Please read Lu 16.19-31

OUTLINE:

I. THE BEGINNING From the day of Pentecost to AD 500

II. THE BENIGN AD 500 - 1500

III. THE BETWEEN AD 1500 - 1792

IIII. THE BOOM AD 1792 - 1960

V. THE BOMB AD 1960 - 1987

VI. THE BOON AD 1988 - ?

In one of my missions classes I used the following outline that will give you a quick overview of the history of missions. We will not dwell on the outline, but it will introduce us to one section of the outline that I would like to look at.

I. THE BEGINNING From the day of Pentecost to AD 500

We know that this period saw the Gospel spread to the known world. Paul the apostle went as far as Rome for certain and many think to Spain. Other apostles are believed to have gone to Ireland, India, China and Africa. The early church and their disciples did a fine job of spreading the Gospel far and wide.

II. THE BENIGN AD 500 - 1500

During this period of history there was very little done in the area of missionary work. Several generations lived and died and are now in torment because the believers of that day did little to spread the Good News of the Gospel, indeed, the number of believers may have been few.

III. THE BETWEEN AD 1500 - 1792

Both the Catholics and the Protestants were beginning to realize that they should be out spreading their message. Sad to say the Catholics were doing a far better job than the Protestants. This was the period during which the explorers were out doing their thing, and being good Catholics they made all the new territories Catholic at the point of a sword if need be. By the way, have you heard what the ecumenical movement - national council of churches has done? They passed (1990) a resolution condemning Columbus for invading America.

IIII. THE BOOM AD 1792 - 1960

Through the work of Carey, Taylor, and many others the church realized there was something for them to be doing and the modern missions movement began. More was done in this period for missions than any period since the period of Pentecost to AD 500.

V. THE BOMB AD 1960 - 1987 (87 is probably a little early as I view it from the late 90's.)

The Bomb is a period during which the missions emphasis began to diminish. There were many problems plaguing the missionary effort and this is the section that we want to talk about today.

Then there is one final point in the outline, and that is what the future may hold for missions.

VI. THE BOON AD 1988 - ?

This is the period that we are now in, and it is a period that seems to see some exciting things happening. We live in exciting times.

I trust that you will make yourselves a part of these times of growing interest in missions.

In looking at what I call the bomb I don't want to dwell on the negative, but just to look at where we've been and where we are in the church in America today.

Please read the great commission that we are all to be involved with. I trust that you will keep it in mind as we go through the information to follow.

"And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.

"Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

"Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Matt. 28 18-20

We might add Acts 1:8 which is also of vital interest to us as we consider these thoughts. "But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth."

I trust that you realize that both of these passages are incumbent upon every single one of us. They are a simple statement that as we are going, we are to teach and disciple. The emphasis is on the "AS WE ARE GOING", the text assumes that we are going.

Most anyone that has observed things over the last ten to twenty years has undoubtedly noticed a decline in the overall missionary emphasis of the church in this country. I have discussed this with Bible Institute freshmen and even they in their 18 to 20 years of observation have noticed a decline.

I spoke to a man that went to the field in the 50's and the average deputation took six months. Today it is 4-5 years with some taking seven years. You see, the title Th Bomb has basis.

There may be a number of reasons that this has occurred and it is the purpose of this study to suggest some possible reasons for this present condition of the church missions outlook. Possibly it will stir some to suggest further reasons so that we might begin to act upon these things in our churches and our institutions to turn the trend around.

Let's just list some observations and some possible reasons for the problems.

1. Mission conferences are declining in number, as well as excitement. Many of us can remember conferences with 10 missionaries from different organizations telling of their work around the world. Today many conferences are lucky to have 2 or 3 missionaries. Indeed, a few years ago I put on a one missionary missions conference.

The reason? It is too expensive to bring the workers in. Why? Some missionaries need to fly instead of drive. Indeed, some will not drive. The cost of transportation is up in all modes of travel.

Some have observed that we can't just have a potluck banquet to close the conference. We must have it catered or have it at a fancy banquet hall.

2. Schools are not emphasizing missions. Today in many schools the missions courses are for missions people and the pastoral courses are for the pastors. It seems very wrong to not train missionaries in the art of church planting and pastoring, when indeed that is what many will be doing, and it is also very wrong to not train pastors, in the art of exciting people toward missions. The church is the seed plot of missions, it is the sending agency, and it is the financing agency, and it is the prayer agency. If the church is not centered on missions then missions will decline due to lack of interest.

3. Pastors becoming more materialistic has tended toward seeing missionaries as taking funds away from the church when the funds should be going to the home front. In some cases this is true. The church has a commitment to allow their pastor to have a living wage, however at the same time the living wage is not what I see offered in many of our churches today. A living wage is something that you can live on, but not necessarily get "well off on." I have heard much more discussion about "pay packages" in the last few years than I have about any excitement of "serving" the people of their new church.

In case you didn't know a "pay package" is the total value of all things that a church offers to give a pastor. It may include any or all of the following: Salary, Car expenses, Social Security, Workman's comp., Health Insurance, Library fund, Parsonage or housing allowance, Convention/seminar expenses, etc.

We might insert here as well that it has been observed that the missionary force at times is becoming very materialistic as well.

4. Christians have gone the same route as the Christian workers. They are becoming more materialistic all the time. How many churches have you been in lately that did not have padded pews and carpet. How many choir lofts have two microphones hanging from the ceiling. Do you know that some of those things cost $300 + apiece?

I was in a new church a few years ago that had spent over $40,000 on their sound system alone. That would support two missionary couples completely for a year on the field.

Many churches have a color TV and video recorder - OR TWO - OR THREE. How many churches have free socials Vs the "paid for socials." We have been in churches where it costs every time they have fellowship. Indeed, we recently ran into a church that has a soup supper/prayer meeting on Wednesday evening that you are asked to pay for. THE TOPPER IS THAT YOU WEREN'T ALLOWED TO ATTEND THE PRAYER PORTION WITHOUT ATTENDING THE SUPPER PORTION. I'd call that pay to pray. I'd also term it purely pitiful.

How many Christians are really sacrificing in our world today?

Much of the churches finances are used to support the ministry of the local church at home. Very little makes its way into missions. We sat in a church and watched the congregation raise pledges of $700 a month to pay a part time youth pastor to minister to about 15 young people, yet that same church would not increase a veteran missionaries support by $50 per month to help him get back to his field of ministry.

We might even get personal and talk about the money that the people are spending on themselves in their personal lives. Many have huge homes that will be sitting idle as soon as the teenagers leave. Hundreds of thousands of dollars sitting with no practical use. They do find a use for it however. They redecorate it. They refurnish it, repaint it, recarpet and they may even put up a missionary in it once in awhile.

A friend of ours was visiting supporters on the West Coast. He had just come from a supporter in Northern California that had a huge multi-bedroomed home. They had a stereo in every room, a satellite dish, a TV in almost every room, every modern appliance that you can think of and several cars in the garage. My friend said that he didn't know how to react to the people. He had always felt that they were very committed Christians, yet they were so wrapped up in things of this life.

5. We are pretty much through the real hard financial times of the early 80's. Much of the lack of successful missionary deputation during that period was due to the economy. The churches were hurting. This was a fact. Many churches were in a mess financially. Why? Some because many moved away to find work, yet many had problems because their believers were far in debt and when the crunch hit, the church was the first name withdrawn from the basket at the first of the month.

The interesting part of the economic crunch is that even if all the church financial problems were based on the crunch, the church has not recovered from the crunch. The believers became used to not doing for the church so they are still not doing for the church.

6. The missionaries may well be part of the problem as well. I see missionaries that have $4000 worth of sound equipment to sing with. I have yet to be in a church that needed a sound system that did not have one. I see missionaries with VCRs and video cameras. I see very few missionaries driving old cars even though there are several organizations that supply older cars free of charge for use while in the states. I see missionaries that will not help in the homes in which they stay. They assume that the host will do all the work. They assume that the host will do all the clean up. They assume that the host will do all the cooking. Etc.

I have been told by pastors of small churches that the missionaries never contact them for meetings because they are to small to give support.

I have seen missionaries pick three churches to attend on furlough. One for Sun. AM, one for Sun. PM, and one for Wed. They hope to get to know the people and get support from all three churches. THEY ARE TO BE PART OF "A" LOCAL CHURCH WHICH SENDS THEM OUT TO THE MINISTRY!!!!

I have seen missionaries come into our home and talk of nothing but material things. A couple recently had four missionaries in their home for dinner and the topic of conversation NEVER left the material spectrum.

A pastor in California mentioned that it is hard to plan a conference in his area during the hot period of the year because all of the missionaries are in the cooler climated states.

I have seen missionary presentations of slides that were more of a travelogue than of a ministry. I have seen presentations with slides from every country in Europe with a few from the country in which they minister. I've seen presentations that are so full of other parts of the country that one is left to wonder when they ministered.

AT THE SAME TIME I SEE MANY MISSIONARIES THAT ARE THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF ALL THIS!!!

7. The shift of importance in raising our children. In the 60's a child going into missions was great. Today it is a sign of lack of proper understanding of the world system by the child. They have to go into business if they are going to amount to anything. Serving Christ used to be an honored work, but today it would horrify many Christian parents to hear that their child was going into the ministry.

8. The shift in our worldview has added to the missions problem. In the 60's we saw the world as lost. I think that today we view the world as just like us. Economics, lifestyle etc. are very similar in many of the larger nations. They have Coke and MacDonalds so why do they need the gospel. According to an IBM commercial a vineyard grower in France can finish his doctorate via the Internet with a university in America, so why would we consider him backward enough to need Christ.

9. There is a real bias against cultured and economically progressive nations when it comes to supporting missionaries going there. It is hard for missionaries to Europe to convince people that the European community is lost. They are still "Christian" in many peoples minds.

The hardest field to raise support for at present is the United States. Again it is assumed that there is a bias toward supporting someone in a Christian nation.

When on deputation to go to the foreign field we would write letters then make phone calls to the churches. For each 10 phone calls we were able to schedule one meeting. This was an overall average.

When we started raising support for our teaching ministry we sent out 150 letters to Midwest churches. Out of that we were able to schedule one meeting, which was canceled before we got there due to the church closing its doors. We had in 3 years one official deputation meeting, which by the way was due to the pastor being out of town and needing someone to fill his pulpit. I don't say this to complain, but to illustrate how hard it is for missionaries in this country to gain support.

10. Cost effectiveness is the word for our recent day. In 1990 I found that a group of church planters in the U.S. make 2000 phone calls. If they don't get a certain % positive response they move on - it wouldn't be cost effective to plant a church there.

We should be ashamed of ourselves! Planting churches is commanded, not decided on a cost effectiveness basis. May I put it BLUNTLY? CAN YOU IMAGINE A LOST PERSON STANDING BEFORE GOD AT THE JUDGMENT AND TELLING THE LORD THAT HE HADN'T LIVED IN A COST EFFECTIVE AREA SO HE HADN'T HEARD THE GOSPEL?

11. I have run into home mission organizations that require that churches fully support their pastor before they consider supporting missions. This is good in principle, for the pastor is needful of support, but on the other hand the people are to be involved in world missions. They can not be involved if they never are confronted with missions by missionaries. Most of these churches will not allow missionaries to even come to present their work and seek prayer support.

I might add that I've been in many small struggling churches that have allowed missionaries to come, and the love offerings were great. The churches have never suffered because the missionaries took some of the funds. Indeed, most mission minded churches prosper.

12. I have seen home missionary leaders preach that we should take foreign mission dollars and shift them to the home mission organizations so that they can plant lots of churches here and build a "strong economical base" from which we can then send missionaries.

This is not in keeping, however with Acts 1:8 which tells us that we are to be working at home and in the world at the same time, not working at home until we can afford to work in the world.

13. There are many people now that just do not know what missions is all about. They have never been trained and have no idea that the world is the Lord's field. These need to be taught!

One of our freshmen students at the Bible Institute where I taught didn't know what missions was and he was saved in an Independent Bible church. He thought missions was going to one of the missile sites in the area and watching a missile launch in the plains of Wyoming.

14. Mission agencies may be responsible for some of the problems. In a rush to gain funds some of them are lowering themselves to some questionable tactics.

Some are telling their appointees to skirt the church by going directly to individuals to gain support. They even suggest telling an individual that they want them to support them for a certain amount, and then tell them they will get in touch in two weeks for an answer. Others are using telemarketing to raise funds. I did not ask what those techniques were.

The amount that the agency takes from funds raised is growing steadily as well. Some agencies are now taking as much as 20% of the funds a person raises to support the home office.

15. Last but not least - indeed, this should probably be number one because it would cure all the others. Turn to Lu 10:2 for a moment. Notice three things: Laborers - not few today but they are unfinanced; Pray; Lord of the Harvest.

Harvest is still there - we have laborers that can't go. Lord is God - hasn't changed. Prayer is left. Or should I say left out. I have read that the average evangelical pastor prays five minutes per day according to some surveys.

Churches of 200 run 20 in the prayer meeting.

If we were praying as we ought the fire for missions would be caught.

I think it is obvious there is an overall lack of commitment to God thus the lack of prayer and lack of missions.

SO, WHAT IS THE ANSWER TO ALL THE GLOOM AND DOOM?

VERY SIMPLE! I CAN GIVE YOU AN ANSWER IN TWO WORDS! You are.

1. People like you that realize what has been said is true, will have to go out into the world and train, and teach, and encourage, and exhort, and challenge, and wake up all those people out there that have either turned a deaf ear to missions, or that have never heard of missions.

Some of you may be able to teach and exhort a pastor. The pastor that can train and challenge his church in missions is invaluable. Indeed, I am almost to the point of thinking we need mission minded pastors as badly as we need missionaries.

Some of you may go into missions. As you go out on deputation be sure that you are communicating well, the needs and the story of missions. You might be ask to teach a class or preach a sermon. Use that time to instruct and challenge to missions in general.

Sunday school teachers can do great things if they put their minds to it. If you instill missions into every class you teach, then some day the church membership will be missions minded.

2. As you meet other Christians, instead of talking about the fellowship trio, news, weather and sports, ask them how they feel about missions. If you know anything about missions you can spend several hours on the subject just talking and challenging.

3. Get involved as much as is possible, for yourself. Go to short term projects. Give. Pray. Support the missions committee in your church. Support the pastor if he is trying to strengthen missions.

4. Remember that unless individuals commit themselves to being missions minded and start working toward that goal, then nothing will be done. This is between you and God, not your neighbor and God, not your neighboring church and God, but you as an individual and God. Then you can start work on your neighbor and your neighboring church!

5. Don't give up just because you feel like the Lone Ranger! There are some great churches out there that are supporting missions like mad. There are pastors out there that break their backs to help missionaries. A friend that was on deputation for Japan had a pastor that did all of my friends contacting with pastors and churches. The pastor wrote all the letters and made all the phone calls and set up the appointments. My friend just had to show up for the meetings. That is a pastor that is involved! The church cares for their finances and puts out their prayer letter for them. They supplied them with housing while they were on deputation.

BE GLAD THAT YOU ARE A MEMBER OF THE CHURCH TODAY, WHEN THINGS ARE COMING AROUND!

We are seeing some great things happen in the church today! Some of the real big religious leaders of the nation are realizing what has not been done, and are now trying to stir the American Church into action! They are beginning to speak out and call for action!

We are hearing great reports from around the world about what is going on. We hear of many coming to know the Lord. We are hearing of strong indigenous churches being planted and turned over to national pastors. We are hearing of third world mission organizations, and the workers that they are sending out to the world. The third world has 30,000 workers on the field today, compared to the western worlds 50,000!

I would like to read a portion of a letter that a missionary friend of mine received after he had been to a conference:

"Your introducing Faith Promise to our church in 1986 has had a major impact upon the church and my family as well.

"First of all, it has deepened our faith. It has taught us to learn to stretch for the Lord. We had always tithed and given liberally, but with Faith Promise we learned to trust the Lord in a greater degree.

"I have a good income, own a home, drive a late-model car; now we are willing to leave that and trust god to meet all our needs.

"I saw the Lord triple the income of our church in three years; at the same time He enabled us to pay off our building, purchase new property paying cash, and pay all our bills. all of this since Faith Promise began.

"If Faith Promise for Missions had not been introduced to [the name of the church], I would not have learned to trust the Lord by faith, and would not have been ready to respond to God's call to Hungary. My wife and three children are as excited as I am to be going out to the mission field for the Lord."

The missionary added that the year before all this the church had canceled all missionary support and could not pay their winter heat bill.

The Brazilian church is growing and spreading.

The African church is growing and sending out missionaries.

The Korean church is growing and is now sending out more missionaries than the United States.

The Internet is growing like mad and Christians have really been taking good advantage of this medium. There is a lot of Christian information on the net.

We live in exciting times. I trust that you will make yourself a part of these times of growing interest in missions. I trust that the Christian world will wake up to the fact that the world is on its way to hell and we are doing precious little to stop it.

It is our generations task to reach our own generation. If we don't there is no generation that can. Either we will reach our own generation or fail to reach our generation. It is a choice that we, the American church are making each and every day.

I might share one statistic that may help you to understand the urgency of our mission. In the last hour several thousand LOST souls have died and gone to hell. That is based on current world figures. Several THOUSAND LOST PEOPLE!

I'd like to close by having you read Ps 71:17-18.

In a Psalm about the concerns of old age we see the concern for the coming generation.

I trust you have shown your children your God.

I trust you have shown your grandchildren your God.

I trust you have shown your neighbors your God.

I trust you have shown your coworkers your God.

It would seem God wants us to tell our generation about HIM!