BOOK REVIEW - MISSIONS: HOW THE LOCAL CHURCH GOES GLOBAL (9 MARKS: BUILDING HEALTHY CHURCHES) BY ANDY JOHNSON

What is the purpose of missions? What should the relationship between the missionary and the supporting local church be? Should the local church have missionaries they support all over the world to show their commitment? Are short-term missions trips a blessing or a trial for the long term missionaries?

Andy Johnson, author of "Missions: How the Local Church Goes Global"  (Part of the 9Marks: Building Healthy Churches series) starts out with the various views Christians have about missions. He does an excellent job looking at how missions was done in the New Testament, and how to apply those principles.

I'm in a Southern Baptist, where technically through their Cooperative Program every SB church supports every SB missionary. Johnson suggests it may be better for churches to have a smaller number of missionaries to support and then give substantial support to the few.

On the subject of short term missions, Johnson questions if those trips are more for the benefit of the short-termer than the field missionary or the mission field. He suggests a long-term relationship between the local church and the missionary so that the short-termers are doing what helps the missionary. He gives an example of a short-termer from his church in D.C. taking care of baby sitting (including diaper changing) while the missionaries go through training. The missionaries were in tears when they learned the regular job of that short-termer was being on the White House staff.

As is typical for the 9Marks books, I highly recommend this short book.

A FOUR DAY MISSION TRIP

 

On May 1-4, 2022, I had the honor of joining half a dozen other members of Northside Baptist Church in Indianapolis on a four day mission troop at Ethnos 360 in the Ozarks in Missouri.

Are you familiar with Ethnos 360? Some of you might be more familiar with it by its former name, New Tribes Missions. Two of my college friends, Tony and Lauren Finch, joined New Tribes when they graduated. I remember Tony writing to me in the '80's and excitedly mentioning he was going to a place where "Jesus" isn't even a swear word. We learned Ethnos 360 is the third largest missionary organization, behind Wycliffe and the Southern Baptist's International Mission Board.

We came right after the missionary trainees spent a three week period of time in shelters they constructed during the first week and lived more off the land (they also learned how to butcher their meat). A billboard company gave them used billboard tarps which they used for shelter. We helped collect the used tarps and tools. Me and one other friend helped grind up pork for sausage.

The grounds were quite large and have a lot of things going on. For example, they had an auto garage, where they seemed to store everything. We also had a presentation on working with solar energy and water purification, and saw where they were growing plants hydroponically (without soil, using nutrients in water).

One thing we did was construct a place where they kept some of their supplies. We first put a couple of billboards up and then covered it with plastic to protect the structure from wind and rain. They decided to put the billboard with the pictures facing in, so anybody in that building could see a gigantic Jimmy John sub sandwich and this guy advertising truck driver training.

One blessing was finding out the grounds crew leader had served in Mexico with the Finches previously, and one of the other grounds workers who also headed up working with volunteers spent a semester at my alma mater, Southwestern Conservative Baptist Bible College.

We spent time with Ethnos Missionaries Dennis and Monika Farthing. Dennis and his family used to attend Northside. We had dinner with the Farthings, their children, and Dennis' parents, and Monika, who's from Germany, fixed us Wienerschnitzel. Another evening, we took a boat ride on the Lake of the Ozarks, with a former missionary piloting the vessel.

It was a blessing to spend some time on working with Ethos 360 and with my co-laborers at Northside Baptist Church.