That was the theme of the Missions conference Bud Haskell and I attended yesterday in Santa Clarita, CA. The symposium was hosted by The Master’s Academy International (TMAI) at Grace Baptist Church and included missionaries, pastors, and elders from all over the world. We were joined by a group of CVF pastors from Grace Bible in Visalia, including Will Costello, Dale Payne, and Josiah Busenitz.
The TMAI missions conference is unique because it is focused on challenging seasoned pastors and active missionaries to think correctly about the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20). This is quite different from other conferences that are geared towards recruiting college students to do mission work.
This year’s TMAI conference started with a message by Mark Tatlock, the acting director of TMAI. He gave a call for discernment in the spiritual battle of missions. This discernment is needed by missionaries overseas and by the leaders of churches that are supporting them. It was thought provoking to hear him talk about missions as a war that can be clouded by imprecise thinking regarding theology, soteriology, and ecclesiology. He warned against the popular trend on the mission field of replacing precise theology with pragmatic methodology. He gave a compelling comparison between the dangers of integrationist psychology and integrationist missiology.
Having spent five years doing church planting work in a Muslim-majority country I can agree with his cause for concern. I met missionaries who wanted to change the wording of Scripture so it would be easier for Muslims to accept. I saw confusion on leadership teams and churches in how to boldly proclaim the word of God. Thankfully, there were some local pastors who were preaching the truth, but by and large the missionary community was much more open to adopting an integrationist and pragmatic methodology than they should have been.
The next messages we heard were from E. D. Burns, Scott Callahan, and Brooks Buser. E. D. Burns is a missionary who directs the MA in Global Leadership at Western Seminary. He has written several books including The Missionary-Theologian, which he told us has caused him to lose many friends. This is a sad result of standing by the belief that missionaries need to stand on theological convictions. Unfortunately, many missionaries today are encouraged to replace biblical conviction with cutting-edge theories like Church Planting Movements (CPM).
Scott Callahan’s talk was surprising because he spent the entire hour preaching about baptism. The title of his talk was “Jesus Commands You to Immerse” and he gave a strong case for all missionaries to teach the need for disciple’s baptism. I thought this was a helpful distinction from “believer’s baptism” because “disciple’s baptism” implies the need for converts to be tested before being baptized.
My experience on the mission field proved that missionaries are often tempted to weaken the Bible’s command for baptism by immersion. Many missionaries working with Muslims are tempted to postpone baptism or adapt it to a hidden event out of fear for the life of the Muslim convert. Instead of being afraid missionaries need to be confident of the need for believers to publicly declare their allegiance to Christ. One of the most profound experiences I had was when I witnessed several Kosovar Christians get baptized in a pool outside of Prishtina, Kosovo. They were not cowering in fear of what might happen to them. They were courageous in their allegiance to Christ and everyone who witnessed the baptism was encouraged by their rejection of the fear of man.
Brooks Buser’s talk was informative because of his teaching on “Biblical Missiology and the Primacy of the Local Church.” It was exciting to hear him describe working with a unreached tribe in Papau New Guinea. They made it clear that they were not watering down the message to make it easier for the people to digest. They started teaching in Genesis and taught through the entire Old Testament before introducing people to Jesus. Thousands of people heard the messages, but only 40 or so people responded and came to Christ. That was enough for Brooks and his team. They started a church and told the people they would not be staying indefinitely. They would be training up the men to be pastors and elders because that is the Biblical model.
Brooks returned to the states after thirteen years working there and now he is the director of a mission agency called Radius that trains pastors who are going to unreached linguistic groups. All of their training centers are outside of the U.S. and they are seeing an increase in churches that want to send their missionaries to be trained there. If you have time you can check out their website at https://www.radiusinternational.org.
