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11 for 11: Ideas That Work

The New Role for


Western Missionaries
by Eric Swanson

11 for 11: Ideas That Work

The New Role for


Western Missionaries
by Eric Swanson
The Cambridge Seven
were students from
Cambridge University who
in 1885 decided to become
missionaries to China.
Perhaps the best known of
the seven was C.T. Studd.

One afternoon I strolled down the


Pearl Street Mall in Boulder, CO,
stopping at Art Source International
a purveyor of antique maps. As I was
browsing through some documents
under the title Rare Maps, I found
a document taken from an 1886
world atlas titled The Distribution of
Christian Religions Throughout the
World. Using various sized circles, it
depicted the number of Protestant,
Catholic and Orthodox believers in
different countries and regions of the
world.
Here are a few of my findings:
In 1886, Christianity was most
prominently dispersed in the northern
and western hemispheres, with 54
million Orthodox in Russia, 35 million
Catholics in France, and 30 million
Protestants in the U.S.
By contrast, the continent of Africa
had only 709,000 Protestants
compared to Polynesias million; India
had a mere 300,000 Protestants;
Arabia, Turkey, Persia and China
together had a paltry 89,000
Protestants; and 800,000 Catholics
were in the countries of China and
Japan combined.
Since then we have seen a global shift
in the distribution of Christianity.
Today, Christianity is growing and
spreading in almost every place except
the United States.

Metrics
Today, the U.S. represents only
12% of global Christianity.
Today, the worlds 50 largest churches
are all outside the U.S.
Some of the shifts trace back to 1886
when God began to wake up the
church in the West to the needs of
the world. In 1885, the famous
Cambridge Seven packed their bags
for China. In 1886, the Student
Volunteer Movement launched as
100 students at D.L. Moodys
conference grounds in Mount Hermon,
MA, signed the Princeton Pledge
which says: I purpose, God willing,
to become a foreign missionary. By
1887, those hundred students were
serving around the globe. In 1888,
Jonathan Goforth sailed for China

Leadership Network The New Role For Western Missionaries

and John R. Mott was appointed as


chairman of the Student Volunteer
Movement. The movements motto:
The evangelization of the world in
this generation. In 1890, Central
American Mission was founded by
C.I. Scofield. In the same year
Methodist Charles Gabriel wrote the
missionary song Send the Light
and John Livingston Nevius of China
launched a ministry in Korea. In
1891, Samuel Zwemer went to Arabia
while Helen Chapman sailed for the
Congo. And in 1895, Africa Inland
Mission was formed, the Japan
Bible Society was established, and
missionary Amy Carmichael arrived
in India.1 The Western missionaries
had started the work for their
generation.
Looking at the spread and vibrancy
of Christianity today, one can only
1

conclude that the Western missionaries


of the past generationsdespite
their flaws, ethnocentrism, bad
wardrobe and culture bungling
actually did their job! Look at the
evidence comparing global missionary
conferences: One hundred years
ago, at the famous Edinburgh World
Missionary Conference, delegates
from the U.S., Canada, and Britain
represented 85% of the delegates.
At Lausanne 2010 [which invited
delegates according to the percentage
of world Christianity their country
represented] less than 12% of the
delegates came from these countries.2
John Mbiti, a Kenyan scholar, notes
that the centers of the churchs
universality [are] no longer in Geneva,
Rome, Athens, Paris, London, New
York, but Kinshasa, Buenos Aires,
Addis Ababa and Manila.3 The
largest churches in the world are not
in Southern California or in Texas. In
fact, none of the fifty largest churches
in the world are found in North
America.4
This history teaches us that the last
centurys Western missionaries did
their job in their generation.

Trends
The question we face as a result of
these changes: How will we, as a
missional people, approach our task
in our generation? Three trends will
influence how we answer:

Globalization: The world is


flattening.
This relatively new word refers to the
interconnectedness of people, goods
and services. The smart phone you
carry in your pocket (which you are
perhaps using to read this document)
was most likely designed in the U.S.
and manufactured in China, using
components from Malaysia, Brazil
and Thailand. For service you
probably connect to a phone bank in
India.
Apart from the 1.5 million American
Christians who go on short-term
global missions each year, millions
of Western Christians travel
regularly outside the West on both
business and pleasure. Passports
and plane trips are a way of life. In
short, Christians are already regularly

going to all parts of our connected


world.

Urbanization: People are moving to


the cities.
As of May 2007 more people live in
cities than in rural areas. Urbanization
is the largest migration in human
history. Every major U.S. and
Canadian urban area has a burgeoning
immigrant urban population. In the
past ten years more than one million
foreign-born people, speaking 239
different languages (one-third from
African countries) have settled in the
Dallas / Fort Worth metroplex. In 32%
of the areas residences, English is not
the spoken language in the home.
Christians are not only going to the
world, the world is coming to America.
This fact should inform our strategy.

The rise of technology opens new


doors to evangelism.
Technology is the usage of tools,
techniques, inventions or systems
to increase the effectiveness and
efficiency of exerted effort. What
does technology do better today in
global missions that we could not
do previously? A generation ago,
thousands of missionaries lugged
portable projectors and bed sheets to
remote villages to show the remarkable
film, JESUS, in villages that had never
had a film in their own language. Since
1979, the JESUS film, which has been
viewed by billions all across the globe,
has resulted in more than 225 million
new followers of Jesus Christ.
What is the technological dynamic
equivalent of the JESUS film
today?

Questions

PDA with Bible


Leadership Network The New Role For Western Missionaries

Alan Roxburgh writes about liminal


times in historythose periods when
the tectonic plates of history are
shifting; where what used to work,
no longer works and where what will
2

work has not yet been fully discovered.


In this era of liminality, there are two
questions coming up over and again,
which no one has figured out:

With the gospel growing largely


outside the US, what is the new role of
the American missionary?
How do North Americans transfer
their passion for world evangelization
to a younger generation?

Predictions
Perhaps more answers lie not with the
United States, but in other nations of
the world.
Maybe we need the followers of Jesus
in places outside of North America
to help define and clarify the role of
Western Christians. Perhaps, just as
the centers of Protestant Christianity
in decades past (U.S., England and
Canada) were primary sending centers
of missionaries, the new centers of
Christianity like Korea, China, Kenya
or Brazil will take on the unfinished
slack of the Great Commission. In
short, we predict other nations like
Nigeria, China, Korea and Brazil will
pick up the slack that the Western
world has not.
Amidst a wash of missional
uncertainty, there are some bright
spots worth exploring. Austin
Stone Church in Austin, TX (www.
austinstone.org) is less than a decade
old and has more than 6,000 who call
the Stone their home. The average
age of attendees in this college town
is a mere 27 years old. Fired up by the
fact that more than one billion people
in the world have no church, Bible
study or Christian witness, Global
Pastor Joey Shaw and his team have
challenged 100 people to go to an
unreached people group for at least
two years. So far, 90 people have
stepped up to this missional calling.
In a couple of years we will ask God
for another hundred, says Joey. What
if every church sent a dozen or so

Volunteers from the Austin Stone Church at the Makarios School in the
Dominican Republic
people to the unreached peoples of the
world?

Technology will greatly enhance the


impact of global missions and make
it possible for average people with
oversized hearts to impact the world
from their homes.
Global Media Outreach (GMO) (www.
globalmediaoutreach.com) has created
100 websites in all the major languages
in a way that allows people who are
searching for God or for answers to
lifes big questions to connect with an
opportunity to know Jesus Christ.
Up to two million people each day
search for God on the Internet
and upwards of 45,000 indicate
decisions for Christ with 5,000 a day
requesting follow-up contact from a
Christian.
Former Apple executive and GMO
founder Walt Wilson says, We are
the first generation in all of human
history to hold in our hands the
technology to reach every man,

Leadership Network The New Role For Western Missionaries

woman, and child on earth. This


is not a distant dream. It is a current
reality. Market forces in technology are
driving us forward.5
Technology creates a world without
borders with many seekers and
followers coming from what are
normally considered closed
countries. To see a live website of
people inquiring about God or making
decisions to follow Christ go to www.
greatcommission2020.com. What if
every church had a team of online
missionaries that was regularly
leading people to Christ and making
disciples of the nations?
The world will continue to change.
Churches can respond by trying a little
more of what they did last year, or they
can take advantage of the way God is
shaping todays world of globalization,
urbanization and technology.
Yesterdays missionaries from the West
did their jobs. How will we and the
rising generation do ours?

About Leadership
Network

About the Authors


Eric Swanson, D.Min., currently works as
Leadership Community Director for Externally
Focused Churches, Missional Renaissance and
Global Connection Churches. He is the coauthor
of The Externally Focused Church, The
Externally Focused Life, The Externally Focused
Quest, To Transform a City and numerous
articles on churches that are transforming their
communities. His bio is at www.leadnet.org/
ericswanson

Leadership Networks mission is to


accelerate the impact of 100X leaders.
These high-capacity leaders are like the
hundredfold crop that comes from seed
planted in good soil as Jesus described
in Matthew 13:8. Leadership Network
is a division of OneHundredX, a global
ministry with initiatives around the
world.

Warren Bird, Ph.D., who is overseeing the 11


for 11 initiative, directs the research division of
Leadership Network, bringing a background of
pastoral ministry and seminary teaching. He has
co-authored 23 books on various issues of church
vitality and health. His bio is at www.leadnet.org/
warrenbird

To learn more about Leadership Network


go to www.leadnet.org

About 11 for 11
The idea behind 11 for 11 is to profile
eleven specific ministry innovations
(one per month) during 2011. The total
series will also include Rapid Growth
Churches, Executive Pastors and Key
Implementers, Large Church Senior
Pastors, Missional Renaissance, Next
Generation Pastors, Externally Focused
Churches, Multisite Churches, Leadership
Development, Generous Churches, and
Next Horizons.

Endnotes
1. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Christian_missions. Accessed
December 16, 2010.
2. Christianity Today, December 2010 p. 35.
3. Jenkins, Philip, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity,
Oxford University Press (2002), page 2.
4. Livermore, David A. Serving with Eyes Wide Open: Doing Short-Term Missions
with Cultural Intelligence. Baker Books 2006, Kindle edition, Locations 277-80.
5. Briscoe, Pete with Todd Hillard. The Surge: Churches Catching the Wave of
Christs Love for the Nations. Grand Rapids, MI, Zondervan (2010) p.61

Resources

The New Role for Western Missionaries


is also available in these formats.

Briscoe, Pete, and Todd Hillard, The Surge: Churches Catching the Wave of
Christs Love for the Nations (Zondervan, 2010).
Corbett, Steve, and Brian Fikkert, When Helping Hurts: Alleviating Poverty Without
Hurting the Poor and Yourself (Moody, 2009).
Kling, Fritz, The Meeting of the Waters: Seven Global Currents that Will Propel the
Future Church (David C. Cook, 2010).

Contact
Contact Eric Swanson at eric.swanson@leadnet.org if youre interested in being
part of a Global Connections Leadership Community. These gatherings focus on
breakthrough ideas of increasing missional effectiveness on both the going and
receiving sides of missions, with the ultimate goal and outcome of accelerating the
learning, knowledge and application of innovative approaches to global missions.

Leadership Network The New Role For Western Missionaries

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