Far & Wide: The Search for Qualified Missionaries – Getting Back ON Course

Note: This article is a follow-up to the one published last week titled "Far & Wide: The Search for Qualified Missionaries –Getting OFF Course. If you have not yet read that article, I would suggest that you do so.

With the Olympics having just ended, there is no shortage of ‘passing the baton’ references. Those of us following the United States in the 4x100 relay were gifted examples of what it means to pass the baton with excellence and what it means to implode. While the women’s teamwork and practiced handoff demonstrated the outcome of choreographed execution, the men’s team left the world with an example of a poorly executed handoff and the disastrous consequences that can follow. While one was rewarded with the gold medal, the other found themselves disqualified. Today, churches and leaders use the handoff to describe what happens in ministry settings, both in the local church and abroad in overseas missions.

However, passing the baton depends on someone else being willing to receive the baton. Teams practice tirelessly together, learning one another's habits and nuances in order to time each aspect of the handoff appropriately. Though the men’s relay was a catastrophe, had I been on the team, it would have been worse. I had not trained with them; I was not in shape. In short, I was not qualified to be on the team. That is the reality we are facing with the Great Commission. The church faces a lack of qualified candidates to fill the pulpit or serve overseas. The difficulty in finding qualified missionaries (and pastors) may be unprecedented, but some basic observations allow us to plot a new course.

That new course is actually an old one, a plan that was given many generations ago. Having established changing priorities at the family, church, and school level in the previous article that has led to the absence of disciples, what that tells us is there exists a need to reestablish the Lord's plan of discipleship, first in the family and then in the church. Pastors, organizations, and leaders are stunned by the sudden decline in candidates, but the decline in disciples willing to serve is tied to the decline in discipleship to equip them to serve, speaking to the need to ensure that making disciples becomes a priority of the church once again (Mark 28:19-20; Matthew16:15; Acts 2:41-42).

At the most fundamental level, this is a basic mandate given by God, and failure to engage in it is a failure to obey. Though many words may be expended on that point alone, there is something just as fundamental that I think is important for us to consider: making disciples is how God continues the work of making disciples. Discipleship may be mandated by God, but it’s also part of His plan for equipping the church. Theoretically, if we were obeying the Lord and making disciples at the same rate as church growth, then the Lord's people would never lack a pastor, and the unreached would never lack someone willing to bring them the Lord's truth.

We forget that the commands of the Lord found in Scripture reveal His perfect plan. Deference to this revealed will, then, will result in the Lord's work the Lord's way, and because it is perfect, we can expect that it to be a productive work. Thus, disciples would reproduce, making more disciples who are equipped for the work of God.

I find this point critical for a reason. This year, I conducted interviews and research with various organizations engaged in church planting in the United States. Nearly all identified their greatest barrier to ministry was a lack of missionary candidates. Not only was there consistency in identifying this as a problem, but there was consistency in the solution as well. Those who found their recruiting effective were those who had a network of churches committed to multiplying and making disciples. Most of those who struggled with recruiting suggested that the future of recruitment was dependent upon multiplying. The solution to a lack of qualified people in the pulpit and on the field is simply obeying the commands of God and following his plan: discipleship.

Not everyone being discipled will be called by the Lord to full-time ministry. Yet, efforts of discipleship are not wasted. By this act of obedience, the Lord uses us to equip leaders in the church, fill empty roles, and raise servants in the church. It is through discipleship that the Lord builds His church and raises up those called to ministry, but it is also through discipleship that the Lord raises up those called to lay ministry. And because this is the method given by a perfect God, it is the perfect method.

‍