The Light Before We Land

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An Open Letter to Hudson (of The Traveling Team)

While this letter is on some level directed at The Traveling Team as a whole, it is most specifically directed at a member named Hudson, who gave the most recent talk at the weekly large group of Champaign/Urbana’s InterVarsity chapter.  You (Hudson) spoke with us about the Biblical precedent for international missions work, shared some details about the global religious landscape, and called upon us to involve ourselves in spreading God’s work around the world.

I will freely admit that I was not able to hear the entire talk; due to my only method of transportation to and from campus being a bus system that apparently considers 7:28pm to be a much better time to pick people up than the 7:07pm listed on their website, I was only able to hear the portion of the talk that lasted from about 8:00pm onwards.  I was also unable to come to the meeting that your team later held at the food court in the Union, that owing to it being my area’s turn to clean the Loft after service.  I am fairly confident (or at least confident enough), however, that what I did manage to take in was accurately representative of the broader amount of content.  If at some point in this letter you or anyone else finds that this is not the case, I would gladly welcome the correction.

What I heard was, for the most part, reminiscent of talks given by other full-time missionaries I have heard speak in the past (though I will say that despite the inevitable similarities in content, your presentation was excellent).  But one thing in particular that you said made me rather uncomfortable.  Long story short – I felt moved to write about it, I did, and here we both are.

After quoting from four calls to ‘go out into the world’ found in the last words of Jesus in each of the four respective Gospels, and from one other call found in Acts 1:8, you proceeded to say the following about missionary work (quoted as accurately as I can recall):

That’s it, folks.  That’s all there is.

Now, some of you might be thinking, ‘Well, that’s all well and good, but that’s not something I’m cut out to do, that’s not how I’m wired – that’s not who I am.’

At this point, you cited Galatians 3:29 in an attempt to link the missionary’s call to earlier citations from the story of Abram, and followed it up with this (again, quoted as accurately as I can recall):

If you’re a Christian, you’re part of one big church family, you’re in the family business, and the family business is missions.

To my mind, this is a rather disturbing position to take, primarily because it says that every Christian must be a missionary in the same way that you are a missionary, simply by virtue of their being a follower of Christ.  It says that if you’re really serious about following Christ, you go off and become a missionary - end of story.

Perhaps this was something clarified or expanded upon in some portion of your time here that I was unable to bear witness to.  Perhaps this is simply not how you intended your words to be interpreted (I would certainly hope that to be the case).  If so, I apologize for the misunderstanding.

But barring your being on hand to clarify those statements for me, I have to allow for the possibility that this is how you meant for your words to come across... and in that case, we have a problem.

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I fully understand that missions is your particular gift – and of course everyone considers their own particular gift to be dear to them.  But I must admit that my own past experience has shown me that missionaries are particularly eager to believe that their gifts are ‘special’ in some way that others are not - particularly eager to believe that what they have been called to do for God is a more pure and sacred form of service than others. 

Why this complex seems to be unique to missionaries is beyond me.  All I really know is that I have never heard any pastor say that preaching is a higher calling than others because it reaches so many people.  I have never heard anyone who gives childcare during church services claim that their spent time and energy is of the most direct benefit to a new generation of Christians.  I know of no Christian psychiatrist who believes that their walk with Christ is of especial importance because they are tasked with assisting those who have stumbled or fallen on the way.

Yet you – and plenty of others with your same gifts, to be fair - seem to have it in your head that your call to service is more closely aligned with Christ’s intentions for His followers than any other.

Of course we are all called to bear witness to non-believers we encounter in our own lives.  But the idea that Christ’s call to spread the Gospel to the world at large directly translates into a call for everyone who takes the label ‘Christian’ to pack their bags and spend a few months’ time in your vaunted 10/40 window is patently absurd.  At a bare minimum, such an outlook on what it means to follow Christ displays a pathetically poor understanding of the concept of spiritual gifts.  The notion that we must all be missionaries despite differences between individuals in ‘how we’re wired’ makes you sound like you have never cracked 1st Corinthians and flipped to chapter 12, where Paul says this:

⁴Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. ⁵And there are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord. ⁶There are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all persons. ⁷But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. ⁸For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit; ⁹to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, ¹⁰and to another the effecting of miracles, and to another prophecy, and to another the distinguishing of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues. ¹¹But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills.

From there, Paul goes on to the famous analogy (famous within most Evangelical circles, anyway) of the church as a physical body of Christ:

¹⁴For the body is not one member, but many. ¹⁵If the foot says, "Because I am not a hand, I am not a part of the body," it is not for this reason any the less a part of the body. ¹⁶And if the ear says, "Because I am not an eye, I am not a part of the body," it is not for this reason any the less a part of the body. ¹⁷If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? ¹⁸But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired. ¹⁹If they were all one member, where would the body be?

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Allow me to use myself as an example.

My particular spiritual gifts exist primarily along the lines of analysis, critique, and debate.  This combined with my strong (and sometimes headstrong) opinions about my faith leads me to believe that my place in the world is here, doing exactly the kind of thing I am doing even as I write this letter.  Perhaps I’ll do my best to take down the conservative fundamentalist pseudo-Christian movement that has so dominated and poisoned the public perception of Christianity for the majority of my lifetime.  Perhaps I’ll attempt to be a voice of moderation in the debate between Christianity and the New Atheists.  Perhaps my work will lead thousands of people to believe in Christ.  Perhaps it will lead to no new believers at all, but rather only serve to strengthen the faith of those who already believed.

But those are details; they don’t matter so much in the immediate term.  The point is that I know what my gifts are.  I know my place in the body.

That does not mean that I don’t talk with my non-Christian friends about Christ.  I do so when I see the opportunity to do so.  And, in fact, the gifts I mentioned earlier have allowed me to connect with some similarly analytical non-Christians in ways that the other Christians in their lives simply seem to be unable to.

However, I cannot comprehend how I could possibly be of use halfway around the world doing the kind of work that you do.  Foreign languages are definitely not my strong suit, and I am so completely introverted (never scored under 84% I on the Meyers-Briggs test) that I would be amazed if I would manage to connect with more than two native people in an entire six-week trip abroad.

Forgive me for saying so – but that truly is ‘just how I’m wired.’

Perhaps, given enough time in the field, I could eventually grow into a decent missionary.  But I know, without a doubt, that the mission field as you define it is not where I would be able to make the biggest possible impact for God’s Kingdom.

And, quite frankly, being told to simply dispense of that understanding of ‘how I’m wired’ and blindly jump feet-first into your field of service, because you believe that’s what any serious Christian would do...

...well, it’s more than a little insulting.

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The church is a body – and you, Hudson, and the other members of The Traveling Team, are the feet.  (You might be the hands, too.  And I guess there’s an argument to be made for your being the mouth.  Sorry - I’m not as adept with the body analogy as I’d like to be).  You have been specially crafted by God to go out into the world and spread His good news to the ends of the earth.  Your function as part of the body of Christ is extremely important.  Simply put, without you and others like you, the Church would be largely incapable of growth beyond the borders of our own country.

I suppose I should also make it specifically clear, just in case this has somehow gotten lost in the critique, that I absolutely do not fault you for making your field of service better known to us.  Nor do I in any way fault you for your attempt to bring more missionaries into the fold; I applaud you for it.  College is definitely when most young Christians begin to seriously question where they fit in the church.  If your coming here and speaking to us has made someone realize that their gifts lie with yours in the mission field, then more power to you.  You certainly need all the help you can get out there.

All I am asking is that you do not lose your head due to either your excitement, or perhaps your ego.  You are an important part of the body of Christ – but no more important than any other.  We each have our own place in the church.  Just because the missionary field is your calling does not – and cannot - necessarily imply that it must be mine.

   Love in Christ,

                    - Dan Emmons