REDEFINING THE MEANING OF ADVENTIST MISSION
Silver Spring, Maryland, US By Taashi Rowe
MUp until fairly recently the idea of mission
in the Seventh-day
Adventist Church was relatively simple to
define. "Real" mission work involved
church members from Western countries moving
across the world to live among native groups
for long periods of time with the hope of
sharing the gospel and eventually baptizing
people into the Adventist church. Today, there
are literally hundreds of ways to become involved
in mission work in the Adventist church independent
of that traditional concept of cross-cultural
mission work.
What is Adventist mission? It depends on whom
you ask. Some say mission is volunteering in
your local community. Others say mission is
a youth group spending 10 days building a church
in another part of the world, risking life to
share the news of Christ with neighbors in heavily
non-Christian areas, or offering an in-demand
skill such as medicine to communities where
public proselytizing is illegal. Still others
think mission is working for an Adventist institution,
a school or hospital for example, in another
part of the world.
Bruce Bauer, a missiology professor at Andrews
University in Berrien Springs, Michigan, says,
"the Adventist church is struggling right
now [with] what mission is all about."
Today, there are some 1,000 mission workers
sent out by church headquarters, about half
of what there used to be. And close analysis
of that number reveals that many of those
missionaries are in fact institutional workers
not directly involved in frontline work, or
preaching the gospel to first-time hearers.
Bauer, who has spent years in the traditional
mission field, is
concerned by how many missionaries are "working
for those who are already Adventist."
"When our early church leaders were recruiting
missionaries they were going out as pioneers,
as church planters to start the work in some
countries. They went for long periods of time,
learned the language and culture and thought
of going for the rest of their lives. As we
moved into the 1940s and 50s missionary work
became more institutionalized," explains
Bauer.
But working for Adventist institutions is
still mission, insists Cheryl
Doss, a former missionary and associate director
for the Institute of
World Mission at Andrews University.
"Yes, we tend to concentrate mission
work in areas where we have had success,"
says Doss, "[But] that doesn't make you
not a front line worker. We lived on a mission
station that had a ministerial training school.
During the 10 years we were stationed there
seven new churches were planted. There were
already 250,000 members in that little country
so it wasn't like pioneer work but it was
... an important part of the mission work
that needs to continue."
In 2005 the Seventh-day Adventist Church came
up with a new way to articulate its mission.
Church leaders made plans to Tell The World--a
slogan that embodies the church's mission
to introduce as many people as possible to
Jesus. The Tell the World statement challenges
"five million Seventh-day Adventists
to reach at least one person for Jesus and
bring them into fellowship with God's family
by 2010." Telling the whole world about
Jesus would mean going beyond traditional
methods.
One non-traditional way of Telling the World
has already been
implemented through Global Mission, which
was created in 1990 to help establish churches
in areas where there were no Adventists. Global
Mission's role is to "reach the unreached
with hope." They mainly function in areas
of the world that the church calls the 10/40
window, a term used to describe a geographical
rectangle that extends from West Africa, through
the Middle East, and into Asia. Since Global
Mission came on the scene there has been some
growth of the Adventist church in those areas.
Jon Dybdahl, former president of Walla Walla
University and a former missionary, said Global
Mission "quite radically changes the
mission strategy of the church. Instead of
emphasizing the number of people we move into
the baptism tank we focus on how many churches
we can start in places where there are no
Adventists."
While filled with praises for Global Mission,
Lester Merklin, director
of the Institute of World Mission, is however
concerned about its
impact on cross-cultural mission work. "I
suspect ... it has left an
impression in the [Western world] that everywhere
in the world there are local people that can
do the mission if we give them a little stipend.
Mission is a world church responsibility.
We don't have any Muslim contacts in the 10/40
window who can go and do the mission work.
It will take cross-cultural effort."
Although there is a visible decrease in "professional"
long-term
missionaries there has also been a surge in
people who volunteer for short-term mission
work. People like Tom Slikkers, who most people
would not consider a missionary. But the vice
president of S2 Yachts, a boating company
based in Holland, Michigan played a big part
in building a long-lasting monument to Christ.
Along with the short-term mission group, Maranatha
Volunteers International, Slikkers and his
company applied their expertise in boat building
to establishing a floating church on the high-altitude
Lake Titicaca in Peru.
Though many church leaders agree their impact
is significant,
short-term missionaries are another cause
for concern for some in the church. Traditionalists
like Bauer, Lester Merklin and others worry
that short-term missionaries do not have the
training to be effective in foreign cultures.
He adds that long term missionaries tend to
think of what they do as a result of "God's
call on one's life to a particular people
and place. You have to have a sense that you
are where God wants you to be at that time
and that place."
On the other hand, Vernon Parmenter, associate
secretary at the
church's world headquarters, says short-term
mission workers are a boon to the church.
He says because the church doesn't have the
budget to pay as many missionaries as it would
like they have come to depend upon short-term
missionaries. Through the Adventist Volunteer
Center, which Parmenter directs, some hundreds
of people go out to do mission work for anywhere
from two months to two years. He says much
of what these volunteers do, preaching and
holding Bible studies, would be considered
frontline mission work.
Bauer says he doesn't believe in instant missionaries.
"I'm having
trouble understanding the type of people that
are baptized after three weeks without any
insight into culture."
Bauer's concern is one that has been expressed
by church leaders. Over and over again the
church's statistics have proven that along
with a huge influx of new newly baptized members
into the church after a three-week crusade
comes a sizable exit months later.
But long-term mission does not have to be
pitted short-term mission says, Scott Griswold,
who directs the Adventist church's Buddhist
Study Center in Asia. He says, "short-term
mission can take up a lot of time of the long-time
workers, but can really inspire those who
go."
He shares Bauer's concern that proper contextualization
of the gospel message is where short-term
missionaries tend to fall short: "When
it comes to short-term mission, stumbling
blocks are there because of their own perspective
and beliefs. We must try to understand what
[natives] believe and then present God's truths
in ways they can understand. This is not changing
God's message but changing the way it is heard.
However, contextualization is not near as
important as a reliance on the Holy Spirit
who is able to overcome any barrier especially
through His incredible divine love."
Griswold, who has been a missionary for 10
years, advises, "Short-term missionaries
should listen carefully to the field to see
what is truly needed instead of letting their
agenda push what happens. A careful, long-term
partnership with short-terms going frequently
to one spot may be more helpful."
Kyle Fiess, vice president of marketing for
Maranatha Volunteers
International, agrees that changing people's
hearts and minds for
eternity doesn't happen in 15 nights at a
crusade. He explains that
Maranatha mainly works in areas where there
is already an Adventist church working with
the community and preparing people for baptism.
"We are definitely committed to the opportunity
for people to be
missionaries. Through these [short-term] experiences
we hope to
influence people's lives and change the way
they think of mission,"
Fiess says.
When asked about the future of mission work
in the Adventist church, Dybdahl expresses
a concern that many "people in the church
really know very little about the international
church and its mission, history of mission
and mission strategy."
Bauer agrees, saying that this is because
many Adventist churches give members the "impression
that there is nothing left to do. We can sit
in our rocking chairs and wait for Christ
to return." Bauer suggests that the church
redirect more of its resources to unentered
areas.
Doss says, "We have a long way to go.
There are a lot of people who haven't heard
about Jesus in a way that makes sense to them.
We have to find people who are willing to
listen and learn and live with them. I see
movements in that direction. I hope and pray
that we seize the moment and find ways that
we can empower people to answer God's calling."
Involvement in mission is a crucial part of
the Christian experience,
says Gary Krause, director of the Office of
Adventist Mission at the
Adventist world church headquarters. He sums
up the church's need to do mission by pointing
to Matthew 28:19: "Jesus didn't suggest
or request--He told us to go into the world.
We are a world church with a world commission."
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