Beyond Samaria

At the Mission Society, our missionary screening and training program involves exposing candidates to ministry opportunities in cross-cultural situations. These ventures are often eye-opening, sometimes in ways one wouldn't expect. One cold winter day I accompanied a group of candidates to spend the morning in ministry to about 300 homeless men who had gathered at an inner-city church. These men knew that they would receive a hot breakfast, hear a Gospel message, and be handed a bag lunch before they left, an opportunity that was offered to them every Saturday.

On this particular morning there were actually more volunteers than needed to help, because a nearby college Christian group had unexpectedly also come to assist. At the serving station they needed about four people to dish out the grits, eggs, and sausage as the men filed by, plates in hand. However, due to the excess number of volunteers, about triple the number of needed servers stood nearby. I watched with interest as one of the ministry coordinators made sure that each volunteer had an opportunity to stand behind the counter and take a turn at serving the homeless. It was almost as if the church hosts felt the need to allow each volunteer to have a little time to feel significant, even though not all of them were needed.

This is an easy temptation to fall into. When serving others, we must carefully guard against a subtle, yet dangerous, shift in focus. A calling that may have originated in selfless love for others and obedience to the Great Commission can gradually be supplanted by the need of the one who serves. I believe that this is a common pitfall in missions.

Recently an Annual Conference official was telling me about his conference's work team program. As I learned about the large volume of teams that this conference sends each year, all destined for the same location in a nearby Latin American country, I asked, "Do you ever ask the people living in [that country] whether or not they need all of this short-term help?" By his startled response, it was evident that the teams' purpose was primarily to provide a mission experience for the visiting Americans.

Brief ministry trips to familiar locations are often a good thing. They can provide beneficial witness and outreach, in addition to broadening the worldview of the participants.  My full-time involvement in missions was initially launched by participation in a work team to a nearby country in 1979. In fact, 70 percent of full-time missionaries point to a short-term mission experience as a catalyst in their career choice. It is important, however, to keep these trips to familiar places in proper perspective, lest they become an end in themselves. In a world that has become increasingly wary of American intervention and assistance, Christian visitors to other countries must avoid giving the impression that familiar foreign venues for ministry serve primarily as contexts for personal enrichment.

At a recent district training session I asked a gathering of 25 local church mission chairpersons if they had ever heard of the "10-40 Window." The 10-40 Window is the part of Africa, Asia, and Europe that is between the parallels 10 degrees north and 40 degrees north. In the past decade missiologists have brought attention to the 10-40 Window because within it live 80 percent of the world's poorest people and 85 percent of those who currently have little or no access to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. When I asked my question to the gathering of mission chairpersons, only one person raised her hand.

When the risen Jesus instructed his disciples to be witnesses "in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth" (Acts 1:8), he seemed to be establishing a pattern for ministry that increasingly expands from one's geographical home. Obedience to Christ implies that we will not cease to enlarge the extent of our missionary efforts once we have reached Judea or even Samaria.

A pastor can be proud of his or her church's active involvement in missions, perhaps even with a healthy sense of pride. But the issue isn't how busy we can become in mission activity, nor the sense of fulfillment that our involvement can bestow to us. In fact, it's not about us at all. It's about the 1.6 billion people in this world who cannot know Jesus because we have not shared Christ with them in the context of their own language and community. To a very large degree, I feel we have stopped in Samaria.

A loss in our family
On April 20, 2004, Mission Society missionary the Rev. Joel Duggins suffered a heart attack and passed away at his home in Cleveland, Georgia.  He was only 50 years old.  The first Mission Society missionary to die during active service, Joel and his family had served for nine years in Kazakhstan before returning to the United States to plant a new multi-cultural congregation in the Atlanta area.  In the July/August issue of Good News, we will feature on this page an article written by Joel in the months preceding his death.