Weekend Reads: Called to the mission field?

A lot of people are starving for the Word of God. Some are starving in the storehouse, surrounded by more food than any human could ever consume. Others are starving in the wasteland, far removed from any possible source of nourishment. This is the metaphor missionary Jake Taube uses to look at the world, the metaphor that drives him to ask: Which group needs gospel preaching more?

Obviously, it is the “unheards”(as Taube calls them, always in italics) who need missionaries the most. And thus, the main point of his book Send Me, I’ll Go: Letting the Mission Choose Your Direction (CLC Publications, 2015) is that you—yes, you—need to give your life to missionary service among unheards.

Taube, a missionary in China, finds that many young American Christians are well-disposed toward missions, but view it as simply one subheading under the cultural mandate of Genesis 1:28. To these believers, changing diapers and building houses are service to the kingdom of God every bit as much as preaching to unheards. False, says Taube: The only way to fulfill the cultural mandate is through the Great Commission. In this fallen world, you can only make a God-honoring culture by making disciples of Jesus.

In contrast to Taube’s impassioned plea, M. David Sills’ Changing World, Unchanging Mission: Responding to Global Challenges (IVP Books, 2015) will not persuade anyone to be a missionary. Sills, a missions professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., is a lot older than Taube, and a little more hard-bitten. His book deals with some of the contemporary challenges to mission work. For example, the ease of communication and travel is often as much a hindrance as a help. A missionary can be physically on the field, but calling Mom 10 times a day and spending hours reading American newspapers online. Plus, when things get tough, a missionary always has that little escape hatch in the back of his mind: “If absolutely necessary, I can be back in Chicago by the end of the week.”

Both Sills and Taube emphasize that what missions needs is not money power but manpower. Why? “Five point seven billion people (80% of the world) are primarily oral communicators. They prefer, rely on, and learn through oral methods,” says Sills. How wise is our God, whose primary form of communication with His people is the (oral) preaching of the word! And how odd that Sills never mentions preaching in an entire chapter on the search for good oral methods. Taube, by contrast, is all about preaching. Because the Great Commission is in the Bible, he says you are called to make disciples, preferably by preaching. Don’t wait to feel a call, or wait to be sent by a church. Volunteer!

But despite this kind of bold language, Taube pulls his punches. If he really meant it, then he would have to say that every Christian who is not ministering to unheards is in sin. He won’t say that, of course; it’s not true. Nor does he interact with the biblical passages that clearly teach that preachers need a special call (Romans 10:15; Jeremiah 14:15; Hebrews 5:4).

Nonetheless, Taube’s point is important. Why are so few American Christians signing up for missions? It’s probably not because we’re all so obedient to God. The imbalance between Christians who want to stay right where they are, in Western-style comfort and ease, and Christians who want to go to hard places and eat bad food to minister to strange people is stunningly large.

Basically, missions is slow and brutally difficult. And it’s the church’s job. What are we waiting for?