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A movement of Chinese believers into neighboring Hindu, Buddhist and Islamic nations, 100,000 strong by 2007? Do they really believe they’re God’s instruments to introduce a billion people to Jesus Christ through self-giving, loving, suffering ministries? Dare they dream of achieving what Western missions have failed to do for the last two centuries—winning the hearts of millions who revere Mohammed and have seemingly unshakable faith in the Qur’an?
Like many “World Pulse” readers I’ve been marinating myself in books and stories from China. And as a student of missions for many years, I must admit that this Chinese dream causes me to pause and ponder. For the past two decades we missiologists have been scratching our heads, trying to find a key to unlock the hearts of Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus. We have witnessed many strategies.
I hope that we’ve abandoned the strategy of military confrontation, the chief tool of Western Christianity from the beginning of the second millennium—notably the embarrassing Crusades. “Christian Europe” fought Muslims for more than 1,000 years until the Ottoman Empire collapsed in the early twentieth century. Military combat poisoned the waters between Muslims and Christians, doing nothing to attract them to Christ. War may be the only way the West can contain Islam, but I have long abandoned it as a missions strategy.
Early in my missionary training, missiologists dropped the military option, agreeing that developing education, medicine and economic institutions was the only viable way to serve Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus. So we sent doctors, teachers and agronomists and distributed food, shelter and clothing when calamity hit. This good tactic, however, is slow-going.
Then missiologists came up with the idea of missions through “presence.” We saw a generation of missionaries whose only agenda was to live in those lands and relate to their neighbors in Christ’s name. But as governments clamped down on anything that looked like “missions activity,” this strategy was crippled.
More recently Western missions have employed business as a legitimate means for spreading God’s kingdom. I’ve strongly supported those who pursue creative witness through business as they trade and interact. We hear exciting stories of fellowships being formed all over the “closed” world because of tentmaker ministry. But that strategy may take an eternity to bring about the vast witness that’s needed.
I applaud Western missions for resolving to employ strategies that will extend the kingdom in forbidding settings. We must redouble our efforts to pursue all Christ-honoring methods.
Still, one strategy that I’ve not seen developed in the West is that of willingness to suffer the loss of everything—of life itself, if need be—for the advance of the kingdom.
That’s why I find the Back to Jerusalem movement (www.backtojerusalem.com) so powerful. These Chinese believe they’re ready missionaries because they don’t need to invent a strategy—they’ve been living God’s strategy for two generations.
In the 1920s God first gave them the vision to carry the gospel westward to Jerusalem, but they didn’t feel ready. First God had to teach them to live out the gospel in hostile environments. Now they need only move out with burning hearts and do what they’re already doing —witness, suffer, pray, witness again, suffer again, pray even more, and ultimately see God’s kingdom spread miraculously. This, they believe, is their divinely mandated strategy. It’s phenomenally costly, but it works.
As a missiologist I’ve learned skepticism. I can think of a dozen ways this Back to Jerusalem vision can be hijacked. But if this is truly the mind and heart of the Lord of the Harvest, who can gainsay it?
For years I’ve felt that the gospel moves west. Last December in Israel, I walked the road to Emmaus on a starlit night. The Messianic believer with us asked us to look at the stars and point east. He explained that the Jews had an eastern orientation, probably because it’s where the sun rises. When they put up a tent or built a house, they always left an eastern opening, if not a door. From there they could welcome the morning sun. Thus, the word “orientation” literally means “where is east?”
When Jesus approached Jerusalem the day he paused and wept, he was looking west after spending the night in Bethany. A few days later he accompanied two disciples walking to Emmaus, west of Jerusalem. When the Lord wanted to take the gospel to Gentiles, he sent Peter west to Joppa. Years later Paul and his team intended to minister in the east, but the Spirit led them across the Sea of Bosporus to Europe.
As the gospel has mainly moved west throughout history, China is perfectly “oriented.” Jerusalem lies to its west, as do the major centers of cultures most resistant to Christ.
Who on earth is better equipped to win these people to Jesus than the tried-and-tested, committed house-church believers in China? I am prepared not only to watch this happen but to partner with them in prayer as they take their leap of faith for Christ. I believe that the Lord of the Harvest will enable them to do it.
Donald Jacobs served in Tanzania and Kenya for 20 years under Eastern Mennonite Missions.