Today Ted Esler wrote the first entry in a blog series about megachurches. Most of what he had to say seemed pretty good to me, but I had qualms with the final couple of paragraphs and decided this was a big enough issue to write about it here. In his post, Esler wrote:
Missionary work is about getting people to change their worldview from a non-Christian view, to a Christian one
The word “missions” means just about anything in the church today. For this discussion, I am going to agree with Rodney Stark’s view that missionaries are about getting people to become Christians. Feeding the poor is great, but it’s not missionary work. Doing community development is great, but it’s not missionary work. Supporting the local pro-life center is super, but it’s not missionary work. I could go on.
I know that Francis of Assisi has said, “Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words.” I say bunk to that view of mission. When a church categorizes something as the responsibility of the missions team that doesn’t mean that it becomes missionary work. Missionaries are supposed to convert people.
I think I agree with the general sentiment that he is reflecting. I think what he’s getting at is that you can’t call all Christian activity “missions.” There is a difference between evangelism, home missions, foreign missions and even foreign cross-cultural missions. But note how I differentiate it here: it’s a matter of the cultural barrier being crossed rather than the type of work being done, in my opinion.
To me, missionary work is all about the imperatives that are in the Great Commission. In those imperatives are things like witnessing, proclaiming, healing, discipling, teaching, and baptizing. It’s about offering the Good News to those who do not have it or who have rejected it. That offering can take many forms, and it can be done in the context of words or deeds. Feeding the poor can be missionary work (but then, it might be home non-missionary work too). We have to be careful not to exclude things as “not missionary” just because they can also be done at home.
To me, what Assisi was saying was that the life you live is a model for the words you speak. Or at least, that’s the takeaway I always had from that particular saying. When is it necessary to use words? At the point of decision, to offer the choice. Also through discipleship and teaching. Also in baptism. There are plenty of places where it is “necessary.” But at the same time, our life should match up to the words we speak.
Esler had another interesting question to reflect on: how many people would it take to lead a spiritual movement in the United States that transforms our country of over 300 million people?
Here’s my reflection: the answer depends on the density of the average Christian’s social connections. Christianity is a relational faith: it is defined by our relationship to Christ and supported, encouraged, and kept pure in large part by our relationships with other believers. It spreads relationally; in fact, as I’ve pointed out elsewhere, the largest “spreader” of the Christian faith is sex. (Ok, I said that for shock value, but the simple fact is that births to Christian homes brings about a far greater number of new church members than conversion does.)
So, if that’s the case (and I believe it is), then the question is, how many people would it take to spread Christianity to everyone else? Dunbar’s number assumes that the average person has 15 deep social connections. Some of these will be to non-believers, but not all, and probably not the majority. But let’s assume that on average a typical believer would be connected to at least 5 non believers. In that case, the answer is simple: at the very least, you’d need 60 million believers, all of whom were willing to spread their faith to others.
Conveniently, about a third of the population is estimated to be Evangelical (Operation World), which equates to something like 90 million people. And it wouldn’t take all of them, either: those who are good “spreaders” are likely to reach out to more non-believers than just the five. They’d also talk to friend-of-a-friend as well. So, I’m guessing that 30 million would likely be required.
That’s a huge amount, to be sure. But here’s another reflection: how many people does it take, and what kind of structure is required, to mobilize 30 million people to share their faith with 10 others over the course of their life–including their family members and children?
