discovering missions - Southern Nazarene University

245187 Disc Missions ins 9/6/07 1:04 PM Page 40
40 Christian Mission
others masterfully contextualized the gospel into Greco-Roman culture, using
principles many consider timeless. Roland Allen’s classic book Missionary Methods:
St. Paul’s or Ours? urged mission leaders to adopt Paul’s ministry as a pattern
for today’s missionary endeavors.
By A.D. 200, Christianity had infected every province of the Roman Empire.
The gospel had also reached eastward to Mesopotamia, Persia, and India.
An imperial declaration issued in A.D. 313 by Emperor Constantine giving
Christianity legal protection reflected how widespread the faith had become. A
century or so later, an English slave in his 20s named Patrick escaped from
slavery in Ireland. Some time later, he felt called to return to Ireland as a missionary.
His vibrant Christian witness turned Irish hearts from belief in spirits
living in the rocks and trees to belief in the Lord Jesus. In 30 years of missionary
ministry Patrick was so successful that he was able to plant about 700
churches in Ireland.
No Shortcut to Understanding People
The fact that Patrick understood the people and their language, their
issues, and their ways, serves as the most strategically significant,
single insight that was to drive the wider expansion of Celtic Christianity,
and stands as perhaps our greatest single learning from this
movement. There is no shortcut to understanding the people. When
you understand the people, you will often know what to say and do,
and how. When the people know that the Christians understand
them, they infer that maybe the High God understands them too. 3
–-George G. Hunter III
By A.D. 500, Christianity had enveloped the Roman Empire and had begun
penetrating the Gothic and Slavic areas of Central and Northern Europe.
The faith also continued spreading eastward and southward. However, after
more than four centuries of nearly continuous expansion, some difficult days,
even days of retrenchment, lay ahead.
500 to 1500
The first part of the thousand years from 500 to 1500 saw continued mission
expansion. In 596, Gregory the Great, bishop of Rome, sent 40 Benedictine
missionaries to Britain. En route to their assignment, the group became
frightened about dangers they might face. They sent their leader, Augustine,
back to Rome to ask for permission to abort the mission. Gregory would not
hear of it and ordered them on.