Horner,
David George. When Missions Shapes the Mission: You and
Your Church Can Reach the World. Nashville, TN; B&H
Publishing, 2011.
Synopsis
Author
and Pastor, David Horner, asks and helps church leaders to answer some vitally
important questions. Is our local church fulfilling the biblical call to
reach the world to the best of her ability? Has our church relegated
missions to an occasional weekend emphasis with involvement limited only to
financial support? Is our church so focused on internal matters that it
has lost its passion for God's glory among the nations?
Horner
warns that how we answer such questions will determine the future vitality and
global impact of our congregation. If missions are viewed as just a line
item on the budget that gets in the way of more “important” efforts it will not
be long before the church abandon's its biblical purpose all together and sinks
into obscurity.
In the
first section, titled "Where We Are," Horner examines the mission's
statistics of the South Baptist Convention in order to reveal the current
trends and developing obstacles for reaching our world with the gospel.
The information given is presented as a reproach on the modern church's
selfish divergence upon meeting its own needs to the neglect of our biblically
mandated purpose.
The next
section, called "Where We Want to Be," presents goals and ideals for
future growth in the area of missions and outreach. The church suffers
from depraved indifference as they claim to care for the lost of the world, but
act and spend as if they care more about the beauty of their buildings, the
convenience of their parking lots, and the quality of their morning coffee. Horner provides a
very practical and simple plan to help churches accept their mission in a truly
authentic, scriptural manner.
Section
three, "How to Get There," brings practical application of the
spiritual relationship between a Church's vision and its actual involvement in
global missions. Here the pastor is challenged not to relegate such
emphasis to another staff member or a committee, but to carry the banner as one
who shares a passion of the biblical author's and our Father who inspired its
writing.
Evaluation
This work far
from just a critique of the state of missions in our church, because it doesn’t
leave the reader without encouragement and solutions. It is a challenge, fueled
by hard facts, to refocus on God’s passion for making His Glory known, and it
encourages leaders to evaluate how we approach missions in the local church. Knowing the
shocking facts of how money is currently being spent certainly serves as a wake
up call to the reader, but one wonders if both sides of the story are being
told.
As a worker of the so-called “denominational
bureaucracy” in Texas I have a bit different perspective regarding the efforts
surrounding mission’s giving. Granted,
there is little doubt that some areas of waste and overhead should be addressed
and that some funds may more accurately be allocated under a different label
than “missions.” However, it should be
noted that denominational headquarters deal with the same issues of overhead as
the local church. No one really wants to
make a donation to pay for the utility bill; they want their money to go
directly to a heartstring ministry where lives are being changed. But, what some fail to realize is that many
of those life-changing ministries are made possible because the utilities are
paid.
For example, my salary, my staff, and my
office is made possible through the state missions offerings, but according to
Horner those expenses would not be considered the “traditional definitions of
what constitutes missions” (p. 18).
However, the ministry of Super Summer, YEC, Hot Hearts, See You At The
Pole, and other various evangelistic youth rallies that I coordinate for the
state of Texas is directly responsible for recruiting countless young people to
engage in global missions efforts. Through our Super Summer Global ministry
efforts alone we have sent over two thousand students to be trained and
equipped on the foreign mission field, with plans to expand these efforts. If our offerings cease such statewide efforts
could come to a halt undercutting much of the strides that have been made to recruit
young people; many of which come from smaller congregations that do not have
the resources or access to global missions opportunities.
Sometimes authors, like Horner, who lead large churches
with over 70 people on staff, forty deacons, thousands of members and huge
working budgets, fail to take into consideration the struggling single staff congregations. Most Baptists in our convention attend
churches with less than one hundred members and if we fail to equip, educate,
and recruit these congregations in the area of missions, we will fail to tap
into our largest, most plentiful resource.
It is easy for a large church pastor to advocate bypassing
the denominational mission effort, because frankly he does not need the
denomination or its services. He has a
missions minister to help recruit and train the young people in his
congregation. Has he taken into
consideration the rural church in Culleoka, Texas with one bi-vocational pastor
who barely has the time to get the ten kids in his youth group together to go
to the local denominational camp? Has he
considered that while at that camp one or two of those teenagers may be exposed
to what God is doing globally which changes the course of their lives? Is his church going to pick up these efforts
when the “denominational bureaucracy” shuts it doors because it has to raise
funds for “utility bills” instead of “missions?” This impact is something to consider in this
important and very relevant discussion.
