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Equipping the Church to Send Well · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to Reformed Thinking. I am glad you are here with us
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today. We are opening up a set of
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documents that really challenges the way most of us have operated
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for, well, probably the last 50 years.
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If you are listening to this, you likely belong to a church
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that holds to the Westminster Confession.
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You care about theology. You care about doing things you
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know decently and in order. But there is one massive blind
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spot that seems to exist in even the most robustly theological
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churches. It's.
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The one area where we often check our theology at the door
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we we switch over to pure sentimentality.
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We are talking about missions, and I don't mean the
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romanticized biographies of missionaries from the 1800s that
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sit on our shelves. I am talking about the actual
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nuts and bolts of how a local church engages with the Great
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Commission right now in the 21st century.
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And it's a conversation that is, I mean, it's long overdue.
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We so often assume that because you write a check, we are doing
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missions. But the source material we are
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looking at today, writings by Mark Tatlock and Chris Burnett
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on biblical missions, suggest that what writing a check is the
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easy part. The hard part is taking
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ownership. That is the keyword ownership.
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If I stopped a random elder in a Presbyterian Church next Sunday
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and asked who is responsible for missions, they would give the
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Sunday school answer. The church, of course.
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But if I asked who actually does the work of selecting, vetting,
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training and managing the missionaries, what would they
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say? They would likely hand you a
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brochure for a large parachurch agency and say we support them,
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they handle the details. Exactly.
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It is the outsourcing model. We provide the funds, the
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professionals provide the ministry.
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But today we are going to really dismantle that assumption.
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We are going to look at why the local church must reclaim its
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role as a primary mobilizer. And then we're going to pivot
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from there. Right.
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And then we are going to pivot to the theology of why we go
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looking at an exposition of Psalm 67.
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It's a move from the mechanics to the heart.
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You need the structure of the church, but you also need the
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engine of prayer. Without both, the whole thing
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just it falls apart. So let's get the lay of the land
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for this deep dive. We have two main sources.
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We have Tatlock's work on mobilizing and mentoring, which
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is very practical almost, you know, administrative in its
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precision. Very nuts and bolts.
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Very. And then Burnett's work on Psalm
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67, which is exegetical. My goal for today is to see how
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these two fit together. And they do fit together,
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because structure without a theological heart is just
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bureaucracy and, well, heart without structure is just chaos.
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You really need both to be faithful to the text.
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OK, so let's start with the controversy.
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The source material draws a hard line regarding the locus of
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responsibility. I think this is going to make
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some pastors and elders squirm a little.
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It should. Tatlock argues that for the last
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half century we have inverted the biblical order.
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We view the mission agency as the expert and the local church
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as the donor. The rich uncle.
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Exactly. The agency's the parent.
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The church is the rich uncle who visits on holidays with a check.
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But when we look at the New Testament, specifically Acts 13,
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that model just, it completely collapses.
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It does. I mean, Acts 13 is the
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archetype. You have Paul and Barnabas in
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Antioch. Now think about Paul for a
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second. If anyone had the right to
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bypass local authority and say Jesus appeared to me on the road
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to Damascus, so I'm going, it was him.
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Right. He was an apostle.
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He had the direct Commission. He did the most direct
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Commission possible and yet look at Acts 13 verses one through 4.
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They are in the local church at Antioch.
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They are worshipping. They are fasting.
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The context is key. It's everything.
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And the Holy Spirit speaks, presumably through the prophets
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and teachers in that local body, and says, set apart for me
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Barnabas and Saul, for the work to which I have called them.
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And then this is the part we always skip over.
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The church acts. The local body does something.
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Yes, the church fasts, the church prays, the church lays
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hands on them, and the church sends them.
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It wasn't a board of directors in Jerusalem.
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It wasn't a separate 5O1D3 organization with a slick logo.
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It was the local congregation and its leaders.
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That's the pattern. So if the local church is the
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sender, where does that leave the mission agency?
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I mean, are we saying agencies are unbiblical?
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Because that's a big step. Not at all, and the source
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material is very careful here. Agencies are necessary, but
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their role is specific. They are facilitators, not
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owners. Define that distinction for us
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Facilitator versus owner. OK, an owner bears the
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responsibility for the outcome. A facilitator assists the owner.
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Think of it this way. Your parent, you are responsible
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for the education and upbringing of your child.
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That is your God-given duty. Right Now you might send your
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child to a school to learn calculus because, well, maybe
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you don't know calculus. The school facilitates the
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education, yeah, but if the child fails, or if the child
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develops bad character, you don't just blame the school.
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You are the parent, you own the result.
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That is a helpful analogy. And in the Church we have for a
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long time treated the agency like they are the parents.
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We hand the missionary candidate over and say here, you fix them,
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you train them, you deploy them, we will just read their
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newsletters and send a check. And that is an abdication of
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pastoral authority. It just is.
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The elders of the church are responsible to shepherd the
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flock, and that includes the sheep they send across the
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ocean. The accountability doesn't stop
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at the shoreline. The text makes a distinction
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here that I think is really useful.
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It's between ascending church and a supporting church.
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I think most churches assume they are sending churches
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because they have a map in the lobby with pins in it.
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Oh, the famous map. Yes, but having a pin on a map
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doesn't make you a sender. A supporting church helps.
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They provide funds, they pray, maybe they visit.
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The Church at Philippi was a wonderful supporting church for
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Paul. They sent Epiphereditus with a
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gift. They did.
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That is a noble and necessary role.
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We need thousands of supporting churches, but Antioch was the
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sending church. Antioch was the home base.
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Yes, they were the ones who vetted the call in the 1st
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place. They were the ones who would
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have dealt with the discipline if Paul had gone off the rails
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theologically or morally. Which we know happened with
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other people later on. It did, and Antioch with the
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church Paul reported back to at the end of the journey.
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To be ascending church requires a level of engagement that,
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frankly, most sessions are not set up for it.
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Requires a huge amount of time and administrative bandwidth.
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If I'm an elder with a full time job and a family, you know,
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trying to manage the logistics of a missionary family in
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Jakarta sounds completely overwhelming.
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It is overwhelming if you try to do the facilitator's job, but
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you don't need to book their plane tickets or file their visa
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applications. That is where the agency shines.
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That's their expertise. But you do need to know their
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doctrine. You need to know their
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character. You need to be helping direct
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their strategy on the ground. You own the why and The Who.
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The agency helps with the how. This leads us to the concept of
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strategic intentionality. The source material critiques
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what it calls the reactive model, which I think is what
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most churches practice. The reactive model is the open
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door policy. You sit in pastor's office and
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you just wait. Eventually a young, enthusiastic
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person walks in and says, Pastor, I feel led to go to the
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mission field. And because we are terrified of
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quenching the spirit, we just immediately say that's
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wonderful, we will support you. Without asking the hard
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questions, we let the volunteer drive the bus.
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The source shares a very telling and I have to say quite cringe
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worthy story about a candidate interviewing with a mission
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agency. The Spain story.
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Yes, the Spain story. This candidate comes in and says
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God has called me to Spain. Which, let's be honest, is a
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very comfortable place to be called to.
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You've got good food, nice weather, western infrastructure.
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Not exactly a hardship post. It is a lovely place, but the
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interviewer asks a very basic question, OK, what do you plan
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to do in Spain? And the candidate says, I don't
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know. Wow.
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So the interviewer presses, well, what are your gifts?
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What would you like to do? And the candidate replies.
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I haven't figured that out yet. If someone walked into a bank
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asking for a small business loan to open a branch in Madrid, but
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had no business plan, no product and no idea what they were
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doing, they would be laughed out of the building.
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But in the church, we spiritualize it.
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We say they are stepping out in faith.
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Tatlock argues that this isn't faith, it is presumption, and it
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is poor stewardship of the widow's might, of the money
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given sacrificially by the Church.
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It also completely ignores the actual needs of the global
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church. I mean, we're not just sending
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people into a vacuum. The source quotes an African
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church leader who gave a plea to the Western church.
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I found this arresting, he said. Please do not send US
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missionaries who plant churches. That stops you in your tracks,
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doesn't it? Because we think church planting
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is the gold standard. That's the whole point.
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It's the whole point. So why would he say that?
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Well, he explained, he said we are doing that.
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We know the language, we know the culture.
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We can plant churches faster and cheaper than you can.
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He said the strategic need is the equipping of church leaders.
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He was asking for theological education.
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He needed people who could teach hermeneutics and systematic
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theology to the pastors they were already raising up from
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their own congregations. But the Western church keeps
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sending 22 year old church planters because that is what is
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sexy or exciting for us. It sounds heroic.
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Exactly. We are sending what we want to
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send, rather than what the field actually needs.
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That is the complete opposite of strategic intentionality.
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So what does that look like? Strategic intentionality.
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It means the leadership, the elders, they look at the map,
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they look at the gifts within their own body, they listen to
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their global partners and then they say, OK, we have a man here
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who is gifted in teaching. We see a need for seminary
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professor in Kenya. We're going to intentionally
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prepare and send him for that specific role.
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It means the leadership drives the mission rather than the
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subjective whims of the congregation.
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It does, and that requires a lot of courage.
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It requires saying no, sometimes saying no to the person who
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feels called to a place that doesn't need them or for a role
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they aren't suited for. Which brings us to The Who.
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If the church is the mobilizer, the standard for the person
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being sent needs to be incredibly high.
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The text uses an analogy here that I think sticks with you,
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the nut. It takes hundreds of nuts to
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hold a car together, but it takes only one of them to
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scatter it all over the highway. Meaning one bad missionary.
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Can wreck a ministry that took decades to build.
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And we have to be honest about this.
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There's this romantic idea that the act of going, of crossing a
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border, is somehow a sanctifying means of grace, right?
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That if a person is struggling with, say, pride or laziness
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here, the pressure of the field will squeeze it out of them and
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make them holy. I have heard people say things
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like he's a bit rough around the edges but get him on the field
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and he will shape up. And the reality is the exact
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opposite. Pressure reveals cracks.
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It doesn't fix them. If you have a character flaw in
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a comfortable environment with accountability from your elders
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and friends, that flaw will explode when you are in a high
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stress cross cultural environment with almost 0
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accountability. So.
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What is the standard? If we, the local church, are the
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gatekeepers, what are we looking for?
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The standard is scripture. It's not a mystery.
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It's First Timothy 3 and Acts 6, the qualifications for elders
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and deacons. OK, so above reproach, sober
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minded, self controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to
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teach. And the negative qualifiers are
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just as telling. Not a drunkard, not violent, not
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a lover of money, and specifically, Paul says, not a
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new convert, lest he become puffed up with conceit.
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There is one in that list that I think we often overlook in the
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context of missions, not quarrelsome.
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Oh, that is huge. We all know people in the reform
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camp who, well, they love a good argument.
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They treat theology like a contact sport.
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They might be technically correct on the doctrine, but
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they are abrasive. They lack gentleness.
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They leave a trail of bodies. And often we mistake that
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abrasiveness for zeal for the truth.
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We think, man, he's really passionate.
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Let's send him to defend the faith in a hard place.
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That is a disaster waiting to happen.
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If a person is quarrelsome here, imagine them in a culture that
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values face saving or group harmony or indirect
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communication. They will bulldoze the
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nationals. They will alienate their
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teammates. A quarrel Some missionaries that
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loose nut on the highway. The source suggests A litmus
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test that is Well, it's brutally simple.
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If the church wouldn't hire them for their own staff, they
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shouldn't send them across the ocean.
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It just makes perfect sense. Why would we have a lower
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standard for the person we export and for the person we
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keep here? If you wouldn't trust them to
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run your youth group, why in the world are you trusting them to
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plant a church in a hostile nation?
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This moves us into the the specific framework for
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assessment. So it's not just a feeling.
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The source breaks us down into 3C's caliber, competency, and
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compatibility. And this is based on First
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Timothy 3 verse 10. Let them also be tested first.
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And that word tested there. It's a present tense verb in the
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Greek. It implies an ongoing process.
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It's not a written exam. You take on a Saturday morning
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and pass. It is life on life, observation
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over time. Let's unpack the three C's.
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First is missionary caliber. What does that mean?
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Caliber refers to the intangibles of character.
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Are they faithful? Are they teachable?
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Do they show initiative? Initiative is critical on the
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mission field. There is no boss standing over
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your shoulder. There's no time clock.
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You have to be a self starter. The source gives a great example
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of how to test for this, and it's not in an interview room.
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Right, it's about observation. Watch them in the church kitchen
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after a potluck, if they walk past a stack of dirty chairs or
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sink full of dishes because that's not my job, or because
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they are too busy discussing super lapsarianism to help clean
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up. They lack caliber.
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They have a servant's title, maybe, but not a servant's
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heart. You want the person who quietly
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does the work no one else wants to do.
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That brings us to the second sea missionary competency.
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This is the hard skills, the can they do it question.
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Exactly. Can they actually do the job?
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And for us holding to the Westminster Standards, the
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primary competency has to be handling the Word of God.
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Can they defend the faith if a Muslim imam challenges them on
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the Sonship of Christ? Can they give a biblically
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sound, theologically coherent answer without falling into
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heresy? But it's also practical
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evangelism, isn't it? It's not just academic.
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Oh absolutely. You can't export what you don't
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possess. If they aren't sharing the
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gospel with their neighbors here in English with their own
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culture, why do we think they will suddenly start doing it in
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Mandarin? Competency means proven
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fruitfulness in the local context first.
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And the third see missionary compatibility.
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This is all about longevity. Are they doctrinally aligned
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with ascending church and the agency?
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We don't want to send someone who is going to drift
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theologically five years down the road.
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But also, and this is huge, are they compatible with the team on
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the field? I have read that conflict with
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other missionaries is the number one reason people leave the
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field prematurely. It is.
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It's not persecution, it's not lack of money, it's I can't
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stand the guy I'm working with. Compatibility is a character
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issue as much as a personality issue.
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Can you submit to one another? Can you overlook an offense or
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do you have to win every argument?
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We have talked about the assessment by the church.
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Now let's talk about the call. I feel like this is where things
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get the most subjective and maybe even mystical for some
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people. People talk about a burning in
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the bosom or a specific sign from God and.
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We don't want to discount the subjective work of the Spirit.
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The source calls this the internal call.
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Spurgeon had that famous quote about it.
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An intense, all absorbing desire for the work, yes.
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He said if you could be happy doing anything else, then go do
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that. But if you feel you must preach
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the gospel, that there's a compulsion on you, that is the
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internal call. But feelings can be wrong.
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I mean, I might feel called to be an opera singer, but my
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actual vocal cords and pitch perception might strongly
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disagree. And that is why the internal
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call is so dangerous. If it stands alone, it requires
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the external call. This is the objective
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affirmation of the local church. The body looks at you and says,
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we see what you feel, but we also see your gifts, we see your
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fruit, we see your character, and we confirm that God has
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actually equipped you for this. It serves as a reality check on
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our emotions. It acts as the voice of the
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Spirit through the Bride of Christ.
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If you feel called but your elders and your community say we
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don't see it, then you need to pause.
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You are either not called or you're not ready.
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To go without the external call is really an act of rebellion,
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not faith. And when that call is confirmed,
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the church sends the text references 3 John verses 6
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through 8 send them on their way in a manner worthy of God.
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That phrase stops me every time I read it.
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Worthy of God. It sets the bar incredibly high,
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doesn't it? It means we treat the missionary
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as if God himself were the one traveling.
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We don't just wave goodbye at the airport and say good luck.
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We support them financially so they aren't begging.
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We support them emotionally. We visit them.
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We view them as a deployed part of our own body.
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This implies that sending is expensive, and not just in
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money, but in relational capital and time and energy.
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It is. And that is why we probably
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shouldn't send everyone who volunteers.
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We should send fewer people, but send them better.
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Let's talk about preparation. The source warns against the
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rush. It quotes Proverbs 19.2.
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He who hurries his footsteps sins.
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We live in a culture of immediacy.
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We want to microwave missionaries.
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We do. We see a young person with a lot
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of potential and we want to ship them out next month.
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But look at Paul again. The source estimates the gap
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between his conversion on the Damascus Road and his first
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official missionary journey was roughly 10 years. 10 years.
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This is the man who saw the risen Christ, the apostle to the
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Gentiles. And yet he spent time in Arabia,
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then Damascus, then Tarsus, and then Antioch.
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He was being seasoned. He's learning theology.
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He was learning practical ministry.
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If the Apostle Paul needed a decade of reparation, why do we
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think a 23 year old recent college graduate is ready to
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engage a complex worldview immediately after a six week
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training course? It's a fair question.
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So what does that preparation look like?
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The text suggests A mentoring triad.
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Right, three components working together.
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First, reading. You need deep theological study.
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You have to know the truth inside and out.
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You must be grounded. Second, ministry experience.
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You need to be doing the work here now, leading Bible studies,
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counseling, dealing with messy people in your own church.
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And the third part of the triad. Dialogue.
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You need a mentor. You need someone older and wiser
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to process these things with you.
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Someone asked why did you handle that situation that way or where
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is your heart right now? You cannot learn wisdom from a
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book, you learn it from wise people.
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Now I want to play devil's advocate for a moment.
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If the local church does all this, the theology, the
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character assessment, the mentoring, why do we still need
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the agency? Can't we just do it all
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ourselves? Source material warns against
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that. It introduces the concept of
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missionary malpractice. This is where the agency becomes
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absolutely essential. Malpractice sounds serious.
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It is, Matt Rhodes is quoted as saying.
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The Spirit does not bypass our humanity.
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We need professional skills. You can have a guy who is godly,
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knows his Bible inside and out, and has the full backing of his
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elders, but if he doesn't understand cross cultural
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communication he could do massive unintentional damage.
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There were two case studies in the text that illustrated this
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painfully well. Let's talk about the Belgium
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case. OK, this was a missionary from
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Asia sent by a faithful church to Belgium.
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He was solid theologically, but he had absolutely no cross
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cultural training. He arrived in Belgium and tried
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to impose his home culture's leadership style onto the
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Belgian church. And what did that look like on
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the ground? Well, he came from a culture
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that was likely very hierarchical, very top down,
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very authoritative. Belgium was, you know, very
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egalitarian, very skeptical of authority.
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He thought he was leading biblically, but he was just
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leading culturally. He alienated the very people he
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came to serve. He confused his cultural
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preferences with the Gospel itself.
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Exactly. And the ministry imploded.
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He was sent home in four years. It was a waste of time, a waste
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of money and and it hurt the fledgling church in Belgium.
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And the second case was similar in the Netherlands.
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Yes, an American couple, and again sent without any real
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training. They were completely overwhelmed
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by the Dutch worldview. The Dutch are famous for being
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direct, almost blunt in their communication.
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The Americans interpreted that as rude and unspiritual.
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They could navigate the different concepts of time, the
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communication patterns. They burned out and went home.
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So the agency prevents this. This is their area of expertise.
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The agency provides the anthropology.
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The Church teaches theology. The agency teaches culture.
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They provide the toolkit to navigate culture shock, to learn
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difficult languages, to understand how to contextualize
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the message without compromising its core.
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So it's a partnership. The church provides the message
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and the messenger. The agency provides the method
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and the logistics. Correct.
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When those two work together, you get a well prepared
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missionary. When they ignore each other or
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one abdicates their role to the other, you get malpractice.
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Before we move to the theology of prayer in Psalm 67, we have
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to address one final trap mentioned in Tatlock section,
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Mission Drift. This is the silent killer of
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mission organizations and even churches.
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Drift happens when the focus slowly, almost imperceptible,
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shifts from gospel proclamation to good works.
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Things like digging wells, running orphanages, teaching
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English, medical clinics, all good things.
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And we need to be very careful here.
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As Reformed Christians, we believe in the goodness of
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creation. We believe in mercy ministry.
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These are good things that flow from a regenerate heart.
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But the source draws a hard line.
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If we cross cultures to meet physical needs but fail to
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address the eternal need for Christ, it is no longer
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Christian missions. It becomes just social
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benevolence. The Red Cross can dig a well.
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The Peace Corps can teach English.
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What makes our work distinct? Exactly.
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And why does drift happen? Because digging a well makes
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everyone like you. It is tangible.
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It is appreciated by the local government telling people they
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are dead in their trespasses and sins and their only hope is a
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crucified and risen savior that gets you persecuted, That gets
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you kicked out of the country. So the drift follows the path of
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least resistance. It moves from proclamation to
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social. Work it does, but we have to
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stand firm on the Reformed understanding of the means of
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grace. Faith comes by hearing and
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hearing by the word of Christ. You cannot bake someone into the
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Kingdom of heaven. You cannot vaccinate someone
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into eternal life. Social action is a fruit of the
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gospel, but it is not the root. If we export the fruit but leave
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the root behind, we aren't planting anything that will
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last. That is a crucial distinction.
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We are not against good works, but good works are the platform
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for the proclamation, not a replacement for it.
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Amen. OK.
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We have spent a lot of time on the mechanics, the sending, the
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vetting, the structure, the how and The Who.
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Now I want to pivot. The second part of our source
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material is an exposition of Psalm 67 by Chris Burnett, and I
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feel like this provides the fuel for the engine we just built.
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It absolutely does. If Acts 13 gives us the
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structure, Psalm 67 gives us the heart.
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It answers the question, why do we do all this?
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Why go through all the trouble? The Psalm opens with a prayer
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that sounds very familiar to anyone who's been in church.
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God be gracious to us and bless us and cause His face to shine
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upon us. It echoes the ironic blessing
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from Numbers Chapter 6. The Lord bless you and keep you.
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But there's a massive theological shift here that
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Burnett points out in Numbers. The blessing is for Israel.
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It uses the name Yahweh the. Covenant name of God.
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Right, the name associated with his promises to Abraham and his
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people. But in Psalm 67, the writer
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switches to Elohim. And why does that matter?
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Why the change of name? Elohim is the name of God as
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creator of the universe. It's the name used in Genesis 1.
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It is the God of the nations. By switching names, the psalmist
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is signaling that the container of blessing is breaking open.
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The blessing is no longer just for the covenant people.
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It is spilling over to the whole earth.
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And verse 2 gives us the logic. It's a purpose clause.
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We ask for the blessing so that. That your way may be known on
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the earth, Your salvation among all nations.
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This is what Burnett calls the missional purpose of blessing.
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I think we so often pray the first half of that, but forget
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the second we pray. Lord, bless my job, bless my
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family, bless my health. And we put a period there.
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The prayer ends with us. We treat God's blessing like a
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cul-de-sac. We want it to come to us and
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stay there in our nice little neighborhood.
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But Psalm 67 says blessing is a thoroughfare.
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We are blessed in order to be a blessing.
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We asked for grace so that we can make His way known to
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others. This fundamentally changes how
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we view our resources. Later in the Psalm.
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In verse 6 it says the earth has yielded its produce.
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And that connects the spiritual to the physical, the harvest,
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the money, the resources God gives us, the produce of the
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earth, our salaries, our homes, our talents, not just so we can
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live comfortably, but so we can reinvest them in the global
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expansion of His glory. It's a return on investment
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mentality applied to the Kingdom.
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It is God is investing in US and he expects a return in the form
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of global worship. And that is the goal, isn't it?
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It keeps repeating in the Psalm. Let the peoples praise you, O
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God, let all the peoples praise you.
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That is the heartbeat of missions, John Piper famously
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said. Missions exist because worship
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doesn't. The goal isn't just to save
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people from hell, though that is true and urgent.
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The ultimate goal is to generate a chorus of praise from every
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tribe and tongue and nation. The text mentions in verse four
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that the nations are glad because God judges with
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uprightness. That stopped me for a second.
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Usually the idea of God's judgement is terrifying.
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Why does judgement make the nation's glad?
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You have to step outside of our western stable bubble to
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understand that we live in a society with, for the most part,
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rule of law. But for most of history, and for
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much of the world today, life is defined by corruption, bribery,
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violence and injustice. The strong prey on the weak.
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There's no recourse. Exactly.
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So when the psalmist says God judges with uprightness, he
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means God is the King who cannot be.
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He defends the widow and the orphan.
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He sets things right. The nations of the world are
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desperate for true justice. The Gospel brings the upright
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rule of King Jesus, and that brings true joy and stability.
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So to bring it all together, we have the mechanics from Tatlock,
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the local church taking ownership, screening for
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character, being strategic, and we have the heart from Burnett
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praying for blessing solely for the purpose of exporting it for
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God's glory. There are two sides of the same
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coin. Structure without heart is cold
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and bureaucratic. Heart without structure is
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messy, sentimental, and ultimately ineffective.
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We need the hot heart of Psalm 67 and the cool head of Acts 13.
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We need to pray for the nations which Psalm 67 commands us to
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do. But that prayer shouldn't end
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when we say Amen. It should compel us to organize
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and send qualified people, which acts 13 models.
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And it compels us to avoid mission drift.
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If our ultimate goal is the praise of Elohim among the
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nations, we won't settle for just digging wells or baking
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cakes. We won't rest until they know
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His name and can praise Him for His salvation.
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This has been a heavy deep dive. It really it challenges the way
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we view our local church. It's not just a place we go to
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get our spiritual batteries recharged for the week, no.
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It is ascending base. It is an embassy of the Kingdom.
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It is the headquarters for the greatest operation in the
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history of the universe. I want to leave our listeners
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with a provocative thought that came to me while we were
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studying this material. If your local church, your
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specific congregation, cease to exist tomorrow, would the Global
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Mission field notice? That is a haunting question,
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really searching question. Are we a dead end for God's
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blessing or are we a conduit? If we disappeared, would any
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missionary lose their support? Would any prayer for the
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nation's go unsaid? Would any unreached people group
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remain unreached because we weren't there to strategically
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send someone? It forces us to ask, are we
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acting as a sending base or are we just a gathering place?
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I hope this conversation sparked some serious discussions in your
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sessions and elder boards. We need to reclaim the
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responsibility that Scripture gives us.
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The Great Commission is too important to be outsourced.
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It belongs to us, the Church. Thank you for joining us on
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Reformed Thinking. This is a topic we will likely
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come back to, but for now, take this back to your church.
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And keep praying Psalm 67. Pray it with new eyes.
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Until next time, keep thinking.