The Local Church and Missionary Accountability
Scripture clearly establishes that God wants worshippers from every nation, tribe, people, and language (Revelation 7:9-10). To become worshippers, men and women must believe; to believe, they must hear the gospel; and to hear, someone must be sent to preach (Romans 10:14-15). The task of preaching the gospel to all peoples seems daunting. What is the role of the local church body in this task? Over the last ten years, NorthPoint Church in Des Moines, Iowa, has been in the process of evaluating our current global missions efforts against this task. This process has led our church on a path of change toward a more strategic focus in our missions efforts, along with increased missionary accountability, especially in the area of language acquisition and culture.
NorthPoint Church, as a local church body, has been in existence for over 100 years. (1) Our church has always been committed to the “Great Commission” (Matthew 28:19-20): to go and make disciples of all nations. Our vision was not very specific — sending people to take the gospel overseas. Historically, like many churches, we sent missionaries wherever they felt led to serve overseas, in whatever capacity or ministry they chose. Our church had no relationships with mission agencies. We supported any agency that a missionary chose as a partner. Our involvement as a church consisted primarily of receiving monthly missionary newsletters, praying for needs, and sending financial support to missionaries via their mission agency. Communication through regular newsletters was really the only level of accountability that we as a church required for continued support. We left matters of accountability up to the individual missionary and their agency.
As our missions team went through the process of evaluating our missions efforts, we became aware of several concerns and areas needing improvement. Our lack of focus in missions had resulted in our efforts being scattered in many types of ministries in many parts of the world. Our church did missions the way it had always been done. Many missionaries were in places that already had a significant gospel presence. Over the past ten years, however, our thinking about missions started to change. Through courses like Perspectives on the World Christian Movement, we became aware of the gospel inequity among people groups around the world.
We also observed that many of our missionaries had unclear expectations for their work overseas and limited accountability from their agencies. One of the most significant areas of concern we observed was the issue of language fluency. Living overseas requires some level of learning in language and culture. Acquiring language fluency is a challenging task, requiring extensive time and self-discipline. What level of fluency is necessary for the missionary? Our individual missionaries varied widely in their views on the necessity of language fluency and the level of fluency needed for gospel transmission. Many agencies seem to have minimal standards for language learning and no requirement for fluency. As a result, some of our missionaries seemed to settle for a functional level of fluency, able to function in the culture but unable to conduct deeper spiritual conversations at an adult level. Others relied on interpreters, which limited relationships and also raised questions about accuracy of communication. Many seemed eager to move on to the tasks of “real ministry” instead of devoting more time and energy to the challenges of language learning. The struggles in language learning seemed to impair effective ministry.
A primary concern with lack of language fluency is the possibility of communicating a false gospel. The gospel message and scriptural truth must be communicated clearly and accurately if it is to be correctly understood. This requires a high level of language fluency. In 1 Corinthians 14:9-11, the apostle Paul talks about the need to be understood while speaking in tongues, so that the church is built up:
“So with yourselves, if with your tongue you utter speech that is not intelligible, how will anyone know what is said? For you will be speaking into the air. There are doubtless many different languages in the world, and none is without meaning , but if I do not know the meaning of the language, I will be a foreigner to the speaker and the speaker a foreigner to me.” (ESV)
While Paul’s context is different than ours, his point underscores the need for spiritual content to be communicated in a manner that can be clearly understood. In our missions context, language fluency helps ensure correct understanding of spiritual truth. When our church called a new lead pastor, we expected him to not only understand the scriptures, but be able to communicate these truths clearly and accurately in English, the “heart language” of most people in our community. Even the business world understands that lack of language fluency can lead to significant misunderstanding, as demonstrated in a humorous AT&T Wireless television commercial. (2) In missions, as in business, “just ok is not ok” when it comes to language fluency.
Our church realized that if we wanted to see different results, some things needed to change in our missions efforts. Our first step toward change was to adopt a more strategic focus. Our missions team developed a more specific mission statement for our global effort: to plant churches among people groups that are the least reached for Christ, focusing on northern Africa, the Middle East, and Asia (also known as the “1040 Window”). These are the areas of the world where the gospel is least known and the life and work of Jesus Christ are not understood. Like the apostle Paul, our church desires to take the gospel where it is not known (Romans 15:20); that requires us to send people to clearly communicate the good news of the gospel in other languages (Romans 10:14-15). This is no small task, as it is estimated that there are over 6,000 unreached people groups in the world, representing about 3.1 billion people, or 42% of the world’s population. (3) Currently, less than 10% of all missionaries (and less than 1% of all missions financial support) go to these least reached areas of the world. (4) If we want to see these statistics change, we can start by changing where our own local church sends missionaries and financial support. To receive financial support from our church now, new missionaries must target these least reached peoples.
With this new strategic focus on least reached peoples, we realized that language fluency would be an absolute necessity. In these least reached areas, missionaries must often learn two languages: the first, the national trade language, to be able to conduct business activities and interact with government officials; the second language, the minority language of the particular targeted people group, to be able to effectively communicate gospel truth in their heart language. These second languages are often more difficult to learn because many people groups have languages that have not been written down. For longevity and fruitful ministry in these challenging least reached places, language fluency is essential.
In addition, we identified mission agencies with like-minded goals and expectations. These agencies, which are focused on the least reached and require language fluency, also have methods for testing language proficiency. Any new missionaries we support typically partner with one of these like-minded agencies.
We revised our expectations for these new missionaries who would be going to the 1040 Window. Typically, these are more difficult places to live, requiring a longer stay to plant a church. As a result, we strongly recommend all prospective missionaries to prepare for challenges on the field by devoting one year to Radius International, a training school for missionaries. At Radius, students receive instruction in cross-cultural church planting and learn how to acquire language and culture by undergoing an immersion experience. (5) Upon completion of this training, we expect new missionaries to spend the first several years on the field focused primarily on acquiring language and culture, with the goal of fluency in the national trade language. Fluency requires a quantifiable measure of language proficiency. Our goal is for missionaries to reach the “advanced-high” level of language proficiency. (6) We expect a high level of language fluency because this is necessary for communicating spiritual truth clearly at an adult level.
A key element of these new expectations for fluency is increased accountability. Our role as a supporting church is not limited to providing financial support. Language learning is a long, tedious, and often discouraging process, requiring much time, effort, and self-discipline. Our church encourages missionaries in this task through weekly contact, weekly prayer, and periodic field visits. In addition to these activities, we also keep in regular contact with the sending agency. Some agencies test language proficiency twice a year; our missionaries send us their test scores and other evidence that they are progressing in language learning. If there are any struggles or problems, we contact the missionary and the mission agency staff to more fully understand the issues from their perspectives. We seek to encourage the missionary and do all we can to enable him or her to achieve language fluency and progress to their goal of taking the gospel to the least reached.
Our expectations are somewhat different for existing missionaries sent out by our church prior to this new focus on unreached peoples and language fluency. We expect these missionaries to be faithful to the original objective they had when they were initially sent out. However, we also strongly encourage them to be fluent in the primary language of their country–essentially mastering one language. Typically, these missionaries have agencies that do not test language proficiency; therefore, we request that they take a test for language proficiency using a testing service and then forward the results to our missions team. (7) Our desire is for all our missionaries to have a high level of language proficiency for the sake of gospel clarity and to enable fruitful ministry. If test results show adequate language proficiency, we celebrate with them in their achievement. However, if test results show proficiency is lacking, we work with the missionary and agency to develop a plan for improvement.
For ten years, our church has been transitioning to a focus on church planting among least reached people groups. This process of change can be challenging for everyone involved; it is still a work in progress. Church planting is a process that also takes time. Often, a missionary will need to learn two languages, start a business to be able to stay in a country, all while in the process of sharing the gospel and planting a church. It is not uncommon for such a process to take 15-20 years. Our church has missionaries who are in the beginning of this lengthy process. Several have completed training at Radius and are now overseas working on language learning. Some have achieved fluency in the first language and are learning their second language along with starting a business. Our church works closely with all those we send, to help them keep accountable, especially in language learning. In reality, every individual case is unique and the process of sending and supporting missionaries can be messy and sometimes painful. In spite of the difficulties, our local church is committed to the process of supporting our missionaries, both financially and with loving accountability. This accountability includes fluency in language, because we are convinced that this fluency is a key aspect of the longevity and gospel clarity that is necessary for planting churches in areas where none have previously existed.
Missions pastor
Des Moines, Iowa
(1) Prior to 2019, NorthPoint Church was called Johnston Evangelical Free Church
(2) https://www.ispot.tv/ad/o6VN/at-and-t-wireless-ok-translator
(3) http://www.thetravelingteam.org/stats
(5) https://www.radiusinternational.org
(6) We typically use proficiency levels as defined by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). For specific descriptions of proficiency levels see https://www.actfl.org.
(7) Although other testing services may be available, we have found ACTFL has best met our needs in this area. For a moderate price, they conduct oral proficiency interviews (OPI) over the phone, which are recorded and evaluated by two testers. Testing in over 70 languages is available.
How can we help your church be equipped to join God in His mission both locally and globally? Contact us and let us know.