by Ramesh Richard

(Adapted from an interview with the Dallas/Ft. Worth Heritage newspaper. We interact with Ramesh Richard concerning changing trends in global missions.)

Q: You watch the world by way of an extensive international itinerant ministry. What are trends that impact our faith globally?

            Let’s describe a trend first. Sir Alex Cairncross once said:

A trend is a trend is a trend.
The question, of course, is
Will it bend
By some unseen force as it runs its course
And come to a premature end.

So, the word trend needs to be clarified. When I talk about a trend, I do not refer to a fad such as pet rocks or the fashionableness of flowery ties! A trend is more than an inclination of a few people in a given sub-culture. Often with an ideological base, a trend is clearly identifiable in a particular location and intensifies over a given period of time. But periods of time come to an end.

Q: Let’s come then to the question of global trends.

Global trends that have implications for the future of the Church may be classified philosophically and sociologically. For instance, the Christian community faces a theologically decisive question in the face of religious pluralism – maintaining the uniqueness and the universality of Jesus Christ. Our core beliefs, social identity, and personal viability are at stake in the present global philosophical environment. The challenge to fortify and articulate our faith in obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ is imperative.

Q: And sociologically?

            A number of socio-political trends are pertinent to Christian experience, especially in the context of missions. Let me whisk a broad brush across the globe. For instance, the world has been restructured as of December, 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall. The world now divides into two (instead of three): the giant economies (U.S., Europe, Japan, and the Pacific Rim) and the dwarf economies (everyone else!). Inversely, the richer countries have the lowest population and the poorer countries have the most. You can draw a box around South Asia and China to come up with a most terrifying statistic—two out of three people will live there in the next seven years. We could also talk about trends in technology, communications, travel, information. I often find that the have-nots of the world are also the know-nots of the gospel.

 Q: How do these trends affect Christian missions to the world?

            Perhaps the most significant trend for Christian missions is the change of the composition of Christians and Christian leadership. More Christians are now found in traditionally non-missionary-sending countries than in the North Atlantic countries of Western Europe and North America. Further, God has already raised great men and women of vision, leadership, and skills in these countries. Our question, then, is Why has the Lord allowed us to live in a giant economy, and what will we do about the great, gifted, godly leaders that he has raised up in poorer parts of the world?

Q: What are some changes that churches and organizations need to make to deal with these realities?

            Missions committees and organizations have to ask a basic question, Is our mission to send our own missionaries, or to reach unreached regions? If it is to send our own missionaries, then the status quo can be maintained—and even that is not admirable in most churches! However, if the Church’s mission is to reach the unreached, then adjustments have to be made to the former “we only” mindset, the allocation of monies, negative views of local missionaries, etc. Local churches will need to retool, setting sights on world evangelization rather than doing their own special thing.

Q: What do you suggest should be the Church’s focus in missions?

Fundamentally, our focus should be on the internationalization of the missions task in staffing and funding. Since the world has changed, our methods of missions to this world must be changed. There needs to be an increasing emphasis on how we can unleash the power of Christian leaders in these more unreached parts of the world.

By the way, this emphasis also seizes the other global trends of “nationalism.” Traditional missions organizations have to come to terms with their success. Their stated goal, at least theoretically, was to go to these countries and train “nationals” to do mission. Now that these organizations have been successful, will Christian missions be internationalized?

Q: How does RREACH’s vision fit with these trends?

Notice, I have used the term internationalization, rather than the indigenization of missions. Internationalization includes indigenization. It treats partners as equals. People resources and monetary resources are matched to do the task at hand. There are some who emphasize indigenization, and missions then becomes sheer fund transfer, and the Church in donor regions withers. Everybody is needed somewhere in different capacities—a biblical body statement. At RREACH, our vision is to equip pastors, preachers, and thinkers in economically deprived regions with skills, tools, and resources to reach their nations for Christ.

Q: What are the advantages to this vision?

            There are four strategic reasons we pursue this vision at RREACH. It is:

• the best multiplication strategy—in Fiji I was involved in teaching 168 leaders who each minister to at least 100 people every week. That’s about 17,000 people being nurtured weekly.
• the best ongoing ministry—The 154 Haitian pastors to whom we gave biblical study resources cannot pick up and leave as their country languishes in political turmoil. They simply stay and minister.
• the best contextualized communication—Local leaders know their people best—culture, language, though pattern, history, and tradition. Being from India, I have a slight advantage over non-Indians in communicating to people from Indian background.
• the best economic value—It is hard to believe that supporting local missionaries sometimes costs from a 10^th to a 100^th of what it costs to send career, Western missionaries to some places.

Q: How do you go about implementing this vision at RREACH?

            This global vision is accomplished in two ways. The first is by proclamation. There is no promotion of Christ or saving faith without the hearing of the Word of God. Further, we have to model what we are equipping these leaders to do. If we are teaching them to evangelize non-Christians, expound Scriptures, or to equip laity, we must demonstrate evangelism, exposition, and equipping, on a platform of godliness and spiritual vitality.

The second is by helps projects which are in conjunction with our own itinerant efforts or with organizations in developing countries who fit within the framework of our vision. We simply don’t want to preach and leave. We need to think about perpetuation, multiplication, and diffusion of the gospel. Consequently, RREACH is involved in “helping” pastors, preachers, and thinkers with some of the resources they need to pursue their vision and task.

In several parts of the world, Christian leaders are experiencing the phenomenon the West saw in the immediate post-war era. They sense a dynamic compulsion to organize in reaching the nations. So, RREACH attempts to be there to enable their ministries. This is why we say that we are reaching locally worldwide.