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Why Missions Must Burn at the Heart of the Local Church · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reform Thinking. Hi, I'm your host and we are
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  back at the table to process another stack of articles,
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  books, and insights that, well, they push us to examine our
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  faith with a bit more rigor. I am joined, as always, by our
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  expert to help us break down the theology and the practical
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  application. Good to have you here.
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  It's always a pleasure to be here.
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  We have a subject today that I think is going to challenge a
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  lot of assumptions. We're looking at something that
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  often gets relegated to a committee in the basement or,
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  you know, a once a year fundraising drive, right?
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  But if we take our source material seriously, it belongs
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  at the very center of the Christian life.
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  We are talking about global missions, but I want to set the
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  expectation right out of the gate.
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  This is not going to be a guilt trip about your wallet, and it
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  is certainly not a travel blog about exotic locations.
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  We are looking at this through a specifically Reformed lens.
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  We're digging into excerpts from biblical missions, principles,
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  priorities, and practices, with a heavy focus on the writings of
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  Rodney Anderson and Paul Washer. And when we see a Reformed lens,
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  or you know what we reference the Westminster Confession,
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  we're not just using theological buzzwords.
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  We're talking about a very specific view of God.
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  We're talking about his sovereignty, his election, and
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  his glory. And the argument these authors
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  make is that your theology of God dictates your theology of
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  missions. You just you can't separate
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  them. To get us into the right
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  headspace, I want to start with the hook that really angers this
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  entire discussion. It comes from Charles Spurgeon.
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  Now, Spurgeon is known for his way with words, but in the text
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  we're analyzing, he uses a metaphor that is frankly
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  terrifying if you sit with it for too long.
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  Oh, yeah. He talks about the white heat.
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  It's such a visceral image, isn't it?
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  Spurgeon says. If there be any one point in
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  which the Christian Church ought to keep its fervor at a white
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  heat is concerning missions to the heathens.
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  And he's contrasting that blinding, consuming intensity
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  with lukewarmness. He basically says lukewarmness
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  is annoying in many areas of life, but when it comes to the
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  matter of sending the gospel to a dying world, it's just
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  intolerable. White heat implies an energy
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  that consumes everything else. It's not just a warm glow in the
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  fireplace. So the mission of this deep dive
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  is to figure out how a local church actually maintains that
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  temperature. Because let's be honest, entropy
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  is real. Things cool down, they do.
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  Churches get comfortable, We turn inward.
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  So how do we keep the furnace hot?
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  The authors, particularly Anderson and Washer, they move
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  us away from viewing missions as a department and towards seeing
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  it as a, what do they call it? A doxological necessity.
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  That phrase doxological necessity is so key doxology.
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  I mean, it refers to the study or practice.
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  Yeah. So missions isn't just something
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  the church does, it's something that is required by who God is.
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  If we understand his worth, we just can't help but speak of it.
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  OK, so let's start at the top then with the leadership
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  section. One of our analysis is titled
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  The Pastor as the Spark, and Rodney Anderson has a theorem
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  here that might make some pastors sweat a little.
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  He argues that there's a mathematical limit to a
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  congregation's passion. He calls it the principle of the
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  ceiling or the law of imitation. Anderson argues that a
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  congregation's passion for the nation's will never, ever exceed
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  the passion of its leadership. He roots this in First
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  Corinthians 11.1, where Paul says be imitators of me, just as
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  I also am of Christ. The leader sets the pace.
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  It's that simple. So if the pastor is at a four on
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  the passion scale, the congregation isn't going to
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  magically be at a 10. No, they'll cap out at a three,
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  maybe 2 if you're lucky. You just can't lead people to a
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  place you're not going yourself. And Anderson uses this concept
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  of the leak theory, which I found really, really compelling.
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  The idea is that if a pastor is genuinely internally consumed
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  with God's glory among the nations, he won't have to
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  schedule time to talk about. It it will just come out.
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  It will leak out of them. It leaks into with sermon
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  illustrations. It leaks into his pastoral
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  prayers. It leaks into his casual
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  conversations in the hallway. You can't contain a white heat.
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  But the inverse is the dangerous part.
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  If a pastor tries to put on a missions face, say for the
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  annual missions week, but his heart is actually cold to it,
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  the people know they can feel it.
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  Oh, they can smell that a mile away.
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  It rings hollow. It feels like marketing, and the
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  congregation subconsciously learns that missions is a
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  seasonal event, not a lifestyle. It becomes something we do for a
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  week in October rather than who we are.
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  But Paul Washer, he takes this even further.
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  And if you know Washer, you know he does not pull punches.
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  He looks at the Great Commission in Matthew 28.19, go there for
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  and make disciples. And he seems to think pastors
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  have carved out a kind of loophole for themselves.
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  He does think that he attacks the phrase bloom where you are
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  planted. We've all heard it right?
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  Of course. It sounds very pious.
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  It suggests that I don't need to go to the nation's because my
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  mission field is right here in this zip code.
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  Now, Washer argues that while that's true in a sense we are to
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  be faithful locally, it's often used as a spiritualized excuse
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  for disobedience. A cover for comfort.
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  A total cover for seeking comfort.
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  It's an excuse to stay put. He isn't saying every pastor
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  needs to quit and move to the jungle though, is he?
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  No, no, He recognizes the office of the local pastor, but he
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  argues that the command to go involves lifting your eyes.
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  You cannot claim to be obedient to the Great Commission if you
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  are willfully ignoring the global scope of it.
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  So you can't just outsource it to the missions committee and
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  say you've done your part. Exactly, if you can't, just
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  write a check and wipe your hands clean.
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  So what is the practical application here?
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  I mean, if I'm a pastor in Ohio or London, how do I go without
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  abandoning my flock? Washer proposes a specific
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  strategy. He calls the two week model.
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  And this is a brilliant tactical shift.
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  He's not talking about mission tourism, you know, going to
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  paint a fence that the locals could have painted themselves
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  for 1/10 of the cost. He's talking about leveraging
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  the pastor's specific gift, which is teaching.
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  The idea is a pastor goes for two weeks to a place where
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  theological training is scarce. He gathers, say, 25 local men.
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  He just pours himself out. So he's teaching them
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  hermeneutics, ecclesiology, solid doctrine.
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  For 8 hours a day, it is an intense training trip.
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  And the beauty of this model is twofold.
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  First, it benefits the global church by strengthening
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  indigenous leadership, which is the ultimate goal.
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  But second, think about what it does to the pastor.
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  He comes back exhausted, sure, but he comes back with faces
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  etched in his mind. He's not reading a newsletter
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  anymore. He is thinking about Pastor John
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  in that village who has one Bible for 50 people.
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  And that has to change how he leads the home church.
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  It revolutionizes it. It has to.
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  He models sacrificial obedience. He shows his congregation that
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  this matters enough for him to leave his comfort zone, to be
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  jet lagged, to be tired. And that visual is worth 100
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  sermons on giving. Well, Speaking of giving, that
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  is the other side of the leadership coin, isn't it?
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  The budget? Anderson is very blunt here.
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  He says something like, show me your checkbook and I'll show you
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  your theology. It's the ultimate metric of
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  priority. You can preach about missions
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  until you were blue in the face, but if the church budget gives
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  1% to missions and 40% to building maintenance, you have
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  announced your true priorities to everyone.
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  But there is a very real fear that holds leadership boards
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  back. I've seen it.
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  It's the fear that if we push missions giving too hard, it'll
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  cannibalize the general fund. The worry is that if they give
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  to the missionaries, they won't give to the light bill.
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  That is the scarcity mindset. It's operating as if God is poor
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  or as if there's a limited pie of generosity.
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  But Anderson points out that biblical wisdom and, frankly,
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  practical experience suggests the exact opposite.
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  Proverbs 11.24 says there is one who scatters and yet increases
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  all the more. So generosity begets generosity.
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  In almost every case, when a church gets fired up about what
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  God is doing globally, they become cheerful givers.
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  In general, they stop gripping their wallets so tightly.
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  God tends to provide for the church that is taking care of
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  His priorities. It's a step of faith for sure,
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  but the dividends are spiritual and yeah, often financial.
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  OK, let's unpack this. We've established the pastor as
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  the spark. He sets the temperature, but you
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  can have a spark and still run out of fire if you don't have
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  the right fuel. This brings us to Section 2, the
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  Theological Foundation. The why?
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  This is where the Reformed perspective really, really
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  distinguishes itself. If you ask the average person on
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  the street, or even the average churchgoer why we should do
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  missions, they usually have a very specific answer.
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  Yeah, it's usually about needs. People are hungry, people need
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  clean water. People are suffering.
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  It's about helping people. Right.
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  That is the humanitarian argument.
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  And the authors are very careful here.
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  They are not saying Christians shouldn't care about suffering.
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  We absolutely should, of course. But they argue that humanitarian
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  need is not a sufficient fuel for the white heat.
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  Why not? It burns out.
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  The only fuel that keeps the fire going.
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  Generation after generation is the glory of God.
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  This is where we get into that doxological argument again.
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  Yes, referencing Isaiah 43 in Ephesians one, the text reminds
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  us that God created the world and chose a people for his
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  glory. And there's that famous insight
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  from John Piper that is so central to this discussion.
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  Missions exists because worship doesn't.
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  OK, I want you to explain that concept because it sounds a bit
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  counterintuitive at first. Missions exists because worship
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  doesn't. It means that missions is not
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  the final goal. Worship is in the new heavens
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  and the new earth. There will be no missionaries.
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  There will be no evangelism. Why?
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  Because everyone there will already be a worshiper.
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  Exactly. So missions is a temporary tool.
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  It's the means to an end. We go to the nations to gather
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  the worshippers that the Lamb of God died to redeem so that they
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  can join the eternal chorus. The goal is worship.
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  So if a church has a small view of missions, it implies
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  something much deeper about their theology.
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  It proves they have a small view of God.
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  It really does. If you are truly captivated by
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  the majesty of God, you become jealous for His name.
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  You cannot stand the thought that a tribe in the Amazon or a
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  city in Japan is giving glory to a statue or an idea instead of
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  the Creator. The white heat is fueled by a
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  passion for God's reputation. Now there is a flip side to this
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  theological coin. We talk about the glory of God,
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  but the source material also insists we must talk about the
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  depravity of man. And this is uncomfortable.
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  It's the part of the conversation that modern
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  evangelicalism desperately wants to avoid.
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  But Anderson and Washer argue you cannot have biblical
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  missions without a biblical doctrine of hell.
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  Yeah, it's impossible. They cite Matthew 10.28.
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  Fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
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  The reform of you takes the holiness of God and the
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  sinfulness of man with deadly seriousness.
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  And this brings us back to why the humanitarian argument by
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  itself falls short. Washer points out that you can
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  go to a village, drill a well, cure their malaria, teach them
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  to read and improve their crop yields.
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  You have a great humanitarian good, but if you leave them
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  without Christ, you failed them at the most critical point.
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  You have just made them more comfortable on their way to
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  judgement. Precisely.
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  And that is a heavy, heavy reality.
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  Matthew 16.26 asks, what will it profit a man if he gains the
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  whole world and forfeits his soul?
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  If we believe the Bible, then we believe that nations are dying
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  in their sins without a Savior. That urgency, the reality of
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  eternal suffering, is what prevents us from being lukewarm.
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  You can be lukewarm about a water project.
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  You can't be lukewarm about people jumping off a Cliff into
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  eternity. It's a sobering reality check.
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  It shifts missions from charity to rescue.
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  Absolutely. And the third pillar of this
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  foundation is simple obedience. The Great Commission was not a
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  suggestion. It was Christ's final command
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  before ascending. The book of Acts is not just
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  history, it's a blueprint of obedience.
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  And if we are preaching through the Bible and we don't highlight
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  that the task is unfinished, we are failing the text and our
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  people. So we have the spark, which is
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  leadership, and the foundation, which is theology.
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  Now let's talk about the maintenance.
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  How do we keep this thing going week in and week out?
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  The sources identify the fuel as prayer.
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  But not just any prayer. This is not about the generic
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  Lord bless the missionaries prayer that we toss up at the
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  end of the service. That's just filler that doesn't
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  accomplish the work. Anderson talks about pulpit
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  prayer as a teaching tool. That's a fascinating concept,
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  isn't it? The pastor teaches the
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  congregation how to talk to God by the way he talks to God
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  publicly. So if the pastor only ever prays
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  for this sick list and the budget, what does the
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  congregation learn? If he learned that God only
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  cares about our health and our money.
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  Exactly. But if he is agonizing in prayer
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  for the church in Iran or pleading for workers for the
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  harvest in India, the congregation learns that these
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  things are on God's heart and therefore they should be on our
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  hearts. There's a historical figure
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  mentioned here that I think embodies this perfectly, Samuel
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  Zwemer. The apostle to Islam, what a
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  title. And he earned it.
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  He labored in the Middle East, Egypt, Arabia in the early 20th
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  century. I mean, talk about hard soil.
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  He saw very, very few converts in his lifetime.
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  By modern metrics, he was a failure.
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  Wow. But he kept going.
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  Why? Because he had a robust theology
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  of prayer. He famously said the history of
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  missions is the history of answered prayer.
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  Because he knew he couldn't change a heart.
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  Right. He knew that arguing wouldn't
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  work. Apologetics has its place, but
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  only the spirit can raise the dead.
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  So he saw the work as spiritual warfare that had to be fought on
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  his knees. But for a congregation to pray
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  like Zuimer, they need more than generic requests.
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  The sources talk about the danger of vague prayers.
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  Oh, vague prayers are passion killers.
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  They are. If you just say Lord save the
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  world, it is too big. The mind wanders.
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  You don't know what you're asking for.
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  Anderson argues that the solution to vague prayer is
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  information specificity fuels intercession.
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  This makes perfect sense. I mean, if I tell you to pray
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  for my friend, you might say a quick sentence.
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  But if I tell you to pray for my friend John, who is in a legal
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  battle that might cost him his home on Tuesday and he is losing
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  hope, you pray differently. You.
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  Do you pray with fervor? With empathy?
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  Compassion relies on details. The text suggests practical
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  things like using missionary calendars, weekly bulletin
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  highlights, and actually reading the prayer letters from the
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  field out loud. If the church knows that the
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  Smith family is dealing with a specific tropical disease, or
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  that the government is threatening to revoke their
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  visas next week, suddenly the prayer meeting comes alive.
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  You're not praying for a missionary anymore.
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  You're praying for a brother, a sister who is in the trenches.
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  That moves us perfectly on to Section 4, promoting the work.
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  How do we fight that out of sight, out of mind syndrome?
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  That is the perennial enemy of missions, isn't it?
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  The missionaries leave, and within six months we forget
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  them. We have to humanize the task.
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  Anderson points to storytelling. We love statistics. 500
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  baptized, But statistics don't move the heart like stories do.
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  There was that example of the Burundian woman, yes.
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  Instead of saying the ministry in Burundi is going well, you
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  tell the story of the young woman who was found in a state
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  of suicidal self neglect, dirt poor, absolutely hopeless.
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  And then you tell the story of how the gospel lifted her, how
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  she was washed, clothed and is now singing in the choir.
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  That one story validates the entire missions budget for the
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  year. And hospitality is another big
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  one here. When missionaries come home on
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  furlough, what do we usually do? We might put them in a hotel,
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  they speak for 10 minutes in the service and then they leave.
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  It's so sterile. It's a transaction.
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  The biblical model is hospitality.
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  Have them in your home. Eat with them.
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  Let your kids play with their kids.
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  When you break bread with someone, the relationship shifts
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  completely. You're far more likely to
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  support and pray for someone who is sat at your dinner table.
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  And Speaking of kids, the text says something that really gave
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  me pause. Says that future missionaries
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  are in the room. That line is so powerful.
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  It's true. The next William Carey, the next
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  Adoniram Jensen, they are probably sitting in your second
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  grade Sunday school class right now picking their nose, and we
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  have a duty to cast a vision for them.
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  We have to show them that this is a noble and worthy life.
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  Biographies seem to be the tool of choice here.
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  They are so effective. We need to normalize the
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  missionary hero for our kids. If all they read are stories
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  about sports stars or influencers, that is what they
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  will aspire to be. But if they read about Jim
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  Elliott or Hudson Taylor, just normal people who did
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  extraordinary things through God's power, it plants a seed.
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  It makes the impossible seem like a viable life path.
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  But there is a competitor, a massive 1.
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  The source is called the Great Competitor.
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  And it is not Buddhism or Islam, it is entertainment.
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  The age of entertainment. This is a stinging critique of
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  the Western church. We are distracted.
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  We are, to borrow a phrase, amused to death.
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  Between streaming services, social media, hobbies and here's
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  the sensitive one, our children's sports schedules, we
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  have 0 bandwidth left. That Sports 1 is going to step
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  on some toes. It should.
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  It really should. We run our families ragged
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  chasing travel, soccer tournaments, investing thousands
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  of dollars an hours. But we claim we don't have time
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  to pray for the nation's for 30 minutes.
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  It exposes our idols. It really does.
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  The pastoral call here, based on Colossians 3, is to wake the
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  church up, to say look away from the screen, look away from the
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  ball field, look at the reality of souls facing wrath.
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  We have to trade our trivial amusements for eternal
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  ambitions. That is the heavy lifting of the
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  heart. Wow.
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  OK, let's transition to the final section.
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  The strategy, the how. Because you can have all the
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  passion in the world, but if your strategy is flawed, you're
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  just running in circles. This is where Paul Washer's
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  contribution on strategic and doctrinal integrity becomes so
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  vital. Washer identifies a critical
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  error in modern missions, the overemphasis on Go Wait.
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  A minute? Didn't we just spend 20 minutes
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  saying we need to go? That sounds contradictory.
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  It does at first, but Washer is talking about The Who and the
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  what. There's a panic in some circles
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  where people think the need is so great that we should just
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  send anyone with a willing heart and figure out the rest later.
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  Just get bodies on the field, right?
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  And Washer argues that sending untrained, doctrinally immature
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  people just because they are willing is a recipe for
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  disaster. He uses the word didactic.
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  Meaning, teaching based missions is about transmitting truth.
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  If you send a person who doesn't know their theology, who can't
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  explain the gospel clearly, or who doesn't understand how a
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  biblical church functions, what are they going to?
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  Plant they reproduce what they are.
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  You reproduce what you are. If you send confusion, you plan
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  confusion. So doctrinal training is just as
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  vital as logistical training. Washer would say it's more so
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  you can figure out how to buy a bus ticket on the ground, but if
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  you get the gospel wrong, the whole enterprise is void.
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  And this ties directly into the pollen strategy.
• 18:59
  Paul didn't just roam around getting decisions for Christ, he
• 19:02
  planted churches. To Timothy 2.2.
• 19:04
  Model exactly. Evangelize the lost disciple.
• 19:07
  The converts train faithful men from among them to be elders.
• 19:12
  Then those elders repeat the process.
• 19:14
  It's a self perpetuating cycle. And Washer describes this work
• 19:17
  in a very unglamorous way. He talks about bloody knees.
• 19:21
  It is not the Instagram version of Missions then.
• 19:23
  Not even close. It is not a highlight reel.
• 19:26
  It is the slow, grinding work of dealing with people's sin, their
• 19:30
  mess, their misunderstanding. It requires immense patience and
• 19:34
  grit. It requires the death of the
• 19:37
  flesh You pour your life into people who might betray you or
• 19:40
  who just don't get it for a long, long time.
• 19:43
  And this leads to his critique of the mission agencies.
• 19:45
  He talks about the problem of the lowest common denominator.
• 19:48
  This is something listeners really need to understand about
• 19:51
  the mission agency landscape. It's a huge issue.
• 19:54
  Agencies want recruits to get the massive number of recruits.
• 19:58
  They often widen the gate. They shrink their doctrinal
• 20:01
  statement down to the bare essentials.
• 20:03
  You know? Do you love Jesus?
• 20:05
  Do you believe the Bible is God's word?
• 20:07
  OK, you're in. That sounds inclusive, but I can
• 20:09
  see the potential problem. What happens when that team gets
• 20:12
  to the field? You have one guy who's reformed
• 20:15
  and believes in God's sovereignty and salvation.
• 20:18
  You have another who's Armenian and believes it depends on man's
• 20:21
  free will. You have one who believes in
• 20:23
  infant baptism, another who thinks it's heresy.
• 20:25
  One has a low view of Scripture. One has a high view.
• 20:29
  You cannot plant a coherent biblical church with that kind
• 20:32
  of theological mess. It leads to mission drift and
• 20:34
  compromise. It leads to the gospel being
• 20:37
  watered down to keep the peace on the team.
• 20:40
  And Washer points to 1st Thessalonians 1.5.
• 20:43
  Paul says his gospel came in power and in the Holy Spirit,
• 20:46
  not just in Word. We have to reject the marketing
• 20:50
  gimmicks. We have to reject the worldly
• 20:52
  wisdom, the idea that if we just make Christianity cool enough or
• 20:56
  funny enough, the nations will want it.
• 20:58
  The. Power is in the message, not the
• 21:00
  marketing. Always, if you win them with
• 21:02
  entertainment, you have to keep them with entertainment and you
• 21:04
  cannot out entertain the world. But if you win them with a
• 21:07
  gospel, the stark, bloody, beautiful truth of Christ
• 21:10
  crucified, you keep them with the gospel.
• 21:12
  That is a lot to process, but it's the kind of recalibration
• 21:15
  we need. Let's try to land the plane
• 21:17
  here. If we had to summarize the take
• 21:18
  away from Anderson and Washer, what does it look like?
• 21:21
  Well, Anderson gives us those four.
• 21:23
  PS Prioritize it in leadership and budget.
• 21:26
  Preach the theology of God's glory and man's judgement.
• 21:29
  Pray specifically and fervently and promote the work through
• 21:34
  real connection and story. And then washer adds the
• 21:37
  guardrail. Yes, doctrinal purity do not
• 21:39
  just send bodies, send the truth.
• 21:42
  Ensure that the people going are qualified to handle the Word of
• 21:45
  God with integrity. The vision in the end is what
• 21:48
  Andy Johnson describes in the text.
• 21:51
  A healthy church where missions isn't a department, but it's the
• 21:54
  very atmosphere of the place, where relationships with
• 21:57
  missionaries are deep, giving is joyful, and members are actually
• 22:00
  eager to uproot their lives for the sake of the gospel.
• 22:03
  That is the white heat, that is what we are aiming for.
• 22:06
  I want to leave you, the listener, with a final thought
• 22:08
  to chew on. We have talked about systems,
• 22:11
  pastors and budgets, but let's make it personal for a second.
• 22:14
  The sources pose a challenge that is well, it's hard to
• 22:17
  shake. It's the ultimate diagnostic
• 22:19
  question, really. If a person claims to love the
• 22:22
  gospel, if they claim to be overwhelmed by the grace of God,
• 22:26
  that of wretched like them, but they have absolutely 0 interest
• 22:30
  in seeing that gospel go to the nations where it is unknown.
• 22:33
  Then you have to ask. Do they actually understand the
• 22:36
  gospel? Because you cannot truly prize
• 22:39
  the value of Christ and be content for the world to ignore
• 22:41
  Him. It just doesn't add up.
• 22:43
  So take a temperature check today.
• 22:45
  Is your heart for the nation's white hot or is it lukewarm?
• 22:49
  Thanks for joining us on this deep dive.
• 22:50
  Goodbye.