Discovering Missions

245187 Disc Missions ins 9/6/07 1:04 PM Page 1 http://home.snu.edu/~hculbert/ DISCOVERING MISSIONS BY CHARLES R. GAILEY / HOWARD CULBERTSON 245187 Disc Missions ins 9/6/07 1:04 PM Page 2 Copyright 2007 by Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City ISBN 978-0-8341-2257-4 Printed in the United States of America Cover Design: Brandon H. Hill Interior Design: Sharon Page Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, Today’s New Inter- national Version™ (TNIV®). Copyright © 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society®. All rights reserved worldwide. Use of italics for emphasis in Discovering Missions is the authors’. Scriptures marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible. Scriptures marked NIV are from the Holy Bible, New International Version® (NIV®). Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved. Use of italics for emphasis in Discovering Missions is the authors’. Scriptures marked NRSV are from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) of the Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scriptures marked TLB are from The Living Bible (TLB), © 1971. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, IL 60189. All rights reserved. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gailey, Charles R., 1937- Discovering missions / Charles R. Gailey and Howard Culbertson. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN-13: 978-0-8341-2257-4 (pbk.) ISBN-10: 0-8341-2257-X (pbk.) 1. Missions. I. Culbertson, Howard, 1946- II. Title. BV2061.3.G35 2007 266—dc22 2007019830 10987654321 245187 Disc Missions ins 9/6/07 1:04 PM Page 3 CONTENTS Preface 5 1. Mission: An Introduction 7 2. The Heart of God: The Biblical and Theological Basis of Mission 21 3. Christian Mission: A Brief History 36 4. Doing Mission Together 51 5. A Global Church 61 6. From Every Nation 75 7. How Culture Affects Mission 89 8. Intercultural Communication 104 9. Volunteerism in Mission 118 10. Developing Tomorrow’s Missionaries 133 11. Contrasting Philosophies and Strategies of Mission 148 12. New Contexts for Mission 163 13. Mobilizing the Local Church 177 14. Future Church 192 Appendix—Case Study: Mission in the Church of the Nazarene 205 Notes 211 Glossary 221 Bibliography 229 Index 233 Illustrations follow page 120 245187 Disc Missions ins 9/6/07 1:04 PM Page 4 245187 Disc Missions ins 9/6/07 1:04 PM Page 5 PREFACE This is an exciting time to study global mission. It was not supposed to be this way because half a century ago respected church leaders were talking about the demise of mission. A few even proposed a moratorium on mission. With the passing of time, however, the number of missionaries and the finances spent on missionary work have increased to higher levels than ever. A new ap- preciation of missionaries and the world Christian movement has developed, typified by Harvard University historian William Hutchison’s Errand to the World. Not long ago, TIME magazine featured “The New Missionary” as a cover story. In 2002, Philip Jenkins, a history professor at Penn State Universi- ty, wrote The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, which chronicled the stunning growth of the Christian faith in the non-Western world. A lead story in Newsweek recounted “how the explosion of Christianity in developing nations is transforming the world’s largest religion.”1 The view that global mission outreach would become a relic has itself become a relic. Mission is a topic that concerns the whole church. A primary audience of this volume is students at the university and seminary level. For easy use in se- mester-long classes, the book has 14 chapters. However, it has also been writ- ten with pastors and laypeople in mind. We have tried to help readers with sidebars and boxed quotes to amplify the subject matter and to give contrasting views. Questions are given at the end of each chapter to provoke further dis- cussion and analysis. The glossary at the end of the book defines those words that are in bold type the first time they appear in the text. We are grateful to all who helped with the preparation of this book. The project would have stalled out had it not been for the persistent nudging, en- couragement, and help of Bonnie Perry, director of Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, and Alex Varughese, managing editor of the Centennial Initiative. Missionaries Amy Crofford, Barbara Culbertson, and John Seaman read two successive drafts of the entire manuscript, each time offering real-life ex- amples for illustrations and suggesting clarifications in wording. Helping track down and verify numerous details were librarians, archivists, and researchers Joseph Achipa, Stacy Barber, Debra Bradshaw, Stan Ingersol, Dale Jones, and Vernell Posey. Sarah Bean, Elaine Cunningham, Roger Hahn, and Pam Rider helped with editing the manuscript. Missionaries who critiqued most or all of the full manuscript include Doris Gailey, Steve Heap, Tim Mercer, Terry Read, Scot Riggins, Craig and Anita Sheppard, and Brian and Julie Woolery. 5 245187 Disc Missions ins 9/6/07 1:04 PM Page 6 6 Preface We are also grateful to Donnamie Ali, Hal Cauthron, Franklin Cook, David Cooper, Greg Crofford, Tim Crutcher, John Hall, Marty Hoskins, Brint Montgomery, Dan Psaute, Jirair Tashjian, David Wesley, and John and Sandy Cunningham for their valuable comments and help on specific chapters. A word of thanks goes to a missionary who gave valuable input but must remain anonymous because he ministers in a creative access country. Thanks to Missions Advanced Research and Communications Center (MARC), Global Mapping International, InterDev, and Patrick Johnstone of WEC International for permission to use their graphics. Charles Gailey Howard Culbertson 245187 Disc Missions ins 9/6/07 1:04 PM Page 7 1 MISSION AN INTRODUCTION Objectives Your study of this chapter should help you to: • Define mission • Get an overview of key components of missiology • Reflect on the nuances of mission and missions • Explore definitions of the term missionary • Acquire a feel for foundational concepts in missiology • Conceptualize the changing global context Key Words to Understand missionary closure missiology missionary call mission globalization missiologist glocalization Missio Dei paradigm shifts 7 245187 Disc Missions ins 9/6/07 1:04 PM Page 8 8 Mission Fiction writers and movie producers have not often been kind when por- traying Christian missionaries. Most missionary characters they dream up are bigoted, arrogant, and anthropologically challenged. Many of those fictional missionaries have been self-serving with very base motivations. For instance, one of W. Somerset Maugham’s more famous short stories was “Rain.” At the center of that story was a missionary who disintegrated morally while trying to convert a Pacific island prostitute. James Michener’s 1959 Hawaii weaves a tale that includes not-so-angelic 18th-century missionaries messing up the lives of charmingly simple islanders. Forty years later, a novel called The Poisonwood Bible was a Pulitzer prize run- ner-up and an Oprah Book Club selection. For that book author Barbara Kingsolver conceived a less-than-ideal missionary family living in the Congo. Nathan Price, the husband and father, is physically and emotionally abusive to his family. The strident and intransigent Rev. Price poorly represents the Lord he purports to serve. Peter Matthiessen’s 1965 book At Play in the Fields of the Lord is another example of a work that is very unflattering to missionaries. Matthiessen’s missionary characters were destructive to themselves as well as to the Amazonian tribe they went to evangelize. A similarly negative picture of missionaries was painted in 1966 by the movie Seven Women. That film plays on the conflicting inner desires of some American female missionaries in China. The stereotypes spawned by such fictional missionary figures have opened up Christian missionaries to withering criticism and even caused missiologist J. Herbert Kane to ask, “What happened to the halo?” as a chapter title of his Winds of Change in the Christian Mission. Fortunately, there is another side to this issue. Three films—Inn of the Sixth Happiness, The Mission, and End of the Spear1—based on true missions stories have been positive. Way on the opposite end of the spectrum from most fiction writers are those people for whom real-life missionaries are saintly folk living close to heaven. Such people who put missionaries up on pedestals find inspiration in missionary hero books such as The Missionary Hero of Kuruman, a biography of Robert Moffat and The Missionary Hero of the New Hebrides, the life story of John G. Paton. Such biographies have used glowing superla- tives to describe those who have borne the label missionary. The Roman Catholics have gone even further than Protestants in their adulation of missionaries. Having conferred official sainthood on several missionaries, Roman Catholics have everyone referring to Saint Paul, Saint Boniface, Saint Anskar, Saint Francis Xavier, and Saint Isaac Jogues. Even Patrick, missionary to Ire- land, was sainted by the Roman Catholics although his branch of Celtic Chris- tianity was not under the authority of the Bishop of Rome. 245187 Disc Missions ins 9/6/07 1:04 PM Page 9 Mission 9 The Study of Mission How should believers respond to the caricatures—good and bad—of Christian missionaries and the fruits of their work? Between the extremes of withering criticism and uncritical adulation, where does the truth lie? Missiology One way to sift through both the muck and the fluff about missionaries is to use discernment grounded in good missiology.

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