Mark's Blog

Yesterday, I suggested the following about the current state of foreign missions in Churches of Christ:

• Greater tolerance has produced less urgency for evangelism.
• Missions are being redefined as social justice activities at the expense of evangelization.
• Churches are turning toward more domestic mission projects
• Churches are depending on missionary organizations more.
• More older Christians and fewer younger Christians are involved in foreign missions.
• Churches are opting for safe and successful missions.

If you believe that the above statements are true—even mostly true—then what does the near future look like for missions from American Churches of Christ?

These churches will do less and less evangelistic work, both in the U.S. and especially in foreign countries.  Why?

• Historically, most of our mission force has come from recent college graduates and young families.  Since this demographic is now the product of greater tolerance (less urgency) and has replaced  evangelism with social justice, fewer will have the motivation for foreign missions.
• Those who do go overseas will more likely be involved in humanitarian activities than church planting.

As older church leaders become less able to travel themselves and because fewer younger people are evangelistic, churches will outsource their foreign missions and evangelistic work even more. This suggests that independent ministries will continue to grow until the older church leaders give up their leadership to a younger generation of leaders.

If present trends continue, the independent relief organizations and ministries focusing on social justice will increase both in number and scope, and as younger Christians grow in influence and wealth, more funds will flow from evangelistic missions to these serving ministries.

One of the difficulties of even discussing this is trying to avoid posturing evangelism against social justice—or vice versa!  Jesus went around preaching and healing—and we should too.  Unfortunately, however, in our humanity we are much more likely to swing with the pendulum than to look for harmony.

That’s what I want to do tomorrow.  In the next post, let’s talk about not about what is, or what is likely, but what is needed and how things could be with regards to missions in Churches of Christ.