–– Paul Schlehlein
The audio version of this article is available here: YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.
In the old days, finding a mission field may have been easier. Too many options make decisions difficult. In the primitive eras of Great Commission work, missionaries didn’t enjoy as many people groups to consider.
In the 17th century, most Protestant missionaries went to the Native Americans in North America, in the 18th century to Asia, and in the 19th century to Africa. Maps were unsophisticated and incomplete, especially in a nation’s interior regions. Often, prospective missionaries chose the only option available.
Transportation was rudimentary. For example, in 1829, Anthony Groves arrived in Baghdad with his wife and two boys after trekking 2,000 miles over mountains and deserts. They travelled by foot, by horse, and by a boneshaking German wagon. This was ten years before Livingstone took a three-month voyage to Africa from Scotland.
Today, missionaries can use Google Maps to zoom into primitive villages and count exactly how many huts rest beside the riverbank. But the rise in technology doesn’t always make it easier to find the right mission field.
When a man is considering mission work, there are two questions he must answer. First, am I called to be a missionary? Second, if so, where should I go?
Calling
Three marks will determine if a man is called to be a missionary: desire, capability, and counsel. The first question is this: Is there a yearning in my soul to make the name of Jesus famous among the heathen?” Does a man’s heart burn like the prophet Jeremiah, who was worn out trying to hold back his impulse to preach the word (Jer. 20:9). Paul said in 1 Timothy 3:1 that pastors must first aspire to the office of pastor. If the desire is absent, there’s no point in considering the other two marks. He’ll never survive on the mission field if he doesn’t want to be there in the first place.
Second, “Do I have the ability to be a missionary?” Does he have the skill set to succeed at this calling, like giftedness in languages, preaching the gospel in unusual settings, enduring under trial, and initiating ministries? Is he willing to try hard things and wean his body from the pleasures of this world? Paul said that one of the qualifications for a pastor was the ability to teach (1Tm. 3:2). No matter how badly a man wants to imitate his missionary heroes of old, God has not called him to be a church planter if he can’t preach well. Preaching well in another culture is doubly difficult than preaching in one’s own.
Third, “Is the church affirming my gifts?” If you and your mother are the only ones who think you’re gifted to plant churches in Indonesia or Paraguay, but no one else in your church will give a dollar to send you overseas, you should reevaluate your calling. The church in Antioch sent out Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey after evaluating their gifts for a year (Acts 13:2-3). John Paton’s parents were the only ones who initially supported his decision to serve in the New Hebrides, but that’s because the church viewed him as overqualified, not underqualified.
Location
After you’ve determined your calling into missions by evaluating these three marks (i.e. aspiration, ability, and advice), it’s time to determine where you should go.
Often God leads through simple circumstances. A young man who grew up as an MK (Missionary Kid) in Papua New Guinea knows the language and the culture, and so it makes sense that he returns there as a missionary, rather than starting afresh as a church planter in, say, Colombia. Jim Elliot chose Ecuador because at a conference, he happened to meet a former missionary to the Quechua people. Don’t over-spiritualize the decision process.
However, since God gives us only one life and expects us to steward our time and gifts well, there is wisdom in researching the most needy places around the world. I’d recommend a man use Joshua Project, a research portal that provides data on the world’s ethnicities, particularly focusing on unreached people groups with little Christian influence. The stats from this site are not perfect. They didn’t come down on tablets from Mount Sinai, but are generally accurate and excel in pointing missionaries in the right direction.
Let’s take a guy named Kellen. He’s twenty-five and lives in a middle-class neighbourhood in Cape Town, South Africa. He’s looking for a mission field.
In his research, he discovers that the world population is 8.1 billion and comprises over 17,000 distinct people groups. He sets the first filter at people groups with at least one million people and finds there are 908 worldwide, comprising 7 billion people. This means that the vast majority of people groups (16,000!) contain only a small fraction of the world population.
He sets his second filter at “unreached” people groups, which Joshua Project defines as a people group that is 5% or less Christian and 2% or less evangelical. This means that in these regions, ninety-five or more people out of a hundred will not claim to be Christian. Here’s where he should focus. He also learns there are 484 unreached people groups, with a total population of 3 billion, meaning over a third of the world’s population is unreached.
His third and final filter is set at East and Southern Africa. Since he already lives in Africa, he wisely concludes that he should start close to home and move outward. He discovers that over half of the countries in Africa fall within this region and contain twenty-two unreached people groups, with a population of 84 million. Most of them are in Sudan and Ethiopia.
The nearest unreached people group with at least a million people are the Yawo of Malawi. Unless God closes this door or clearly opens another, this is the people group Kellen should target and for which his local church should pray.