More notes from 1991!

The PROBLEM in starting a new church is that it will not be indigenous in the beginning. You must understand that no church is truly indigenous as long as a missionary is in the church. If a missionary is there they are depending on him to provide the message and give direction and they do not pay his salary. 

You can try to wait until you have mature Christians, but I am afraid that you will be waiting a long time. It is one thing to start in the states where the folks know something and may already have some interest but in a foreign country it is not like that. Think of them as babies that need your help as you start. They can do nothing for themselves. You open the doors and you close the doors.

You sweep and clean. You visit, but as you nurture them along you will train them to do all of this and you will try to work your self out of a job. At first you pay everything and then as you win them and train them they will take the responsibility. From the very first service I take an offering and teach them what they should do. If God the Holy Spirit gets involved you will find that your people will want to take their own responsibility. You will not build an indigenous church overnight and not without much sweat, blood, and tears. You will need to let them begin to do things as soon as possible even though they will not do it the way you would nor as well. It is their church, not yours.

Many folks think that indigenous just means they do not get money from the states, but that is only one small part of the job. They must be self supporting , self governing and self propagating. For that reason many want them to do all the giving while they make all the decisions. Again the plan is that I will treat them just like my child. At the first, I do nearly everything, but each day I will allow them more freedom, and responsibility until they will one day be doing it all and will arrive at indigenous status. Be sure to start teaching immediately what you want even though you do all of the work. Then take the risk let them do the work.

In the actual PRACTICE of starting a church, several things should be considered. By what authority do we start churches on the field? In other words, what principles do we follow and what is the pattern of a New Testament church? As we start our church, what will be our priority? How will we spend the majority of the time? What is our plan to bring them from babes in Christ to maturity? On the field all the theory goes out the window. Many folks discuss the work but you will be faced with the actual problem of doing the work. Where do we begin?

The PRINCIPLE we follow is that of the local church fulfilling the Great Commission. One local church plants another local church through the life of its members. Therefore, the authority behind what we do and are doing is the local church, not the mission. The mission is an handmaiden of the local church, helping her to fulfill her mission. There are many valuable jobs that the mission fulfills but we must be certain to never think of the mission as being the authority. God’s word does not show us the mission board but it teaches us of the local church. This is not to say that there is no need for the mission board. The board will be of great help to you. It will help by establishing who you are and what you believe to the churches you are going to visit. It will give you guidelines to follow on the field. It will give you someone with experience who you can turn to when you do not know what to do. However, we are not starting churches for the mission board. The Bible gives examples of this principle in the life of Paul. Paul did not simply choose to go as a missionary. He was called and sent out by the Holy Ghost and from his local church.

Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid [their] hands on them, they sent [them] away. So they, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, departed unto Seleucia; and from thence they sailed to Cyprus. Acts 13:1-4

They were sent out by the local church under the leadership of the Holy Spirit. They did not go because they so chose or because a mission board sent them. Upon their return after their first journey, they report to their churches.

And thence sailed to Antioch, from whence they had been recommended to the grace of God for the work which they fulfilled. And when they were come, and had gathered the church together, they rehearsed all that God had done with them, and how he had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles. Acts 14:26-27

It should always be remembered by what authority we are starting churches. We do so as a ministry out of our local church. The mission serves the local church as a handmaiden. We are not sent out by the mission. We answer first to the local church. Without a doubt the mission serves in a wonderful way, but we do not find in the Bible one mission board. As you start your church it will be the daughter of your home church.

Whenever you can you will need to organize the church with a charter and bylaws etc.  We do not start churches based on the authority of the mission. We are out of a local church and the church we start will actually be a daughter of our home church. You start your church based on the authority given us by the Bible and the local church which has sent us out.

What is exactly the work of a missionary on the foreign field? Do we go to win folks to the Lord? Are we an evangelist? Many have heard the stories of literally thousands saved in only one week of evangelistic campaigns. Someone goes to a foreign country and shows a film and preaches through an interpreter and upon his return we hear of all that God has done and how the folks are literally begging for tracts and Bibles. I do not want to belittle this effort but we all realize that after the campaign it can be very difficult even to find all the “converts”. It is hard for the normal person to understand missionary work. We go and we win a few here and there and baptize them and have trouble getting them to live right but the evangelist has so much success in such a short time. As missionaries we must learn that our job is to start local, indigenous New Testament Baptist Churches. The missionary does not go to the field to win souls although he will have to do so to do his job. We go to start churches.

The principle is that of the indigenous church. The dictionary says the word indigenous means “produced, growing, or living naturally in a country or climate native to the location. For us that means a church that is (1) self-governing, (2) self-supporting, and (3) self-propagating.

By “self-governing,” we mean a church that is able to govern itself and make its own decisions. As a missionary, my job is to win people to Christ, baptize them and then teach them to so do the work that they will be able to win souls, baptize them, and carry on all the functions of a local New Testament church without outside intervention. They must learn how to do all the work. They will call their pastor. They will baptize. They will have Sunday School. They will send missionaries. When the missionary has finished his job in a local church they will be able to carry on in a manner that is pleasing to our Lord and they will be able to carry on the work of God as well as any church in the United States. They will reach maturity when and when they become a living, breathing, reproducing, understanding organism like any other mature church. At first they will depend on the missionary for many things. The missionary tells them how to do things and also when to do them. As they mature they will learn how to find out from God’s word what He wants and they will begin looking for ways to do the work of God. They will then learn how to walk in the Spirit and teach others how to do so also.

The danger here is, if and when the church decides to be self governing, it does not know how to do so. The church is not to be, in all honesty, even a democracy. Decisions have to be made based on what the Bible teaches and not necessarily what the people as a group want. The church will need, however, to learn to make decisions without looking to any outside source for its leadership. The Bible, the Holy Spirit, and the local body will make the decision. Too often the church on the field has had to obey the missionaries. We believe in the local church. That indicates that the church is not to look to Rome or even your home town and church. We must so prepare them that they can know how to take the word of God and find the leadership of the Lord for their church. That means they must be taught how to make spiritual decisions as they follow the leadership of the Lord. They must not be under pressure from us to do what we want.

Often the mission boards choose to own the buildings so that the people are forced to do what the mission says. To be truly indigenous we will have to get them to a point that we can take our hands off and yes run the risk that they will do something we do not want them to do. Consider Paul in the book of Acts as he finishes his first missionary journey. He ordains elders and then commends them to the Lord

(Acts 14:23).

And when they had ordained them elders in every church, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, on whom they believed.

We must teach and train our people to the point that they can make decisions, follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit and call their own pastors. They will not be able to do so until they really learn the basic principles from the word of God and how to apply them. Train up a church in the way it should go and when it is indigenous it will not depart from it.