What Is Missionary?
Chad: When Radius International started we had a few goals. One of the goals was to train people to go to the unreached languages of the earth, and another goal was to inspire and educate the church on biblical missions. Really, it’s in order to do that well that Missionary has been launched, so that we can provide these kind of historical documentaries that teach you biblical missiology along with Bible study so that you can do that in a small group or in your family worship or in a Sunday school class to further your Church's understanding and your family's understanding of missiology.
We also want to provide a number of resources that offer help to the church on: Where are the unreached language groups? How do we reach them? What do we need to know biblically? What are the things out in the missions world that we need to avoid? What are the things that we need to embrace? To have conferences bringing in high quality speakers who can teach the word of God well, handle the word of truth faithfully, and at the same time who understand what Christ has commissioned his church to do and the difficulty of doing that and seeing that gospel go to the ends of the earth.
Brooks: Missionary fills a unique niche. People like to throw around the terminology surrounding it but they don't really know. The terms haven't been defined. So you have four primary lanes when it comes to missions today: One is the training of national pastors, which you kind of see in the global south––it's shot through, quite often, with prosperity gospel––to train them in a biblical understanding of the truth and the church. Number two is English-speaking churches, which can be good but sometimes have drawbacks to them. Lane number three is national language churches––like Urdu and Mandarin and Bahasa––these churches that are in national languages we would love to see more of. Then there's this fourth lane that is often talked about but is rarely understood––to go to minority languages where no church exists, where there's no gospel witness, and quite often no translation of the scriptures.
Missionary speaks to that lane. It really is the dominant force, I would say, in that lane in that it has a very clear precision in what it doesn't do and what it does do and to get to the ends of the earth. A lot of lip service is given to unreached people groups and how we get to them and what we do, but to actually do that is rare and Missionary is really a sharp knife cut for that direction. I'm really thankful for its clarity because in the world of missions probably the number one detraction is it's nebulous in terminology, it's nebulous in what it does. Missionary is a clear incisive force, whether that's in the documentaries or the Bible studies or the other resources that are coming out. It's going to be a clear kind of way for churches and pastors to speak to that fourth lane of “How do we effect that today?”
Chad: I think we want to add to that, as we go, a kind of library of resources: How do you send well? How do you support your missionaries well? How do you build a sending culture in your church? What are the kinds of questions pastors and elders ought to be asking of missionary candidates? What are the kind of questions missionary candidates and pastors and elders ought to be asking of sending organizations? What sort of challenges do they face in the field, and how are we to understand that here at home? How do we come alongside them in general? I also think of children's resources, books on missions and missionaries for children. There are just a number of resources that we hope to produce and intend to produce for the sake of helping the church understand the Great Commission and fulfill it faithfully.
Brooks: Amen. Yeah, I'm probably the most excited about the terminology section. It's just this melting pot of: What is a missionary? Are we all on mission? Missio dei? What are insider movements? What's this stuff called multiplication movements or disciple making movements, person of peace? There's just a stew of things in the missions world and for pastors who don't have the time to dive in and read the sources, wondering “Where did this come from? Is this good? Is this bad? I hear my missionaries on the field are practicing this…” For them to have a quick, ready accessible guide to the missions world, this is going to be a benefit that Missionary will bring.