adapted from Is the Commission Still Great? Read parts one or two here.
Have you ever felt like the ground was moving backward under your feet? I once climbed Mt. Semeru, the tallest volcano in Java. The steep upper slopes consist of sand and loose gravel. With every step forward, I found myself sliding back down the mountain. Missions can feel like that sometimes. Tens of thousands of missionaries have been sent out, yet thousands of people groups remain unreached. Does that mean we’re doing it wrong?
A lot of communication about missions involves the need for funding. It gives the impression that the primary need is money, so we should engage the cheapest possible missionaries. My experience has been that the greatest need on the field is for Christian workers with character and grit, but I won’t deny that money is an important part of the equation. So, is sending missionaries to the unreached people and places of the world worth it?
The job is far from complete.
The sobering reality of global missions is that there is still a massive amount of work to be done. The Joshua Project identifies 7,249 unreached people groups that make up 44 percent of the world’s population. Another discouraging dynamic is that Christianity seems to be retreating in certain parts of the world. Before we sink into missiological despair, however, let’s consider the possibility that the scale of the remaining work does not necessarily suggest sweeping failure.
The global Church is growing faster than ever!
In recent years, there has been a great acceleration in reaching unengaged people groups. According to Finishing the Task, between 2005 and 2020, 3,158 people groups were engaged for the first time by 5,159 missionary teams. God’s global Church is growing faster, in terms of both individual believers and diversity of people groups, than at any other point in history.
According to the World Christian Encyclopedia, between 1900 and 2020,
- The evangelical church in Africa grew from 1.8 million followers of Jesus to 162 million.
- In Latin America, evangelicals expanded from 800,000 to 51 million in the same time period.
- In Asia, the Church grew from 1.3 million to 82 million (and some estimates are significantly higher).
Clearly, the Holy Spirit has done a mighty work in the last century, and He isn’t finished yet.
We must think critically.
The serious pursuit of any significant endeavor, including the Great Commission, will be expensive. I’m not defending wasteful spending, but costs and risks need to be weighed relative to the importance of the mission. While we all seek optimal stewardship, I would caution against an overemphasis on efficiency that unduly supersedes other values, such as ensuring the involvement of a broad cross-section of the body of Christ.
Should we send someone else?
Supporting workers from the Global South to minister in their own or nearby countries can be a strategic and cost-effective way to advance the work. So can sending Westerners to serve with humility in cross-cultural roles. I want to see more of both. We have a responsibility to steward our resources well. We also have a direct command from the Lord Jesus to accomplish the task He gave us.
If we stop sending our own people from our local churches, we will become disconnected from the work, and I predict that within one generation, we won’t be sending money either. Let’s not forget that God ultimately supplies the finances and manpower for the fulfillment of the Great Commission. Efficiency is one of many factors to consider.
What if we’re not spending enough?
The World Christian Database estimates that in 2022, more money was embezzled from Christian organizations ($59 billion) than was spent on global missions ($52 billion). Christians worldwide only spend about 0.1 percent of our personal income on global foreign missions.
Not all of that $52 billion went to ministry among the unreached, either. Our definition of “global foreign missions” can be pretty broad. If every 200 American Christians worked together to send out one additional missionary, we would gain 390,000 more workers for the global harvest. The church isn’t short of missionaries because the ones we send are too expensive. We’re short of missionaries because we haven’t given the Great Commission its proper priority in our decision-making and finances.
What is the goal?
How we define Great Commission “success” has a significant bearing on how we invest our resources. For example, is our goal to have a handful of believers or to see a significant number of contextualized, multiplying churches? These answers may sound similar, but they can lead us down different paths. There is more to world missions than how many converts we can count. The process of redeeming the world, not just the result, brings glory to God. Plans and formulas have their place, but how things play out in real life, even in the pages of Scripture, can be wonderfully unpredictable.
We’re part of a complex, epic story.
When Jesus traveled through Samaria, a conversation with a woman led to the salvation of many people in her village. Jesus challenged His disciples, “Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”
Over the centuries, faithful laborers have tilled the soil in difficult places where we now celebrate a bountiful harvest. In other places, a new generation of missionaries is just now clearing the land. They are doing “hard work” in anticipation of a future harvest that seems impossible now. God has not limited our task to the places where fruit is already falling off the tree. Some of us need to plant new fruit trees that won’t bloom in our lifetimes.
It’s a God-sized task.
We are extremely privileged to live in this era of redemptive history. The prophets of old longed to see and hear the things we observe today. The Great Commission is a multigenerational, God-sized task. He has redeemed untold millions of souls from thousands of sociolinguistic people groups, and He isn’t finished yet. His throne room is already teeming with saints. The number and diversity of worshipers grows every day. God has a way for each of us to contribute toward the victory He has already won. We’d love to help you find yours.
About the author:
Steve Richardson grew up in Southeast Asia, watching his parents plant churches among a previously unreached jungle tribe. As an adult, he returned with his family to another part of the region to serve among unreached Muslims. Now he serves as president of Pioneers-USA and wrote the book “Is the Commission Still Great?”
Read more in Is the Commission Still Great? 8 Myths about Missions & What They Mean for the Church, by Steve Richardson.