July 01, 1982 by

An interview with Mr. Bruce Nicholls and Dr. Ralph Winter

An interview with Mr. Bruce Nicholls, Chairman of the Theological Commission of the World Evangelical Fellowship and Dr. Ralph D. Winter, of the USCWM.

A recent visitor to the campus of the U. S. Center for World Mission was Mr. Bruce Nicholls, veteran missionary from New Zealand to India. Mr. Nicholls is currently chairman of the Theological Commission of the World Evangelical Fellowship, and is the chairman of the world-level consultation on the Nature and Mission of the Church being convened by the WEF at Wheaton, Illinois in August of 1983. During his visit to the Center he participated in a discussion with Dr. Ralph Winter, General Director of the Center, and David Dougherty, Managing Editor of Mission Frontiers.

David: Mr. Nicholls, what do our readers need to know about the World Evangelical Fellowship (WEF)?

Mr. Nicholls: You could say that the initial Impetus was formed out of a meeting in 1846 in London between North American and European Christian leaders. However, it wasn't until the years following World War II that cooperation among evangelicals began in earnest. In 1951, in Holland, with wind in its sails from the newly formed NAE in the USA, the WEF was formed on the world level to bring together the various national evangelical alliances and fellowships. It had a slow beginning because of its part time staff and limited budget, and because many of the national fellowships were quite small. But we have seen in the last ten years a steady expansion of the ministry and structure of the WEF, so that now there are 147 national associations or alliances representing about 50 countries.

David: What kind of membership does the WEF have?

Mr. Nicholls: We should probably think of the WEF not as an organization as such, though it is that. It is more a meeting point for evangelicals and evangelical organizations world wide. A number of national and/or continental fellowships comprise the basic membership. The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) is the member body from the USA. The Evangelical Alliance of England represents that country. The European Evangelical Alliance is the body from that continent and the Association of Evangelicals of Africa and Madagascar (AEAM) is the regional body for that continent. A number of national fellowships from throughout Asia belong to the WEF, and later this year, in Seoul, Korea, Asian evangelical leaders are meeting to form an all Asian association of evangelical fellowships.At the last general assembly of the WEF it was agreed to open the membership to church bodies, to councils, to institutions, to mission bodies, so that membership is no longer limited to national evangelical church associations. "We have seen in the last 10 years a steady expansion of the WEF so that now there are 47 national associations."

David: How is the work of the WEF accomplished?

Mr. Nicholls The strength of any movement is not so much in its organization or structure as it is in its people. Thus much of the work of the WEF is carried out through a number of commissions. For example, the Missions Commission is headed by Theodore Williams of India. He is himself founder of the Indian Evangelical Mission which has more than 120 Indian missionaries. It is supported from India and controlled by Indian personnel."The strength of any movement is in its people."

A second commission, which it is my personal responsibility to chair, is the Theological Commission. There are 55 members of this commission, drawn equally from the major geographical areas represented within the WEF (North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and the South Pacific).

Each of these commissions has responsibility for ongoing programs and concerns of the WEF membership as a whole. Other commissions focus on areas like communications and relief and development.

David: Both you and Dr. Winter are now involved in preparations for the Wheaton '83 meeting. I wonder if we could turn our attention to this meeting.

Dr. Winter: One of the things which attracts my attention to Wheaton '83 is the concern it has for awakening new interest in "finishing the job." It's what I have tried to designate as a "closure theology." But the special feature of this conference is that it Is the first in over a half century that is both a worldlevel conference emphasizing frontiers (as did the Edinburgh Consultation) and yet at the same time formally brings associations of churches together, featuring churchmen as official representatives of their churches. Do you see it that way?

Mr. Nicholls: Yes, I see it as a happy combination of individuals with personal concern and expertise on the one hand, balanced with representation from churches at local, denominational, and regional levels so that the churches will feel an official ownership in the conference.

Mr. Nicholls: My hope is that it will catalyze an ongoing renewal of the whole of the evangelical church in terms of its understanding of God's calling to mission for the church in the world, focusing on the unfinished task of world evangelization.

I think this is important so that when these people go back from the consultation to report to their churches, they report officially, as participants, rather than as observers. Participants also will be able to deliberate and report more authoritatively.

David: What particular themes will be pursued by the consultation?

Mr. Nicholls: The overall theme of the meeting is "The Nature and Mission of the Church." Under that there are three separate consultations which share certain plenary sessions, and meet the rest of the time in individual meetings. These three specialized consultations focus on (1) The Nature and Mission of the Church in the Local Setting; (2) The Nature and Mission of the Church in New Frontiers in Mission; and (3) The Nature and Mission of the Church in Meeting Human Need.

Dr. Winter: Of course we here are particularly interested in the second consultation  The Church in New Frontiers. Would it be accurate to say that never in this century has there been a conference of church representatives that has seriously focused on mission frontiers? The 1910 conference at Edinburgh was an ad hoc conference; like Edinburgh 1980, it was Mission Agencies and not churches that were represented.

Mr. Nicholls: Yes, the only kind of inter church conferences that have been held with official representation are those that have been sponsored by the World Council of Churches. And as far as I can remember, they have never focused on world evangelization or the reaching of the unreached or frontier peoples of the world.

Nor has there been a churchbased, world level conference that has begun with the clear assumption that those out of Christ are lost, and need to plainly hear the Gospel, receive the Gospel and be incorporated into living fellowships and groups of believers.

David: What do you anticipate might be the result of the Wheaton '83 meeting?

A second result ought to be the progressive fulfillment of the Great Commission in reaching every people group on the globe for Christ. It will probably also lead to the discovery of new kinds of unreached peoples  truly flew frontiers. Some of these frontiers will be discovered to be more sociological   or vocational groups, like the bullfighters in Mexico or the taxi drivers where I live in New Delhi.

David: So a major purpose of the Wheaton '83 meeting might be to make major church leaders aware of these frontiers?

Mr. Nicholls: Yes, church leaders as well as mission leaders. Even some mission bodies are not aware of these remaining frontiers.

David: How did you come to select Frontier Missions as one of three major topics to be the focus of the Wheaton meeting?

Mr. Nicholls: Missions belongs to the very nature of the church and you can't have the church if you don't have missions.

Dr. Winter: Was there any overflow of other events which you perceived as leading to this discussion of Frontier Missions in this forum?

Mr. Nicholls: Oh yes. The Wheaton meeting is certainly not starting from scratch. It is a conference that is one more speck in the long process of growing evangelical activity concerned with the church. This conference is building on both the Pattaya and Edinburgh conferences in 1980.

David: Mr. Nicholls, in closing, you have been here on the campus of the U. S. Center for the past several days. Do you have any reaction to what you see happening here?

Mr. Nicholls: Yes, I am encouraged by the work you are doing. I'm encouraged by your faith in going ahead when you still have great economic hurdles to overcome. This is a painful experience, but it may be a very fruitful one spiritually because God is testing your faith and strengthening your own sense of call and resolve.