What does the Lord require?

What does the Lord require of the Adventist Church today? Ever since the fall of Adam and Eve, God has been working out His redemptive mission for this world. When the Seventh-day Adventist Church was born, its founders sensed a particular Divine calling for their infant church. In gradual stages they extended their missiological vision until it encompassed the entire globe.

Just a century ago church structures were redesigned to permit us to more effectively accomplish the mission God has given us. During the last 100 years, Adventist world mission has enjoyed phenomenal success.

Today, the Adventist Church has about 12 million members worldwide. We praise God for our success in world evangelism. Yet, recent events on the world scene may be God's wake-up call to shake us out of any pre mature or presumptuous self-congratulation. Although our membership and global extension in 2002 are huge compared with 1901, the remaining task can only humble us if we understand its true scale.

Looking the facts in the face

Consider the following facts.¹ In mid-2000 the world's population stood at about six bil lion. Christians of all denominations accounted for a third of the total. Another third were non-Christians who live within reach of a Christian church from which they could receive a person-to-person gospel con tact. The remaining third, two billion strong, were non-Christians beyond the reach of a local Christian community. Most of this last third reside in countries that are resistant to Christianity. These people can be reached only by cross-cultural missionaries.

In the last hundred years Seventh-day Adventists have baptized large numbers of Christians of other denominations and non-Christians of tribal origin. But we have not been very successful with peoples of other major world religions such as Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism.

Our work is minimal, registering an almost zero impact when it comes to the largest non- Christian world religion Islam. Muslims make up almost 20 percent of the world's population 1.2 billion people. They are fel low monotheists who worship the God of Abraham. They value peace and advocate a lifestyle very similar to our own. Yet, they have suffered terribly at the hands of nominal Christians during the Crusades and over succeeding centuries. Instead of seeing Christians as offering them a closer walk with God, many Muslims see us as undermining their morality, worship, and spirituality.

What does the Lord require of the Seventh-day Adventist Church today? The following are some helpful suggestions.

Put aside business as usual

The world changed irreversibly on September 11, 2001. How could a few suicidal hijackers affect the whole world so dramatically? One thing is obvious: just a handful of people have the capability of changing the course of human history for good or ill. We are not merely reactive pawns or minuscule grains of sand on the seashore. We are moral agents whose decisions are real-life, real-time decisions. We are caught up in the predicament of sin. Human actions since the Fall have continued to affect the universe in out-and-out tangible ways.

Good decisions and actions are ultimately more powerful than bad ones because good is ultimately stronger than evil, although it often does not appear to be so. Christians have real power to effect real change in the world because there is no force on earth more powerful than the gospel. By grace and with the Spirit's power, we can participate in God's mission to earth in a way that makes an eternal difference in the lives of human beings. What the Church does ultimately has significance now and will have eternal significance.

Our times call for us to set aside business-as-usual. In 1901 Ellen White led the General Conference session to shelve its planned agenda. Both she and her colleagues understood that the Church had reached a juncture that demanded a new vision, a new dynamic. The Adventist Church changed in 1901 and has never been the same since. The successes of the last century have depended, in signif icant measure, on the Spirit-inspired restructuring that happened in 1901. Although no human structure is flaw less and mission success is always the fruit of divine power, God chooses to work through human organizations. With ample justification, we can assert that Adventist world mission after 1901 would have been less successful if our pioneers had retained the pre-1901 structure.

We are again at a momentous juncture both similar and dissimilar to that of 1901. In 2002 we have a much larger, more complex church. Our size and complexity give us more institutional inertia and resistance to change than our pioneers faced in 1901. We have many more human and material resources to mobilize and direct. We are a century closer to the Parousia.

The last century has included two world wars, the Great Depression, the Holocaust, the nuclear era, and much more. The witness of history against evil and for truth is far stronger today than it was in 1901.

The similarity between their then and our now is that in both Adventists are confronted with a task for which we lack an adequate shared theology, vision, strategy, and structure for world mission.

The circumstances of 1901 demanded that Adventists set aside business-as-usual and make room for a period of creative, Spirit-led reevaluation and retooling for mission. The same is true of 2002. Our agenda, our turf, our territory, our position, our piece of the budget must be laid on the altar of sacrifice, opening the way for a new and more powerful, Spirit-filled initiative.

Seek a new and unified mission vision

One consequence of our growth over the last century has been mission institutionalization. When institutionalization occurs, we tend to think and act largely in relationship to policies, budgets, and politics. Under pressure to keep the bureaucracy running smoothly, we may lose sight of our duty to cast an ever broadening vision for the Church's mission. Major decisions may be made solely with reference to practical considerations, without the guidance of a unified vision, strategy, or theology.

Most of us have certain segments of the Church's mission in reasonably good focus but we sometimes suffer from a concentrated form of tunnel vision. Different individuals, offices, departments, and geographical areas may see parts of the task clearly while lacking a shared, comprehensive vision. Some of us focus exclusively on peoples and areas near us while others think they have to cross the frontiers to do mission. Some world divisions have a vision for the whole globe and others feel limited to their own territory.

Developing a new vision for mission will not happen overnight. Pastors, administrators, teachers, and lay leaders will have to lead the way. Adventist missiology needs to be a part of ministerial education and Bible courses in every Adventist school. Regular sessions need to be planned for vision development and shared communication of that vision. Supporting ministries and parachurch organizations need to participate in the process.

Design a unified global mission strategy

Is Adventist mission in 2002 like Israel during the time of the Judges, when "every man did what was right in his own eyes" (Judges 21:25, RSV)? No doubt, Adventists are engaged in a multifaceted array of excellent ministries, but are they pulling together in the same direction, in fulfillment of a well-defined and shared strategy? What is the de facto Adventist global strategy? Is it reporting an increasing number of baptisms? If so, is this strategy adequate for mobilizing and directing the work of a complex church like ours?

For several years we have been publicizing the "10/40 Window" and raising funds for mission to its peoples. The 10/40 has become the focus of our global task. But who will in fact carry out our mission to the 10/40? Where will they come from? Who will pay them? How will they be trained? How will their service be administered? What will they do when they get there, given the fact that regular churches cannot be planted in many of these areas?

How will the various world divisions participate? How will we assess effectiveness and success in resistant areas? In the absence of a well defined, shared global strategy we lack answers to most of these questions. A number of organizations are at work in the 10/40 but the existing degree of planning and procedure will not support the kind of work that needs to be done.

Besides these questions, what of the rest of the world outside the 10/40? There is the secular West to be evangelized. There are the megacities and the poor countries. Every nation has "hidden peoples" to be reached. How can the former "receivers" of missions become "senders"? How shall wealthier members and organizations assist their less wealthy brothers and sisters around the world? How can short-term and project mission trips be integrated into a global strategy?

What is the appropriate role for television, radio, and Internet ministries? How can visiting evangelistic teams and satellite evangelism make the best contribution? What role should ADRA and other humanitarian ministries play? How should parachurch and supporting ministries be integrated into the design? What are the best measures of success in world mission? A global strategy will answer these and other vital questions.

Make appropriate structural adjustments

Our present structure has excellent features that should be treasured and celebrated. I know for I have worked as a missionary for 31 years. But our structure is not doing the best possible job, in spite of its many good features. We lack the structure we need for recruiting, training, and supporting young adults from around the world as cross-cultural missionaries among unevangelized peoples.

Perhaps this is an appropriate moment for a reminder that structures are servants not masters.

In my seminary teaching, I work with many young ministers from many cultures who are ready to study languages, to make the necessary sacrifices, and to be lifelong missionaries. When they ask how they can obey God's call I have to tell them that the official General Conference missionary service probably has no place for them until they are ordained, mature, experienced, and have a doctorate. I can only refer those who persist even after hearing this dismal forecast to Adventist supporting ministries.

My grandparents went to Trinidad in their mid-thirties, my parents to Africa in their late-twenties, and my wife and I also to Africa at age twenty five. However, there is almost no pathway for our children, now in their early-twenties and eager to fol low the family tradition. Sending mature people with doctoral degrees as missionaries is a valid sharing of workers between various parts of the body of Christ. But the energy, adapt ability, and language-learning potential of young adults is absolutely essential for mission to the resistant parts of the earth.

The structure of Adventist missions has simply not kept pace with changing world conditions so as to achieve our corporate goals and facilitate individual spiritual giftedness.

Some Adventists have given up on the official mission program entirely, looking to parachurch organizations or to supporting ministries as the only hope for channeling their money and abilities into service. The willingness of Adventists to serve as missionaries and to support missions materially has outpaced the ability of the official structure to channel and administer its human and material resources.

A central feature of an adjusted Adventist missionary program needs to be involvement and ownership by all Church organizations from the local church to the General Conference.

In the present structure, missionaries are sent by the General Conference without the involvement of the local congregation, conference, or union. Some divisions play a role in the process, but only a limited role. General Conference missionaries sent from North America are virtually invisible to the churches and organizations that support them through the offering plate.

Reach for a new theological consensus

An intentional theological journey toward a consensual Adventist theology of mission needs to undergird and encircle the steps suggested above.

"For the past 30 years mission theology has taken a backseat to mission practice. . . . Regardless of the theological tradition, [in the decades after the Second World War] missiology concerned itself with a host of activist issues and agendas like ... sociopolitical action, liberation, evangelism, church growth, relief and development, ... Unfortunately, in the midst of such busy global activism, the deeper questions of mission theology were too seldom asked. During the last ten years [mid-1980s to mid-1990s] this has begun to change, and people of all theological stripes in mission today are reexamining theological presuppositions that underlie the mission enterprise."²

We need to reach a renewed and deeper consensus on our official theology of mission. We need to evaluate what we are doing now to see whether our de facto and official theologies match. We need to chart a new course for Adventist world mission that fully expresses our official theology of mission.

As we seek to obey God's will for Adventist mission in 2002 and beyond we can be assured that our journey will be challenging. But the bearers of the good news are always encircled, comforted, and strengthened by the joy of the Lord and their ultimate victory is assured.