HOW THEN SHALL WE MOTIVATE OUR YOUNG PEOPLE?

Soon after I had returned from service in Asia I was invited to be one of the speakers at a large summer Bible conference. About two hundred high school and college age young people were among those in total attendance. Since other speakers were urging young people to volunteer to be foreign missionaries, I avoided the subject in public meetings lest I cause dissension within the ranks. But I did speak freely in private.

One 18 year old girl seemed stirred by my messages and wanted to tell me that God had "called" her to be a missionary to Korea. So I asked her to sit down and tell me all about it. Her zeal to serve her Saviour was a joy to behold, but it soon became obvious that her "call" was really an emotional response to the persuasive appeals of some speakers she had heard. She knew nothing about what had been happening in Korea since before she was born. All she knew was that she had been "called to the mission field" and something she had heard or learned caused her to believe that Korea was the place she should go.

So I told her a few things about South Korea. I had been to her home town, so I could tell her that evangelical churches were more active in most of Korea than they were in her home community. Then I quoted a church leader in Korea who said to me: "We cannot understand why these Americans keep coming to our country with their cars and all their dollars. They don't know our language and our people can't understand what they are trying to tell us. All that money any one of them spends for their big houses and servants and private schools for their children would support 50 Korean missionaries, many of whom are out in the villages spreading the gospel with no income at all except the food offered them by the people they are evangelizing” (remember it was in 1950 that he spoke to me).

"The same applies to you," I told this young lady whose idealistic dream of "going to the mission field" was in conflict with reality. I urged her to continue her vision of fulfilling the great commission by getting a job and making all the money she could, but to live simply and sacrificially so she could use that money to support 15 or 20 native missionaries who were already on the field.

She responded positively and shared the concept with her friends at the conference, who shared it with their friends and parents, who shared it with the leaders of the conference and some of the speakers. The result was an uproar of confusion. An emergency meeting was called to deal with the “heresy” which I was spreading. I felt like Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms. Most vitriolic in their condemnation were representatives of Bible institutes and Christian colleges who were there to recruit students to attend their institutions for the express purpose of preparing them to "go to the mission field."

Conference leaders all but threatened me, and slapped me with the injunction that I was not to say one further word publicly or privately at that conference which might deter any young person from “going to the mission field."

Over the past 47 years I have received literally hundreds of similar admonitions from pastors, church missions committees, college presidents, Bible institute faculty, Bible conference directors and other men and women in positions of leadership within the evangelical community, whenever and wherever I may have been invited to speak or teach. The colonial pattern for missionary enterprise is set in stone by tradition, and one dare not suggest an alternative.

In 1946 I conducted a workshop at a big student conference conducted by InterVarsity Fellowship at the University of Toronto. With passionate zeal I insisted that every born again Christian should "go to the mission field" unless he or she could come up with a really good excuse for not going. Other leaders and speakers did likewise, and hundreds went forward on the final night to declare themselves as volunteers for missionary service. Every three years since then the scenario has been repeated at the University of Illinois in Urbana, with attendance swelling to about 20,000. I attended the 1994 session and found that little had changed. Leaders and speakers were all urging young people to "go to the foreign field." With one exception. In the workshop which I conducted the students were told the truth about colonial missionary operations and urged to seek alternatives such as reaching foreign students from closed lands who are now in the USA, or sending financial support to indigenous missions based in "mission field" countries.

Needless to say this more Biblical perspective was not appreciated by IVF sponsors of the convention. Since I represented Christian Aid there, we were forbidden to exhibit at the next Urbana conference. However, a more charitable attitude was exhibited later, and Christian Aid was again included at Urbana in 2000. In fact, the support of indigenous missions was publicized as one of the goals of the conference.

But how can we motivate our young people if we don't challenge them to join the ranks of semi-martyrs who have forsaken home, family, friends and country to go out to strange lands overseas as soldiers of the cross?

Simple! Give them something even more challenging.

American kids go through billions of dollars every year, indulging themselves in junk food, music, athletic shoes, videos, movies, clothing fads, computer games, and hundreds of other costly items of dubious value. What some Christian kids spend on recorded music, videos, computer games and related hardware is probably equal to the entire foreign missionary enterprise of their respective churches. What's the point of talking about being a missionary "someday" if there is no sacrifice or discipline in the present? Young people should be challenged to begin service in the kingdom of God NOW, not "someday" after they finish several more years of school and are tied down with spouses and children. They should be taught to see the total picture as God sees it, not some sectarian niche into which they are programmed like robots. So here are some steps for challenging our young people.

1. Be reconciled to God.  Just joining a church means nothing unless we first recognize that God is holy and all humans are unworthy sinners deserving of His righteous judgement. We will remain in the outer darkness until we accept by faith the fact that God's only Son loved us and gave Himself for us, bearing our sins in His own body upon the cross. Only by claiming in faith His substitutionary death on our behalf, and the fact that it was confirmed by His resurrection, can we make peace with God and be accepted into His heavenly family.

2. Recognize that when we accept Christ, He accepts us and puts His Spirit within us to make us new creatures.  Being thus born again we should be continually growing in God's grace and in the knowledge of His Word. And developing special relationships with other true believers who are members of God's family.

3. Be crucified and risen again with Christ  If He died for us, we should die for Him, not "someday" but the moment we believe. Old things should pass away so that from now on we live not for ourselves but for Christ. We are not our own but are bought with a price (I Corinthians 6:19-20), which means all that we are and all that we have, including our money, belongs to Christ.

4. Recognize that the most important thing on this planet is that our Lord might have a witness for Himself, a people for His name, among every people, tongue, tribe and nation
Diversity of nations began at the tower of Babel when God confounded the one language of mankind and scattered people all over the world in ethnic groupings according to their new languages. He "gave them up" (Romans 1:24,26,28) temporarily and limited His witness on earth to one nation descended from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But all along it was His purpose to regather the nations, as He indicated when He promised that through one of Abraham's descendents (the Messiah) all nations would be blessed, and "the children of the desolate (other nations) would be more than the children of the married wife (Israel)" (Isaiah 54:1, Galatians 4:27). Also in Isaiah 54 God indicated that "for a small moment" He had forsaken the nations, but that with great mercies He would regather them. Thus would the Messiah "inherit the nations . . . and the God of the whole earth shall He be called." So when the Messiah came He repeated over and over that His primary purpose on this earth was to have a witness for His name among all nations. When that objective has been reached, He said, He would come back again (Mark 13:10, Matthew 24:14). Of the more than 6000 nations on this planet, our Lord thus far has placed His temple (spiritual house) among about 4500 of them. So the supreme task that lies before every local church and individual Christian is to have a part in planting God's temple within the remaining unreached nations, as was foreshadowed by Solomon's temple within the one nation where He had His major witness for 1000 years.

In accordance with these four (and there are also others) basic pillars of Christian faith, young people can best be motivated by having their focus turned away from themselves and toward the kingdom of God. They need to learn that God's eternal purpose is not man centered but Christ centered. It is not essentially "the salvation of lost souls" (although that is important), but that our Lord, looking down from the heavens, might see His temple, His house, His witness planted among all the nations that inhabit the globe.

The kingdom of God is not about Christianizing cultures, or populations, or countries or nations. The majority in every society are going down the broad way that leads to eternal death. The kingdom of God consists of those few within every society who recognize that their citizenship is in the heavens and that they are strangers and pilgrims on the earth, serving as ambassadors for Christ among those who do not know Him. The greatest possible challenge for young people is that they shine as lights for Christ within their homes, schools, neighborhoods and places of employment.

But what about the regions beyond? Shouldn't Christian youth be challenged to pray about someday "going to the mission field?"

Definitely not. Most young people are easily influenced, and any suggestion about them going off to foreign countries is likely to distract them from learning about how our Lord is building His church in every nation without the involvement of foreign crusaders. There are distinct similarities between the Student Volunteer Movement of a century ago and the Children's Crusade of 1212 that saw thousands of children from France and Germany follow a pied piper to their deaths in the naïve belief that God was calling them to liberate the "holy land."

It is of far greater value to the cause of Christ that children be given a vision of how the gospel of Christ is spreading among unreached peoples, and how we are one body in Christ with those whom He is using to accomplish His purpose. And every Christian, regardless of age, can have a part in advancing the kingdom of God NOW in pioneer areas throughout the world. While serving with Christian Aid during the past 50 years, I have taken the names and photos of thousands of pioneer missionaries with me when speaking in churches throughout the U.S. and Canada. At every opportunity I have invited Christians to accept responsibility for supporting one such missionary. Among those who responded was a high school girl in Tennessee who made a faith promise to provide full support for a missionary on the India field with what she earned baby sitting. Two boys attending junior high school in suburban Baltimore took on the full support of a missionary in Nepal with what they earned, working together, shoveling snow for their neighbors in winter, washing cars in the spring, mowing lawns in the summer and raking leaves in the fall. What greater challenge can young people have than to know that they are serving NOW as the supply line for a pioneer missionary who is advancing the kingdom of God in places where Christ was never known before? And to know that many of those natives serve in places where American missionaries are not allowed to go.

I have communicated with many Christian parents who have inspired their children to give half or more of their weekly cash allowances to help our fellow believers in lands of poverty and persecution. Many also have taught their children to share what they might have received at Christmas time with native missionaries overseas whose children have never owned a toy. Instead of being lavished with gifts they don’t really need these American children receive money to be used for the support of native missionaries. Hundreds of Sunday school teachers have encouraged their classes to take on the support of a local missionary in a poorer country, and thus vicariously to become active in completing our Lord's great commission NOW.

Granted, many of these same types of things have been done by Christians who were encouraging their children to support colonial missions, but the kids soon become disillusioned when they discover the comparative wealth of the ones they are supporting. A good friend of mine in suburban Washington, the father of ten children, was very successful in business. Though living in a spacious, comfortable home, he taught his children to live simply and sacrificially so they could support traditional missionaries. Among their friends at school these children were considered to be somewhat poor because they didn't have money for hamburgers and ice cream, or the latest fad in clothing, or electronic gadgets, or fancy athletic shoes. But in due time those Christian kids met others about the same age from the families of missionaries they were supporting (on average at $60,000 per year) and discovered that most of the MKs had the very things their supporter’s children were being denied.

When young people realize that they are supporting native missionaries who live in one room houses with no furniture, sleep on the floor, have no phones or electricity (which means no television) and whose only clothing is what they are wearing, then the support those children give will not seem to be a painful sacrifice. Even more so when they learn that most of the children of those missionaries have never owned a toy or slept in a bed or seen a TV program.

The traditional appeal for missionary service is counterproductive. High school and college students are asked to give up earning a living and become dependent on others in order to "go to the mission field." What a waste! There may have been a need for it 100 years ago but not now, because some 300,000 indigenous missionaries are serving Christ on all the world's mission fields, and at least half of them have inadequate support, if they have any at all. How much more effective it would be for the kingdom of God if American youths were challenged to pursue productive careers, yet live simply and sacrificially in order to support native missionaries who have nothing. The common sense of this approach is magnified by the fact that indigenous missionaries are likely to be ten times more effective than foreigners, and also that in most cases the presence of the foreigner often hinders more than helps because he or she identifies the gospel with foreign political influence. If they only knew these facts, most Christian young people would be eager to have a share in the total picture.

Of all people who should discern the dynamics of traditional missions, it should be evangelicals. Ever since Martin Luther liberated monks and nuns from lives of segregated dependency in the monasteries of Germany, most evangelicals have dismissed the concept of an elite class of cloistered Christians who are supposed to give up working and be dependent upon others. Most Protestant churches in our culture look upon their ministers as paid professionals who serve as church administrators as well as preachers, and should be compensated accordingly. But not so our missionaries. As the foreign missionary movement developed in the late 19^th century a special class of clergy began to be segregated from the mainstream. These were the ones who were expected to sacrifice the comforts of home and family relationships in order to devote their lives to foreign service. And it did indeed entail that kind of sacrifice 100 years ago, before airplanes, telephones and email. But not any more.

The "missionary class" within evangelical churches is made up of people who are not productive economically. Rather, billions of dollars annually are drained out of God's treasury to support them. If they all gave up the idea of going abroad as economic martyrs and became income producers instead, think of what an impact that would make for the kingdom of God. Those billions of dollars now being consumed by the costly practice of sending 50,000 Americans abroad could be made available for the support of more than 500,000 indigenous missionaries. And the fruit of each one's labor would likely be ten times greater than that of any foreigner. And all those American missionaries now dependent on the contributions of others would become income producers instead, potentially providing other billions of dollars to further God's work in unevangelized lands of poverty and persecution.

So what should be the role of evangelical Christians living in industrialized countries for advancing the kingdom of God in the rest of the world? And how will it appeal to our young people? Let's take a lesson from a military strategy that helped to bring allied victory in World War II.