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January/February 1989 It is Not Easy to See Very Far Ahead at this Point in World History Two Great Study Bibles -- An Missions Cooperation in Evangelism and the Lausanne Covenat ACMC Prepares to Mobilize 6000 Churches by AD 2000
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Pressing Forward to AD 2000 With a flurry of new materials and a last-minute surprise, a global consultation advances the frontier missions movement by Darrell Dorr Expectations were high as 314 mission leaders from 50 countries descended on Singapore’s Amara Hotel during the first week of 1989. But if these participants in the Global Consultation on World Evangelization by AD 2000 and Beyond had high hopes, it was because consultation organizers and promoters had set the pace. David Barrett, editor of the World Christian Encyclopedia and Anglican missions researcher, had heralded the momentum leading up to the consultation as an accelerating “global evangelization movement.” Panya Baba, director of the Evangelical Missionary Society in Nigeria and a member of the consultation’s program committee, declared, “What we are witnessing today as the AD 2000 plans start to work together is not an accident. It is the plan of the Holy Spirit.” And Ralph Winter, director of the U.S. Center for World Mission, had written, “Why would I call this the ‘meeting of the century’? Simple. Never before has so broadly-backed a global meeting of mission strategists been proposed for the single purpose of evaluating what could be done specifically by the end of this century—with both the hope and confidence that the task can be finished.” But could GCOWE 2000 live up to such high expectations? By the end of the January 5-8 gathering, answers were mixed. Participants had exchanged a great deal of information, strengthened working relationships, and issued a stirring “Great Commission Manifesto.” But the consultation wavered at several key junctures, and only a last-minute initiative from the floor ensured the creation of an ongoing information office. Reasons for Optimism Second, as invitations were sent to representatives of AD 2000 plans and other leaders of “Great Commission networks,” positive responses came from across the spectrum of Christianity. Participants included Anglicans, Baptists, Catholics, Charismatics, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Pentecostals. Also represented were the Lausanne Committee, Campus Crusade for Christ, World Vision International, Third World Mission Advance, and 180 other organizations. More than half of the participants came from the non-Western world. Third, a flurry of new, exciting books and working documents—promising to “turn heads from Nairobi to New York,” according to Jay Gary, consultation director—came off the press as reference materials for GCOWE. Participants received some of these in the Christmas mail and others only after arriving in Singapore. Books included: Seven Hundred Plans to Evangelize the World: The Rise of a Global Evangelization Movement, by David Barrett and James Reapsome; Countdown 1900: World Evangelization at the End of the Nineteenth Century, by Todd Johnson; and Towards AD 2000 and Beyond: A Reader, edited by Luis Bush, Jay Gary, and Mike Roberts. Two other documents heightened anticipation: “Two Thousand Plans Toward AD 2000: a Kaleidoscopic Global Plan to See the World Evangelized by AD 2000 and Beyond,” prepared by a 15-member task force directed by Barrett; and “AD 2000 Global Goals: A Selection of 168 Proposed Great Commission Goals.” A Call for Unprecedented Cooperation Pre-consultation literature eloquently spoke of the need to appropriate the “corporate giftedness” of the global Church and to give special emphasis to unreached peoples and other unevangelized populations. A December 5 cover letter characterized the “kaleidoscopic global plan” as “a collective action plan for the next 24 months or so for those committed to achieving ‘something beautiful for God’ by AD 2000.” 72 Hours Packed With Activity In response, participants plunged into a series of presentations and discussions during the next three days: u Six case studies of AD 2000 plans were put forward to shed light on the consultation’s working documents and suggest lessons that could be applied in other contexts. Plans described included: Hong Kong 2000, a national plan; The World By 2000 (international radio); AD 2000 Together (Pentecostal/charismatic); New Life 2000 (Campus Crusade for Christ); Evangelization 2000 (Catholic); and Bold Mission Thrust (Southern Baptist). Following each presentation, participants discussed the plan’s strengths, weaknesses, and transferable concepts. u Continental meetings allowed participants to identify national and regional AD 2000 goals and prayer strategies. Study was also made of a proposal for a series of interlocking national, regional, and international AD 2000 consultations in the 1990s. These sessions were intended to help participants see their respective countries as both mission fields and mission bases. A task force led by Floyd McClung, international director of Youth With A Mission and a member of the GCOWE program committee, worked through four drafts of a “Great Commission Manifesto.” The Manifesto, intended to summarize the spirit and intention of the consultation for the benefit of the general public, was presented to participants at the concluding session and unanimously affirmed. Four basic goals were highlighted in the Manifesto: “1. Focus particularly on those who have not yet heard the gospel. “2. Provide every people and population on earth with a valid opportunity to hear the gospel in a language they can understand. It is our fervent prayer that at least half of humanity will profess allegiance to the Lord Jesus. “3. Establish a mission-minded church-planting movement within every unreached people group so that the gospel is accessible to all people. “4. Establish a Christian community of worship, instruction in the word, healing, fellowship, prayer, disciple making, evangelism and missionary concern in every human community.” Sprinkled throughout these multiple tracks were plenary addresses from members of the program committee. Under the theme of “Dreaming,” Bill O’Brien, executive vice-president of the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board, eloquently portrayed the scenario of a worldwide celebration in AD 2000 to rejoice in the fulfillment of the Great Commission. He asked, “Dare we dream together? Dare we think this group assembled could take some corporate action that might affect the destiny of the world?” Floyd McClung, addressing the theme of “Targeting,” declared, “It is essential to focus our efforts to reach those who have never heard the gospel. This is especially true of the Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu worlds but also includes those peoples that must be re-evangelized. Special focus must be given to world-class cities and the least-evangelized nations of the world.” And Luis Bush, president of Partners International and director of the 1987 COMIBAM missions congress for Latin America, covered the theme of “Fulfilling” by enthusing over the “streams” of faith and obedience now flooding the earth: “God’s people are in motion. They are moving. They are being mobilized, and all of a sudden we see potential for the completion of the Great Commission.” The Big-Picture Plan Central to the plan was its advocacy of a full-time AD 2000 Global Task Force, a team of people focusing on continuing research, publications, and consultations and ensuring that individual agencies take responsibility for one or more action steps. The document presupposed both existing AD 2000 plans and the necessity for “all the background things Christians already know to be necessary.” In three separate sessions, GCOWE participants met in small working groups to review and revise the big-picture plan. They generated 300 pages of suggestions for Barrett and his task force to consider, and a number indicated their willingness to help implement one or more of the 104 action points. But the big-picture plan generated tension as well as excitement. A minority of participants expressed concerns that the plan could be perceived as top-down, ignoring grassroots input, that its theological base and spiritual emphasis needed strengthening, and that it was too detailed to be effectively communicated to their constituencies. In a “review and clarification” statement issued the final day of the consultation, the GCOWE steering committee switched gears and characterized the kaleidoscopic plan, not as a collective action plan, but as something that “would become part of our ongoing ‘tool boxes,’ challenging our thinking and helping equip us in decision-making.” Fracas in the Family Gino Henriques, a Catholic priest from India who presented the Evangelization 2000 case study, responded by saying, “For whatever hurts they have received from Catholics, I’m not only grieved but I would beg pardon for those hurts, and I love them in the Lord.” A moving moment in the consultation came when Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board president Keith Parks, due to follow Henriques on the program, first brought the priest back to the lectern and publicly acknowledged him as a brother in Christ. Another group of participants, noting the prominence of the proposed Global AD 2000 Task Force within the big-picture plan, voiced their concern that GCOWE 2000 not create an additional structure that might duplicate the roles of the Lausanne Committee or the World Evangelical Fellowship. Others responded that they felt the need for a movement, like GCOWE, that is broader and more inclusive than either Lausanne or WEF. Thomas Wang, as director of the Lausanne and chairman of GCOWE 2000, had earlier stated his own opinion that whatever happened at Singapore would enrich Lausanne II, where an AD 2000 emphasis is scheduled to constitute one of 20 “tracks.” Many participants, while intellectually stimulated and spiritually challenged by the many reference materials, also began to suffer from bad cases of information overload. One leader confessed in a small group session, “After awhile, I just gave up trying to digest all the material and began to focus instead on getting to know the brothers and sisters around me.” As if to acknowledge the torrent of paper, the consultation’s first daily newsletter featured an article entitled, “How Am I Supposed to Read All This Stuff?” The steering committee acknowledged procedural shortfalls and attributed many to the hasty preparations for the gathering. Getting the Numbers Straight Weeks earlier, David Barrett had pulled together a GCOWE 2000 task force of researchers to seek unanimity in defining the job to be done. Barrett’s success in catalyzing helpful discussion prompted Thomas Wang to appointed him chairman of a similar task force commissioned to achieve new consensus among mission researchers in time for the July 1989 “Lausanne II” congress in Manila. GCOWE 2000 thus provided a convenient forum for the results of the first task force to be presented in rough draft and for a few members of the second, Lausanne-related task force to begin to meet. In addition to Barrett, members of the LCWE task force present at GCOWE 2000 included Ed Dayton of the Missions Advanced Research and Communications Center, Ralph Winter of the U.S. Center for World Mission, and Bob Waymire of Global Mapping International. Other members, including Patrick Johnstone, author of the well-known Operation World manual, were absent. The view of the unfinished task on which GCOWE 2000 itself was based was largely the result of Barrett’s own work. He has divided the world into 15,000 population segments (including 11,500 ethnolinguistic peoples) and estimated that approximately 3030 of these segments (including 2000 peoples) are unevangelized. Other researchers have partitioned the world differently, often with different emphases in view. Winter, for example, leaning on terms developed in a 1982 Lausanne-sponsored huddle, has preferred to focus on the task of planting church movements among people groups where no such movements exist, and has popularized the view that approximately 16,000 peoples are unreached by this definition. Working under a heightened sense of both external pressure—represented by Lausanne II and public confusion—and internal constraints—represented by the momentum generated by GCOWE, the task force began to probe each other’s ethnographic, missiological, and statistical assumptions with greater depth than they had in previous, isolated, relatively sporadic conversations. They agreed to consult with each other more often and to work more vigorously at presenting a united front in the preparation of materials. A Global Task Force? In the afternoon prior to the closing session, the steering committee met for a final time to consider continuation. Weary from criticisms of the consultation’s procedural shortfalls, committee members were also buffeted by conflicting concerns that the prospective Task Force would be too inclusive, exclusive, or competitive with existing bodies. Mindful in prayer that “unless a kernel of wheat fall to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed,” and confident that the Holy Spirit would foster an AD 2000 movement in His own way, they decided to not press for a continuation structure. Floyd McClung later explained, “We sensed that the Lord was not calling us to a new structure but instead a new sense of servanthood to one another. We experienced a tremendous sense of joy as we placed this in the Lord’s hands.” One Surprise Follows Another Participants were still musing on the unexpected turn of events when McClung began to give the benediction. Was it really over, just like that, after all had been said and done? But then, just as participants were preparing to leave, McClung acknowledged a written request from Ralph Winter to address the gathering. Winter expressed gratitude for the steering committee’s humility and sensitivity, noting that participants who favored a continuation office ought not to run roughshod over the minority who disapproved. But he added, “There should be Christian freedom if some of us here want to get together to encourage and fund a simple, meek-and-mild information office to help us more efficiently help one another.” He then suggested that those interested in such an office gather at the front of the room a few minutes after the final session concluded. About 85 participants did so, and after an hour-long discussion agreed to establish an information office to be staffed by Jay and Olgy Gary, who had served GCOWE 2000 from its inception as project coordinators. Four other guidelines were developed for the “AD 2000 Global Service Office”: The office will be accountable to an advisory committee comprised of as many members of the GCOWE steering committee as are able to serve, plus additional members as the committee sees the need; Financial support will come from as many agencies as continue to believe in the office’s importance and are able to contribute. The office will assist, as requested by the Lausanne Committee, in preparations for the AD 2000 track of the “Lausanne II” congress in Manila. The office will undergo a review of mandate and performance after 6-9 months. Participants in this post-GCOWE discussion agreed to avoid any claim that their initiative is an official result of GCOWE 2000 and to honor the steps taken by leaders and participants at the consultation. Furthermore, Bill O’Brien and Jim Montgomery—two members of the GCOWE steering committee—pointed out that this new form of “ad hoc-ery” supported, not contradicted, the steering committee’s action because it validated the committee’s rationale that it was free to yield the AD 2000 movement as something the Holy Spirit would forward in His own way. The AD 2000 Global Service Office Gary has stated his intention to primarily network with agencies with AD 2000 plans, mission associations, media ministries, and foundations. He is now completing work on the GCOWE 2000 compendium, due to appear in early April. The compendium will contain not only edited transcripts of GCOWE 2000 addresses but also Gary’s first-person account of the progression of events before, during, and after the consultation. Evaluating the Consultation The consultation was hastily organized, and participants received reference materials too late to properly digest and act upon them. The 72 hours of the event were filled with more agendas and expectations than they could reasonably contain. Diversity brought breadth of perspective, but also reduced many decisions to the level of the least common denominator. Rigorous peer review and development of a collective, roll-up-the-sleeves action plan—eagerly anticipated before the consultation—gave way to a cordial but relatively indiscriminate affirmation of one another and an agreement to keep talking. Comparisons to 1888 Prominent within Countdown to 1900 is an assessment of a major conference in London in 1888, a conference remarkably similar to GCOWE 2000 in its scope, ambition, and results. Johnson describes the 1888 conference in this way: “Because it was so hastily organized and because so many speakers were on the platform, there was no opportunity for genuine strategic planning. ‘Dividing up the world’ was pushed aside as the delegates tended to focus on what was being done and not on what remained to be done. [A.T.] Pierson’s rallying cry fell on an auditorium of men and women just learning to listen to each another, not on Christians ready to plan the final conquest of the world.” In another passage in his book, Johnson cites another assessment of the London conference by a leading periodical of the day. This assessment, too, could well apply to GCOWE 2000: “They ‘were of one mind and one soul’ in desire and purpose, to ‘preach the gospel to every creature.’ How best this could be done was the dominant thought. Much information was given. Difficulties and obstacles were stated with great candour. Many statements were made of a most encouraging and stimulating character. “But the meetings were deliberative, not executive. Therefore it was that many questions of great practical and doctrinal interest were hardly touched, and others were ventilated only, not decided. The conference was not a council, and was too large, miscellaneous and popular to develop into true practical deliberative forms, or to elicit much boldness of speech or freedom of opinion. This, no doubt, was felt by many to be a want, but it was inevitable.” Looking on the Bright Side Jay Gary points out that GCOWE gave international identity to the AD 2000 movement: “We’ve entered a new era of Great Commission Christians talking and journeying together. Many of the groups present at the consultation—such as the Assemblies of God, the Southern Baptists, Campus Crusade for Christ, and Wycliffe Bible Translators—were represented by their top leaders. These organizations are big enough to go their own way, but they’ve chosen not to.” Other fruits of the consultation include: A remarkable new set of reference tools—“concise, prophetic, accurate documentation,” in Gary’s words, and a new emphasis on cooperative AD 2000 goal-setting. Enthusiasm for subsequent national and regional AD 2000 consultations and other initiatives. Heightened awareness of the “window of opportunity” the Church must appropriate in the next 2-3 years if it is to seriously pursue any set of AD 2000 goals. While the consultation itself may have been characterized by hesitancy at several points, participants have returned home with new sensitivity to the calendar. New momentum for such crucial projects as the proposed “Adopt-a-People” clearinghouse, long discussed but only now receiving the attention it deserves. Plenary addresses and informal conversations in Singapore generated support for the March 15-17 Adopt-a-People symposium at the U.S. Center for World Mission. And prior to the consultation, about 30 U.S. participants agreed in advance that a worthy goal would be to press for each unreached people to be adopted in a church-mission partnership by 1991. Additional breezes in the sails of the new Lausanne Statistical Task Force as it seeks to further cooperative mission research. Already clear is the fact that Barrett has recently discovered far greater linguistic diversity in certain areas of the world than has been published earlier. Among other things, this discovery has lent new credence to Winter’s estimate of 16,000 people groups remaining to be reached. A statistical picture of unprecedented scope is expected to appear in the next few weeks. A mechanism for coordinated preparations for the AD 2000 track at “Lausanne II” in Manila this July. u Impact on a wide range of additional gatherings scheduled to occur within the next 2-3 years. For example, on the heels of GCOWE 2000, the North American Renewal Service Committee met in Orlando, Florida January 16-17 and decided on an AD 2000 focus for its August 1990 Congress on the Holy Spirit and World Evangelization. The committee represents Pentecostal denominations and renewal movements in Catholic and mainline Protestant churches, and the congress is expected to draw 50,000 people to the Hoosierdome in Indianapolis. Vinson Synan, chairman of the Renewal Service Committee, says of GCOWE 2000, “This Consultation was truly an historic moment for the Church. Churches and ministries that had never talked together pledged cooperation in completing the task of world evangelization by the end of the century.... The vision, data, and resources shared in Singapore will set the agenda for the Church until the end of the century.” Jay Gary concedes, “Those closest to the consultation raised expectations which were perhaps unrealistic.” But consultation organizers and participants can be forgiven if rhetoric outpaced reality in this instance. For, like a group of mountain climbers who, bruised and weary, fail to reach the pinnacle on the first attempt, they at least attained a new plateau. Base camp is now at a higher altitude, and the summit waits for those who are able and willing to try again before night comes and the window of opportunity is lost. For further information on GCOWE 2000 or the AD 2000 Global Service Office, contact: Jay Gary, AD 2000 Global Service Office, P.O. Box 129, Rockville, VA 23146, USA, phone (818) 792-9355, fax (818) 792-3455. To order materials prepared for GCOWE 2000, see the descriptions on page 26 and the order form on page 27 of this issue of Mission Frontiers. The “Kaleidoscopic” Global Plan: A Summary Responsibility: Proclaim human responsibility to obey Jesus’ Great Commission. The Great Commission World
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