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Missions Today · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reform Thinking, and this is the deep dive.
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  Here we take source material, we sift through it and really try
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  to pull out the critical ideas, maybe some surprising facts,
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  just to give you a clear grasp of what truly matters.
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  Today's Deep Dive uses a really interesting collection of
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  insights on global missions, and these are concepts that, well,
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  they resonate pretty strongly with reformed thought, I think.
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  They do. Our aim is to cut through maybe
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  some of the noise you hear about missions and really focus on the
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  foundational pillars for making a lasting gospel impact in
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  communities around the world. That's right, we're digging into
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  these materials, Brooks Buster's talks and writings, mainly to
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  get a clear understanding of the Great Commission's goals and
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  importantly, how to actually reach them.
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  So we'll be looking at principles for setting up
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  Christian communities that last and also that big challenge,
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  often overlooked language. And this isn't just theory, you
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  know, it comes straight from the experience of people really
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  living out this calling. So hopefully you'll get a
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  sharper sense of how faithful work happens.
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  So the sources we have, our excerpts from an address by
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  Brooks Buster, some related articles, and also a timeline of
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  his work quite detailed. Our mission then for this deep
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  dive is to distill his core principles for effective
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  missions. We want to draw specific lessons
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  from his, well, pretty extensive experience.
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  We'll unpack what he sees as the ultimate goal of the Great
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  Commission, what he argues is the central barrier to getting
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  it done, and also the kind of pacing needed for real spiritual
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  growth. And what we hope to uncover for
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  you are the essential truths that really define mission work
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  that lasts, hopefully letting you see beyond some common
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  misconceptions and appreciate the the careful, sacrificial
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  labor that's involved. By the end you should have a
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  better idea where why certain approaches yield lasting fruit
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  while others, maybe with good intentions, seem to fall short.
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  OK, let's dig into that first big idea from the sources.
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  A lot of folks, when they think missions, they think evangelism,
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  maybe big crusades, individual decisions.
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  But these sources argue the ultimate aim is something
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  bigger, more substantial. What is that?
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  Yeah, you put your finger on it. The core idea here is that the
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  ultimate objective, the main method you could say of the
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  Great Commission, isn't just getting individuals saved, it's
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  planting churches. Planting churches.
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  Right. And Boozer makes this really a
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  resting point. Missionaries rarely achieve
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  greater goals than what they aim for at the outset.
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  So if you only aim for conversions.
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  You probably won't get a lasting church.
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  It sounds a bit backward maybe, but it makes practical sense if
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  you think about long term spiritual health and growth in a
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  community. Aim for the church.
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  Where does he get the support for that idea?
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  Is it biblical? Oh definitely.
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  The strongest case comes straight from Acts from the
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  apostles own work. Think about Acts 2, Pentecost.
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  Thousands converted, yes, but what happened immediately?
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  They formed the community, the First church.
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  Right. The church in Jerusalem was
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  established. That was the visible result.
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  Then you see it again in Acts 11.
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  The church in Antioch gets started.
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  Another key hub. And look at Paul's own call in
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  Acts 26. He's sent to the Gentiles to
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  open their eyes, turn them from darkness to light so they can
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  receive forgiveness and a place among those who are sanctified
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  by faith in me. A place among that sounds like
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  community belonging. It points straight to the
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  church, the gathered body, not just individual belief floating
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  free. And then you see Paul later Acts
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  15, strengthening churches in Syria and Silesia.
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  So building them up, not just starting them.
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  Exactly. And Acts 16 says the churches
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  were growing in number. The apostles were consistently
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  working to establish and strengthen local churches.
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  It wasn't mission accomplished until a local body was
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  functioning. And the sources to find the
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  church is more than just a meeting.
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  Right. Oh yeah.
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  It's where believers find their identity.
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  It's the place that we gather. It's the very essence of the
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  Christian community. It's the living body of Christ,
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  not just a building. So gathering individuals into
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  that lasting, structured body that naturally makes you think
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  about the long term. What do the sources say about
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  how long this takes? The longevity?
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  That's key. Church planting is presented
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  very clearly as a long term endeavor.
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  It's not a short term project. Boozers own work with the Yambi
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  Yami people. 13 years just to see the gospel take root and a
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  church get established. 13 years.
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  And the sources actually define short term in this context as
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  anything less than five years. They really push for what they
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  call a long haul approach. And there's a warning if you
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  don't take that approach. A stark one.
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  If new believers aren't gathered into a church before the
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  missionaries leave, the work dies in one generation.
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  Dies. That's blunt.
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  It is. It means all that effort,
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  however sincere, just evaporates.
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  But established churches? They're described as outposts of
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  heaven. Outposts of Heaven.
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  I like that image, yeah. Communities that continue by
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  God's grace, even after the missionaries move on, they
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  ensure the gospel keeps going, keeps having an effect.
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  It's about self-sustaining work, not something propped up from
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  outside indefinitely. And interestingly, the material
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  suggests the local church itself should have a say in the timing
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  when the missionaries leave, rather than some arbitrary date
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  set by the sending agency or the missionaries.
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  So the church decides when it's it's mature enough.
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  Kind of, yeah. It ensures the work is done
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  according to the actual needs on the ground, not just ticking a
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  box on a schedule. Now, this long haul idea, it
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  sounds like it's not just about sticking around, but about
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  seeing deeper change. You mentioned cultural ripples
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  earlier. Yes, that cultural effect seems
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  to be a natural outcome when a church is truly planted.
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  The sources show how the church's collective life and
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  witness, along with the preached word, don't just renew
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  individual spiritually, they actually start to influence and
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  change the surrounding culture. Can you give an example?
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  The one that stands out is from the Yambi Yambi.
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  These sources say the influence of the established church led to
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  a real shift away from the common practice of wife beating.
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  Yeah, the source even says quite directly, if you want to see a
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  change in wife beating, plant a church.
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  And the implication is this applies to other deep seated
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  issues too, like abuse or maybe even certain kinds of poverty.
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  It shows the gospel having a holistic effect.
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  So it changes society, not just souls.
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  Well, it changes souls, and those changed souls living
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  together as the church start to change society.
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  And ultimately the sources point to Ephesians 3.7 saying it's
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  through the church. The manifold wisdom of God might
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  now be made known even to spiritual powers.
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  The Church displays God's wisdom.
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  That's a high calling. And from there, it seems the
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  idea is that this planted church doesn't just survive, it
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  spreads. It multiplies.
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  Yes, exactly. The goal isn't just a static
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  church, but what the sources call Christ Center throbbing
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  communities, communities that continue to grow, continue to
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  emulate, continue to. Stretch throbbing with life.
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  Yeah, and the self propagation means these local churches can
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  then press out where outside missionaries will never get to.
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  They carry the mission forward themselves.
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  So it becomes an indigenous movement.
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  Right. John G Patton's work in Vanuatu
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  I was mentioned as an example. He didn't just evangelize
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  individuals. He established churches that
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  then grew and reproduced until nearly whole islands turn to
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  Christ. His vision was for every people
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  and language and nation to have such a Christ center throbbing
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  in its midst. That's the picture.
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  Active local Christian communities everywhere
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  multiplying on their own. So it's a vision way beyond just
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  counting heads. It's about these communities
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  becoming expansion agents themselves.
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  How does this aim of church planting relate to other crucial
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  things like, well, evangelism? We're making disciples.
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  Are those less critical? No, not less critical, but maybe
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  framed differently. The sources are clear.
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  Evangelism and discipling are absolutely vital.
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  You can't have a church without them, but they aren't the
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  ultimate goal in isolation. If those disciples aren't
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  gathered into a functioning church, the work just won't
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  last, the sources say. All other things find their
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  support in church planting and church strengthening.
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  So church planting is the foundation.
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  It's presented that way. Evangelism leads to the church,
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  discipleship happens within the church, and the church then
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  sends out more evangelists and disciple makers.
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  It's a cycle. And part of that strengthening
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  is leadership. Crucial.
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  The aim includes raising up local leaders, elders and
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  deacons so the church isn't left like infants tossed to and fro
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  when the founding missionaries leave.
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  Without local leadership, it stays dependent, and that kind
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  of defeats the purpose of a self-sustaining community.
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  OK, so the goal is the church, a self-sustaining, multiplying
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  church. But what's the biggest obstacle
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  to getting there, Especially in places where the Gospel hasn't
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  reached the sources point very clearly to one thing, Language.
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  Why language above all else? Yeah, it's presented not just as
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  an obstacle, but as the dominant barrier.
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  And kind of paradoxically, it's also the essential tool for
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  communicating the gospel effectively and planting those
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  churches. Dominant barrier.
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  Why? Why?
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  The argument made is quite theological actually.
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  It goes back to Genesis 11, the Tower of Babel.
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  God himself chose language as the means to separate people.
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  So, the sources argue, this act established language as the
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  fundamental division. Geographic barriers, cultural
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  barriers, those came later, downstream from the tongue, as
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  they put it. So tackling language is tackling
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  the root decision. That's the idea, and overcoming
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  it takes enormous effort. It's described as the hardest
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  task in missions, hands down. Seriously demanding.
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  Even highly educated people find language learning incredibly
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  tough. Like becoming a child again.
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  It's not just about vocabulary list then, it's about really
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  getting inside the language, sounding natural, not foreign.
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  Spot on. Full fluency is the goal.
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  Why? Because the message, the gospel
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  message, is too important to get wrong.
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  If you don't master the language, your communication
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  will be badly communicated. You'll preach A weaker gospel,
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  one that maybe lacks clarity or depth.
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  And how does that affect perception?
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  Well, if the missionary always sounds like a foreigner because
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  of language struggles, then the God that you represent might
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  also seem like a foreigner. The message might never quite
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  feel like it belongs. Never take full possession in
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  their heart until it's heard in their own mother tongue sounding
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  like something an insider would say.
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  Like it's their truth, not just imported.
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  Right. It needs to resonate deeply,
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  using their idioms, their ways of expressing complex ideas,
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  even their humor or sarcasm, their rhythm.
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  And this obviously connects directly to Bible translation,
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  which is often a huge part of this kind of.
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  Work Oh, absolutely. Translating this really
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  important book, the Bible, into the local language is core, and
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  the sources argue that you can't do that well unless you are
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  among the best speakers of the language.
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  Not just good, but the best. Yeah, possessing a really deep
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  grasp of all its nuances, the idioms, the humor we mentioned,
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  but also discourse features how sentences flow together to build
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  an argument or tell a story. Without that deep feel,
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  translations can sound wooden and foreign.
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  They lack life. Boozer himself was a translator,
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  wasn't he? Yes, primary translator for the
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  Badal New Testament. That experience clearly informs
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  his view on this, and he points to historical examples too, like
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  Tyndale or Luther, whose groundbreaking translations came
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  from their deep mastery of everyday English and German.
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  So language skill isn't just technical, it's cultural.
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  It seems tied to acceptance. Completely tied.
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  You can't really separate learning the language from
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  learning the culture. Doing both allows missionaries
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  to shift from being outsiders to becoming, in a sense, insiders.
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  That builds trust, credibility. How did that play out for the
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  buzzers? Well, they spent that initial 2
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  1/2 years immersing themselves in bedoule language and culture,
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  learning to hunt boar, for instance.
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  That wasn't just about fitting in.
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  It showed respect, willingness to learn their ways, and it gave
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  the gospel message more weight later because they were known
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  and respected first. And this deep cultural
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  understanding, which comes through language, is what allows
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  the missionary to help people displace their old worldview
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  with a biblical 1 not just adding Jesus onto the existing
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  system, but fundamentally reorienting their understanding
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  of reality. That's key to avoiding
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  syncretism. Avoiding that dangerous mixing
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  of beliefs. Right, without deep language and
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  culture learning you might just get a superficial blend, not a
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  real heart change. You mentioned it's demanding.
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  The sources use words like pain, monotony.
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  What makes language learning so tough in this context?
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  It's described as being front loaded in pain, meaning the
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  hardest part is right at the beginning.
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  It requires a certain humility to go back to speaking like a
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  child. Imagine being an articulate
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  adult and suddenly you can barely form a sentence.
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  Frustrating. Hugely.
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  And it requires perseverance to overcome the monotony.
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  Drilling vocabulary, practicing sounds, making the same mistakes
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  over and over. It feels like banging your head
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  against a wall sometimes. The temptation is to rush past
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  that. Big temptation, a thirst to dive
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  into ministry too quickly without paying the price of
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  admission, which is language and culture learning.
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  But skipping that leads to being bad communicators with weak
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  translations. The sources call that rush the
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  pernicious weed of speed. Yeah, a really vivid phrase.
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  This pressure for quick results can stop missionaries from
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  becoming a known commodity, someone trusted, and it often
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  results in explosive syncretism. The gospel gets mixed up and
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  diluted because it wasn't communicated clearly or deeply
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  enough. So patience, rooted in language
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  learning, is the antidote. That's the argument.
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  Slow, careful work counters the rush to superficiality.
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  And this isn't a new insight. You mentioned historical
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  figures. Right.
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  People like Hudson Taylor, Adonaram Judson, Henry Martin,
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  they all prioritized intensive language study.
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  Judson's spending 12 hours a day on Burmese, that shows the level
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  of focus they believed was necessary.
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  And Pentecost itself, you know, the miracle where people heard
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  the disciples proclaiming the glory of God in their own
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  language. That's seen as the beginning of
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  the reversal of the Tower of Babel.
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  God overcoming the language barrier He Himself set up,
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  showing the value He places on people hearing His truth in
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  their heart language. OK, we've got the goal church
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  planting and the main barrier language.
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  Now let's talk about the how the pacing, the method.
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  The sources strongly advocate for slow patient growth.
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  What does that actually mean in practice?
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  Why is slow better than fast here?
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  Well, it's a direct counter to that pernicious weed of speed we
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  just talked about. The core idea is that real,
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  lasting spiritual growth, especially cross culturally, is
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  not a short term endeavor. Right.
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  You mentioned Bowser considers anything less than five years
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  short term. He does.
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  He argues for a long haul perspective.
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  The process is compared to farmers planting crops.
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  You don't just throw seed and walk away.
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  You prepare the soil, you plant, you water, you weed, you wait.
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  Patience is key. Or it's like like marathon
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  runners, not sprinters. It requires endurance.
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  The sources state very clearly that slow patient growth is far
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  preferable to fast and quick methods that can lead to
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  syncretism. So speed itself can be
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  dangerous. It can be if it sacrifices
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  depth. The Yambi Yombi example again,
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  13 years to establish the church, and then another eight
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  years nurturing those new believers.
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  That's over 2 decades. It shows that slow, steady work
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  is often what's needed for deep roots.
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  And this obviously links back directly to language and
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  culture, doesn't it? You can't rush that immersion
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  process. Absolutely.
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  That need to learn the language to fluency to become an insider
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  culturally. That takes time, lots of time.
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  You can't microwave that process.
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  Shortcuts. No, and without taking that time
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  like like we said, communication is weak.
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  The gospel might seem foreign, God might seem like an outside
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  God. Patient language and culture
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  work allows the message to really take full possession in
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  their heart because it's heard and understood within their own
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  framework, even though that process is front loaded in pain
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  requiring that humility and perseverance.
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  So it's about deeply rooting the gospel, not just scattering
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  seeds widely. And that kind of rooting
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  requires careful teaching, I imagine.
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  Yes, systematic foundational teaching.
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  First you need the Bible translated well into the local
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  language, which again takes time and skill.
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  Then you teach what that book says.
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  Where do you start teaching? The approach advocated is
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  starting right at the beginning. Genesis 1.1 lay the foundation
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  of who God is, His character creation.
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  This is seen as essential to properly displace the existing
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  worldview, not just add bits of Christianity onto it.
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  Contrasting God with their existing beliefs.
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  Right, showing how the biblical God is different.
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  Understanding creation, the fall in Genesis 3, spending a month
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  and a half just on those first 3 chapters like they did with the
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  Yambi. Yambi That helps people grasp
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  the seriousness of sin, the reality of death, and why they
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  need a Redeemer. Only then can the grace of God
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  in Jesus Christ make full sense. So you build the foundation
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  before you get to the cross. You build the whole story so the
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  cross is understood in its proper context.
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  And this patient nurturing has to include developing local
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  leaders right to ensure it lasts after the missionaries leave.
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  That's a critical piece of the long term vision.
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  After people come to faith, you gather them into a strong New
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  Testament church. And a huge part of that
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  strengthening is identifying and training local leaders, elders
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  and deacons. Why is that so vital?
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  So the church isn't left vulnerable like infants toss to
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  and fro when the missionary presence eventually decreases.
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  Local leaders ensure the church can govern itself, teach itself,
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  sustain itself. It's essential for that self
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  propagation we talked about. And again, that long term
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  investment, building up local leaders, nurturing the church,
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  it seems to lead back to that idea of cultural change.
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  It does. A mature, locally LED church
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  living out the gospel inevitably starts to influence the culture
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  around it. That yumby, yumby example of
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  wife beating changing that wasn't a program the
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  missionaries ran. It was an outflow of the gospel
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  taking root in the church community.
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  So the Church itself becomes the agent of change.
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  Yes, it becomes that outpost of heaven, impacting its
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  surroundings, demonstrating God's wisdom and values in a
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  tangible way, self governing, self supporting and self
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  propagating. And self propagating means they
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  start reaching out themselves. Exactly.
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  Mature churches start training others, maybe planting daughter
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  churches, reaching areas the original missionaries couldn't.
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  It becomes a movement spreading organically like we see in Acts,
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  with churches sending out their own people.
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  Now, the sources also offered some categories, sort of
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  strategic lanes for missions. Can you quickly outline those?
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  Sure, Buster lays out four categories to help think
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  strategically, framed by the church on one side and language
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  on the other. First is training national
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  pastors, recognizing lots of energy in places like the global
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  S but often with weak theology. So strengthening local pastors
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  through good schools is key because the long term work will
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  have to be local guys. Makes sense Second.
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  English speaking churches using English as a global language
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  with tons of resources. The idea is to establish strong
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  churches, bastions of light in key international cities like
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  Dubai or Jakarta. Strategic hubs.
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  Third, national language churches.
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  This is for big languages like Manrin, Hindi, Urdu, Bahasa.
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  Churches exist, but often there's not enough.
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  So the focus is planting more churches within these massive
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  language groups in places like China or India or Indonesia.
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  And the last one, minority language churches.
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  This is called the Pauline end of the spectrum.
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  Pauline like the apostle Paul. Yeah, because Paul often went
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  where Christ hadn't been named. This category is for those
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  language groups may be smaller, more remote, where no church
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  exists at all. The sources estimate around
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  three other to 100 such languages left.
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  Buster's own organization focuses heavily on this fourth
• 20:01
  category. Reaching the unreached.
• 20:03
  Right, but he stresses all four lanes are valid and needed.
• 20:06
  It's about clarity, not saying 1 is better than another.
• 20:09
  It helps strategize where resources and people might best
• 20:12
  fit. So looking at all this, the long
• 20:14
  haul, the patience, the focus on faithfulness, it really does
• 20:18
  suggest a different way to measure success in missions,
• 20:21
  doesn't it? It really does.
• 20:22
  It shifts the focus away from just quick numbers or immediate
• 20:25
  visible results. Biblical growth, in this view,
• 20:28
  is measured primarily by faithfulness.
• 20:31
  Faithfulness. How do you measure?
• 20:32
  That my perseverance, Bazer says.
• 20:35
  That's how we measure progress. We measure it in faithfulness.
• 20:37
  Will you stay? Will you continue to slog on?
• 20:40
  It means staying put in tough places and during the pain of
• 20:43
  language learning, working patiently even when you don't
• 20:46
  see results right away. Like the farmer waiting for the
• 20:48
  harvest. Exactly.
• 20:49
  Slow patient growth is far preferable to fast and quick.
• 20:54
  Things of real spiritual depth, especially breaking into areas
• 20:57
  long held by darkness, just don't happen overnight.
• 21:00
  The real measure is seeing lasting, self-sustaining local
• 21:04
  churches established, believers growing to maturity, and local
• 21:07
  leaders raised up. That's the fruit of
• 21:09
  faithfulness. So, conversely, what is biblical
• 21:12
  growth not measured by? What are the false metrics we
• 21:15
  should avoid? Well, clearly it's not measured
• 21:17
  by speed or rapid results. That pernicious weed of speed,
• 21:21
  driven by a thirst for results, is seeing as a sickness that
• 21:25
  leads to shallow work, bad communicators, weaker gospel,
• 21:29
  weak translations, and ultimately explosive syncretism.
• 21:33
  Just adding Jesus to the mix basically.
• 21:36
  Yeah, creating a confusing blend instead of real transformation.
• 21:40
  And it's not just measured by individual conversions alone.
• 21:42
  While vital, if those converts aren't gathered into a church,
• 21:46
  it dies in one generation. The church structure is
• 21:48
  necessary for longevity. OK, Also letting the mission
• 21:51
  board's timeline dictate things rather than the needs of the
• 21:55
  emergent church. The advice is let the church
• 21:57
  decide your timeframe. And finally, being wary of
• 22:00
  completion language, like trying to finish the task based on
• 22:03
  certain interpretations of Matthew 24.
• 22:05
  The focus should be on faithful strategic work, not trying to
• 22:09
  predict or force the timing of Christ's return.
• 22:11
  This is all very clear conceptually, but the sources
• 22:14
  give us this incredible story, the Yambi Yambi experience that
• 22:17
  really grounds these principles. Can you walk us through how
• 22:19
  Bowers work There illustrates all this.
• 22:21
  Yeah, it's a powerful case study.
• 22:23
  It shows the long long term dedication, the language
• 22:25
  barrier, the patient teaching, all of it playing out.
• 22:28
  How did it start? It wasn't straightforward.
• 22:29
  Right. No, it really highlights what
• 22:31
  Buzzer calls God's mysterious Providence.
• 22:34
  He was actually a CFO in San Diego.
• 22:36
  A finance guy. Yeah, he and his wife felt
• 22:39
  called to the nation's through reading scripture.
• 22:42
  After two years of training, they had to Papua New Guinea,
• 22:45
  But their plan Landing strip underwater 6 inches of rain
• 22:49
  overnight. Wow.
• 22:51
  So Plan B. Plan B, or maybe God's Plan A
• 22:54
  all along it diverted them to their second option, the Yambi
• 22:57
  Yambi people. Then came this intense journey,
• 23:00
  7 hours by motor canoe, then another 7 hours paddling deeper
• 23:04
  into the jungle to reach their village.
• 23:06
  Very remote. And what was the arrival like?
• 23:09
  The culture shock. Pretty immediate, their greeting
• 23:11
  involved getting mud smear on their foreheads and flower
• 23:14
  petals whipped onto their faces, a sign of welcome, making them
• 23:17
  beautiful to enter the village. A real immersion from minute 1.
• 23:21
  So what were their goals going in?
• 23:22
  They laid out four specific things.
• 23:24
  Learn the language fluently, teach literacy, developing an
• 23:28
  alphabet since it was unwritten, translate the Bible and teach
• 23:31
  what the Bible says. And they promised the people
• 23:33
  they wouldn't leave until those four were done.
• 23:36
  But importantly, they also promised they would leave
• 23:38
  someday. Setting the expectation for
• 23:40
  local leadership from the start, right?
• 23:42
  They were even adopted into clans, Brooks into the Ostrich
• 23:46
  clan, his wife the Eagle clan. Based on looks and to gain
• 23:50
  respect, Buzzer had to tackle the wild boar hunting challenge,
• 23:53
  kill one at night alone with a spear.
• 23:57
  Otherwise, he was just an overgrown boy.
• 23:59
  Did he do it? He learned how haunted with his
• 24:02
  Yambi Yambi fathers and brothers became as much like them without
• 24:05
  sin for the sake of the gospel. All this immersion, language
• 24:09
  learning, culture learning took 2 1/2 years 2.
• 24:11
  And a half years before teaching.
• 24:13
  Before formally teaching the Bible, yes.
• 24:15
  In that time they also got 300 villagers through reading
• 24:18
  classes, and Buzzer was deep into the translation work for
• 24:21
  the battle. New Testament laying all the
• 24:23
  groundwork. OK, so after all that prep, the
• 24:26
  teaching finally begins. How did they approach it?
• 24:29
  Very carefully, foundationally. They announced it 1 moon in
• 24:32
  advance and the whole village showed up.
• 24:34
  And they didn't start with the Gospels or Romans.
• 24:36
  Just as 1.1. This 1.1 to establish who God
• 24:40
  is, contrasting him with the local beliefs like their God who
• 24:43
  made pigs, then crocodiles, then imperfect man.
• 24:47
  They showed God's goodness, his perfect creation using visual
• 24:51
  aids like a canoe full of food. And the people responded.
• 24:54
  Vocally they yell keep talking. This talk is good to my belly if
• 24:58
  they liked it or enough to shut your mouth.
• 24:59
  I'm about to throw this talk up if they didn't.
• 25:01
  Instant feedback. No kidding.
• 25:03
  They spent a month and a half just on Genesis 1.
• 25:06
  Three really digging into the fall, Genesis 3, calling it the
• 25:08
  hinge of all humanity. They even acted it out with
• 25:11
  Buzzer as Satan. The villagers were yelling at
• 25:14
  Eve not to take the fruit. They grasped the significance.
• 25:18
  They connected the fall to the realities.
• 25:20
  They knew the gruesome speed of death in the tropics, the high
• 25:24
  maternal mortality rate. Then for 2 1/2 months, teaching
• 25:28
  through the Old Testament, the people kept asking about the
• 25:31
  promised Redeemer. Is he the one?
• 25:34
  Abraham, David, Solomon. Building anticipation.
• 25:39
  And then finally, Jesus. After months in the Old
• 25:41
  Testament, they moved to the New, starting with John's
• 25:44
  Gospel. And when they got to John the
• 25:45
  Baptist declaring Jesus the Lamb of God who takes away the sins
• 25:48
  of the world, seven men jumped up asking Is he the one?
• 25:52
  Bazer confirmed no, he's the one.
• 25:54
  And it apparently caused chaos because everyone just wanted to
• 25:57
  hear about Jesus. Then stop talking about John.
• 25:59
  They were ready. They were ready after another
• 26:02
  month teaching specifically about Christ.
• 26:03
  On April 21st, 2008, the sources say the 1st 40 or 50 Bedul
• 26:08
  speakers truly understood God's grace in Jesus and were saved.
• 26:12
  An amazing moment, but crucially, they didn't pack up
• 26:15
  then. No way that would contradict
• 26:17
  everything we've discussed. They stayed for eight more
• 26:19
  years. Eight years post conversion.
• 26:21
  To nurture those new believers, to see them gathered into a
• 26:25
  strong New Testament church, to watch them grow, which attracted
• 26:29
  others. To establish the church fully.
• 26:32
  Raise up those local elders and deacons so it wouldn't be left
• 26:35
  vulnerable. Completing the task they set
• 26:37
  out. Exactly.
• 26:38
  And the result, 15 years later, that Yambi Yambi Church wasn't
• 26:42
  just surviving, it was hosting a conference for 22 other churches
• 26:47
  from across the region, planting gardens years in advance to feed
• 26:51
  everyone, running training tracks.
• 26:53
  A mature, self-sufficient, outward focused church.
• 26:56
  That's the fruit of the long patient approach.
• 26:59
  OK, let's pull back a bit for the final section.
• 27:02
  The sources make an interesting distinction between God's
• 27:04
  overall mission in the world and the specific mission he's given
• 27:08
  the church. Yeah.
• 27:09
  Why is that distinction needed? It's about clarity and focus
• 27:12
  really, to avoid mission drift. The speaker points out that the
• 27:15
  mission of God and the mission of the Church are not the same
• 27:18
  thing. How so?
• 27:19
  Well, God is obviously at work everywhere, sovereignly renewing
• 27:22
  things, involved in justice, restoring relationships, all of
• 27:25
  that. His mission is vast.
• 27:27
  Right. Common Grace.
• 27:28
  Providence. Exactly.
• 27:30
  But the Church has a specific task within that broader work.
• 27:34
  And if we flatten the distinction, if we say the
• 27:36
  church's mission is everything God is doing, it can actually
• 27:39
  dull the evangelistic thrust of the gospel by maybe shifting
• 27:43
  focus too much on to social action as the mission, rather
• 27:47
  than seeing social change as something that flows from the
• 27:50
  gospel, proclaimed and lived out, The sources say social
• 27:53
  change is downstream from the proclamation of the gospel.
• 27:57
  So proclamation is primary for the Church's mission.
• 28:00
  That's the argument remembering the primacy of the tongue, the
• 28:03
  spoken word in reaching a lost world, keeping the
• 28:06
  distinctiveness of the mission of the Church clear, and based
• 28:10
  on that, missions gets defined quite precisely.
• 28:12
  How is it defined? As churches sending qualified
• 28:15
  workers to start and strengthen churches across significant
• 28:18
  barriers, geographic and cultural, but especially
• 28:21
  linguistic. See how it ties everything
• 28:24
  together. Churches sending to start and
• 28:26
  strengthen other churches across barriers, especially language.
• 28:29
  Very focused, which leads to a pretty direct call to action it
• 28:33
  sounds like. It does a clear call for
• 28:36
  churches to send qualified people out, especially to the
• 28:39
  furthest edges, to those last languages that still have no
• 28:43
  gospel witness, no church. The unreached.
• 28:45
  Yes, because the gospel does not fall from the clouds like rain.
• 28:49
  It has to be carried by human hands, human voices.
• 28:52
  There's no backup option. God uses people.
• 28:55
  And it challenges maybe how we view missions versus ministry at
• 28:58
  home. It does.
• 28:59
  It argues that foreign missions should be pursued with equal
• 29:02
  energy and vigor as ministry nearby.
• 29:05
  It pushes back on the idea that going overseas requires some
• 29:08
  kind of super special calling distinct from serving God
• 29:11
  anywhere. For some people, God's direction
• 29:14
  is simply much further to go. The call is the same.
• 29:17
  The geography is different. Hashtag #outro.
• 29:20
  So as we wrap up this deep dive, thinking about everything we've
• 29:22
  covered, church, planting, language, patience, the Yambi
• 29:26
  Yambi story, what's the main thing you think someone
• 29:28
  listening should take away, especially if they're
• 29:30
  considering this kind of work or supporting it?
• 29:32
  I think the source is consistently circle back to the
• 29:35
  need for faithfulness, perseverance through that front
• 29:38
  loaded pain, especially the hard work of language and culture,
• 29:41
  learning the good results, the clear communication, the
• 29:46
  scriptures in their language, the mature churches, those come
• 29:49
  later at the back end of that patient, often unseen labor.
• 29:53
  It's a long game. It really is a picture of
• 29:55
  dedication, isn't it? And seeing God's grace work
• 29:57
  through that long obedience. It truly is.
• 29:59
  Which brings us to maybe a final thought to chew on something
• 30:02
  these sources spark. If God in his Providence has
• 30:06
  preserved and spread the gospel through ordinary people learning
• 30:09
  difficult human languages even after he himself confused
• 30:12
  languages at Babel for his own reasons, what does the miracle
• 30:16
  of Pentecost, people hearing God's glory declared in their
• 30:19
  own languages, tell us about God's ultimate desire and plan
• 30:21
  for every single tongue, tribe, and nation?
• 30:24
  And what does that mean for our participation in his unfolding
• 30:27
  plan? That's a great.
• 30:28
  Question to reflect on God's big plan working through very
• 30:31
  specific, often difficult human steps.
• 30:34
  Well, thank you for joining us on the Deep Dive.
• 30:36
  Until next time, keep digging, keep discerning, and keep
• 30:39
  growing.