Podcast Edition HERE

Anthony Norris Groves is one of the great missionaries in Church history. Most of Christendom has never heard of him.

His first missionary stint was a “failure” to the Arabic-speaking Muslims in Baghdad, Iraq. He began there in 1829 and left just a few years later. His wife died there. So did his infant daughter. Floods, famine, plagues and war pounded relentlessly upon the little mission team. He moved to India.

God had not given Groves many natural gifts for ministry success. He was a dentist by trade and was not a natural street preacher. He lacked the passion and oratory skills that often drive evangelists to far-away lands.

But he accomplished much. Among his greatest feats was training John Arulappan (1810-1867), a promising young Indian Christian that had grown up in one of the missionary schools. He mentored John for almost 20 years and through him Groves saw innumerable churches planted and people won to Christ. What was the secret?

The answer, in part, can be found in the following quote from Groves:

“It would be desirable for every evangelist [i.e. missionary] to take with him wherever he went from two to six native catechists, with whom he might eat, drink and sleep on his journeys, and to whom he might speak of the things of the kingdom as he sat down and as he rose up, that they might be, in short, prepared for ministry in the way that our dear Master prepared his disciples, by line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little, as they could bear it, feeling from beginning to end that our place is not to set others to do what we cannot do ourselves.. but that we are rather to be examples of everything we wish to see in our dear brethren.” (p. 478, The Father of Faith Missions, Dann)

From this quote I can find four humble, practical ways missionaries can make disciples.

1. Keep the Roots Shallow

Groves referred to himself as an “evangelist” or missionary. He resisted the urge to become a kind of extended pastor on the foreign field. He knew his role was foundation-building like Paul did in Romans 15. The Apostle often carried responsibilities of a pastor but never used the title “elder” for himself—though Peter did (1Pt. 5:1). Paul poured the footings, then moved on, periodically returning from time to time to visit.

The natives on the New Hebrides referred to John Paton as “Missi”, an abbreviated form of missionary. As far as I can tell, nowhere in his 500-page autobiography does he use the title of pastor when serving as a missionary.

Linguistic precision like this goes a long way toward missionary disciples. It says, “You’re up next.” It says, “I’m moving on.” It says, “I’m not the running back. I’m the QB that hands off the ball so that you can score.” Continue reading →