Strategic outreach seems more complex than ever before. In this changing world environment, what should every congregation know about missions? We asked David Mays, who has consulted with hundreds of churches.
As the struggle to share the Gospel with the unreached grows more intense and missions organizations grow more savvy and collaborative in their efforts, the U.S. church remains a challenging resource, David Mays reflects.
“I think the number one need for missions in our churches today is what I call missions education,” he says. “And I differentiate that a little from missions promotion, awareness, exposure, and missions experience. Mission education consists of the basics. I think the church has tackled so many topics and so many issues that we don’t hear much teaching in most churches about the Great Commission and about glorifying God by reaching the nations.”
Mays continues, “We don’t hear very much about the history of the movement of Christianity around the world and how whole peoples and nations have been lifted by the Gospel. We don’t hear much about the great missionary heroes of the past. Basically, missions is not featured as a main item in most church agendas. So I think the centrality in Scripture of God’s heart for the nations and the teaching on that, so that our people understand that this is a major purpose of the church, is perhaps our biggest need.”
People today, Mays opines, do not have a “mental picture” of the fact that a large percentage of people have little or no access to the Gospel. “That doesn’t figure in. They see lost people as lost people, and think, ‘We have lost people all around here. Let’s work around here.’ And they don’t have the picture that, after 2,000 years, there is a substantial portion of the world that has no access to the Gospel and that this ought to be a priority.”
Why it can seem so hard
Today is a tremendous time of transition in local church missions, Mays continues, in part fueled by economic pressures and limited people resources.
“It’s become a lot more expensive in the last couple of decades to do church,” he says. “We need better buildings. We’re trying to appeal to a group of people who are accustomed to going to very nice theatres and banks and libraries, and the church has to be top quality; we have to take good care of their kids, and we can’t have people in a moldy church basement.
“Reaching and discipling people is a much more labor intensive process; it’s not just a matter of having a preacher teach and a part-time custodian. When people do come to Christ, chances are their lives are a mess and a great deal of healing, rehabilitation, and training is needed. That’s very labor intensive. So everything about church is more expensive than it used to be.” In addition, Mays observes, church leaders have adopted a “purpose-driven” mindset of being effective as well as faithful. This often leads to focusing more money on fewer things with visible, tangible outcomes closer to the congregation’s sphere of influence. “So, for example, if you adopt orphans, you can have pictures of them. If you’re working in a country where it’s very slow going, there’s not much to show. A lot of churches are thinking about partnerships, but most of us are fairly monocultural, so we don’t really understand too well what we’re getting into.”
Church members’ interest in missions also must frequently be maintained by getting them some hands-on experience with mission work. Mays estimates that more than 1.5 million U.S. Christians travel overseas on a mission trip each year, and such trips require a substantial amount of time, energy, and money – perhaps as much as a quarter or a third of all the money churches spend on global missions. But at the same time, he observes, many churches are becoming aware of deteriorating conditions in our own society and are seeking to be involved locally.
A key emerging resource today in the United States, Mays notes, is the younger adult generations who are very compassionate and want to work among the marginalized, the poor, and the suffering, many of whom are in our own cities and communities.
“Many churches are seeking to be a positive influence in our communities, and therefore, working to develop relationships with government institutions, educational institutions, and compassion ministries. We need to be part of the solution for abused women, addicted kids, poverty relief, inner-city strife, and tutoring the underprivileged. Our congregations need to be involved. So we’re trying to apply our finances and deploy our people to be the hands and feet of Jesus in our communities. Our leadership efforts are being spread between local and global, with a growing emphasis on the local. And there’s only so much time, and so much leadership to go around. So ministering to our declining society competes with reaching the rest of the world.
“The funding that supports compassion ministries overseas is multiplying much more rapidly than the funding that supports evangelism, church planting, and leadership development.”
What’s the answer?
The answer? Mission education and modeling a heart for missions, says Mays. “Local church ministry gradually takes on the flavor and the core values of the pastor and church leaders. … “So, for example, you can have a John Piper [pastor and author of several mission books], for whom the world is very much on his heart, who stays in his position for a long time, and raises up and disciples leaders who believes like he does, and you will have a church that has a great focus on the world. On the other hand, when there is leadership turnover or church problems, missions suffers.”
Mays observes that when it comes to strategically supporting overseas missions work, what also impacts churches a great deal are the conferences and books produced by the leading megachurches. “Church leaders are looking at what the successful churches are doing, and they try to implement the principles that those churches espouse,” notes Mays.
Reflecting on the big picture of missions efforts today, Mays describes himself as “standing on two icebergs” that are drifting apart. “Some churches are doing missions like they did in the 50s, raising as much money as possible and sending it to as many different people in as many different places as they can,” he says. “And then, on the other hand, I was in a large multi-campus church a year ago, the church was spending 80 percent of its mission budget to expand its campuses in the Midwest. I plotted where all the missions money went, and the church had 23 points in the U.S. and only five outside the U.S. None of these overseas mission points were in unreached areas, and the church wasn’t supporting any individual missionaries. I didn’t know whether to applaud or shake my head in frustration.”
David Mays has advanced degrees in both science and theology and an extensive management background with a major pharmaceutical company. He has been involved in missions as a layman, church leader, and missions consultant, through which he has helped hundreds of churches to greater missions commitment and effectiveness through workshops, seminars, conferences, and consultations. He serves as director of learning initiatives of The Mission Exchange (formerly the Evangelical Fellowship of Mission Agencies). The mission of The Mission Exchange is to facilitate relational and developmental initiatives that increase the effectiveness of the Great Commission community. Its vision is to see missional leaders learning, serving and intentionally partnering to accelerate the fulfillment of the Great Commission of Jesus Christ. For more information, visit www.TheMissionExchange.org.
John Michael DeMarco is a United Methodist deacon and a freelance writer and speaker. (Interview with Mays conducted by Ruth Burgner.)
