Missions Blog for Churches

The following is a book review of When Helping Hurts: How to alleviate poverty without hurting the poor…and yourself. You can find out more about this book at www.whenhelpinghurts.org and can order it online here.

When Helping Hurts is a compelling book that will be a significant help to the Church for years to come. The first chapter alone is worth the cost of the book and ought to be read by every church leader in every ministry category. This is not just a book for the missions committee (although it ought to be required for everyone involved in missions) or the Outreach Director, or the pastor. I think every Christian in America would benefit. Most evangelicals would be rattled.

There are several benefits from this book. Since most people read book reviews to try and determine whether they want to buy and read the book, let me mention those benefits.

It doesn’t just pick on the Church or her leaders. This book is personal; it will pick on you. It was deeply convicting to me as I read it. I realized that as many times as I have been moved by stories about the fatherless and the widow, the poor and the sick, I am not purposefully living for my life, and leading that of my family, to intersect with these members of society. I have forsaken the needy by my enslavement to convenience and stuff. My house is conveniently situated away from poverty. I hardly see the needy. And then there is my busyness. All my important tasks that keep me far away spending myself on “behalf of the hungry” (Is. 58:10) are often where I find my own significance and worth. I am convicted that although I hold to the position that all humans are created in the image of God, I don’t live as such. And I realize that I do have a god-complex (although every time I read that phrase in the book, my first reaction was, “No I don…..okay, I do. I do.”).

The authors are not writing from lofty chairs in academia. They pen their own confessions. One of my favorites is, “I confess to you that part of what motivates me to help the poor is my felt need to accomplish something worthwhile with my life, to be a person of significance, to feel like II have pursued a noble cause…to be a bit like God…I sometimes unintentionally reduce poor people to objects that I use to fulfill my own need to accomplish something. it is a very ugly truth, and it pains me to admit it, but ‘when I want to do good, evil is right there with me’ (Rom. 7:21).” [p. 65] They also give a number of examples that show where they blew it. This communicates not only humility, but also a sense that there’s a bit of a journey involved. Helping the needy will never become neat, clean and orderly.

This book is highly biblical, both in its use of Scripture for application as well as in developing a theory of poverty that serves as the framework. You won’t be able to get past a few pages at any point in the book without being confronted by biblical truth (and a helpful reference). And it does not do what many books on this subject do, namely, present steps and practices for alleviating poverty dissected from the Bible as the source of these truths or from the Holy Spirit as the source of divine power. Rather, the authors continually remind you of the authority of Scripture and our dependency on the Holy Spirit for power and guidance in the journey. One good example is early in the book, as the authors lay the groundwork for the importance of relationships in assisting the poor and sick. They take the reader back to the relationship in the Godhead, the Trinity. And from there they expand and explain how ministry flows through relationships. The poor are not going to be helped, without hurting them, if we just conduct drive-by ministry.

This book is also highly practical. The authors not only explain best practices and steps to take, but they give examples of what they might look like. And they also offer gracious critiques of benevolent practices that many of us have followed. The strange thing is that while reading many of the critiques, the thought ran through my head, “That always seemed a little unwise to me.” You’ll finish with not just new techniques, but will actually have an understanding of why some things work and some don’t.

Many in the church will want to read this because of their local outreach. But this book is just as important for global outreach. In my job, I am continually laboring to help churches understand the importance of their short-term trips not becoming drive-by (or fly-by) ministries. Feeding the poor is wonderful. Caring for the orphan is beautiful. Both are biblical. But to be the best these ministries can be, both need to be in the context (connected to) a sustainable ministry. Biblically, you can’t escape the fact that this is the church. Ministries that are conducted apart from the church die when their leadership dies (or moves, or changes strategies, or gets new vision, etc…). They are simply not sustainable. But when ministry is conducted in and through the church, there is lasting fruit. New believers are folded into that work. And when the US worker (or partnering church) leaves, the church will continue the ministry.

I don’t get to read a ton of books, but this is one that has so impacted my thinking and stirred my heart, that I am encouraging everyone to read it. It’s one of those books. I’ve got a stack of copies with me for my next journey to share with folks. I think it will disturb you too, in the best way possible. Order When Helping Hurts online.

Tomorrow at 7 pm, at the Orlando Marriott, is the start of the Going Global Conference, entitled, “Mobilizing for Missions.” Plenary speakers include R.C. Sproul, Elliott Greene, Carl Ellis, and others. The conference is sponsored by the Going Global Network, which is aimed at equipping leaders in the African American church. It is a free conference, but registration is requested. Visit www.goingglobalconf.com for more information and to register.

by Bill Yarbrough

Reading Jerram Barrs’ book The Heart of Evangelism has been like a breath of fresh air for me, for a few reasons. The first is that evangelism has been so much a part of my life since my early days in the Jesus Movement. So I consider tools and perspectives that feed and equip the Church for that task to be gifts. Secondly, the book is rooted deeply in a Reformed and covenantal view of Scripture and the world—something I never had (or at least didn’t understand) in those early years. And thirdly, I love what Barrs writes in the first sentence of his introduction: “This is more than 30 years of reflection on what the New Testament teaches us about evangelism; and it is the fruit of more than 30 years of desiring to practice in some poor way what I have learned from that study.” It’s this kind of personal insight that makes this book sing.

There is an emphasis on the Spirit in this book that scratches an itch many of us have in our work around the globe. There has been a tendency to either ignore or minimize the Spirit’s work in many aspects of our ministries, mostly I believe in reaction to the extremes witnessed in parts of the charismatic and Pentecostal streams of the Church…continue reading this article from InVision.

Time Magazine, interestingly, published a recent Top Ten list on things that are changing the world. Number three was Calvinism. Yes, Calvinism…as in John Calvin. And to me, the article is surprisingly positive. It’s not how I would have necessarily written it, but I was impressed coming from Time. Keep in mind, these are things that are changing the world, not just America. Interesting missional thought. Click here to read the article.

One of the requests I often hear from churches is for missions material or curriculum for kids. There is a good bit of this out there in larger evangelical circles, but not very much within our denomination. Particularly, I’d love to see the development of more Reformed and Covenantal-minded missions material for children.

My guess is that there are churches out there that have created their own, or maybe even some of our own missionaries who have something that is put together. What we need to do is collect it and get it into a format that others can use/share.

If you know of anyone with such material, or someone who would be a good candidate to put something like this together, please let me know (seth.wallace@mtw.org). This could be a great tool for PCA churches to equip the next generation to have God’s heart for the nations.

by, Basil Grafas

I used to pastor a small, rural church in another denomination. There was a lot I liked about the work. We had people come to Christ and lives were changed. I learned the value of repentance and the value of community. On the other hand, we were a highly autonomous congregation that had little if anything to do with any other church, foreign or domestic. That bothered me. And it started getting under my skin when I started preaching through the book of Revelation.

To be honest, I really did not want to do it. Any book that Calvin refused to write a commentary about is too much book for me. It was just that several people in the congregation told me that they would never ever read it, since it had all of those strange images and codes involved. Well, I got angry. The Hal Lindseys and Tim LaHayes had convinced us that the book was all about obscure references to the future and therefore was of little value now. But I had to see for myself. And what I found was not what I expected. I found a book written to church people about the church going through tough times.

Revelation is, if you can get over the confusing word-pictures, a very clear book that is meant to exhort and encourage the church to remain a faithful witness to a world that wishes to hate and persecute it. In other words, it is the ultimately missional book. It is about suffering, despised churches caught in the vise formed by Rome and recalcitrant Judaism, being exhorted to remain faithful (chapters 2-3). We are introduced to martyrs who want to know how long they have to keep this up (chapter 6). Then we find out that these people are not scattered rarities in the church—they are the norm. They are actually part of an army of faithful witnesses who herald the lordship of the Lamb over the world (chapter 7).   (Click here to continue reading this article)

by Rev. Tim Keller

Introduction
The vigorous, continual planting of new congregations is the single most crucial strategy for 1) the numerical growth of the Body of Christ in any city, and 2) the continual corporate renewal and revival of the existing churches in a city. Nothing else—not crusades, outreach programs, para-church ministries, growing mega-churches, congregational consulting, nor church renewal processes—will have the consistent impact of dynamic, extensive church planting. This is an eyebrow-raising statement. But to those who have done any study at all, it is not even controversial.

The normal response to discussions about church planting is something like this:

1. We already have plenty of churches that have lots and lots of room for all the new people who have come to the area. Let’s get them filled before we go off building any new ones.
2. Every church in this community used to be more full than it is now. The churchgoing public is a “shrinking pie.” A new church here will just take people from churches already hurting and weaken everyone.
3. Help the churches that are struggling first. A new church doesn’t help the ones we have that are just keeping their nose above water. We need better churches, not more churches.

These statements appear to be common sense to many people, but they rest on several wrong assumptions. The error of this thinking will become clear if we ask, “Why is church planting so crucially important?”

Because—

A. We want to be true to THE BIBLICAL MANDATE

1. Jesus’ essential call was to plant churches. Virtually all the great evangelistic challenges of the New Testament are basically calls to plant churches, not simply to share the faith. The Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20) is not just a call to make disciples but to baptize. In Acts and elsewhere, it is clear that baptism means incorporation into a worshipping community with accountability and boundaries (cf. Acts 2:41-47). The only way to be truly sure you are increasing the number of Christians in a town is to increase the number of churches. Why? Much traditional evangelism aims to get a “decision” for Christ. Experience, however, shows us that many of these decisions disappear and never result in changed lives. Why? Many, many decisions are not really conversions, but often only the beginning of a journey of seeking God (other decisions are very definitely the moment of a new birth, but this differs from person to person). Only a person who is being evangelized in the context of an ongoing worshipping and shepherding community can be sure of finally coming home into vital, saving faith. This is why a leading missiologist like C. Peter Wagner can say, “Planting new churches is the most effective evangelistic methodology known under heaven.” [1]

2. Paul’s whole strategy was to plant urban churches. The greatest missionary in history, St. Paul, had a rather simple, two-fold strategy. First, he went into the largest city of the region (cf. Acts 16:9, 12), and second, he planted churches in each city (cf. Titus 1:5-appoint elders in every town). Once Paul had done that, he could say that he had fully preached the gospel in a region and that he had no more work to do there (cf. Romans 15:19, 23). This means Paul had two controlling assumptions: a) that the way to most permanently influence a country was through its chief cities, and b) the way to most permanently influence a city was to plant churches in it. Once he had accomplished this in a city, he moved on. He knew that the rest that needed to happen would follow.

Response: “But,” many people say, “that was in the beginning. Now the country (at least our country) is filled with churches. Why is church planting important now?”

We also plant churches because—

B. We want to be true to THE GREAT COMMISSION. Some facts:

1. New churches best reach a) new generations, b) new residents, and c) new people groups. First (a) younger adults have always been disproportionately found in newer congregations. Long-established congregations develop traditions (such as time of worship, length of service, emotional responsiveness, sermon topics, leadership style, emotional atmosphere, and thousands of other tiny customs and mores) which reflect the sensibilities of long-time leaders from the older generations who have the influence and money to control the church life. This does not reach younger generations. Second, (b) new residents are almost always reached better by new congregations. In older congregations, it may require tenure of 10 years before you are allowed into places of leadership and influence, but in a new church, new residents tend to have equal power with long-time residents.

Last, (c) new socio-cultural groups in a community are always reached better by new congregations. For example, if new white-collar commuters move into an area where the older residents were farmers, it is likely that a new church will be more receptive to the myriad of needs of the new residents, while the older churches will continue to be oriented to the original social group. And new racial groups in a community are best reached by a new church that is intentionally multi-ethnic from the start. For example: if an all-Anglo neighborhood becomes 33% Hispanic, a new, deliberately bi-racial church will be far more likely to create “cultural space” for newcomers than will an older church in town. Finally, brand new immigrant groups nearly always can only be reached by churches ministering in their own language. If we wait until a new group is assimilated into American culture enough to come to our church, we will wait for years without reaching out to them.

[Note: Often, a new congregation for a new people group can be planted within the overall structure of an existing church. It may be a new Sunday service at another time, or a new network of house churches that are connected to a larger, already existing congregation. Nevertheless, although it technically may not be a new independent congregation, it serves the same function.]

In summary, new congregations empower new people and new peoples much more quickly and readily than can older churches. Thus they have always reached them with greater facility than long-established bodies, and always will. This means, of course, that church planting is not only for “frontier regions” or “pagan” countries that we want to see become Christian. Christian countries will have to maintain vigorous, extensive church planting simply to stay Christian!

2. New churches best reach the unchurched—period. Dozens of denominational studies have confirmed that the average new church gains most of its new members (60-80%) from the ranks of people who are not attending any worshipping body, while churches over 10-15 years of age gain 80-90% of new members by transfer from other congregations. [2] This means that the average new congregation will bring 6-8 times more new people into the life of the Body of Christ than an older congregation of the same size.

So although established congregations provide many things that newer churches often cannot, older churches in general will never be able to match the effectiveness of new bodies in reaching people for the kingdom. Why would this be? As a congregation ages, powerful internal institutional pressures lead it to allocate most of its resources and energy toward the concerns of its members and constituents, rather than toward those outside its walls. This is natural and to a great degree desirable. Older congregations, therefore, have a stability and steadiness that many people thrive on and need. This does not mean that established churches cannot win new people. In fact, many non-Christians will only be reached by churches with long roots in the community and the trappings of stability and respectability.

However, new congregations, in general, are forced to focus on the needs of its non-members simply in order to get off the ground. So many of its leaders have come very recently from the ranks of the un-churched that the congregation is far more sensitive to the concerns of the non-believer. Also, in the first two years of our Christian walk, we have far more close, face-to-face relationships with non-Christians than we do later. Thus a congregation filled with people fresh from the ranks of the un-churched will have the power to invite and attract many more non-believers into the events and life of the church than will the members of the typical established body.

What does this mean practically? If we want to reach our city, should we try to renew older congregations to make them more evangelistic, or should we plant lots of new churches? But that question is surely a false either-or dichotomy. We should do both! Nevertheless, all we have been saying proves that, despite the occasional exceptions, the only wide-scale way to bring in lots of new Christians to the Body of Christ in a permanent way is to plant new churches.

To throw this into relief, imagine Town A and Town B and Town C are the same size, and they each have 100 churches of 100 persons each. But in Town A, all the churches are over 15 years old. As a result, the overall number of active Christian churchgoers in that town shrinks, even if four or five of the churches get very “hot” and double in attendance. In Town B, 5 of the churches are under 15 years old, and they, along with several older congregations, are winning new people to Christ, but this only offsets the normal declines of the older churches. Thus the overall number of active Christian churchgoers in that town stays the same. Finally, in Town C, 30 of the churches are under 15 years old. In this town, the overall number of active Christian churchgoers will be on a path to grow 50% in a generation. [3]

Response: “But,” many people say, “what about all the existing churches that need help? You seem to be ignoring them.”

Not at all. We also plant churches because—

C. We want to continually RENEW THE WHOLE BODY OF CHRIST.

It is a great mistake to think that we have to choose between church planting and church renewal. Strange as it may seem, the planting of new churches in a city is one of the very best ways to revitalize many older churches in the vicinity and renew the whole Body of Christ. Why?

1. First, new churches bring new ideas to the whole Body. There is plenty of resistance to the idea that we need to plant new churches to reach the constant stream of new groups, generations, and residents. Many congregations insist that all available resources should be used to find ways of helping existing churches reach them. However, there is no better way to teach older congregations about new skills and methods for reaching new people groups than by planting new churches. New churches have freedom to be innovative, and they become the “research and development” department for the whole Body in the city. Often the older congregations were too timid to try a particular approach or were absolutely sure it would “not work here.” But when the new church in town succeeds wildly with some new method, the other churches eventually take notice and get the courage to try it themselves.

2. Second, planting new churches is one of the best ways to surface creative, strong leaders for the whole Body. In older congregations, leaders emphasize tradition, tenure, routine, and kinship ties. New congregations, on the other hand, attract a higher percentage of venturesome people who value creativity, risk, innovation, and future orientation. Many of these men and women would never be attracted or compelled into significant ministry apart from the appearance of these new bodies. Often older churches “box out” many people with strong leadership skills who cannot work in more traditional settings. New churches thus attract and harness many people in the city whose gifts otherwise would not be utilized in the work of the Body. These new leaders eventually benefit the Body in the city.

3. Third, new churches challenge other churches to self-examination. The success of new churches often challenges older congregations in general to evaluate themselves in substantial ways. Sometimes it is only in contrast with a new church that older churches can finally define their own vision, specialties, and identity. Often the growth of the new congregation gives the older churches hope that “it can be done,” and may even bring about humility and repentance for defeatist and pessimistic attitudes. Sometimes, new congregations can partner with older churches to mount ministries that neither could do by themselves.

4. Fourth, a new church may be an evangelistic feeder for a whole community. The new church often produces many converts who end up in older churches for a variety of reasons. Sometimes the new church is very exciting and outward facing but is also very unstable or immature in its leadership. Thus some converts cannot stand the tumultuous changes that regularly come through the new church and they move to an existing church. Sometimes the new church reaches a person for Christ, but the new convert quickly discovers that he or she does not fit the socio-economic make up of the new congregation, and gravitates to an established congregation where the customs and culture feels more familiar. Ordinarily, the new churches in a city produce new people not only for themselves, but for the older bodies as well.

Summary: Vigorous church planting is one of the best ways to renew the existing churches of a city, as well as the best single way to grow the whole Body of Christ in a city.

There is one more reason why it is good for the existing churches of the region to initiate or at least support the planting of churches in a given area.

We plant churches—

D. As an exercise in KINGDOM-MINDEDNESS

All in all, church planting helps an existing church the best when the new congregation is voluntarily “birthed” by an older “mother” congregation. Often the excitement, new leaders, ministries, members and income of a new church wash back into the mother church in various ways, strengthening and renewing it. Though there is some pain in seeing good friends and some leaders go away to form a new church, the mother church usually experiences a surge of high self-esteem and an influx of new enthusiastic leaders and members.

However, a new church in the community usually confronts churches with a major issue— the issue of kingdom-mindedness. New churches, as we have seen, draw most of their new members (up to 80%) from the ranks of the unchurched, but they will always attract some people out of existing churches. That is inevitable. At this point, the existing churches, in a sense, have a question posed to them: “Are we going to rejoice in the 80%—the new people that the kingdom has gained through this new church, or are we going to bemoan and resent the three families we lost to it?” In other words, our attitude to new church development is a test of whether our mindset is geared to our own institutional turf, or to the overall health and prosperity of the kingdom of God in the city.

Any church that is more upset by their own small losses rather than the kingdoms large gains is betraying its narrow interests. Yet, as we have seen, the benefits to older congregations of new church planting are very great, even if that may not be obvious initially.

SUMMARY

If we briefly glance at the objections to church planting in the introduction, we can now see the false premises beneath the statements. A. Assumes that older congregations can reach newcomers as well as new congregations. But to reach new generations and people groups will require both renewed older churches and lots of new churches. B. Assumes that new congregations will only reach current active churchgoers. But new churches do far better at reaching the unchurched, and thus they are the only way to increase the churchgoing “pie.” C. Assumes that new church planting will only discourage older churches. This is a possibility, but a new church, for a variety of reasons, is one of the best ways to renew and revitalize an older church. D. Assumes that new churches only work where the population is growing. Actually, they reach people wherever the population is changing. If new people are coming in to replace former residents, or new groups of people are coming in—even though the net population figure is stagnant—new churches are needed.

New church planting is the only way that we can be sure we are going to increase the number of believers in a city and one of the best ways to renew the whole Body of Christ. The evidence for this statement is strong—Biblically, sociologically, and historically. In the end, a lack of kingdom-mindedness may simply blind us to all this evidence. We must beware of that.

APPENDIX A: HISTORICAL LESSONS

If all this is true, there should be lots of evidence for these principles in church history—and there is.

In 1820, there was one Christian church for every 875 U.S. residents. But from 1860-1906, U.S. Protestant churches planted one new church for each population increase of 350 people, bringing the ratio by the start of WWI to just one church for every 430 persons. In 1906 over a third of all the congregations in the country were less than 25 years old. [4] As a result, the percentage of the U.S. population involved in the life of the church rose steadily. For example, in 1776, 17% of the U.S. population described themselves as “religious adherents,” but that rose to 53% by 1916. [5]

However, after WWI, especially among mainline Protestants, church planting plummeted, for a variety of reasons. One of the main reasons was the issue of “turf.” Once the continental U.S. was covered by towns and settlements and churches and church buildings in each one, there was strong resistance from older churches to any new churches being planted in “our neighborhood.” As we have seen above, new churches are commonly very effective at reaching new people and growing for their first couple of decades. But the vast majority of U.S. congregations reach their peak in size during the first two or three decades of their existence and then remain on a plateau or slowly shrink.6 This is due to the factors mentioned above. They cannot assimilate new people or groups of people as well as new churches. However, older churches have feared the competition from new churches. Mainline church congregations, with their centralized government, were the most effective in blocking new church development in their towns. As a result, the mainline churches have shrunk remarkably in the last 20-30 years. [7]

What are the historical lessons? Church attendance and adherence overall in the United States is in decline and decreasing. This cannot be reversed in any other way than in the way it originally had been so remarkably increasing. We must plant churches at such a rate that the number of churches per 1,000 people begins to grow again, rather than decline, as it has since WWI.

Dr. Timothy Keller is the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, New York City, and continues to serve that congregation as senior pastor.

1 C. Peter Wagner, Strategies for Growth (Glendale: Regal, 1987), p. 168.
2 Lyle Schaller, quoted in D. McGavran and G. Hunter, Church Growth: Strategies that Work (Nashville:Abingdon, 1980), p. 100. See C. Kirk Hadaway, New Churches and Church Growth in the Southern Baptist Convention (Nashville:Broadman, 1987).
3 See Lyle Schaller, 44 Questions for Church Planters (Nashville: Abingdon, 1991), p.12. Schaller talks about “The 1% Rule.” Each year, any association of churches should plant new congregations at the rate of 1% of their existing total—otherwise, that association will be in decline. That is just “maintenance.” If an association wants to grow 50%+, it must plant 2-3% per year.
4 Ibid, pp.14-26.
5 Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, The Churching of America 1776-1990 (New Brunswick: Rutgers, 1992) p.16.
6 Schaller, 44 Questions, p.23.
7 See Schaller’s case that a lack of church planting is one major cause of the decline of mainline Protestantism. Ibid, p.24-26. Finke and Stark show how independent churches, such as the Baptists, who have had freedom to plant churches without interference, have proliferated their numbers. Churching, p.248.

This article is available in .pdf format for easier reading and printing by clicking here.

by Rev. Paul Taylor

“All important decisions are made under the mango tree.” So goes the old Filipino saying. On a Sunday afternoon in May of 1993, three missionaries, six Filipino men, and one Filipino woman met under a mango tree to study the Bible. This tree was in Kuya Benji’s yard, in the peaceful country village of Talang. Floating like an island in a sea of bright green rice fields, under the watchful eye of Mount Arayat, Talang embodies all that is typical of the Filipino country village—strong family relationships, peaceful rural setting, hard-working people and strong (albeit misled) religious convictions.

This Bible study under the mango tree was the first gathering in the initial church-planting work of MTW-Philippines. Kuya Rap sat next to me with his huge Catholic Bible opened in his lap, continually interrupting with good questions that helped all to think more deeply about the gospel message that was being told. Rap, Benji, and the others present invited friends for the next week. By the third week about 20 were gathered, and following the invitation that day, six made commitments to follow Christ. These were the first believers in what was to become Talang Bible Christian Church. That church became the first of many in what we trust will eventually become a strong Reformed and covenantal church planting movement. It all began under the mango tree.

In the nine years since those first meetings under Benji’s mango tree, more than fifty church planting projects have begun. The vast majority of churches have survived and become part of the Presbyterian Church of the Philippines.

A VISION IS BORN

On a Sunday in 1990, Sarah and I were quietly sitting in worship at Parkview PCA in Lilburn, Georgia, when the Lord spoke to each of us separately urging us to commit to foreign missions. At that time Sarah was enjoying life serving on the staff of Intown Community Church (PCA), and I was serving as Coordinator of Church Planting for Mission to North America. We were both very content in our work, and would have enjoyed staying there forever. After the service, however, we compared notes and concluded that indeed the Lord was calling to us pursue opportunities overseas. So we began discussions with MTW leadership about our future.

As we were meeting with John Kyle one day, he suggested that Manila, Philippines, might be a good spot for us. Soon we found ourselves in a plane that was landing in Manila for a two-week exploratory trip that was to change the course of our entire future ministry. During those two weeks Filipino church leaders and mission leaders unanimously expressed that the greatest need was not more schools, not more evangelistic meetings, but more churches. Given our twenty-three years of experience in church planting, we felt confirmed in our decision to move to Manila.

June 1992 was the month we arrived. Immediately we started fifteen months of language and cultural acquisition. It was eleven months into that study that the mango tree Bible study was held, resulting in the first church. During language study we also committed to working with Pastor Bob Enoya to develop churches around Taal Lake, two hours south of Manila. And Pastor Dado Fonacier asked us to be his consultant in a new church-planting work on the campus of the University of the Philippines in Los Banos.

But all of these works—Talang, Taal, and Los Banos—were in rural or small-town settings, and we knew that our main focus should be on Manila’s 12 million people—now estimated at 13.6 million. So in January of 1994, we moved into the city, knowing it was God’s plan, but not knowing the strategy.

A VISION FOR THE CITY

Pastor Dado asked me to preach at Los Banos on Sunday, February 6, 1994. Arriving there the night before, I stayed with a member family overnight. In the morning while having devotions and preparing to speak, the strategy for the future suddenly became clear. It was almost as if the Lord had spoken out loud:

• Thrust to the City—starting 25 churches in Metro Manila, with each starting a daughter church within four years from its first public worship service.
• Thrust to the Province—starting 25 churches in the provincial areas, with each starting a daughter church within four years from its first public worship service.
• Thrust to the World—sending out 20 Filipino missionaries to cross-cultural or overseas places of service before the work became 10 years old.

As I shared this with the team at the next team meeting, this strategy was adopted.

During our language study time we had spent much time networking with Filipino church leaders and mission leaders. And since some Korean missionaries were forming the Presbyterian Church of the Philippines, we built bridges to and developed relationships with the leaders of this young denomination. In addition we had asked four key Filipino leaders to be an advisory board for us. As we made our strategy known, those leaders we had befriended referred some potential Filipino church-planting pastors to us.

To guide our recruiting, we developed several key commitments:

• We would start Reformed and covenantal churches, and thus needed pastors with those commitments.
• Every new church would be started with a Filipino senior pastor from day one.
• The target audience was the professional and business community of Manila.
• We would seek the best church-planting pastors possible.
• In order us to recruit the best pastors, for them to be free of care and able to focus on their work, they would be well-supported.
• Our financial support would be short-term, reducing each year, and for three years only.
• We would develop careful and intensive training and supervision.
• Each church planter would pass some level of presbytery exams before becoming an MTW church planter.

Those early days were heady and exciting ones. February 22, 1994 was the first of the monthly pastors’ fellowship meetings that have continued until this day. These monthly meetings have become the heart of the work—times of fellowship, prayer, instruction, building “esprit de corps,” and planning.

A COMMITMENT TO EVANGELISM

The first two urban church-planting pastors were placed and began their work in April. We had learned through networking that developing Evangelistic Bible Studies (EBS) was the most effective means of finding people to start a new church. The church planter would find people for the studies through referral or his own door-to-door work.

Pastor Edwin Roxas was the first of the urban church planters. Edwin made a commitment to himself and the Lord that he would spend three hours each day out on the streets “finding people.” After the first day he called me and said, “This is such hard work!” To encourage him, I spent the next few days doing it with him. As he discovered that he was more effective than I was, his commitment strengthened. Within two weeks he was leading twelve Evangelistic Bible Studies each week. This became typical of the future church planters as well.

Our plan was for each EBS to run about ten to twelve weeks, after which the converts participated in what we called a “Foundational Bible Study.” The initial EBS was discontinued and the process would begin again with more door-to-door work and referrals, resulting in new Evangelistic Bible Studies. The Foundational Bible Study was given that name because it was the foundation for the new church which would begin to hold worship in due time.

In time, we discovered that most who made genuine professions of faith (people whose lives were obviously changed) never found their way into our churches. That told us that if we wanted one hundred members in a new church, approximately 400 to 500 would have to come to Christ before those one hundred would find our church. Consistent, persistent, ongoing, never-ending evangelism become the byword of the church-planting work.

Constant encouragement and close supervision were crucial to the effectiveness of the work. We found with experience that each missionary supervisor could only adequately oversee four or five works. In our weekly time with each church-planting pastor we would spend three or four hours doing what was most needed in that project—making new contacts, meeting with and developing leaders in the church, consultation with the pastor, etc.

Typically it would take 12 months of this sort of work for each new congregation to be ready for its first public worship service. These first public services became great landmarks for each church.

A HALLMARK OF TRAINING

In addition to extensive evangelism, intensive training soon became a hallmark of the work. Some was formal training. Pastors who came to us from outside the Presbyterian Church of the Philippines were required to take 24 units of study at Presbyterian Theological Seminary. And the few who hadn’t yet completed at least a Bachelor of Theology degree were required to do so.

Some training was informal training. This took the form of church-planting seminars at the beginning and after each six months of a pastor’s service. Informal training also took place through instruction at the monthly pastors’ fellowship and occasional special seminars. And lots of one-on-one training occurred in interviews with potential church planters and in weekly consultative meetings.

Three ministries have been emphasized since they are crucial to the Filipino situation:

• Mercy: About 50% of Filipinos live in poverty and have great medical, nutritional, and other basic needs. We have come to realize that in a country where poverty abounds, mercy ministry must also abound in the church. A church that is not involved in mercy ministry is marginalized, viewed as a church concerned only for itself—a church without a heart. So our churches have been encouraged to develop nutritional ministries, ministry to street children and medical ministries, all accompanied, of course, with biblical instruction and evangelism. All of these mercy activities are expanding into effective programs with many churches involved in each.
• Missions: Filipinos are very adaptable people, easily learn languages, can live frugally, and understand Asian, Latin, and Western culture. They make great missionaries. This sending aspect will be a great part of the future of the work.
• Multiplication: Bob Logan, the church growth guru, tells us that if a church hasn’t planted its first daughter church within three years, it probably never will. We have amended that standard a bit, encouraging the new churches to start a daughter church within four years of its first public worship service. Of the first 50 churches, 36 were mother churches, 11 were daughter churches and three were granddaughter churches.

A LOOK AHEAD

After the initial four years of work, more and more Filipinos were placed in leadership. Five church-planting pastors were given the role of supervisor, so that these men are now doing most of the supervision. Many have become moderators, chairmen, and members of General Assembly and presbytery committees.

What will the future hold? Will this work really become a Reformed and covenantal church-planting movement, fully led and moved along by Filipino leadership? Will a great number of new Filipino Christians be mobilized for world missions? Will the Presbyterian Church in the Philippines become a dynamic church, molding the thinking of Filipino society? But above all, will the Lord’s name be honored and glorified in the minds and hearts of more and more Filipino people? This is our prayer—that the Church may grow out from under the mango tree, and on to the ends of the earth for the honor and glory of our King.

Rev. Paul Taylor is MTW’s International Director for Asia. He was formerly Church Planting Director for Mission to North America, and he and his wife, Sarah, are missionaries to the Philippines.

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by Dr. Paul Kooistra

Mission to the World, as an arm of the Presbyterian Church in America, a confessional church, does Reformed and covenantal missions around the world. The Reformed faith, in its simplest definition, is God-centered faith. God alone is the source of all that exists and everything that exists does so for the glory of Him alone.

At the heart of what it means to be Reformed are the doctrines of grace. Central to these doctrines are the utter helplessness of man and the absolute trustworthiness of God. We should not forget that the doctrines of grace produce the virtues of the Christian life—love, humility, understanding, and compassion. By emphasizing these Christian virtues as an important aspect of what it means to be Reformed, we can develop a posture of being Reformed in theology and character in a warm and winsome way.

The great doctrine of sovereign grace, the truth that God saves men, is foundational to a theological understanding of missions. Neglect of this truth, which is found in the Scriptures and summarized in our confessional standards, cripples missions and reduces it to a human enterprise, seeking to “help” God. Missions is a divine enterprise, wherein God commands and graciously accepts the obedient participation of man. When people respond to the gospel, it is neither because of their responsiveness nor because of the obedience of the missionary; it is because God found them that they are responsive. The truth that God chooses His people, some believe, discourages missions. On the contrary, this truth is the only real ground for missions.

The Reformed faith also teaches the finitude and sinfulness of our estate. It underlines our absolute dependence on the Spirit of God to bring regeneration to those we long to see embrace Christ. Nothing is more exciting than to see someone come to faith. When God is pleased to use us as His instruments to bring about new life in His people, we are well aware of the fact that it is God’s Spirit alone that can bring regeneration, repentance, and faith.

We believe that man is totally depraved, that is, that he cannot produce any spiritual life that would move him toward God. We shall, therefore, marvel far more in our own salvation, which is beyond our comprehension and is fully a gracious act from a loving God. We also understand in a deeper way that disobedience characterizes every part of a culture: politics, art, and social life as well as religious life. Total depravity underlines the importance of understanding a culture and all of its parts in order to bring the gospel to the people of that culture. We do not, however, put our faith in our strategic plans, but are open to what God will do with us and through us as His ambassadors.

We believe in unconditional election. We, therefore, look more to Christ and His gospel message for our mission activity and far less to the gifts that He has given us or to the environment in which we work.

We believe in limited atonement. We, therefore, have a far greater sense of belonging to God and believing that the One who created the universe also created us and saved us to be His kingdom instruments in this world. Rather than limiting our efforts to bring the gospel to others, acceptance of this truth compels us to scatter the seed wherever we can, believing that God has chosen His people in every tongue, tribe and nation.

We believe in irresistible grace. We do not, therefore, run from those places where missionary activity seems very difficult. God calls some to plow in concrete and others to turn fertile soil that was prepared in the past by others. Reliance on His Spirit’s guidance is an antidote to our fleshly desire only to concentrate our efforts where it is easy to plant churches and where we see a large response to the gospel.

We believe in the perseverance of the saints. Our activities, therefore, have a great measure of the joy of eternity and the everlasting fellowship we share with God. We entrust those whom God has brought to faith far more into His hands and less into our programs. We do not see the Church as a fortress in which to hide, but rather a training school from which to send those whom God has brought to faith out into the world to continue His great redemptive plan.

Our commitment to Reformed theology is based on the fact that it is biblical. It is drawn from the heart of God to us, and without it there can be no lasting blessing from God. When we speak of the Reformed faith, we are talking about those truths of God and man, sin and grace, love and judgment, which find their basis in Scripture and which we as a denomination embrace in our Westminster Confession of Faith and its Larger and Shorter catechisms.

The effects of sin are pervasive; men and women are not only harmed by sin, they are dead in it. Many will not embrace the biblical doctrines of election, calling, and regeneration, but evidence for the complete lostness of mankind, and therefore the absolute necessity of these doctrines, is everywhere. Our emphasis is one of full conviction that the doctrines of the Reformed faith are the truest expression of biblical faith and what the world needs to hear. We shall stress a faith that grips all of life, and we shall encourage all stations in life as a sacred calling.

We will admit that there have been times when the Reformed faith has been held in an unloving and critical fashion. If we are going to build a Reformed church in the world, there must be within that movement a tolerance for diversity. We must resist going beyond Scripture and imposing our own definitions on what it means to be Reformed. We know that we do not have the final word on every issue.

Finally, the way our theology is applied and expressed is a measure of the biblicalness of its content. We hold firmly to our positions while embracing other godly men and women who disagree with us. Simply put, if the Reformed faith is biblical faith, then any theology that is not expressed in love is neither Reformed nor biblical!

COVENANT THEOLOGY

To emphasize covenant theology is to emphasize the grace-conceived, grace-established, and grace-perfected reality of the Church and the Church’s mission activity.

When God chose Israel, and therefore the Church, He did so for no reason that was conditional in or inherent in His people (Deuteronomy 7:7). The covenant established with Abraham in Genesis 15 was in all of its outward manifestations an ancient, Mideastern contract, but in fact it was not a typical transaction of that day. Only God passed through the aisle between the animals. In other words, God was saying, “I alone am making and can make this covenant with my people.” If we can drink deeply from the truth of covenant theology, we shall be able to reorganize our priorities, so that the glory of God becomes the single most important passion in the life and work of the Church. The driving force of our ministry will not be a market-driven strategic plan, but rather the vision that God may be glorified among the people of all nations (Romans 1:5).

Seen from a covenant perspective, the doctrines of grace—especially election—are not viewed as a privileged position of safety from those who are lost, but rather a grace-centered relationship which empowers God’s people to engage in mission service to the world. The arena of God’s saving work is all of His creation. God has called His people by His covenant into a special relationship with Him in order to bring all of creation back from its broken state to its right relationship with God.

The Presbyterian Church in America, through its mission agency, Mission to the World, focuses on church planting because the Church is the corporate body that God has brought into being by His covenant. The saving work of God cannot be reduced to only a personalized salvation between God and individuals. It is within the covenant community of the Church that we experience one of the most dynamic living realities of the power of Christ. As Lord of the Church, He lives within the corporate body as Prophet, Priest, and King. He is the God-revealer, God-savior, and God-ruler over His people.

Mission activity does not end with conversion. Our goal is always the establishment of a vibrant, worshiping community, the church—a body of believers that is able to reproduce itself through mission activity of its own, and one that is able to make a life-changing impact within the lost and fallen culture in which God has placed it.

The covenant God has made with His people always has a two-fold purpose. God has called His people for worship, and that worship motivates the Church for ministry. We must avoid the temptation to focus only on nurture at the expense of ministry or vice versa. The life of the covenant community must always be balanced with the Church’s responsibility for the needs of the world.

Who belongs to the covenant community of God? There is great debate on this matter within evangelical Christianity. We believe, however, that the teaching of Scripture on this matter is very clear. All who believe by faith alone on Christ for salvation, and their children, are participants in the covenant promises. We do not believe in baptismal regeneration or in presumptive regeneration. That is, we do not believe that because a child has been baptized, or because his parents are believers in Christ, the child is automatically a member of the elect of God. On the other hand, the covenant promises have always been for those who have believed and their children. This is true in the Old Testament (Genesis 17:7), and what is true in the Old Testament, we believe must be true in the New Testament. At no time does God say that He has changed the extent of the covenant, although He does tell us that He has changed the sign. To remove the covenant promises from the children of believers would be to reduce the covenant in the New Testament, when in fact the New Testament is the fullness or fulfillment of that which was first promised to Abraham.

The covenant commission of the Old Testament was that the people of God were to teach faithfully the commandments of God to their children at all times and in all experiences of life (Deuteronomy 6:6-8). The covenant commission of the New Testament is just as one would expect—an expansion or a fulfillment of the Commission in the Old Testament. The people of God are to reach out to the peoples of all nations, baptizing them into the Church and teaching them to apply the commandments of God to all of life (Matthew 28:19-20).

Dr. Paul Kooistra served as president of Covenant Theological Seminary from 1983 – 1994, and since that time has served the PCA as Coordinator of Mission to the World.

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Successful missions ministries are founded not on an inspiring vision, passionate leaders, or an active program. Rather, our passion and our program must be grounded in the Scriptures. The Word of God is abundantly and overwhelmingly clear that His heart is inclined toward those who do not know the freedom of the gospel. Therefore, our hearts must be similarly impassioned to reach and disciple those without Christ, such that our churches will be marked by our commitment to the Great Commission. The authority in heaven and on earth given to Christ compels the Church to be passionate about the Great Commission, that Christ would be glorified by the expansion of His kingdom to the ends of the earth.

BIBLICAL BASIS
The foundational conviction of our missions emphasis is, perhaps, an unexpected one. Certainly, our hope is that people would find salvation through the gospel, that needy people would be put into a right relationship with God for all eternity. But that is actually not our primary purpose. Instead, the ultimate purpose of our efforts is that by expanding His kingdom to the ends of the earth, Christ would be glorified. As one pastor put it:

All of history is moving toward one great goal, the white-hot worship of God and his Son among all the peoples of the earth. Missions is not that goal. It is the means. And for that reason it is the second greatest human activity in the world.

One of the things God uses to make this truth take hold of a person and a church is the stunning realization that it is also true for God himself. Missions is not God’s ultimate goal, worship is. And when this sinks into a person’s heart everything changes. The world is often turned on its head. And everything looks different—including the missionary enterprise.

The ultimate foundation for our passion to see God glorified is his own passion to be glorified. God is central and supreme in his own affections. There are not rivals for the supremacy of God’s glory in his won heart. God is not an idolater. He does not disobey the first and great commandment. With all his heart and soul and strength and mind he delights in the glory of his manifold perfections. The most passionate heart for God in all the universe is God’s heart.

This truth, more than any other I know, seals the conviction that worship is the fuel and goal of missions. The deepest reason why our passion for God should fuel missions is that God’s passion for God fuels missions. Missions is the overflow of our delight in God because missions is the overflow of God’s delight in being God. And the deepest reason why worship is the goal in missions is that worship is God’s goal. We are confirmed in this goal by the Biblical record of God’s relentless pursuit of praise among the nations. “Praise the Lord, all nations! Extol him, all peoples!” (Psalm 117:1). If it is God’s goal it must be our goal. [1]

GOD SEEKS HIS OWN GLORY
In other words, missions is God-centered, not man-centered. Consider some of the many verses that declare God’s relationship to his creation is fixed on His glory:

• For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. (Ephesians 1:4-6)
• Sing to the Lord, praise his name; proclaim his salvation day after day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples. For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; he is to be feared above all gods. (Psalm 96:2-4)
• Therefore say to the house of Israel, “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you have gone. I will show the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, the name you have profaned among them. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “when I show myself holy through you before their eyes. I want you to know that I am not doing this for your sake,” declares the Sovereign Lord. (Ezekiel 36:22-23, 32)
• I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more. (Isaiah 43:25)
• Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name!” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” (John 12:27, 28)

Because the goal of our missions’ effort is God’s glory, we must conclude that our ministry is not for our honor but for Christ’s. This may seem self-evident, but the subtle effects of the very sin conquered through missions can destroy our missions’ ministry. We must take care that we do nothing simply for the sake of our own reputation, or to expand the ministry solely to have a larger program. Everything we do must be motivated by a desire to bring glory to Christ.

JESUS’ UNDERSTANDING OF THE GREAT COMMISSION
With this purpose of God in mind, the whole of redemptive history comes into sharper focus. Rather than being a series of unrelated stories, God bringing glory to Himself through missions ties together all of Scripture. Rather than the Great Commission being a New Testament afterthought, we discover that it has always been on the heart of God to bring salvation to all peoples. We can see this truth by eavesdropping on one of the greatest Bible studies ever given.

He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.” Then he opened their minds so that they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, “This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. -Luke 24:44-47

In the 24th chapter of Luke, Christ has been raised from the dead and appears to His disciples for 40 days. Shortly before His ascension, Jesus shares a meal with His disciples, and declares “all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” (v. 44). Then Luke tells us that “He opened their minds to understand the Scripture.” The Scripture at that time, of course, was what we now call the Old Testament. In a new and profound way, the disciples understood how all of the Scriptures pointed towards Christ. Everything in the Old Testament is about Jesus—the character of God and His relentless pursuit of His people. Specifically, Jesus confirmed “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and rise again from the dead the third day.” (v. 46)

The disciples then, and millions of Christians since, have seen that the Old Testament declares the holiness, justice and love of God cannot tolerate sin. It must be punished and removed from His presence. But God has provided a substitutionary sacrifice, foreshadowed by the sacrifices made by the people of Israel. Foretold hundreds of years before His birth and with incredible detail, the Old Testament pointed to the life and death of Jesus, the “Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29) When talking with His disciples on this point, Jesus certainly had in mind the explicit promises found in places like Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53.

But Jesus didn’t stop there in His study. He went on to declare that “repentance for forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” (Luke 24:47) This statement certainly sounds similar to the Great Commission of Acts 1:8 and Matthew 28: “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you.” But Jesus was directing them to the Great Commission found in the Old Testament Scriptures.

THE GREAT COMMISSION ESTABLISHED IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
This point is critical. If the Great Commission is found only in a few verses in the New Testament, then does it really deserve to be the priority of the Church? If the command to take the gospel into all the world only appears as a hurried afterthought in the mind of Jesus, remembered at the last minute before His ascension, then surely it merits the same treatment in our own priorities—tacked on the end of a long list of tasks.

But that’s not what Jesus was saying. By directing them to the Scriptures the Israelites had for their entire existence—the words of God that shaped their whole life and community— Jesus affirms that the Great Commission has always been central in the plan of God. More than even that, the heart of God is filled with His passion that all peoples would know Him and declare His glory. The Great Commission actually permeates Scripture, from the opening chapters of Genesis to the close of Revelation. Rather than being a footnote in a few passages, this passion of God underlies every word.

From the first occurrence of Adam’s sin, man has turned away and hid from God. Yet even then, God pursued those who were alienated from God and themselves (Genesis 3:8,9). In the first hours of man’s sinful state, God pointed to the ultimate victory that would come through Christ (Genesis 3:15). Thus, there was never a moment in the history of mankind that God did not have in mind a plan of salvation. In fact, God had ordained the redemption of His people even before the world was created (Ephesians 1:4).

COVENANTAL PROMISES
From Genesis forward, the biblical story is essentially that of God pursuing His people through various leaders, prophets and circumstances. The commitment throughout has been to fulfill what are called God’s covenantal promises, explicitly declared in the often-repeated pledge, “I will be your God, and you will be My people” (Leviticus 26:12 et al). Like contracts we enter into today, a covenant is a solemn bond between two parties that includes certain promises and stipulations. Blessings are attached to the promises kept, and penalties for promises broken. While the covenants God established with His people through Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David and ultimately Jesus all have a special emphasis, they are in essence identical. They re-assure us of God’s faithfulness by each re-affirming this same commitment—that God has irrevocably bound Himself to His people.

For example, when God established His covenant with Abraham, the relationship He creates is unshakeable.

Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. -Genesis 12:1-3

Like all covenants, this one includes terms. While the emphasis is on God’s blessing the family of Abraham, it is evident there is a purpose in doing so. Remember that God’s primary relationship to the world is extending His glory through all the peoples of the earth. God’s plan with Abraham is clear—He would pour Himself into Abraham’s family, through a special relationship that would cause them to grow in the knowledge, love and worship of their Creator. Then through them, all peoples on earth will be blessed. The purpose would be that those outside Abraham’s family would receive the same blessings of God, also growing in the knowledge, love and worship of their Creator.

Throughout the history of Israel, this emphasis is clear:

• Israel was to be a kingdom of priests (i.e. mediators between God and man) to an unbelieving world:
  Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites. (Exodus 19:5,6)
• People throughout the entire world would turn to God:
  All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations will bow down before him, for dominion belongs to the LORD and he rules over the nations. (Psalm 22:27-28)
• The prayers of Israel appealed to God to be gracious to all peoples:
  May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us, that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations. May the peoples praise you, O God; may all the peoples praise you. May the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you rule the peoples justly and guide the nations of the earth. May the peoples praise you, O God; may all the peoples praise you. (Psalm 67:1-5)
• A compassionate God sends Jonah to a Gentile city:
  But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city? (Jonah 4:11)
• The nations are told to draw near to God:
  Come near, you nations, and listen; pay attention, you peoples! Let the earth hear, and all that is in it, the world, and all that comes out of it! (Isaiah 34:1)
• The restoration of Israel following the exile included their being a blessing to others:
  [The Lord] says: “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.” (Isaiah 49:6)

THE GREAT COMMISSION CONFIRMED IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
The same people of God, who in New Testament times have a fuller knowledge of their Messiah, are to continue to be a light to the nations. (In the New Testament, “Gentiles” and “nations” are translations of the Greek, ethne, from which we get the word “ethnic” or people.)

Jesus calls the temple a place of prayer for all peoples. When we consider that the temple represents the presence of God among His people, Jesus’ anger at the misuse of the temple is even more powerful: “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’?” (Mark 11:17)

• Jesus commands His followers to take the gospel to the whole world:
  All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)
• Jesus repeats this command immediately prior to His ascension:
  But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. (Acts 1:8)
• Peter learns that the gospel is for all the nations:
  I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right. (Acts 10:34-35)
• The gospel results in faithfulness to God among the nations:
  Through [Christ] we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations. (Romans 1:5)
• Paul explicitly connects the gospel to the promise given to Abraham:
  Consider Abraham: “He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.” (Galatians 3:6-8)
• Heaven will be characterized by the praise of all peoples:
  After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” (Revelation 7:9-10)

Being careful again to emphasize God’s glory and our motivation in missions, it must be clear that the covenant God makes with us is a gracious covenant. This point is important, as sometimes the impetus for missions is communicated in a way that suggests the plan of redemption “corrects” a mistake in God’s created order. Having wrongly allowed man to sin in the first place, God keeps trying and failing to woo man back. This error implies that redemptive history is Plan B in God’s eyes, and that He needs man to fix the problem.

But that’s not the biblical story. History has unfolded exactly how our sovereign God has been pleased to orchestrate it. God in no way was obligated to create a way of salvation. We had broken our part of the covenant, and yet God had always designed to bear our responsibility for the fulfillment of the covenant. Though we deserved to be punished for our sins, Jesus bore the penalty Himself. But it does not end there. Even the growth and extension of God’s kingdom depends entirely upon God, for “unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.” (Psalm 127:1) Because of God’s covenantal promises to redeem His people, we know that we are part of a plan that cannot fail. The gospel will indeed go forth to all the nations (Matthew 24:14). And in all this—the beginning, the extension, and the fulfillment of God’s kingdom—God alone will receive the glory.

[1] John Piper, Let The Nations Be Glad, p. 15

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