“I remember the first time you came to my door. You were probably trying to tell me about Christ, but I didn’t hear anything you were saying. All I could think about was the fact that a white American was in my house. Sometime later you came again, and I remember thinking to myself, ‘Does he really believe that anyone in this village is dumb enough to attend the white man’s church? Is he totally unaware of our history of slavery and what the Americans and Europeans did to our ancestors?’ Then over the next several months you came back again and again. And I kept thinking to myself, ‘he may be dumb but he is persistent!’ Finally, I actually heard what you were saying and realized my need for Christ.”
The testimony that evening was similar to so many others we heard during our decade in the West Indies. Even though we lived in the middle of the village, tried to adopt local culture, interacted with nationals every week, and worked hard to understand the Vincentian dialect, we couldn’t escape the “outsiders” label and the suspicions and mistrust so often associated with that tag. Even worse, we were missionaries. It didn’t take long to learn that the “M” word should be avoided. It often made people feel more like projects than peers, and I discovered that people everywhere prefer parity over charity. The “M” word also conjured visions of colonialism and missionaries working in lockstep with slave owners to keep the slaves brainwashed. Several Vincentians informed me that the white man’s Bible said things like, “servants obey your masters.” In addition to the normal resistance to the gospel, there were endless “outsider” obstacles that had to be overcome every single time I met anyone.
That’s not what I had anticipated when I yielded my life to Christ in my late teens and went off to Bible College to earn a degree in missions. I learned the technical definition of a missionary that virtually every Bible College student learns. A missionary is one who crosses cultural or language boundaries to proclaim the gospel. In my home church missionaries had been honored as heroes of the faith. To this day missionaries are at the top of the list of people I admire most on earth for their selfless giving of their lives for God and others. Stories of Jim Elliot, William Carey, etc. burned in my soul, and I had been eager to follow Paul’s example to carry the gospel to places where Christ was not known.
But Christ was known in the West Indies and in most other places on earth where missionaries were serving. Solid churches had been established years earlier, and a local Bible institute had graduated a number of national pastors. They were insiders who knew the dialect and were at home in the culture.
I gradually reached the conclusion that a few well-trained nationals with love for the Word of God, passion for the gospel of Jesus Christ, and great leadership capacity would likely have far greater influence than dozens of outsiders.
Over the twenty years since moving back to the states and serving as the president of a Christian university, I have become more convinced than ever that training and empowering high capacity national leaders is the greatest strategy for effective world evangelism. But this is more than a 21st century strategy. It is a Biblical strategy. I remember my Bible College missions professor saying, “It shouldn’t be called Acts of the Apostles. It should be called Acts of the Missionaries, because Luke’s story is all about missionaries crossing language and cultural boundaries to preach the gospel.” He inspired us to follow their example, and we spent many hours learning about cross-cultural communication.
There’s just one problem. That’s not the story of Acts. If a missionary is a person who crosses language and cultural boundaries to preach the gospel, then there were very few, if any, missionaries in Acts. Instead, God strategically used select, high-capacity nationals. Maybe it would be more realistic to change the title to Acts of the Nationals.
Now before you accuse me of heresy or throw your hardback copy of Herbert Kane’s Introduction to Missions at me, or remind me that you have maps of missionary journeys in the back of your Bible, please hear me out. I am not saying that the gospel failed to cross cultural or language barriers. I am saying that God’s strategy utilized key nationals more than outsiders. Join me for a quick journey through Acts.
In chapter two (2:9-11) the gospel expanded into over a dozen language groups. What was God’s strategy to accomplish such a daunting task? He did not call the outsiders with linguistic expertise and cross-cultural training to move to those regions and spend years trying to learn those cultures and languages and overcome the “outsiders” stigma in hopes of making a gospel dent. Instead, God miraculously enabled travelers visiting Jerusalem from those regions to hear the gospel in their own heart languages. Thousands came to Christ, and it was those nationals and not the outsiders who carried the gospel back to their homelands simply by returning home.
Next, we see the strategic expansion of the gospel to Samaria and Africa in chapter eight. The Samaritans were half-Jewish and half-Gentile, so God sent them a preacher with Jewish connections but a Greek name. Philip was culturally acceptable, and many believed. In the same chapter, Philip was used by God to be the first person to carry the gospel to Africa. But not really. God could have sent an outsider like Philip to Ethiopia, and he would have needed years to learn the culture and language and overcome the “outsider” stigma. Instead, God strategically brought an Ethiopian insider to Israel where Philip led him to Christ. The Ethiopian was instrumental in reaching Ethiopia simply by going home with the gospel burning in his heart. And, he wasn’t just any Ethiopian. This new believer reported directly to the queen, served as her treasurer, and had amazing influence potential. Outsiders would have been unlikely to ever even see the queen or have any influence at the highest levels, so God used this select national.
On to Acts 13 where God once again tapped the insider. I used to think that Paul and Barnabas were the first missionaries to leave their home and comfort zone to head off to the mission field. Wrong. They weren’t leaving home. They were going home. Their first destination was Cyprus (Acts 13:4) which was the birthplace of Barnabas (Acts 4:36). This time it was a local landowner simply going home to tell his fellow Cypriots about Jesus. Once again God tapped a high-potential national to carry the gospel to his own people.
I can hear someone asking, “But what about the greatest missionary of all time? What about the Apostle Paul? What about those three great missionary journeys?” Well I’m glad you asked, and now I’m really going to go out on a limb. If a missionary is one who crosses cultural and language barriers with the gospel, then Paul wasn’t a missionary at all. Paul wasn’t leaving home and heading off to the mission field when he moved from Antioch to minister in Asia Minor. He was just going home. He was not “Saul of Antioch” or “Saul of Jerusalem.” Five times the Bible refers to him as “Saul of Tarsus.” Paul grew up in the heart of Asia Minor in a town named Tarsus, and he simply went home with the gospel.
If you take a closer look at Paul’s “missionary” journeys you may notice that he never traveled outside of the areas where his Roman citizenship, cultural familiarity, and common language made him an insider. He was at home in the culture to the point that he referenced local poets and repeatedly used Greek sports as his analogies, and as a Jew with an advanced religious pedigree, he could also frequent Jewish synagogues. He was the ultimate insider and was used in mighty ways to spread the gospel at home.
That was so much more strategic than sending in the outsiders. In fact, when an outsider did come to town, his culturally insensitive behaviors created “us and them” tensions. Paul had to rebuke Peter to his face for the outsider vs. insider problems he had unwittingly stirred up during his visit (Galatians 2:11-21).
Another Acts example of strategic use of key nationals is the story of Aquila and Priscilla when they returned home to Pontus Asia to launch a church planting ministry. That, combined with Paul’s strategy of advanced training of key nationals led to shocking results. Everyone in the entire region heard the gospel (Acts 19:9-10)! Paul himself had been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to go to that region (Acts 16:6), but by training key nationals he had the most significant impact of his life.
As the president of a Christian University, my goal is to follow that example by graduating at least one key, gospel-multiplying, self-reproducing, highly-influential Christian leader from every nation on earth. By utilizing the Internet and online education, we have now enrolled students from roughly half of the nations on the planet, and many of these select nationals are being strategically used in amazing ways to launch church-planting movements, train scores of pastors, and impact entire nations. Their stories are inspiring, but I will share just one here even though there are many.
Some fifteen years ago, Piedmont translated an entire Master’s Degree in Biblical Studies into Arabic and graduated dozens of key nationals across the Middle East. One of those graduates launched a new church in a community occupied primarily by a major terrorist organization. Over a decade ago, I nervously preached to his tiny congregation that crowded into a small rented room. Today they own a beautiful, multi-story church building, have seventy full-time employees, feed twelve thousand Syrian refugees every day, and have seen hundreds of Muslims come to Christ. Strategic!
I now encourage students who desire to be missionaries to either go to a people group that has not yet been evangelized at all [Unreached People Group and World Relief Triad] or find a way to come alongside and support national leaders by providing training, resources, etc. I encourage churches to think strategically and biblically and not just emotionally as they formulate missions policies and make support decisions.
In conclusion, my goal in this article is simply to stir discussion and prompt deeper thinking. I am certainly not saying that all other approaches are wrong. I am saying that our churches, schools, and agencies should carefully evaluate their evangelism efforts for strategic effectiveness and biblical foundation (This article was printed with permission in the March/April edition VOICE).