World Mission of the Church - Lesson 8

Dr. Timothy Tennent
World Mission of the Church
wm601-08
Acts Chapter 11 (Part 2)
Lesson Transcript

[00:00:01] Okay, let's get started back. Our next goal, by the way, this is a Jets memorial, which I find is really amazing. This is found right here in Plymouth, Massachusetts. It's a very poor photograph of it. But this is the Dutch memorial, even though, as you know, he was buried at sea. We don't know that yet. But you will know that he does die. Oh, that I give it away. I'm so sorry. If you don't know who Emily is yet, do you think he's still married? To who? And. Okay. Okay. You didn't see the slide? You didn't see her. I'm still wondering if he converted. Oh, that's why when he was asked, How many wives do you have? He always said only one at a time. He had several wives, successively. William Kerry also had three wives. William Kerry, again, because of death. You know, mission deaths. And he, I think, is the only person I know in the modern period, at least, who was a missionary who not only married three times, but led all three of his wives to the Lord and baptized them. Before he married them, I'm saying. But, you know, he he met, you know, young lady. And so I really got to marry her. So we're going to get a to get her, say, baptized and you marry him. This is the full package. Carrie, you have that evangelistic side to him. You know that he baptized all three of his wives. Adam Judson has a plaque in Calcutta at the Carey Baptist Church, which is the first church that Carey planted in Calcutta before the British ran them out. 

[00:02:18] And he's up in some poor Dutch colony. In that church. You see a plaque where Judson was baptized because, you know, Judson leaves and is sent out from America as a Congregationalist. And he's so worried about meeting this dissenting Baptist, he's going to question about his views of baptism that he decides to study the scriptures. And to the delight of all Baptists everywhere, Judson became convinced about Baptist views of baptism and becomes a Baptist in route to Burma or to India. And so the congregation lists, with a little bit of sophistry, claim that they sent out the first missionary. But the problem is he didn't arrive a congregation unless he arrived a Baptist. So the Baptist claim the first missionary was a Baptist. So it's a very interesting point. I will encourage you to read my article in the library, which of course, one of required readings where I argue that despite all of the acclaim and accolades that Adam Judson is the first American missionary to actually leave America, This is something that even Judson really struggled about because he wanted this accolade. You know, that's why I like the the biography. It deals with his own personal kind of ego side. In fact, he was not the first American missionary to leave the shores of America. And it goes to an African-American. And I have that story told in that article. I hope that you find it interesting because it's something a story you don't often hear. Okay, So let's now think about the second area we still haven't discussed. Why? 19 tens, the close of number one first error yet. We're going now to the second error to see how it begins as the other is still in full force through the life of Hudson Taylor Hudson. 

[00:04:14] Taylor goes to China as a first era missionary. In other words, he goes out along all of the themes that we find prevalent in the first era. He goes, is a beachhead missionary. That is to say, he goes to Shanghai, which is on the coast of China. He's thinking about all his life. He wants to go to China. If you look all through his writings, he never mentions a people group in China, ever. He only talks about China reaching China preaching to China. He is totally unaware of today the kind of careful discussion about people groups in China or people groups in India. So in every way, he's a classic first era missionary as he goes out. He's a European. He fits the bill completely. He goes out under a well-known organization at a time called CBS China Evangelization Society. It was a mission board founded by Carl Gutzler, who was his hero, a great, well-known missionary at the time. He arrives in China and he very quickly has some very disturbing experiences in China. When he gets to China. He was actually felt what we would call, least in my upbringing, cabin fever. He felt pressed by all these missionaries around him and they were all just, you know, they were backbiting each other and they were all know, internal struggles by the missionaries, and they hated all that. And he said, Why do we have all these missionaries just stuffed in Shanghai? And the whole vast hinterland of China is unreached by the gospel. Well, he was a medical doctor by training, so he was aware of the fact that we are now able to there were just was the time when malaria medication was being developed. So a few things simultaneously occurred that changed the course of missions. 

[00:06:18] One was in science, was in politics. In science was to develop a malaria medication. And in politics were the Opium Wars, where Britain forced China to open up interior parts of China to for West Europeans. So there are a number of things happen to make it possible for someone to go into interior China. Judson had at one point earlier, had gone out and taken a boat up the Yangtze River. And I used to teach in Wuhan, which is on the Yangtze River, and it goes right on out to Shanghai. And he actually traveled that distance up from Shanghai, going up toward Wuhan, though he didn't make it near that far up. But he found village after village after village. They never heard of Jesus Christ. So this really bothered Taylor. Why do we have all these missionaries stuck in Shanghai and none are going out into into China? And now we have the opportunity to go out politically. The doors are open visa wise. You could actually legally travel and be we have the medical backup to do it. So Taylor is thinking outside the box for his day in terms of what we could do, what we should do. He's trying to press the boundaries about what the mission boards were wanting to do. So he begins to do a number of very radical things. He begins to plan what a mission to interior China would look like and what he says as well. On the coast islands, the Chinese have experienced all kinds of interaction with foreigners, with Westerners because of trade. There are five treaty ports in China at the time. They had all kinds of ships coming from all over trading. They were used to seeing Westerners anyhow. Westerners looked and dressed and all that. 

[00:08:09] But not in interior China. And I think he borrowed this from the Jesuits, from the work of Matteo Ricci and others in China. But for whatever source he got it from, he decided that he would completely adapt as much as possible to the Chinese culture. He wanted to look like a Chinese dress, like a Chinese think, like a Chinese, everything. Now he's a blond haired, blue eyed guy. Now, if you're blond hair and blue eyed and you want to blend in to China, the first thing to do is dye your hair. Now, today, it's so easy, you know, Grecian formula, whatever. But you can probably go out today and you could dye your hair or whatever color you wanted. If I do like my hair, I normally have green hair, but today it's brown. Those days is very difficult process. It's very sticky, messy. But he fatefully dyed his hair for the rest of his life. And he even grew the long, you know, single ponytail and all that. He really took the time Chinese dress. He said Chinese have never met a preacher. They wouldn't know a guy what it meant for a guy to wear a three piece suit in a tie. So he's an only teachers, religious teachers, Chinese now, or the philosophers. So he dressed, you know, in that kind of teaching mode, everything which he receives so much flack over this and jabs from his missionary friends in Shanghai. But the Chinese appreciated him learning the language and and interacting with the people on their terms much as possible. With this in mind, he asked permission from the C.S. to go into interior China. And they, of course, say no, But we have a policy that prohibits anyone from going into China. 

[00:09:56] We're afraid of malaria, we're afraid of backlash. If we let people go willy nilly all over China. This is not a good thing. You need to stay in Shanghai and do your ministry. So at this point, Taylor does a very bold thing. He decides to break from the seas and found his own mission. Now, this is the first time in the modern period where someone founds a mission field on the field. So today, for example, it's very normal. Virtually all modern mission boards have what we call field based directors. That is to say, if you're you're working in North Africa, for example, they'll be a director of North African Ministries Frontiers or Pioneers or Arab world ministries or whatever group is working among Muslims. And they have people on the field that live there, work there, who know the language, other cultures, studies, Islam, all that, who can help give you direction and feedback and guidance and oversight. The C and carries day. They want to know why. If you had questions, you had to write back to England and say, What should I do about so-and-so? You can have permission to do this or that. And people back in England had never set foot out of their own country making decisions about the mission field. So this was a very, very radical move where Tyler said, we're going to run the mission from China, a Chinese mission run from China. Now, the problem with a Chinese mission run from China is that how do you fund it? Because the whole link with Europe was, of course, to create a channel of money so they would support you. And there's accountability. You report back and they send you funds and you know, you have a cooperative effort. 

[00:11:44] So Taylor was in a situation where he essentially was going to be without any money. So what he did, he founded the China India Mission and made it based on what we now call today faith missions. Now, another perhaps unfortunate use of words, because all missions, I'm sure, can be called by faith, but we often call this today faith missions. What is meant by that is that they would completely trust God to provide all of their financial provisions. There was there was no denominational structure that agreed to adopt you and send you out and provide a salary for you. This is radical, radical thinking. We're going to simply pray it in. Now, today, you have to read read faith missions different than faith missions today. Today it might mean where you write prayer letters and you send them out to all your friends and neighbors and churches and you raise your own support. That's not what this is. You are absolutely prohibited from writing any letters to anybody. You could not ever tell somebody that you had a financial need that was prohibited. And there are still a few missions even today, that follow the original Taylor plan. One is gospel recordings. But the original plan was that you simply made your need known to God. The only time you could talk about finances is talking about it Past tense, what God provided. So you could say to a congregation we were desperately in need of, you know, this or that provision, and we prayed about it. And the next day, next month, God miraculously provided this need praise the Lord. But then you go on to say, and by the way, we're just as badly off this month. You know, I was very specific on this. 

[00:13:38] You could only talk about past events of God's faithfulness and everything else you prayed about because this would demonstrate that God is again a great mission day theme here, that this is if this is in fact, God's mission and we are partners with his mission, then he should provide for us. If he knows we have these needs, he will move on the hearts of people. So many provide for this. So when city stud cannot go back to city, start giving example this when when he he comes back on furlough Hudson Taylor he goes to Cambridge. Of course, one of the greatest universities of the world. He preaches about going to China, trusting God for your support. Well, seven Cambridge students respond, one of whom is a guy named C.T. Stud. C.T. City Stud was the Michael Jordan of his day. He was the Tiger Woods of his day. He was the premier athlete of his day, except it was cricket. Now he's understand, you know, you're a cricket. What's that? But if you're in Britain, cricket is a big deal. In India, it's a big deal. Everything revolves around cricket. I mean, I was I know you probably don't know all the great cricket stars, but in many, many parts of the world, the cricket stars are the great stars of the of the world. So he had made some really key plays in cricket and the result was he had been it was a national hero and even had gotten an audience with the queen. You know, that's like the big deal, right? And the whole thing. Never heard of Sergeant and Docker. Anybody who heard of Sergeant and Docker. Wow. Sergeant and Docker. Next time you see an Indian. Ask him about Sachin Tendulkar. 

[00:15:23] He will go wild with excitement. That certainly the greatest cricket player in India. And he just recently, a couple of years ago, passed all the greatest British records. He now holds all kinds of records for various runs and overs and all kinds of stuff. Anyway. Forget Trickett for now, but this guy's a big athlete, all right? So he's the one that responds. Just be like, you know, Tiger Woods been in some plays in here and Exum hasn't responded. So I want to go be a missionary. I'm just kind of electrified the whole world, whole British world. At least that. Wow. Have you heard it is going to go to China? The problem was City Stud came on a family where he was being left an endowment of money. When he turned 25 years old. He would come in possession of a quarter of 1,000,000 GBP. Now, even today, that's a lot of money. But in the 1800s, that's a waste of money. He was going to become like Tiger Woods. I mean, the parallels are there. This guy was getting very, very wealthy when he turned 25 years old. So Touch and Taylor Taylor's talking to him and Taylor says, oh, you can't go out on faith with that kind of money. You know, all this money. How how can a guy with a quarter of £1,000,000 trust God for his provision? He doesn't need to trust God. He has it in the bank account. So what does that start do? He gives it away. All these ministries like William Booth, Ministry, Salvation Army deal, Moody's, work in Chicago, all these works that you hear about that Tom Perry were started and are helped to be funded by state money. He wrote checks for thousands of pounds to all of these people, and he went out on faith like everyone else. 

[00:17:12] Eventually it was a mission in Africa just to finish that stud story. And he was known to have been very impatient with these younger missionaries who didn't weren't willing to sacrifice. Because he had given everything up and he like, you know, you're worried about your pension plan. Where's your faith? He used to say one of his famous sayings was Some wish to live within the sound of church and Steeple Bell. But I want to set up a rescue shop one yard from hell. And this is the kind of passion that Hudson Taylor is inspiring young people at that time. So Taylor eventually is overseen 641 missionaries in China. Now he's also opened the doors for women. He doesn't have any restrictions on women in ministry. So women are poor in the mission field. He doesn't say you must be ordained. It was very normal in first our mission that you had ordained men going mission field. The only role that women had were as the wives of their husbands. In ministry. Taylor is accepting single people, non ordained people. He's not even appealing to the churches. Amazingly, for the churches to send people out, he's actually going to universities. And this is a very radical thinker about the whole framework of how we recruit and who to recruit and people that got turned down by mission boards in the first stereotype group. We're trying to tailor and he would say, Well, if you pray and God provides the needs, God must be sending you, that is your sign of his calling. And they would pray and men would come in. They'd been up in China. By 1895, Taylor had 641 missionaries, which is more missionaries than the entire Protestant missionary force in China. So we know something new is happening in Protestant missions. 

[00:19:09] So this one person has ended up being the catalyst for more missionaries than the entire Protestant church work in China. So this whole idea of faith missions inspires a whole avalanche of new mission boards, not just the Chinese mission, but a whole host of boards. Sudan Interior Mission that was called the Time and Heart of Africa Mission and Evangelize Fields, missions. All these missions that now focus on interior parts of countries get brought up. And he goes about doing this and he connects with students, which becomes a part of this marvelous movement known as the SVM, the Student Voluntary Missionary movement, which ends up garnering over 100,000 students to sign a pledge to become missionaries and go out into the field. So this is a huge development in missions with Hudson Taylor and some very, very strong themes begin to emerge out of frontier missions, as it's called, over against beachhead missions. The it's called Frontier missions because they are now addressing new peoples in the interior parts of countries. And so the emphasis is that the emphasis now is on the frontiers, that is the interior parts of countries, not just the coast lands. That's a big difference. The emphasis on faith missions, not just supporting churches or agencies, that was the traditional way in number and first era. They emphasize, as we said, all kinds of new recruits, students, non ordained people who are less educated. It wasn't thought possible that a person without a college degree could be successful in the mission field. He's finding they can be very successful working in team context and they have all kinds of greater autonomy in the field because they are field based and their work. So these are some really major developments that they are engaged in. 

[00:21:21] And of course, they are really engaging as Protestants with what we call contextualization in ways that was unheard of by Protestants. That is to say, how can we preach the gospel in a way that is sensitive to the context to which we are preaching? Contextualization You can see the word context there. In what way is the Gospel sensitive to the target context? One of the challenges we have in any communication event is not only understanding the message, stirring the Bible, doing good acts of Jesus, learning your theology, church history, but then also learning to understand the context to which you will bring this message. The one who receives the message and we spend probably 90% of our time talking about the transmitter, but very little on the recipient of the message. So we have to do a much better job of content on the recipient. What are they hearing? How are they distorting the message, how they can be confused. But that's why I said to you early on that the most valuable thing you can have and part of your toolkit is knowing the questions people have. Unbelievers You've got to keep a record of that. You've got to keep track of what questions people ask you. Now, if you never talk to unbelievers, then you only know the kind of questions that we pose or we think should be posed as believers. That's not nearly as good evidence is actually talking to unbelievers, because the more you talk to more unbelievers, the more comfortable you'll be with what is likely to be asked you. So they were Muslims. You know, Muslims typically ask the same questions every time you talk to them. There's about 25 questions are likely to be asked by a typical Muslim. 

[00:23:14] So once you realize that, you can say, okay, how can I best prepare to focus on that context? So one of the things that Tyler realized was that the main way that Chinese referred to Christians, if you ask the question how the Chinese talk about Christians, not how do we talk about ourselves, how do they talk about us? The term that Chinese used to refer to Christians was foreign devil. That's how they were referred to Foreign devil. Okay, Well, that should have some impact on me. Okay. When you walk into that village and you say, I am a Christian, the first thing that pops into their mind or what pops into your mind is I'm the glorious representative of the eternal gospel. And I'm here embodying the the presence of Christ to bring the goodness of salvation to this person. What they pop in their mind is, Oh, no foreign devil. Okay, so how do you overcome the foreign devil problem? You say, Well, they are not looking at the gospel. They're seeing my clothing. They're saying my blue eyes are saying, you must be part of the British Opium Wars, you know. They're all tied into all kinds of other considerations. So contextualization is just simply that trying to find a way without ever compromising the gospel to make sure they actually hear the gospel and not get put off by all kinds of other things that are surrounding it. Most Muslims, by the way, do not stumble over the cross of Christ when they say no to the gospel. They've never gotten that far. What they stumble over is all kinds of other human barriers that we have inadvertently, often, but not overtly put up. And then when they're saying no to Jesus, they're actually saying no to you or no to your culture, no to America and their own part of America. 

[00:25:05] I think when they hear the word America, they don't think democracy, freedom, wonderful opportunity. They think F16 flying overhead. And so, you know, you have to think about all of these things when you get inside. And I often tell students in our mission classes the number one challenge and actually in some ways the basic summary of all mission work is getting inside someone else's head. You've got to get inside their head. That means first learning their language, learning their culture. But once you get inside somebody's head and how they see the world, how they're thinking, how they're hearing the gospel as it's preached to you, you're going to see some dramatic implications for this in our ministry. So this finally, the Catholics had for years understood this point. And the Protestants are only at this point beginning to engage this way in their work. And I think Tyler is one of the leaders in this, and therefore we hail him in that way. And it's one of the the key factors of Frontier mission. So this shows you that the second era is very, very different from the first era. Now to come back to the first era and show how it's tied off in 1792 is when Carrie publishes inquiry. 1865, which is the second Arab beginning, is when Taylor founds the China Inland mission the sea in. He actually breaks for the season two years earlier. But at age 65, he founds the China Inland mission. So that becomes the beginning of this whole new emphasis, which goes on to 74, which will see season one. But 1910 is, I would call the official kind of acknowledgment on a more global scale that we have to take seriously the thinking of Taylor and others. 

[00:26:59] 1910 is the World Missionary Conference at the University of Edinburgh. This is the first global consultation of Christians to talk about missions, unless you want to count Acts 15. When the church was quite small, this is the first time you actually have a serious global consultation where Christians from all over the world get together and talk about where do we stand in completing the Great Commission. Yes, it was predominantly Western Europeans there, but it was the beginning of thinking more globally. That's when they we really, really acknowledge some of the the scope of missions, the full nature of countries, the need for frontiers in a rethink, mission, strategy and structures, field based executives and so forth. This took place in 1910. The interesting thing just in passing is that William Carey, even back in his early days, saw the need for this. And he suggested that we have a global missionary conference and even had the courage to say it shouldn't even happen in North America or in Western Europe. We should have a global conference in South Africa, which was a place that was safe for Westerners to come. The climate was good and it wouldn't be likely to get malaria. It was a good, safe place, but in it was in Africa. And to have the first global conference, he suggested it for the year 1810 and he was dismissed as being. It was crazy. Impractical could never happen. And then, of course, it happened exactly 100 years later and it did happen in Europe. But it shows you that Kerry was 100 years ahead of his time. So in 1910, that is why we use that figure to kind of bring to inclusion the full weight of the second era emissions is there. 

[00:28:59] Okay. Any question about the first or second Arab missions are there was a key theme of it or any of the key emphasis found in either carry with the first or tighter with the second. What makes these themes different? Yes. How often? Teller came back quite frequently and spent great periods of time back in the West. It's a very different. And as the judge, not as much a judge and also came back, as you'll see, I haven't read the book, but. That's another factor of this. What is the role of mobilization of missionaries when they come back And a lot of missionaries see as a part of their calling to come back and help the church understand what's going on and help mobilize? Keri, I think was making a more important point for that time, and that was that Christians could live or a Westerner could live long term in Asia. But I think as time develops, especially as transportation becomes more readily available, missionaries do see as part of their ministry to come back and help raise vision and awareness or missions. Yes. Their connection with the local church. Not officially, but with all the machinery. It wasn't completely absent. But I would say it didn't have the emphasis that I think would be most appropriate. I think Tyler did not have a very strong ecclesiology and his ministry, and I think that affected really this whole era missions. The only thing that helps to balance it out was that he was enabling and empowering thousands to go into missions that otherwise would not. And that sense is a good thing. And many of these would go to their churches and say, this is what's happening. God's leading me this way. I'm asking for your support, but I do need your prayers. 

[00:30:56] Would you pray for me? And so the church was involved in it, but he was not connected to a particular dissemination or connector, which today seems kind of normal for many of us. But in those days that was really radical to have kind of. He had people in the field working side by side from a wide range of traditions and so created a kind of a missionary ecumenism, which I find is very typical today on the field, more so than it was even 50 or 60 years ago. But certainly Tyler is a part of that. Yes, you mentioned. Yeah, I know. Very little bit. Well, it's has a big factor of the box rebellion and the Opium Wars. Both have huge political ramifications for how the church is viewed. And you're right. The Chinese had the perception that Britain was going to take over China. And therefore, there was a lot of concern about, you know, the nationalism was pouring up in Chinese people and therefore they the missionaries were on the ground, were often taken as a part and parcel with that. So, yes, that that is a factor. There's no question this is all part of the political piece of the day. With that, more of a call for contextualization or I think it did help. I mean, I think Taylor realized that we have to do more to identify with the Chinese and by implication, distance ourselves from British colonialists that were out in some cases selling opium and various things that were going on that were part of an attempt to subjugate and break the will of China. Because it's hard. It's one thing when you see gunboats off the coast of Shanghai. It's a very intimidating thing. And the missionaries are telling you about Christ and the gospel of peace. 

[00:32:47] And they were trying to figure out culturally how to make sense of this, because in those days people identified, you know, your culture with whatever your religion was. And so it was a beginning of what still a very painful process for Americans today in missions, because we are identified with the policies of American government. And that's part of what we have to deal with as missionaries and how we articulate our presence there and who we are and what we're doing. Okay, Let's move on to the third era of missions and talk about William Cameron Townsend. I've chosen two people as the key figures for this period of time. Townsend goes out as a classic second era missionary, just the way Taylor had gone out of a classic first degree missionary. He goes down into the interior parts of Guatemala as a Bible salesman, and he wants to distribute Bibles into Guatemala. However, when Townsend goes into Guatemala, he has several experiences which change him and which result in a dramatic shift in how missions is thought about and how missions is done. He's a part of what's called the Central American Mission, and he goes down to Central America and he is working on how to impact people in the interior parts of Guatemala. In the process of this, he and I have picture him as a young man. Very early on, that's him at college picture. And then this is him much later, the next to the last guy, the older guy there in the hat is actually called Uncle Cam at that point with some tribal peoples in Central America. What he experience was when he was doing distributing Spanish Bibles. He was thinking like part of first second error. Missionaries think thinking is he's thinking in terms of countries. 

[00:34:59] And he's saying if you are in Guatemala. Then Spanish is the language of Guatemala. This was the mentality. Therefore, if you have Spanish Bibles, that's the best way to reach Guatemala. Bring them Spanish Bibles, very classic Protestant emphasis on the word. So he's doing this. So one day he meets an Indian, a Native American in the area. To whom he seeks to sell a Spanish Bible. And by the way, they sell this not because they're trying to make money that's sold at very nominal cost so people realize it's worthwhile. Otherwise they just throw it away or use it to start a fire with India for the same thing. If you gives me something, they'll just I think it's far than they used to start the fire with. So he goes down and he he has this conversation with this Indian it from this particular tribe that's called tribe in Guatemala. And this person I ask him, do you have, you know, in broken trade kind of Spanish, ask him, do you have a New Testament in my language? To which William Cameron Townsend said that he did not. He only had Spanish Bibles, to which he replied to Townsend. If your God is so great, why doesn't he speak my language? Now, that becomes a seminal question in the life, and that questions one of the most important questions ever posed to a missionary. Back to this whole thing of questions people posed to you. It's critical. So this person said to him, If your God is so great, why doesn't he speak my language? Now? Fundamental to the New Testament is the translate ability of the Christian message. We are not like Islam where we say that the Arabic has some kind of divine priority over other languages, and any other language is just kind of a mere shadow. 

[00:36:58] No, the New Testament is the only document of a world religion primary source. Document of a world religion in the world whose primary source document is in a language other than the founder of the religion. So you have Jesus teaching in our magic, and yet the very document which gives us the teaching of Christ, our primary source document is in it is in great Koine Greek. So that means enshrined in our own text is the fact that the gospel message is translatable. Jesus spoken in one language is being given to you as the Word of God, fully inspired in another language. Now, that is not true for Islam, is not true for Hinduism, it's not true for Buddhism, I promise you. So what happens is we have this great tradition that no language has a priority. Now we have this mentality. People said, Well, the only language is the Bible can be in or the languages that are on the cross, you know, Greek, Latin and all that. And the Catholic Church has a lot of difficulty with appreciating the full vernacular ization of the New Testament outside of Latin. But biblically speaking, we have this enshrined in our documents. And the Protestants, I think, have profoundly understood this point throughout history. That's been one of the great legacies of Protestant missions. Give people the Bible in their language. So Townson, when he heard this, he's a shocked here's a Guatemalan who doesn't speak Spanish, hasn't read Spanish. So he's starting to understand that within Guatemala we have different people groups. So this is the whole beginning of this realization that a country is really not sufficient, even if you have a vibrant church in Guatemala of Spanish speaking Christians, you're going to have vast, vast pockets of indigenous peoples in Guatemala who will have never heard the gospel. 

[00:39:04] I don't care how vibrant the Spanish church is in Guatemala. So he's starting to realize the importance of people, groups and the role of linguistics in penetrating cultural barriers. So he founds an organization called the Wycliffe Bible Translators. Which is the largest Protestant missionary board in the world today. Now, Wickliffe has in many ways a very defined, clear mission to put the Bible in the language of every people group in the world. That's very clear. No one can wonder about work of being foggy on their mission. But the applications of Wyclef are much larger than their mission because what it actually is pointing out is the tremendous insight into the fact that the world is not made up of just a couple hundred countries, but thousands of ethno linguistic people, groups, each of whom need to hear the gospel in their language. So when towns and have this conversation with the Indian, the Native American, he said to him. Before I die, I will give you the Bible in your language. It took him 15 years of learning the language and translation and printing that Bible. He gave that in the end and says, Our God is great and he does speak your language. Now, this is a very powerful commitment by Townson that results in the explosion of study of linguistics in missionary circles. And this is bringing in the whole field anthropology. And how can we learn about what languages are out there? How do you define languages? What are the boundaries of languages? On and on and on and on. This is being done now by missionaries. And the result is, I mean, Uncle Cam, as he's affectionately called, was asked early on how many languages are there in the world? And he estimated around 200 languages in the world. 

[00:41:18] Now, this is a guy who died in my lifetime. So this shows you that this is not that many years ago how much ignorance there was on just how many languages there were in the world. So he's okay. We have the Bible in about 35 languages at that time, living languages. So if we can just work our way through the remaining, then we we'll have the Bible in every language of the world. The result was as the project proceeded, the realization that this job is much bigger than they thought. And now, of course, we realize that there are well over 5000 distinct languages in the world, not counting dialects or 5000 various languages. And maybe I'm trying to show you the graphs on this later in the course, but the progress has been made on this is quite substantial. But the main point is it really brings out the role of people groups in this whole process. And here is a picture of a cam at the end of his life. Toward the end of his career, when he was it starts a whole ministry. And he actually founded a in addition to the missionary work of Wycoff, I was in college still the Summer Institute Linguistics, which focuses on the linguistic side only. And so they send people in first and foremost as linguist to learn languages, and then they're able to put them in the New Testament. They've been very effective working with secular governments, and even at the end of his life, he continued to work on various languages, and his last assignment, even up into his upper seventies, was working in in those days, the Soviet Union learning the language of the Soviet Union and putting it into the scriptures. So remarkable person. 

[00:43:07] In fact, when he passed away, his death was in 1982. Billy Graham preached his funeral, and Billy Graham noted that Townsend was, quote, one of the great missionaries of our time, and then Ralph Winter of the US and for World Mission is the author. Textbook said, interestingly, that the three most important missionaries who ever have lived in the Protestant period are William Carey Hudson, Tyler and William Cameron Townsend. The very three we looked at acknowledging the critical nature of his work and help us to see the ethno linguistic socio diversity of the world. And it's because of that that we have the development on languages and on ethnic groups and people groups that is theologically worked out through Donal McGovern and Ralph Wynter. But in terms of missionary practice, I think Uncle Cam is important in this whole study. Any thoughts or comments about Townsend? One other person would look at briefly and then we will finish the third. Aaron. That's Donna McGovern. I won't just tell you briefly about his life and then we will we'll bring this to a close. Because McGavin is the other side of the coin. He's the one that I think Townsend didn't do a lot of academic writing. So McGavin is someone who has done a lot, and the mystical feel he's now with the Lord McGavin has gotten a lot of rough. Treatment on this campus. So I want to give you a little more positive, because he is known as the father of the church growth movement. But I want us to hear a little bit about the appreciation of McGavin and what he's done. I want to briefly highlight his life. Here's a guy who is born and raised in India. His father and his grandparents, for that matter, were missionaries in India. 

[00:45:12] So he's born in India, raised in India. He comes does his degree at Yale. He does a Ph.D. at Columbia in Hinduism and Christianity, which was very rare in those days for a evangelical to do that. I might put his in the same area, but in those days was quite, quite rare. He returns in 1923 to India as a missionary becomes an expert in the Hindi language. He translates the Bible and other kinds of literature into a language very close to Hindi called Chattisgarh. It's now today in India. Just a few years ago made a separate state of Chhattisgarh. It's a language related to Hindi, and he did. Linguists work there. So he has all the kind of the background of Uncle Sam in that way. He then does a remarkable thing. He spends two years. 1930, 31, in 1936, doing a survey of Indian churches. He ask one question Why do Indian churches not grow? Now. He grew up in India. He saw how much money and missionary effort was being put into India. Because there's no country in the world that's probably had more effort and money and resources being put into it than India by both Catholic and Protestant. In fact, he used to say, I was so disturbed about the amount of money that went into India with such little results, he said It offended my Scottish sensibilities. As a Scot, McGovern, you know, he's a Scottish descent guy. So he was asking, why do churches not grow? And what is it that may cause them to grow? This eventually leads him to spend a number of years from 1936 to 1950. In church planting in India. So here's a guy with 15 years experience as a church planter. That's another huge experience he has. 

[00:47:26] And then finally, this lead in 1951 to publish this book right here. Bridges of God. This book by Donald McGavin was published 1951, which basically pointed out. That. People from the same ethnic group that share common cultural affinities. This whole ethnic emphasis that you've had in this class. He's the one that talk about all of this. He said people are more likely to come to Christ and hear the gospel from their own people group. Now, please hear McGovern. He is making this analysis. Not prescriptive lay. He's not saying that the church should only be, you know, every church and have its own little ethnic group. And you should have Korean churches and you should have, you know, white European churches and African-American church. He's not saying that. He's just saying that is, in fact, the facts on the ground. That's what observing descriptively the church does spread within people groups. And therefore that has to be can take into consideration when you're thinking about how the church grows and spread, just like we saw. And let's show you the picture of these villages of Saharanpur where the ethnic link was more significant than the geographic link. So McGavin is making this observation, and eventually he publishes his book, which has gone through countless printings now millions of copies. Understanding Church Growth. But then McGovern This is the seminal book, and no one today can do missions or even do study of church growth without reading this book and either refuting that or agreeing with it or responding to it. You don't go around this book yet, go through it. It's one of these really remarkable books that's been published that has had such a huge impact on how missions is done. But look at the guy's experience. 

[00:49:28] The man is remarkably experienced. There are things that we may disagree with, but he is raising very important questions and he develops what is known as the homogeneous unit principle that the church is spread most effectively within common units, homogeneous ethnic units. The reason the church is not growing India, I'm convinced to this day I'm convinced by his basic thesis that the reason the church did not grow, grow in India very rapidly is because it's a country that has over 4000 people groups. And therefore when you get a people movement, start in India, it hits a wall so quickly you can't get really anything going. There's so many walls, you know, everybody has their Jati, their particular caste that it is so difficult to make any real progress. There's not a huge broad people group in India. So India represents the largest major challenge just empirically because of the nature of this phenomenological reality here. People do not naturally cross borders with gospel witness. Descriptively. I hope you understand. That's what means in all through this class, prescriptive liy the Great Commission commands to do it across these boundaries. But descriptively the church is reluctant to do it, and therefore it affects how the church grows in terms of witnessing, sharing and all the rest. In 1965, he goes to Ford Theological Seminary, teaches there for a number of years. 70 is when he publishes this book on church growth. And in 74 that he and Ralph Winter speak at Lausanne Congress and all Vandalization. And this is where they first articulate the whole point about unreached people groups and that there are 2 billion people that are behind some barrier and therefore will never hear the gospel unless somebody crosses a cultural barrier. And penetrates that with the gospel. 

[00:51:39] That's why the third theme is so important, because it really brings out quite profoundly the new emphasis is no longer on places but on peoples. I would say without any doubt the first two are emissions. You can say missions is about places going here are going. They are going to China, going to Burma, going to wherever the gospel. But with Donna McGovern, with Townsend, you now find in Ralph Winter. WYNTER The emphasis is now on people groups. Where they're located is not nearly as relevant as whether or not those peoples have access to the gospel or not. All the things we talk about today are informed by and enriched by this unreached peoples missions focus. And so we call this third Air the Unreached Peoples mission. That is to say, the focus on unreached peoples. And it begins in 1934 with Uncle Cam's question that's asking by the Indian is the beginning of the unreached people's mission. And the second era ends with this Lausanne Congress. This is the first major Congress on World Evangelization sponsored by John Stott and by Billy Graham. David Wells was there. Dr. Wells Several of our faculty that were around and teaching at that time were present at Lausanne. And it was a major global event where Christians got together and talked about the progress of the Great Commission as evangelicals because the old track had turned into the World Council of Churches from Edinburgh in 1910. Track And so this is a re-engagement as evangelicals with a real serious discussion about the global church. And during that Congress, Ralph Winter and McGovern gave a paper about unreached people groups and about hidden peoples and introduced this whole concept. And everyone just sat there kind of stunned by the whole thing, that even if you had global evangelism, completely write your check what you thought we'd like to see happen. 

[00:53:47] There would be 2 billion that had never heard the name of Jesus. And this caused a lot of strong reaction after the Congress that we had to do a complete retooling of our mission boards and target interior areas, because in those days, virtually all of missions, even missions, cross-cultural ministry from churches, was working with churches that was already viable around the world. So it's only in the last since 75 that we've begin to finally see mission boards that are insistent that they focus and target unreached people. Groups In our ministry in India, we've now planted 400 churches in North India, and all 400 of these churches are all planted in villages, towns, cities, among people. They've never had a church in the history of the world. And that's a very different kind of work than going and working with a church that's already viable and where you have Christians and churches scattered around. This is very, very important work. And I think that Townsend and Gavin are the ones that really make the church set up and think about this and make sure that we really understand the full scope of the great Commission and what we are making progress on and what we are not. And we'll look at some statistics on how we're doing later. But just to get the themes out there, this is that questions, comments, yes, I don't get into this, but when there are church. Talk about being. Right. The basic objection, as I understand it, to Dan McGovern, has been that he's trying to reduce church growth to sociological principles. Which I think we all find offensive. If you say, well, if you call 10,000 people on the telephone, then all of those 10,000, 1000 might respond and come to your church plan opening. 

[00:55:43] And if you allow those, 1035 will actually show up the first day. And of those 35, 12 will end up joining your church. And so the whole thing becomes kind of like how you recruited Gordon Cornwell. You just get the word out to this many and then it'll be this. And finally you listen to one role or whatever. And so that sounds so offensive to the message today that this is God's mission, that it sounds like that Mama Gavin is turning the whole thing into sociology of people. We're hearing the gospel that's been one line of criticism. The other is that somehow this is racist, that he is promoting homogeneity within churches that would exclude people from the diversity of church growth. So he said, well, when you go into Saharanpur, why would you encourage them to go over here? Why shouldn't they go reach their own neighbors in their own villages and create a diverse church that has people from all kinds of backgrounds and this deeply troubled? MCGAVIN Because everyone who knew him said the last thing MacGowan is, is a racist. It's just that he was simply trying to empirically that into find how churches were actually growing in India and in the West. But he wasn't trying to be prescriptive, just descriptive. And those are the two main things. As far as the sociology goes, I would just say that I would agree with the basic criticism that if sociological and social sciences run your mission, theology or governance, you're thinking about missions, we're doomed. That's why the only course we have here in anthropology is one called Applied Anthropology, where we simply say, What can we learn for anthropology and apply to the missionary task? I think we can learn a lot of things. 

[00:57:25] And the most important and obviously that we all recognizes the importance of linguistics. Learning languages is a huge benefit to the admission work, but applies to many other things as well. And so how can you learn from that without letting it run the engine? Some people thought that McGavin was overstating his case on that side of things and not taking the biblical theological mis your day seriously. And if that's the case, then he deserves that criticism. But I think we should take seriously what he has tried to say to us and hear it within our own Gordon kind context. Other thoughts or comments. I think we're about the end of our line here. Yes. Also arguing for mostly from within themselves, the people most likely to share the gospel, their own people group. Right. So arguing for. A deeper disciple. Conversion. Would that be right? He's definitely I mean, his whole work is connected to church growth, not just evangelistic growth. So, yeah, he is connected to that. And of course, his whole life as a missionary, how to penetrate these barriers. But he is just simply mainly empirically noting how the church has spread. And we've observed the same thing in India that he did in her own work. And how you work with that respond to that takes good, serious theological reflection. Okay, we'll stop there. If we have any other questions, please come forward about the interim. We'll come back on Monday. Roland Verner will be here. A German mission scholar knows multiple languages. He also has his doctorate in linguistics and has turned the Bible into a language in the Sudan. Expert on African Christianity. And you'll be really blessed by what he has to share with you.