discovering missions - Southern Nazarene University

245187 Disc Missions ins 9/6/07 1:04 PM Page 87
From Every Nation 87
that just because people share the same language does not mean they are the
same culturally. As a Mexican, Reza was working cross-culturally when he went
to Peru or Argentina or Panama. Bruno Radi, an Argentinean of Italian and
Polish parents, was likewise working cross-culturally as he promoted evangelism
and church planting in almost every country of South America.
Contributing to Closure
Much world evangelism work today goes on in cultures and people groups
where the Church is already established. Continuing to do mission work in areas
where churches already exist is not a bad thing in and of itself. However, in
order to strategically distinguish such mission work from pioneer efforts to
evangelize unreached people groups, it has been given the label of regular missions.
Mission efforts within people groups where the Church has not yet been
planted or is quite small are called frontier missions. As has been seen, God’s
purpose in giving the Abrahamic covenant and calling for its fulfillment in the
Great Commission is to bring glory to himself through loving, caring relationships
with people from every nation, tongue, and tribe. Obeying the Great
Commission and working for closure, regardless of how that is measured, will
not happen unless the Church puts a high priority on frontier missions. For
the Great Commission to be fulfilled in the world’s least-evangelized, the
Church needs to zealously mobilize all its resources, including those in the majority
world and in minority churches in the West.
Back to Jerusalem Movements
As has been noted, majority world mission groups are often very interested
in frontier missions. Coming out of China and Nigeria are two vibrant Back to
Jerusalem movements focused on unreached areas. House church leaders in China
have committed to raising up missionaries to evangelize from China’s borders
westward through the 10/40 Window all the way to Jerusalem. The vision for
that arose in the 1920s but then had to be put on hold in 1949 when the Chinese
church was forced underground. Now, Chinese church leaders are once
again talking about turning that dream into a reality. In Africa, the Nigerian
Evangelical Missions Association (NEMA) has launched Vision 50:15 with the
hopes of mobilizing 50,000 Nigerians over a 15-year period for the purpose of
taking the gospel north and eastward from their country all the way to Jerusalem.
In talking about what Nigerian churches plan to do in Vision 50:15, Timothy
Olonade, executive secretary of NEMA, has said some bold things:
We cannot get back to Jerusalem without—
• Facing the enemy eye to eye. This vision calls for holy confrontation. The
nations between Nigeria and Jerusalem are known to have overtly set
themselves against the Lord and His anointed.