Shooting Sacred Cows (David Mays)

I found this great website on "Help for Church and Mission Leaders" www.davidmays.com

I listened to his sermon (here) and found the summary article (here) in which he shoots down 3 "sacred cows". Here are David Mays' points, with my thoughts...

1) Make Disciples is NOT the Core of the Great Commission.

Please don’t hear me say that we should not make disciples. We must.

“Teach” and “disciple” are transitive verbs. The sentence isn’t complete until you have the object. And the object is “all nations.” Thus the core of the Great Commission is not “make disciples” but “disciple all nations.” There is a great deal of difference between “making disciples” and “discipling all nations.”

I've heard people make this mistake before, and I've even done so. But if the purpose is just "make disciples" we gut the Great Commission of its "world scope".

2) Poverty, pain, and injustice are NOT God’s primary concern.

Now please don’t jump to the conclusion that God is not concerned about poverty, pain and injustice. He is. What I am saying is that it is not his primary concern.

I think that perhaps the primary thing on God’s mind is the glory of his name in all the earth, the billions of people he created who have no fellowship with him, and perhaps the great dark areas of the earth where people do not know Jesus or even anything about him.

Books on church and missions are being written that seem to interpret God’s primary concern is improving our physical situation. For example, the book "When Helping Hurts" (which I highly recommend), says that God was displeased with Israel because of Israel's failure to care for the poor and oppressed (Isa. 58:1-3, 5-10). This is a very partial explanation. All the books about the kings and prophets repeatedly warn Israel that their primary sin is the worship of false gods, breaking the first and second commandments. Failing to care for the poor and oppressed was part of their lack of obedience.

Helping the poor, the sick, and the oppressed is part of what we are to do as Christians, but it is not the primary part of it. Humanitarian ministries are not to be ignored or neglected. Jesus had compassion on people. He healed the sick and cast out demons.

Luis Palau in a Conference years ago told us that in the area of the world where he grew up, many Christians came and did humanitarian work. It all gradually faded away. Only where Christians came and planted churches did the people in those churches continue to do humanitarian work.

Robert Wuthnow, author of "Boundless Faith -The Global Outreach of American Churches" states: “The social pressures to emphasize service rather than evangelism…are quite powerful. Given the prevailing ethos of tolerance in the North America, it seems quite wrong to confront a devout Muslim or Hindu about his or her need to believe in Jesus, whereas no questions would be raised about giving a starving Muslim or Hindu a meal. Not surprisingly, a popular solution to this dilemma is to redefine service as evangelism” (242)

I suggest that the avenue of helping hurting people can be excellent ministry and the best route to helping people find spiritual life. I’m all for it. But we must be sure that the people we send live a life that is spiritually empowered and that they can effectively introduce people to Jesus.

Very very good point!!

3) Every Christian is NOT a missionary and not all ministry is missions.

You have been in services where the pastor says something like,
• We are all missionaries.
• You are the missionary to your world.
• When you leave the sanctuary today, be sure to read the plaque over the back door that says,
“You are entering your mission field.”

These are all very noble sentiments. We certainly do want people to be obedient disciples, live the Christ life, serve others, and reach out for Jesus where they live and work. The only question is whether it is helpful to call these people “missionaries.” You might think that “Christian” or “disciple” would be a suitable term.

The problem is that the more people we call missionaries, the more things we call missions, and the broader the missions budget, the less progress we make toward the most strategic priorities of reaching the rest of the world with the gospel. Our churches actually become the bottleneck for finishing the task of discipling the nations.

I've made this mistake before too, at Campus for Christ meetings I even said "We're all missionaries". Mays' argues that the term "missionaries" should be narrowed to those who go to the nations whereas the rest of us who "stay home" should be missional Christians, but let's not call ourselves "missionaries".

It's a timely point too talking about "the more things we call missions, and the broader the missions budget" as we review the "Missionary Formula" at church. Mays is all for reaching out to your local city and country, but to that money shouldn't be "borrowed" from missions. It should be designated separately!