Pastor Glenn McDonald: Going Global

Each day this Lent we’re looking at major “turning points” in Christian history – moments or seasons in which the story of God’s people took an important and often unexpected turn.  

“If God wants to save the heathen, he will do so, without your help or mine.”

Those were the words that a young pastor named William Carey heard over and over again at London ministers’ meetings in the late 1700s. Carey was convinced that God’s Good News was a gift intended for the whole world. But vast parts of the planet, including most of Africa and Asia, were served by only a smattering of churches.

Two hundred years after the Reformation, evangelism was at a standstill. “Mission work,” as we currently understand it, did not exist. Church leaders were content to wrestle with a handful of vexing theological questions and address the needs of their local communities.

And the rest of the world? The prevailing opinion was that that was God’s business – and he would get around to it someday. But Carey had a restless spirit. In 1792 – the same year George Washington was re-elected to his second term as U.S. president – he published a tract called An Enquiry Into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens. Buoyed by the motto, “Expect great things from God, attempt great things for God,” Carey begged others to support a proposed mission endeavor to India.  

One year later, things finally came together. Carey, his pregnant wife, their three young sons, and a doctor trying to stay ahead of some creditors set sail for Calcutta.

Life in India was brutally challenging. Seven years went by before their first convert. But before he died in 1834, Carey had launched multiple schools and had translated the Bible into 44 languages and dialects.

It’s not entirely accurate to regard William Carey as the father of world missions. Other followers of Jesus, after all, had taken the gospel to other lands in previous generations. But Carey pioneered mission efforts that are still in place to this day, including cherishing a deep respect for local customs, encouraging indigenous congregations (instead of trying, for instance, to transform Asians into Europeans), and releasing women for front-line missionary service.

For all those reasons, 1793 is as good a year as any to associate with a major change in the direction of Christianity. After centuries of being content to remain at home, Europeans began to go global.

Then came the Americans.

Adoniram Judson was the first U.S. citizen to become an international missionary. In 1811, he prepared to spend the rest of his life ministering to the people of Burma (now known as Myanmar, the southeast Asian nation ravaged just two weeks ago by a major earthquake).

Before he departed, he sent a letter to the father of Ann Hasseltine, asking for her hand in marriage. Here’s what he wrote:

I have now to ask, whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world; whether you can consent to her departure, and her subjection to the hardships and sufferings of a missionary life; whether you can consent to the dangers of the ocean; to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India; to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps even a violent death.

Here we need to pause and ask: Is this the kind of guy you want dating your daughter?

There are two things worth noting: First, Ann’s father said yes. Second, virtually everything in Judson’s letter came true. He and Ann suffered incredible hardships, and she died of a tropical fever at the age of 37.

So why in the world did her father consent to this life-altering decision? Perhaps it was the next paragraph in Judson’s letter:

Can you consent to all this, for the sake of him who left his heavenly throne, and died for her and for you; for the sake of the perishing, immortal souls; for the sake of Zion, and the glory of God? Can you consent to all this, in hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory, with the crown of righteousness, brightened with the acclamations of praise which shall redound to her Savior from the heathens saved, through her means, from eternal woe and despair?

Was it worth it? The Judsons left behind more than 100 Burmese churches. Their influence is still being felt after 200 years. Adoniram and Ann were clearly fanatical.

But one of those things we know for sure is that whatever we choose to be fanatical about – whatever most captures our time, our resources, and our dreams-will determine the course of our lives.

Hollywood has taken a hard line against missionaries over the past few decades, portraying mission ventures as inevitably smug, paternalistic, and culturally insensitive. And it’s true: You don’t have to look very hard to find examples of Western heavy-handedness in the name of Christ in the developing world.

But the overall legacy of the Christian presence in Asia, Africa, and South America has been positive and transforming. Disciples of Jesus arrived not just with the message of God’s love, but with the motivation and capacity to build hospitals, establish schools, promote science, offer compassion, and to stand against injustice, even in the face of serious opposition.

It’s impossible not to be moved by the lives of missionaries like Hudson Taylor (1832-1905), who spent 54 years tirelessly serving the people of mainland China.

His motto? “God’s work in God’s way will never lack God’s provision.”

Between 1750 and 1900, world missions seemed to explode. The numbers bear that out.

In 1750 (approximately 57 generations after Christ), the world was 22% Christian and 26% evangelized. The Bible was available in 60 languages. By 1900, some 62 generations after Christ, 34% of the world identified as Christian, and at least 51% had heard the Good News. The Bible that year was available in 537 languages.

In our own time, it’s humbling to run into native Africans and Asians living and working here in the United States.

Why did they leave their homelands?

They have come to us as missionaries – because America has become, according to demographers, the world’s fourth largest mission field.

Which means we’ve come full circle.

Having spent two centuries sending ambassadors around the world with the message of God’s love and forgiveness, we are the ones who now need to hear that word again.

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