(Okay, I know that this is my second post today. But I’m leaving for vacation, abstaining from blogging, tweeting, and yes, email. Therefore, I wanted to get this posted today.)
One of the many blessings of serving with the faculty of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary is the fellowship with the faculty of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. In this post, I want to introduce you to the latest book by my friend David Sills. I have known David for a few years. We’ve taught together, traveled together, our offices are on the same floor, and live on the same street (different houses, of course). 🙂
Reaching and Teaching: A Call to Great Commission Obedience is a work that you need to add to your library. David is a professor of missions and cultural anthropology, the author of The Missionary Call: Find Your Place in God’s Plan for the World, and all around nice guy (No, that is not his picture on the front cover of his book. But, I’ve included a groovy-looking photo of him below and one HERE.).
Recently, I asked David to share with us about his new book.
David, what is Reaching and Teaching about?
Reaching and Teaching examines the task of international missions and emphasizes the need for a thorough and balanced missiology that is obedient to the ultimate call to make disciples of all people groups. Taking into account contemporary missiological issues such as urbanization, the Global South, and orality, I examine strategies that will enable us to be faithful to the call to both reach and teach the nations. It is a book about balance and faithful obedience to the Great Commission. It seeks to stress the both/and of search vs. harvest, evangelizing the unreached vs. discipling the reached, not the either/or that leaves advocates from each side at odds with their brothers. This dichotomy is both a false and unbiblical one since Christ has commanded us to do both.
Your new book advocates a commitment to deeper discipleship and leadership training. Why do many people assume that new believers have an innate or automatic understanding of God’s word?
I believe there are two key factors to why it can often seem appropriate to assume new believers can be expected to function on their own very quickly. First, we wholeheartedly affirm the inerrancy and sufficiency of God’s Word and are ourselves appropriately dependent upon it. We recognize that if we desire to be faithful in the key primary faith issues, all we need to do is have a right view of God’s Word and the faithfulness to depend upon it and we should be okay. However, we fail to consider that in other cultural contexts where preliteracy reigns or where people do not learn from the written word, that this is far from automatic. We also fail to recognize the significant benefit we have had to be raised in a cultural context that has a basic and almost innate understanding of reading comprehension and personal application, whereas that foundational slate is totally without that preparation in many of the contexts in which we minister internationally. As such, we assume their ability to read, understand, and apply the Word of God as being equal to ours when they have not had the opportunity to grow and learn with the written Word as a central part of their lives, nor do they have the hermeneutical tools to rightly divide it. Second, when many of us trusted in Christ, we did so having been raised in a relatively Judeo-Christian context. Most of us were not mired in ancestor worship, voodoo, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, or animistic spiritualism. We came to the scriptures, to biblical
truth, without the additional hurdle created by these religious worldviews. This is not the case for those we are reaching on the mission fields of the world. They have generations of false religion and contradictory worldview perceptions to uncover. To fail to purposefully disciple or thoroughly address these issues is to open the door for syncretism.
For example, we do not share the gospel with our children, pray with them to trust in Christ, hand them a Bible, and leave them with other undiscipled believers. No, we love them enough to pour into them all we can until the time when it is obvious that they will grow most and best by feeding themselves with the Word. We do not remain their teacher forever, but we must until they are truly capable of growing on their own. The world deserves no less than the model of discipleship we would use with our own children in our own home and churches.
Do you think mission agencies should abandon creative access platforms as a way to get into closed countries?
I do not advocate abandoning this or any other strategy in Reaching and Teaching. The issue is not whether we should abandon particular strategies, but rather that we must be thoughtful, careful, and faithful in how we execute plans in various contexts recognizing that depending on cultural issues, what seems like a great plan for pragmatic purposes may have negative consequences if not executed judiciously and in accordance with God’s Word. Since so many countries are closing their doors to traditional missionaries, we must use creative means to gain access to those countries for sharing the gospel. However, we must be sensitive to ethical concerns that arise when employing a creative access platform.
How has “the need for speed” advocated in church planting movement methodology hurt the churches being planted today?
As has been true for generations that have gone before us, we face difficult times in the world. Globalization and the instantaneous availability of information provided by the Internet make us even more aware of the deep spiritual needs of the world. The relative ease of short-term mission trips leaves increasing numbers of Christians with an awareness of lostness. We hear statistics that tell us that 50,000 people die each day from unreached people groups who go into a Christless eternity. If that is what we focus on and singularly consider then of course we will be driven by the need for speed. Sign me up for speedy strategies, too! Unfortunately, what we see in the wake of speed-driven methodologies is shallow, often syncretistic churches that may be self-sustaining in the sense of no Western influence, but not in the sense of spiritual preparedness or biblical fidelity. I address many examples of this in the book and certainly don’t have the space to do so here, but refer readers to the book for specific examples from various regions of the world.
God calls us to be obedient to Christ’s Great Commission. When we convince ourselves that it is our job to finish the task rather than be faithful to the task, we often see man’s efforts, strategies, and methodologies as the answer. He has called us to make disciples of all the people groups, teaching them all that He has commanded us. As I explain in the book, making disciplesis actually the only imperative (command) of the Great Commission. As such, He calls us to be faithful to His command and to trust that even if it seems ill advised to stay long enough to disciple believers when so many more still need to hear, that since it is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself who has called us to do so, then we must do it in faithfulness. Practically speaking, we can take the model He Himself employed by discipling several and simultaneously teaching them to teach others. When that initial group is discipled and taught according to what Christ has commanded us, then they carry on the work and we move on. No, this does not immediately seem as fast as some methods, but the work multiplies out of faithfulness, biblical knowledge, and a Christ-modeled discipleship that will sustain faithfulness and growth.
What makes this book different from other books about missions?
Practically speaking, the book includes not only my teaching and perspective on the subject of a balanced missiology, but also includes examples, testimonials, and suggestions from missionaries around the world. These additions ensure that the message represents a host of cultural contexts and ministry platforms. Additionally, the book balances a biblical/theological foundation (through key examinations of the call of Christ in the Great Commission and the methodology of the Apostle Paul), practical contemporary considerations such as contextualization and orality, and the actual application of developing discipleship and training models that are faithful to the call of Christ as well as the needs of the world.
Why is this book important for church planters?
Church planters are at the epicenter of the tension between the very real need to reach the lost as quickly as we can and the call of Christ to do so in the context of doing so faithfully by discipling and teaching those we reach. Church planters see the manifestation of this tension in the biblically faithful ecclesiology they must maintain and the challenges they face doing so through issues of contextualization, orality, leadership models, and limited resources. I address, acknowledge, and reflect on each of these topics in Reaching and Teaching.
Thank you, David for your friendship, work, and for sharing with us today.
Make sure you get a copy of the book. And if you are interested in keeping up with David Sills, you can find his blog HERE and his website HERE.