December 2, 2024 • 31 mins
Is the church losing its global mission focus?
The number of overseas missionaries being sent out is down on ten years ago.
Church and mission leaders have encouraged Christians to respond to the need for mission locally, especially as church decline accelerates.
Yet there’s a growing concern that global mission involvement is being neglected in many local churches.
Sydney Missionary and Bible College Lecturer Tim Silberman has just completed a study on practices and perspectives on mission among evangelical churches in Australia.
Tim says for mission to prosper, churches need to have strong relationships with overseas mission partners, and this will help the gospel globally and our local mission work.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
it is the pastor's heart and dominic steel, and the
number of missionaries is down.
We asked the tough questiontoday have we lost focus on
global mission?
For mission to go forward,churches need to have strong
relationships with distantmission partners.
That will aid the gospelglobally and it will help our
local mission work.
There's a new survey out on 204churches on how we all think
(00:33):
about mission.
What is our responsibility, ourcapacity and what is the
opportunity that missionpresents?
Tim Silberman is lecturer incross-cultural mission at Sydney
Missionary and Bible College.
His PhD has just been published.
It's a fascinating expose onthe way churches work in regards
to mission, engaging neighboursand nations.
(00:56):
Tim, thanks for coming in.
Thank you.
I'm imagining if you've justlooked hard at what's going on
under the bonnet at 204 churches, there's going to be moments
that have really warmed yourpastor's heart and other moments
that you've gone and thought,oh, what are we doing?
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah, look, it's a mixed blessing, always looking
carefully at the church, isn'tit?
I mean, the church is abeautiful thing, the bride of
Christ, and we see God's peopledoing wonderful things by God's
grace, and so it has been agreat encouragement, but it's
not all good.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
All right, let's go right to the top.
What's really excited you?
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Yeah, look, I was able to following up from the
survey.
I was able to sit down withpeople in their churches and
hear their stories.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yeah, so you did, if you like, 204 quantitative
research surveys and then 10 orso 10 churches.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yeah, I dug deep into .
Speaker 1 (01:52):
And you spoke to senior leaders and church
members.
That's right.
Yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
So that was an opportunity to hear the stories
behind the numbers, I suppose,and that gave me a really good
insight to see the way that somechurches are just so engaged,
excited by the opportunitiesthat participating in mission in
their local communities and tothe ends of the earth presents,
and seeing that sort of becomepart of the culture, climate,
(02:20):
temperature of the church.
That's enormously encouragingto see them sending people out,
partnering well with them.
And then other churches, I meanI also saw wonderful churches
that were really highly engagedin their local community, which
is also wonderful, great fruitthat the gospel's bearing there,
but not always with that kindof global vision.
And so I was wrestling with whydo those differences exist?
(02:42):
And then there are somechurches that seem to be
struggling on all fronts andoften I think a real lack of
engagement with evangelism andglobal mission is actually
perhaps a sign that there aresome deeper issues going on.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
This number going down in the number of
missionaries?
What's going on there?
How big a drop is it?
Yeah, because that soundedconcerning to me and it was the
first time I'd heard it.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Right, yes, it's been a slow decline.
I wouldn't say it hasn't fallenoff the edge of a cliff, but I
think we see a slow trajectorydown, and we've been seeing,
over the past couple of decades,I think, sort of progressive
deterioration in churchattendance across the board, and
so that's.
(03:30):
I think one of the fruits ofthat is that you get fewer
people.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Less people going to theological college, less people
going to the mission field.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
I think also as a sign of it too, is I think we've
put a lot more energy andeffort into developing
structures and systems to helpmove people who are excited
about the gospel into ministrylocally, whether that be student
ministry, whether that bepastoral ministry, whether that
be ministry.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
within Australia, we have seen an explosion in the
number of people who are workingat the Australian Fellowship of
Evangelical Students, forexample.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Exactly yeah and praise the Lord for it.
But I can't help but suspectthat that's actually been
something of an exchange thatthere's been.
Some of those gospel-enthusedpeople are moving into
ministries within Australiarather than perhaps going
globally.
Now that's my read of the.
I haven't got hard data to kindof prove that's the cause of the
(04:22):
shift, but I think there aresome factors in terms of if you
create good pathways intoministry that naturally lead
into student ministry, naturallylead into pastoral ministry,
then I think you get more peoplefollowing those pathways, and I
don't think we have the samepathways that lead people into
global cross-cultural ministry.
And so a consequence of that isthat we just see fewer people
(04:44):
taking up that call.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
I suppose.
I suppose the people who arethe heroes in it are now
overseas and so they're nottaught.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
That's right.
That's right, and I thinkmodelling is a huge part of it,
isn't it into leading intoministry in all sorts of forms?
And so if you haven't got thatclear vision of what it looks
like to be engaging incross-cultural ministry, to
going into unengaged contexts,then it's hard to imagine
yourself doing that.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
So let's just think for a moment.
How do the evangelical churchesin our area vary in their
patterns of local and distantmission involvement?
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Well, there's the full gamut of examples.
I suppose we see some if wethink about what's the
difference between differentchurches.
I guess I was looking at whatare the ways that these churches
are engaging in evangelism totheir local communities, how are
they reaching out?
And we see a whole range ofdifferent ways that people are
doing that.
We see, you know, the wonderfulopportunities to investigate
(05:49):
Christianity.
You know exploring the gospelin groups, and we see people
engaging in those localevangelistic opportunities but,
to be honest, that's not thenorm.
I suppose Lots of churches arenot doing that very well.
That's not the norm.
I suppose Lots of churches arenot doing that very well.
We see some churches that aredoing well in terms of their
(06:11):
sending and global engagementand we see a group of churches
doing both really well and it'sgreat when you see those things
coming together.
As we've talked about before,that engagement in global
mission seems to have somethingof a stimulatory effect on our
local engagement.
So it's less common to seechurches that are really highly
(06:32):
engaged at a distance and not soengaged locally whereas it is
comparatively more common forchurches to have strong local
engagement, but with limitedglobal engagement.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
What's going on in regards to church sizes?
Can you say that biggerchurches are better and smaller
churches are less, or how doesthat work my data?
Speaker 2 (06:54):
seems to suggest there's a sweet spot, that, in
terms of local engagement, Ithink bigger is better.
I suppose there's a sense inwhich it….
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Really.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
I think to a certain extent it is.
It's just numbers, it's people,it's opportunity to engage,
although I mean to be honest,there aren't a lot of churches
that were included in my surveythat are kind of right.
You know over 1,000.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
And so it's a bit hard for me.
There aren't that many churcheslike that in Sydney Right and
so it's a bit hard for me.
There aren't that many churcheslike that in Sydney Right
exactly.
And I mean I know in theAnglican network we've gone from
21 over 400 to 11 over 400 inSydney in the last decade.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I think it's hard for me tomake really solid conclusions
about what's happening at thatkind of top end if I can call it
that, but I think you know ifyou've got a church of 400 or
500, you're likely to be doing alot, have a lot more activity
going on than if you've got achurch of 150.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
But you found actually something a little
surprising in terms of overseascommitment, I think.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Yeah, yeah.
So yeah, overseas commitment itseems that the sweet spot for
that is actually probably around200, 250.
Churches of that size seem tohave the greatest level of
engagement and I do think thatwhen churches get beyond that in
size I do wonder if they get alittle too much gravity.
If that makes sense, that kindof pulls attention in, focuses
it on the local ministries.
(08:17):
It's harder to lift your eyes.
Now that might be a little bitharsh, but I think that it does
seem that churches that getabove that tend to, from my
research, have less,proportionally less.
I suppose, if that makes sense,like for the numbers of people
engaged, they're not seeing moreand more engagement in global
(08:39):
mission.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
What about theological or missiological
differences?
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Yeah, that's interesting, I found, and so
really I needed the qualitativedata to be able to dig into that
and I found Not a lot, is theshort answer between the
different churches that I lookedat.
So, admittedly, those that Iwent and sat down with and
talked to about their approachto mission were showing high
levels of engagement in eitherlocal or global and local Right.
(09:09):
So they had a fairly hightemperature for mission, but in
terms of the way they thoughtabout the gospel, in terms of
the way they thought about thechurch and things like that,
there weren't big differences,but there were some significant
differences in terms of what Icall their missional beliefs.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Ah, differences on missional beliefs?
Yeah, give us those.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Yeah, so that was particularly around.
I mean, for me I put them underthe headings of kind of beliefs
about themselves, beliefs aboutGod and beliefs about the world
.
So under beliefs about theworld, it seems that churches
that had those really highlevels of global engagement they
had a greater appreciation, agreater sensitivity to their
(09:49):
role in God's global purposes.
They felt the responsibility ofseeing the gospel go to the
ends of the earth.
They had a.
I guess perhaps it came simplyfrom just more understanding of
what's happening outside ofAustralia.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
I mean, I can imagine that the smaller church is just
almost so busy surviving thatmaybe then is that right.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Well, it was wonderful to see even amongst
smaller churches there were somethat were really highly engaged
globally.
Now they weren't givingmillions of dollars away.
They're small but in terms ofthe temperature.
Their focus of emphasis, yeahright, in terms of prayer
communication, the way that itwas, the way they talked about
mission.
So they fell to these churchesthat had the missional belief of
(10:32):
a high responsibility formission, global mission, that
that was something that theysort of owned, that wasn't
dependent on size.
The second, so that's beliefabout the world.
The second one is sort ofbelief about themselves, and
that falls into the area of kindof what's my capacity, what can
I contribute?
(10:52):
And so in churches that seem tohave less engagement globally,
there was more of a tendency toemphasise the limitations of the
church's capacity.
So people were more oftensaying things like well,
resources are scarce, we have tobe careful, we have to think,
you know, very cautiously abouthow we're spending our resources
(11:14):
what we're doing with ourpeople.
There are huge needs here,because these are churches that
are highly engaged in localmission, and so they feel the
need to direct their resourcesthere.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
And every yes here is a no there.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Right.
So I talk about it in the bookas, I guess, a sort of a
theology of scarcity.
I don't know if that's toostrong a concept, but that idea
of resources are limited, weneed to be much more careful
Whereas churches that I saw hadthis more global engagement,
there was more a theology ofabundance.
There was, I remember, sittingdown with one chap who was chair
(11:49):
of the missions committee intheir church and this was a
church that had a long historyof engagement with global
mission, and I talked to himabout the process of how do they
decide which missionaries tosend and who to send, and he
said our approach is, if Godprovides the person and they
have the right gifting, then hewill provide the resources.
(12:09):
And they've seen God enablethem to be sending people out
and supporting them generously.
So there's kind of this, just abelief in God's abundant
provision for participation inhis global resource.
Now, that doesn't always meanmoney, and I think we do
naturally think about money, butit also means people.
It means time, attention, itmeans a willingness to engage
(12:32):
and pray and feel invested insomebody's relationship.
So that was the second oneunderstanding about themselves.
And then was the second oneunderstanding about themselves
and then also a shift in ourunderstanding about God.
There's been a lot of talkabout kind of our theology of
mission and those sorts ofthings, but in churches that had
this high global engagement,there was a greater the way that
(12:53):
people talked.
They much more often spokeabout God is doing things and we
have the privilege ofparticipating.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
We can ride that wave almost yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Exactly, that's right .
God's at work.
Let's get on board.
We're enjoying being a part ofwhat God's doing and so
participating in global ministryseemed more like an opportunity
than it did, a challenge thatneeded to be navigated or an
important thing that needed tobe done.
But we have important thingthat needed to be done, but we
have to be careful about how wedo that because of our limited
resources.
(13:22):
So, just in the way that peoplespoke and this is the joy of
qualitative data is that you getto just listen to the
conversation and hear what'skind of beneath people's
comments and you just hearpeople saying you know we get to
participate in what God's doing.
We're seeing God at work inthis part of the world.
We have our friend John andMary there and we're in the
(13:44):
ministry with them through oursupport and our prayers, and
what a privilege, what aprivilege it is to be part of
that ministry.
So they were the sort ofmissional beliefs that I noted a
difference in, that I noted adifference in so a belief about
responsibility for mission,about capacity for mission and
about the opportunity, I guess,to participate in mission.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
What about ecclesiology?
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Yeah, it was interesting in ecclesiology so
it's always good to try and diginto someone's understanding of
the church and what its purposeis, and I'd have to say that,
broadly speaking, there weren'tbig differences amongst the
churches that I looked at.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
I mean, even though you did Anglican Presbyterian
Baptist, yeah, Right, yeah, so Ihad lots of I was expecting
bigger differences.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
I was too to be honest, and it was I mean.
Obviously they have differentforms of governance.
They have different beliefsabout the sacraments and things
like that, which you know wasn'ta key part of my concern, but
in terms of understanding, Iguess, the purpose of the church
, I was also a little bitsurprised in your research that
you basically said that theyweren't really paying too much
attention to theirdenominational allegiances.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
No, that's right.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Now that may be a particular feature of the neck
of the woods that we live inhere.
We do sometimes have a bit of apost-denominational flavour.
The way that I guessdenominational differences were
most evident was really who didthey partner with?
Who were there?
Which organisations, whichparachurches?
Speaker 1 (15:06):
So that was still clearly in place.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Yeah, yeah, that's right, and so that's where you
see the denominational influence.
But in terms of the way theytalked about, why does the
church exist?
What are we here to do?
What is the gospel?
How does the gospel relate towho we are as God's people?
And particularly, I guess a keylens that I used was what are
the metaphors that people use todescribe the church?
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Yeah, yeah, well, give us those yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So there's, you know, the mostcommon one is obviously with the
body of Christ.
And again, I'm not asking youknow, how do you describe?
The church, I'm just listeningto the language that they're
using.
So body of Christ is kind ofthat, and the parts of the body
and the body.
You know that key edificationpiece, I suppose in terms of
(15:50):
understanding why the churchexists.
That was consistent amongstthem all, and then all of the
other metaphors that wereemployed by people had a sort of
missions dimension to them.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
You've got church family as well, though.
Oh, yes, right, right, that'sright.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
So that relationship together there, that's true.
So building up one another andinvesting in each other, yeah,
but yeah, a lot of the otherones you know the light was kind
of a key part of it that wasshining a light.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
I mean that we have a big church now in Australia
City on a Hill with the key name.
We're about shining a light,yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right, that's right.
So that's a key part of it.
Yeah, to be honest, I'mstretching my mind to think of
what the other ones wereLifeboat, oh.
But to be honest, I'mstretching my mind to think of
what the other ones wereLifeboat, oh.
Thank you, yes, yeah, yeah.
So that's an interesting onebecause, again, very much
focused on that kind ofmissional image, that kind of
we're in the midst of, and itwas fun actually to sort of dig
(16:49):
into the history of where doesthis language come from?
Speaker 1 (16:51):
I heard it from Andrew Heard, but you quoted DL
Moody, right, that's where itseems to have actually had its
birth from.
Tell us that story.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
I mean DL Moody had a great evangelist.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Actually some people listening won't even know who
Andrew Heard or DL Moody areRight.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
I mean DL Moody, I mean Andrew Heard.
Well, you can look at otherPastors Hearts episodes if you
want to know who he is.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
He's been a regular guest.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
yeah, yeah evangelist and preacher and, you know, led
to the Moody Bible Institute,of course, in the US, but had a
real focus on proclaiming thegospel and seeing people want in
and so he spoke about thechurch is.
You know, we are in a sea oflost people and so we as the
church have a responsibility topull people in so that they
(17:34):
might be saved.
It's a beautiful image.
I don't think he was taking itfrom Scripture explicitly, if
that makes sense.
It's not.
I mean there's all sorts ofchurch.
As you look back through churchhistory you see all sorts of
ways that the church has beenthought of as a boat.
In fact, even the shape oftraditional churches was
reflected on the shape of a boat.
(17:55):
But I think DL Moody was reallyjust seeing the needs of the
people around him and saying weneed to reach people in Now.
As wonderful as that image is,and as much as it reflects a
real heart for the gospel and aheart for the lost, it does have
limited reach, if that makessense.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
It's not really in the Bible.
No, it's not really that'sright.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah, yeah, it's something that.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
But it does have power emotionally.
I mean that I'm about trying torescue people in our district
you know and get as many peopleas possible and we want you to
be involved in this that isgreat.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
But you talked about it having a limitation, because
it tends to focus my attentionon the immediate neighbourhood
rather than, as a metaphor,giving me making disciples in
all the world.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Right, yes, that's right, that's right.
So, as a metaphor, everymetaphor has its limitations,
right, and I think for that oneit's a case of.
It does emphasise the needs ofthe lost, but there's a sense in
which a lifeboat can only reachthose who are in the waters
immediately around it.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Rather than having that global vision, I suppose
that are picked up in some ofthe other language and imagery
that people use around thechurch.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
One of the lines you helped me think through is
actually, sometimes our church'smissional emphasis isn't
actually due to a theologicalconviction or any of those
things.
It's actually just due towhat's relationally become
available.
Do you want to speak to that?
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Absolutely.
I think that's probably, and Imean my research was I guess
you'd say it was social researchright, I was looking at what
are the human levers that God isusing to bring about his
purposes, and I was trying toattend to their theology.
But what I saw was the power ofthese kind of social influences
(19:50):
in shaping the way that peopleactually engage and that people
often tend to follow in thefootsteps of those models that
they see around them and engagein the relationships that they
have access to, and thatnaturally kind of shapes the way
that they engage in the world.
So I mean, I say it all thetime at Sydney Missionary Bible
(20:11):
College, where I teach, we havelots of people come and who are
passionate about global missionand then, as I see them head out
, it's like what are the thingsthat motivate them?
Well, often it's aboutrelational links that they've
formed with different peoplethat provide the natural you
know opportunities to go forward.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Now, that's not always the case.
Whatever the strategic reasonmight be to go there, I've got a
friend who's over there, rightright right Now, praise the Lord
.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
There are some people that are happy to throw that
aside, but sometimes they haveconnections with those models
who have gone to the most needystrategic places, whatever, and
that's been key influence.
But I think, as learning beingsas we are, as humans, we are
very drawn to the concreterather than the abstract, and so
(20:57):
, while we'll have a convictionabout the needs of the lost, the
needs for the gospel to go out,the needs to see churches
planted in every community, whenwe see that in concrete forms,
when we see people doing that,then that's what helps us to go.
I can do that, I want to be apart of that.
That excites me or I see anopportunity there that I have
(21:19):
the capacity to participate in,and that happens at the local
end as much as it does peopleheading out.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
I want to drill into this chapter of yours
participatory, delegatory andbifurcated mission.
What did you mean by that?
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Look, one of the things that you have to do when
you write a PhD is you have toCome up with some new terms.
So what I was trying to.
So there are categories that Ideveloped that I saw coming out
of the data.
Really, I was trying to explainthese different approaches to
(21:58):
engaging locally and engaging ata distance.
So I basically saw this matrixof churches, that there are
churches who show differentlevels of participation in their
local mission.
So they're low levels ofparticipation or rather than low
levels.
What I saw more often was thatthey're kind of like local
mission's important, but someoneelse can do it, so they've got
(22:20):
a delegating it to others.
So it's like local mission isreally important.
We're going to delegate it tothe SRE teachers in our schools.
We're going to delegate it tothe people doing prison ministry
.
We're going to delegate it toMission Australia or to
Anglicare or to an organisationout there, whereas other
churches are much more like.
This is something that we'reengaged in, we're participating,
we own it.
It's something that we'reengaged in, we're participating,
(22:41):
we own it.
It's something that we're doing, even if we're doing it through
our partners.
It's our mission and so thatdynamic works, both in their
local engagement and in theirglobal engagement.
Is it something that we'redoing, it, or is it something
that we're kind of delegating tosomeone else to do?
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Did you feel like the different mission organisations
had different cultures on thatissue?
Speaker 2 (23:04):
On that issue?
Speaker 1 (23:05):
yes, because I do, I mean one of the missionary
organisations we engage in.
Their people are always talkingto us about you own us you know
, and the other one, it feelsmuch more like they own them,
you know, and we're just kind ofalong for the ride, definitely.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I mean that's interesting if
you look into the history ofkind of mission organisations
over the last century.
So this is, you know, somethingthat we've seen is the way that
mission organisations a lot ofthem kind of came out of
frustration with the church notparticipating, not sending
people out.
They sort of became independententities.
Especially after the SecondWorld War, we saw this
(23:50):
proliferation of missionorganisations that were sort of
like well, the church isn'tdoing it, so we better.
But as we got into the 1980s,particularly into the 1990s, we
actually saw a shift in the waymission organisations were
thinking about it and realizingactually, we do have, we have to
acknowledge, no, we have tohonor the role that local
(24:10):
churches have, and so missionagencies started talking about
themselves as agencies ratherthan organizations where an
organization will take you inand use you to do something.
An agency will help you to dosomething.
They'll be your agent.
So a mission agency is kind ofan agent to the church to help
them do mission.
So there's churches sorry,mission organizations are
(24:33):
different places along thatspectrum.
Some of them are much more likeyou give us your people and
send some money and prayoccasionally and we'll make sure
they are fully implemented.
And others are much more likewe want you to do it and we'll
help you do it as much as we can.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
How has this research changed what you teach at the
Theological College and what doyou hope this research that
you've done will change what Ido?
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Yeah, it's changed what I teach in a number of
different ways.
I think it's given me a greaterappreciation of, I think, some
of the blind spots that peoplemight pick up from their
churches, and so there's more.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Keep going.
What are the blind spots?
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Well, I think some of those things I was talking
about before in terms ofcapacity, in terms of our
responsibility in terms of theopportunity that participation
in mission provides so.
So there's um, there's a sensein which we want I want to help,
I want to address some of thosehead-on.
When students come in, kind oflike you're coming from
different churches that havedifferent cultures and views
about this, let's explore theseideas and I feel like I have a
(25:42):
much clearer idea of where Ineed to be focusing the arrow.
I guess, as we explore that, aswe dig into the scriptures and
think about it theologically andunderstand who we are and who
the church is and what our roleis in the world.
But on the more practical side,it's really helped me to see
that the emphasis is much moreon building strong relational
(26:04):
networks rather than buildingstrong processes and policies.
Now, that's part of it.
You can't neglect that.
And certainly I found somereally interesting things in
terms of what helps a church toengage.
But I'm telling my students atSMBC, if you're going to be in
church ministry, then you alwaysneed to be thinking how am I
(26:26):
connecting my church to peoplewho are participating in God's
mission beyond my localcommunity?
Because I think it gives abigger vision for what God's
doing and also a piece I wroterecently for the SMBC blog looks
at really that these missionpartners are a resource for the
church, that they have expertiseand insights and they can teach
(26:48):
us about contextualisation,about communicating the gospel,
about how to see churchesflourish and multiply.
So let's engage with them.
Let them inspire and equip andstrengthen our church as much as
we support and partner withthem.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
I forgot.
I didn't ask you the wordmission.
What's the history of that wordWow?
Speaker 2 (27:10):
yeah, that's a big question.
Look, the word mission comesfrom Latin.
Missio was essentially.
It literally means to send.
It's really the we've turned itinto an English word, but it's
actually the word apostleapostolic, so to send in the
Greek, and so we've applied itto all sorts of things.
(27:32):
Originally it was only appliedto the sending of the sun and
the spirit.
That's where Missio was firsttalked about in that.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Trinitarian concept.
Really that?
John 14, 26?
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Right, yeah yeah, when the theologians were
reflecting on that, they usedthis Missio language but then as
particularly with the Jesuitsand those sorts of things
started using it.
Now there's some people who arevery unhappy with the language
of mission because they feellike it has too much colonial
baggage.
There's a book recently calledTranscending Mission that we
(28:02):
shouldn't use the language atall.
But essentially, the way Iunderstand it is, it's a
reflection of God's desire tosee all peoples exposed to the
good news of the gospel, to haveopportunity to respond to that
and to align their lives with it.
So if we're participating inmission, we can do that in our
local community.
There are lots of people herewho haven't had significant
(28:24):
exposure, but I also have a firmconviction that when we look at
the world as a whole, there'smuch greater need in other parts
of the world.
It was interesting at theLausanne Congress recently,
which I know you had aconversation about, but they
talk there about the fact thatif every single Christian spoke
to everyone that they know aboutthe gospel, there'd still be 3
(28:44):
billion people in the world whowouldn't hear the gospel.
There's a sense in which thechurch has limited reach in many
parts of the world, and so ifwe're serious about seeing the
gospel go to all peoples, thenwe have to keep attending to the
fact that gospel resources arenot equally distributed around
the world, and we do have aresponsibility, I believe, to be
(29:05):
doing what we can to see itreach those less engaged, less
reached people.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
There's more to talk about.
We'll look forward to gettingyou back, sure, but Tim
Silberman has been my guest.
He's a lecturer incross-cultural mission at Sydney
Missionary and Bible Collegeand he's just finished his PhD
Engaging Neighbours and Nationsa fascinating expose on the way
churches work in regards tomission.
(29:31):
My name is Dominic Steele.
You've been with us on thePastor's Art and we'll look
forward to your company nextTuesday afternoon.
it is the pastor's heart and dominic steel, and the
number of missionaries is down.
We asked the tough questiontoday have we lost focus on
global mission?
For mission to go forward,churches need to have strong
relationships with distantmission partners.
That will aid the gospelglobally and it will help our
local mission work.
There's a new survey out on 204churches on how we all think
(00:33):
about mission.
What is our responsibility, ourcapacity and what is the
opportunity that missionpresents?
Tim Silberman is lecturer incross-cultural mission at Sydney
Missionary and Bible College.
His PhD has just been published.
It's a fascinating expose onthe way churches work in regards
to mission, engaging neighboursand nations.
(00:56):
Tim, thanks for coming in.
Thank you.
I'm imagining if you've justlooked hard at what's going on
under the bonnet at 204 churches, there's going to be moments
that have really warmed yourpastor's heart and other moments
that you've gone and thought,oh, what are we doing?
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah, look, it's a mixed blessing, always looking
carefully at the church, isn'tit?
I mean, the church is abeautiful thing, the bride of
Christ, and we see God's peopledoing wonderful things by God's
grace, and so it has been agreat encouragement, but it's
not all good.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
All right, let's go right to the top.
What's really excited you?
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Yeah, look, I was able to following up from the
survey.
I was able to sit down withpeople in their churches and
hear their stories.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Yeah, so you did, if you like, 204 quantitative
research surveys and then 10 orso 10 churches.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yeah, I dug deep into .
Speaker 1 (01:52):
And you spoke to senior leaders and church
members.
That's right.
Yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
So that was an opportunity to hear the stories
behind the numbers, I suppose,and that gave me a really good
insight to see the way that somechurches are just so engaged,
excited by the opportunitiesthat participating in mission in
their local communities and tothe ends of the earth presents,
and seeing that sort of becomepart of the culture, climate,
(02:20):
temperature of the church.
That's enormously encouragingto see them sending people out,
partnering well with them.
And then other churches, I meanI also saw wonderful churches
that were really highly engagedin their local community, which
is also wonderful, great fruitthat the gospel's bearing there,
but not always with that kindof global vision.
And so I was wrestling with whydo those differences exist?
(02:42):
And then there are somechurches that seem to be
struggling on all fronts andoften I think a real lack of
engagement with evangelism andglobal mission is actually
perhaps a sign that there aresome deeper issues going on.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
This number going down in the number of
missionaries?
What's going on there?
How big a drop is it?
Yeah, because that soundedconcerning to me and it was the
first time I'd heard it.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Right, yes, it's been a slow decline.
I wouldn't say it hasn't fallenoff the edge of a cliff, but I
think we see a slow trajectorydown, and we've been seeing,
over the past couple of decades,I think, sort of progressive
deterioration in churchattendance across the board, and
so that's.
(03:30):
I think one of the fruits ofthat is that you get fewer
people.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Less people going to theological college, less people
going to the mission field.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
I think also as a sign of it too, is I think we've
put a lot more energy andeffort into developing
structures and systems to helpmove people who are excited
about the gospel into ministrylocally, whether that be student
ministry, whether that bepastoral ministry, whether that
be ministry.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
within Australia, we have seen an explosion in the
number of people who are workingat the Australian Fellowship of
Evangelical Students, forexample.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Exactly yeah and praise the Lord for it.
But I can't help but suspectthat that's actually been
something of an exchange thatthere's been.
Some of those gospel-enthusedpeople are moving into
ministries within Australiarather than perhaps going
globally.
Now that's my read of the.
I haven't got hard data to kindof prove that's the cause of the
(04:22):
shift, but I think there aresome factors in terms of if you
create good pathways intoministry that naturally lead
into student ministry, naturallylead into pastoral ministry,
then I think you get more peoplefollowing those pathways, and I
don't think we have the samepathways that lead people into
global cross-cultural ministry.
And so a consequence of that isthat we just see fewer people
(04:44):
taking up that call.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
I suppose.
I suppose the people who arethe heroes in it are now
overseas and so they're nottaught.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
That's right.
That's right, and I thinkmodelling is a huge part of it,
isn't it into leading intoministry in all sorts of forms?
And so if you haven't got thatclear vision of what it looks
like to be engaging incross-cultural ministry, to
going into unengaged contexts,then it's hard to imagine
yourself doing that.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
So let's just think for a moment.
How do the evangelical churchesin our area vary in their
patterns of local and distantmission involvement?
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Well, there's the full gamut of examples.
I suppose we see some if wethink about what's the
difference between differentchurches.
I guess I was looking at whatare the ways that these churches
are engaging in evangelism totheir local communities, how are
they reaching out?
And we see a whole range ofdifferent ways that people are
doing that.
We see, you know, the wonderfulopportunities to investigate
(05:49):
Christianity.
You know exploring the gospelin groups, and we see people
engaging in those localevangelistic opportunities but,
to be honest, that's not thenorm.
I suppose Lots of churches arenot doing that very well.
That's not the norm.
I suppose Lots of churches arenot doing that very well.
We see some churches that aredoing well in terms of their
(06:11):
sending and global engagementand we see a group of churches
doing both really well and it'sgreat when you see those things
coming together.
As we've talked about before,that engagement in global
mission seems to have somethingof a stimulatory effect on our
local engagement.
So it's less common to seechurches that are really highly
(06:32):
engaged at a distance and not soengaged locally whereas it is
comparatively more common forchurches to have strong local
engagement, but with limitedglobal engagement.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
What's going on in regards to church sizes?
Can you say that biggerchurches are better and smaller
churches are less, or how doesthat work my data?
Speaker 2 (06:54):
seems to suggest there's a sweet spot, that, in
terms of local engagement, Ithink bigger is better.
I suppose there's a sense inwhich it….
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Really.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
I think to a certain extent it is.
It's just numbers, it's people,it's opportunity to engage,
although I mean to be honest,there aren't a lot of churches
that were included in my surveythat are kind of right.
You know over 1,000.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
And so it's a bit hard for me.
There aren't that many churcheslike that in Sydney Right and
so it's a bit hard for me.
There aren't that many churcheslike that in Sydney Right
exactly.
And I mean I know in theAnglican network we've gone from
21 over 400 to 11 over 400 inSydney in the last decade.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I think it's hard for me tomake really solid conclusions
about what's happening at thatkind of top end if I can call it
that, but I think you know ifyou've got a church of 400 or
500, you're likely to be doing alot, have a lot more activity
going on than if you've got achurch of 150.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
But you found actually something a little
surprising in terms of overseascommitment, I think.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Yeah, yeah.
So yeah, overseas commitment itseems that the sweet spot for
that is actually probably around200, 250.
Churches of that size seem tohave the greatest level of
engagement and I do think thatwhen churches get beyond that in
size I do wonder if they get alittle too much gravity.
If that makes sense, that kindof pulls attention in, focuses
it on the local ministries.
(08:17):
It's harder to lift your eyes.
Now that might be a little bitharsh, but I think that it does
seem that churches that getabove that tend to, from my
research, have less,proportionally less.
I suppose, if that makes sense,like for the numbers of people
engaged, they're not seeing moreand more engagement in global
(08:39):
mission.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
What about theological or missiological
differences?
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Yeah, that's interesting, I found, and so
really I needed the qualitativedata to be able to dig into that
and I found Not a lot, is theshort answer between the
different churches that I lookedat.
So, admittedly, those that Iwent and sat down with and
talked to about their approachto mission were showing high
levels of engagement in eitherlocal or global and local Right.
(09:09):
So they had a fairly hightemperature for mission, but in
terms of the way they thoughtabout the gospel, in terms of
the way they thought about thechurch and things like that,
there weren't big differences,but there were some significant
differences in terms of what Icall their missional beliefs.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Ah, differences on missional beliefs?
Yeah, give us those.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Yeah, so that was particularly around.
I mean, for me I put them underthe headings of kind of beliefs
about themselves, beliefs aboutGod and beliefs about the world
.
So under beliefs about theworld, it seems that churches
that had those really highlevels of global engagement they
had a greater appreciation, agreater sensitivity to their
(09:49):
role in God's global purposes.
They felt the responsibility ofseeing the gospel go to the
ends of the earth.
They had a.
I guess perhaps it came simplyfrom just more understanding of
what's happening outside ofAustralia.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
I mean, I can imagine that the smaller church is just
almost so busy surviving thatmaybe then is that right.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Well, it was wonderful to see even amongst
smaller churches there were somethat were really highly engaged
globally.
Now they weren't givingmillions of dollars away.
They're small but in terms ofthe temperature.
Their focus of emphasis, yeahright, in terms of prayer
communication, the way that itwas, the way they talked about
mission.
So they fell to these churchesthat had the missional belief of
(10:32):
a high responsibility formission, global mission, that
that was something that theysort of owned, that wasn't
dependent on size.
The second, so that's beliefabout the world.
The second one is sort ofbelief about themselves, and
that falls into the area of kindof what's my capacity, what can
I contribute?
(10:52):
And so in churches that seem tohave less engagement globally,
there was more of a tendency toemphasise the limitations of the
church's capacity.
So people were more oftensaying things like well,
resources are scarce, we have tobe careful, we have to think,
you know, very cautiously abouthow we're spending our resources
(11:14):
what we're doing with ourpeople.
There are huge needs here,because these are churches that
are highly engaged in localmission, and so they feel the
need to direct their resourcesthere.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
And every yes here is a no there.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Right.
So I talk about it in the bookas, I guess, a sort of a
theology of scarcity.
I don't know if that's toostrong a concept, but that idea
of resources are limited, weneed to be much more careful
Whereas churches that I saw hadthis more global engagement,
there was more a theology ofabundance.
There was, I remember, sittingdown with one chap who was chair
(11:49):
of the missions committee intheir church and this was a
church that had a long historyof engagement with global
mission, and I talked to himabout the process of how do they
decide which missionaries tosend and who to send, and he
said our approach is, if Godprovides the person and they
have the right gifting, then hewill provide the resources.
(12:09):
And they've seen God enablethem to be sending people out
and supporting them generously.
So there's kind of this, just abelief in God's abundant
provision for participation inhis global resource.
Now, that doesn't always meanmoney, and I think we do
naturally think about money, butit also means people.
It means time, attention, itmeans a willingness to engage
(12:32):
and pray and feel invested insomebody's relationship.
So that was the second oneunderstanding about themselves.
And then was the second oneunderstanding about themselves
and then also a shift in ourunderstanding about God.
There's been a lot of talkabout kind of our theology of
mission and those sorts ofthings, but in churches that had
this high global engagement,there was a greater the way that
(12:53):
people talked.
They much more often spokeabout God is doing things and we
have the privilege ofparticipating.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
We can ride that wave almost yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Exactly, that's right .
God's at work.
Let's get on board.
We're enjoying being a part ofwhat God's doing and so
participating in global ministryseemed more like an opportunity
than it did, a challenge thatneeded to be navigated or an
important thing that needed tobe done.
But we have important thingthat needed to be done, but we
have to be careful about how wedo that because of our limited
resources.
(13:22):
So, just in the way that peoplespoke and this is the joy of
qualitative data is that you getto just listen to the
conversation and hear what'skind of beneath people's
comments and you just hearpeople saying you know we get to
participate in what God's doing.
We're seeing God at work inthis part of the world.
We have our friend John andMary there and we're in the
(13:44):
ministry with them through oursupport and our prayers, and
what a privilege, what aprivilege it is to be part of
that ministry.
So they were the sort ofmissional beliefs that I noted a
difference in, that I noted adifference in so a belief about
responsibility for mission,about capacity for mission and
about the opportunity, I guess,to participate in mission.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
What about ecclesiology?
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Yeah, it was interesting in ecclesiology so
it's always good to try and diginto someone's understanding of
the church and what its purposeis, and I'd have to say that,
broadly speaking, there weren'tbig differences amongst the
churches that I looked at.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
I mean, even though you did Anglican Presbyterian
Baptist, yeah, Right, yeah, so Ihad lots of I was expecting
bigger differences.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
I was too to be honest, and it was I mean.
Obviously they have differentforms of governance.
They have different beliefsabout the sacraments and things
like that, which you know wasn'ta key part of my concern, but
in terms of understanding, Iguess, the purpose of the church
, I was also a little bitsurprised in your research that
you basically said that theyweren't really paying too much
attention to theirdenominational allegiances.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
No, that's right.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
Now that may be a particular feature of the neck
of the woods that we live inhere.
We do sometimes have a bit of apost-denominational flavour.
The way that I guessdenominational differences were
most evident was really who didthey partner with?
Who were there?
Which organisations, whichparachurches?
Speaker 1 (15:06):
So that was still clearly in place.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Yeah, yeah, that's right, and so that's where you
see the denominational influence.
But in terms of the way theytalked about, why does the
church exist?
What are we here to do?
What is the gospel?
How does the gospel relate towho we are as God's people?
And particularly, I guess a keylens that I used was what are
the metaphors that people use todescribe the church?
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Yeah, yeah, well, give us those yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So there's, you know, the mostcommon one is obviously with the
body of Christ.
And again, I'm not asking youknow, how do you describe?
The church, I'm just listeningto the language that they're
using.
So body of Christ is kind ofthat, and the parts of the body
and the body.
You know that key edificationpiece, I suppose in terms of
(15:50):
understanding why the churchexists.
That was consistent amongstthem all, and then all of the
other metaphors that wereemployed by people had a sort of
missions dimension to them.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
You've got church family as well, though.
Oh, yes, right, right, that'sright.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
So that relationship together there, that's true.
So building up one another andinvesting in each other, yeah,
but yeah, a lot of the otherones you know the light was kind
of a key part of it that wasshining a light.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
I mean that we have a big church now in Australia
City on a Hill with the key name.
We're about shining a light,yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right, that's right.
So that's a key part of it.
Yeah, to be honest, I'mstretching my mind to think of
what the other ones wereLifeboat, oh.
But to be honest, I'mstretching my mind to think of
what the other ones wereLifeboat, oh.
Thank you, yes, yeah, yeah.
So that's an interesting onebecause, again, very much
focused on that kind ofmissional image, that kind of
we're in the midst of, and itwas fun actually to sort of dig
(16:49):
into the history of where doesthis language come from?
Speaker 1 (16:51):
I heard it from Andrew Heard, but you quoted DL
Moody, right, that's where itseems to have actually had its
birth from.
Tell us that story.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
I mean DL Moody had a great evangelist.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Actually some people listening won't even know who
Andrew Heard or DL Moody areRight.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
I mean DL Moody, I mean Andrew Heard.
Well, you can look at otherPastors Hearts episodes if you
want to know who he is.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
He's been a regular guest.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
yeah, yeah evangelist and preacher and, you know, led
to the Moody Bible Institute,of course, in the US, but had a
real focus on proclaiming thegospel and seeing people want in
and so he spoke about thechurch is.
You know, we are in a sea oflost people and so we as the
church have a responsibility topull people in so that they
(17:34):
might be saved.
It's a beautiful image.
I don't think he was taking itfrom Scripture explicitly, if
that makes sense.
It's not.
I mean there's all sorts ofchurch.
As you look back through churchhistory you see all sorts of
ways that the church has beenthought of as a boat.
In fact, even the shape oftraditional churches was
reflected on the shape of a boat.
(17:55):
But I think DL Moody was reallyjust seeing the needs of the
people around him and saying weneed to reach people in Now.
As wonderful as that image is,and as much as it reflects a
real heart for the gospel and aheart for the lost, it does have
limited reach, if that makessense.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
It's not really in the Bible.
No, it's not really that'sright.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah, yeah, it's something that.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
But it does have power emotionally.
I mean that I'm about trying torescue people in our district
you know and get as many peopleas possible and we want you to
be involved in this that isgreat.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
But you talked about it having a limitation, because
it tends to focus my attentionon the immediate neighbourhood
rather than, as a metaphor,giving me making disciples in
all the world.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Right, yes, that's right, that's right.
So, as a metaphor, everymetaphor has its limitations,
right, and I think for that oneit's a case of.
It does emphasise the needs ofthe lost, but there's a sense in
which a lifeboat can only reachthose who are in the waters
immediately around it.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Rather than having that global vision, I suppose
that are picked up in some ofthe other language and imagery
that people use around thechurch.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
One of the lines you helped me think through is
actually, sometimes our church'smissional emphasis isn't
actually due to a theologicalconviction or any of those
things.
It's actually just due towhat's relationally become
available.
Do you want to speak to that?
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Absolutely.
I think that's probably, and Imean my research was I guess
you'd say it was social researchright, I was looking at what
are the human levers that God isusing to bring about his
purposes, and I was trying toattend to their theology.
But what I saw was the power ofthese kind of social influences
(19:50):
in shaping the way that peopleactually engage and that people
often tend to follow in thefootsteps of those models that
they see around them and engagein the relationships that they
have access to, and thatnaturally kind of shapes the way
that they engage in the world.
So I mean, I say it all thetime at Sydney Missionary Bible
(20:11):
College, where I teach, we havelots of people come and who are
passionate about global missionand then, as I see them head out
, it's like what are the thingsthat motivate them?
Well, often it's aboutrelational links that they've
formed with different peoplethat provide the natural you
know opportunities to go forward.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Now, that's not always the case.
Whatever the strategic reasonmight be to go there, I've got a
friend who's over there, rightright right Now, praise the Lord
.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
There are some people that are happy to throw that
aside, but sometimes they haveconnections with those models
who have gone to the most needystrategic places, whatever, and
that's been key influence.
But I think, as learning beingsas we are, as humans, we are
very drawn to the concreterather than the abstract, and so
(20:57):
, while we'll have a convictionabout the needs of the lost, the
needs for the gospel to go out,the needs to see churches
planted in every community, whenwe see that in concrete forms,
when we see people doing that,then that's what helps us to go.
I can do that, I want to be apart of that.
That excites me or I see anopportunity there that I have
(21:19):
the capacity to participate in,and that happens at the local
end as much as it does peopleheading out.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
I want to drill into this chapter of yours
participatory, delegatory andbifurcated mission.
What did you mean by that?
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Look, one of the things that you have to do when
you write a PhD is you have toCome up with some new terms.
So what I was trying to.
So there are categories that Ideveloped that I saw coming out
of the data.
Really, I was trying to explainthese different approaches to
(21:58):
engaging locally and engaging ata distance.
So I basically saw this matrixof churches, that there are
churches who show differentlevels of participation in their
local mission.
So they're low levels ofparticipation or rather than low
levels.
What I saw more often was thatthey're kind of like local
mission's important, but someoneelse can do it, so they've got
(22:20):
a delegating it to others.
So it's like local mission isreally important.
We're going to delegate it tothe SRE teachers in our schools.
We're going to delegate it tothe people doing prison ministry
.
We're going to delegate it toMission Australia or to
Anglicare or to an organisationout there, whereas other
churches are much more like.
This is something that we'reengaged in, we're participating,
we own it.
It's something that we'reengaged in, we're participating,
(22:41):
we own it.
It's something that we're doing, even if we're doing it through
our partners.
It's our mission and so thatdynamic works, both in their
local engagement and in theirglobal engagement.
Is it something that we'redoing, it, or is it something
that we're kind of delegating tosomeone else to do?
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Did you feel like the different mission organisations
had different cultures on thatissue?
Speaker 2 (23:04):
On that issue?
Speaker 1 (23:05):
yes, because I do, I mean one of the missionary
organisations we engage in.
Their people are always talkingto us about you own us you know
, and the other one, it feelsmuch more like they own them,
you know, and we're just kind ofalong for the ride, definitely.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I mean that's interesting if
you look into the history ofkind of mission organisations
over the last century.
So this is, you know, somethingthat we've seen is the way that
mission organisations a lot ofthem kind of came out of
frustration with the church notparticipating, not sending
people out.
They sort of became independententities.
Especially after the SecondWorld War, we saw this
(23:50):
proliferation of missionorganisations that were sort of
like well, the church isn'tdoing it, so we better.
But as we got into the 1980s,particularly into the 1990s, we
actually saw a shift in the waymission organisations were
thinking about it and realizingactually, we do have, we have to
acknowledge, no, we have tohonor the role that local
(24:10):
churches have, and so missionagencies started talking about
themselves as agencies ratherthan organizations where an
organization will take you inand use you to do something.
An agency will help you to dosomething.
They'll be your agent.
So a mission agency is kind ofan agent to the church to help
them do mission.
So there's churches sorry,mission organizations are
(24:33):
different places along thatspectrum.
Some of them are much more likeyou give us your people and
send some money and prayoccasionally and we'll make sure
they are fully implemented.
And others are much more likewe want you to do it and we'll
help you do it as much as we can.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
How has this research changed what you teach at the
Theological College and what doyou hope this research that
you've done will change what Ido?
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Yeah, it's changed what I teach in a number of
different ways.
I think it's given me a greaterappreciation of, I think, some
of the blind spots that peoplemight pick up from their
churches, and so there's more.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Keep going.
What are the blind spots?
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Well, I think some of those things I was talking
about before in terms ofcapacity, in terms of our
responsibility in terms of theopportunity that participation
in mission provides so.
So there's um, there's a sensein which we want I want to help,
I want to address some of thosehead-on.
When students come in, kind oflike you're coming from
different churches that havedifferent cultures and views
about this, let's explore theseideas and I feel like I have a
(25:42):
much clearer idea of where Ineed to be focusing the arrow.
I guess, as we explore that, aswe dig into the scriptures and
think about it theologically andunderstand who we are and who
the church is and what our roleis in the world.
But on the more practical side,it's really helped me to see
that the emphasis is much moreon building strong relational
(26:04):
networks rather than buildingstrong processes and policies.
Now, that's part of it.
You can't neglect that.
And certainly I found somereally interesting things in
terms of what helps a church toengage.
But I'm telling my students atSMBC, if you're going to be in
church ministry, then you alwaysneed to be thinking how am I
(26:26):
connecting my church to peoplewho are participating in God's
mission beyond my localcommunity?
Because I think it gives abigger vision for what God's
doing and also a piece I wroterecently for the SMBC blog looks
at really that these missionpartners are a resource for the
church, that they have expertiseand insights and they can teach
(26:48):
us about contextualisation,about communicating the gospel,
about how to see churchesflourish and multiply.
So let's engage with them.
Let them inspire and equip andstrengthen our church as much as
we support and partner withthem.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
I forgot.
I didn't ask you the wordmission.
What's the history of that wordWow?
Speaker 2 (27:10):
yeah, that's a big question.
Look, the word mission comesfrom Latin.
Missio was essentially.
It literally means to send.
It's really the we've turned itinto an English word, but it's
actually the word apostleapostolic, so to send in the
Greek, and so we've applied itto all sorts of things.
(27:32):
Originally it was only appliedto the sending of the sun and
the spirit.
That's where Missio was firsttalked about in that.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Trinitarian concept.
Really that?
John 14, 26?
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Right, yeah yeah, when the theologians were
reflecting on that, they usedthis Missio language but then as
particularly with the Jesuitsand those sorts of things
started using it.
Now there's some people who arevery unhappy with the language
of mission because they feellike it has too much colonial
baggage.
There's a book recently calledTranscending Mission that we
(28:02):
shouldn't use the language atall.
But essentially, the way Iunderstand it is, it's a
reflection of God's desire tosee all peoples exposed to the
good news of the gospel, to haveopportunity to respond to that
and to align their lives with it.
So if we're participating inmission, we can do that in our
local community.
There are lots of people herewho haven't had significant
(28:24):
exposure, but I also have a firmconviction that when we look at
the world as a whole, there'smuch greater need in other parts
of the world.
It was interesting at theLausanne Congress recently,
which I know you had aconversation about, but they
talk there about the fact thatif every single Christian spoke
to everyone that they know aboutthe gospel, there'd still be 3
(28:44):
billion people in the world whowouldn't hear the gospel.
There's a sense in which thechurch has limited reach in many
parts of the world, and so ifwe're serious about seeing the
gospel go to all peoples, thenwe have to keep attending to the
fact that gospel resources arenot equally distributed around
the world, and we do have aresponsibility, I believe, to be
(29:05):
doing what we can to see itreach those less engaged, less
reached people.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
There's more to talk about.
We'll look forward to gettingyou back, sure, but Tim
Silberman has been my guest.
He's a lecturer incross-cultural mission at Sydney
Missionary and Bible Collegeand he's just finished his PhD
Engaging Neighbours and Nationsa fascinating expose on the way
churches work in regards tomission.
(29:31):
My name is Dominic Steele.
You've been with us on thePastor's Art and we'll look
forward to your company nextTuesday afternoon.
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