December 01, 1982 by Ralph D. Winter

USCWM General Director Ralph Winter examines a new thrust in frontier missionary outreach coming from yesterday's mission fields. The transition from mission field to mission base holds great hope for the penetration of the final frontiers of the gospel.

In this issue, Mission Frontiers introduces its readers to a littleknown but highly significant development . It is at the very "edge of the edge" of a mission organizition that has for many years itself been at the forefront of innovation and advance.In the opinion of this writer, there is perhaps no other single project in missions today that holds greater significance for the evangelization of the world than this one, even though it is still a tiny and experimental project.

Last issue we discussed the upswing of mission interest in new frontiers as viewed at the two major annual gatherings of mission leaders  the IFMA in New Jersey at the end of September and the EFMA in Colorado Springs the same month. In both cases, the frontiers were the chief concern. Our observation last issue was that this turning heralds " new forces for new fields but also new vision for older fields".

In this issue we will try to point Holland's picture on our front cover symbolizes the importance we attach to the fact that he has introduced to the mission world the concept of an overseas "missiological institute." A few weeks ago he confronted 300 pastors in Central America with the question, "You have been receiving missionaries for many years. Is it not time for you to become a sending base? Now is the time for your people to become missionaries, not merely to continue to be recipients of missionary help."Holland's challenge does not mean that overnight all existing missionaries can be withdrawn or, indeed, even that they should be withdrawn. It does mean that all existing missionaries can pursue their present involvement with a new gleam in their eyes  the goal that present mission fields must become mission bases.

For too long we have assumed that a "successful mission" will produce thousands of souls won to Christ, or hundreds of churches that will stand on their own two feet and work indigenously within their own work is not for missionaries to walk away from a field burgeoning with churches but for them to leave behind them a mission field that has finally become a mission sending base. It is the appearance of Third World missions, as they are called, that is ultimately the only measure of complete success on the mission field.

As I have said, the establishment of Third World mission societies is not an entirely new idea, but in terms of their impact, they are not yet a major force in missions. In our next issue, we will sum up the situation as definitively discussed in a new book, The Last Age of Missions

Now, however, Cliff Holland's idea, supported by the Latin America Mission and by the others who are working with him, brings into existence for the first time during January, February and March of this coming year (and every year thereafter) a special institute which will allow pastors and other Christian leaders to gain an insight into the very different task of setting up and operating a mission outreach. Pastors are not normally involved in supervising people at a distance. The development of new mission structures of several different kinds (where that kind of long distance supervision must be done) is not going to be a simple thing to achieve. Not only pastors but other specialists must be educated in the complexities of running a mission agency before anything even remotely approaching the kind of veteran agencies which we know in the United States will become available to believing congregations overseas.

Maybe no single institute of this sort in Central America is going to revolutionize the world, except simply the individual world of those who attend. But the pattern that is established is something that can be a bombshell of new steps forward all around the world.

This would not be the first time that the Latin America Mission has done something which many others can copy. For many years the now world famous Evangelism In Depth program developed by Kenneth Strachan, the son of the founder of the mission, has reverberated all over the world. It was a brilliant idea of across the board collaboration in evangelism of an entire area through an "in depth campaign" involving all missions and churches in a thrilling team. The idea caught on in many countries, and has produced vitally important results.

The Latin America Mission has one of the most exciting stories of any mission organization whatsoever. It was originally the inspiration of a handful of people to set in motion evangelistic efforts all down through the hemisphere. As time wore on, Strachan and his cohorts flexibly recognized the necessity of doing a lot of different things in order to bolster, buttress and provide follow through for their evangelistic efforts. In some instances they established hospitals and clinics, in other places churchplanting work. They established a major Biblical seminary in Costa Rica, which for many years supplied outstanding leadership in Latin America. They developed literature and radio ministries through a wonderful attitude of cooperation with other missions in Latin America.

The most radical departure from standard practice, ultimately, was the result of assimilating Latin American leadership into their own mission ranks. In Latin America this is not so difficult, although even there such assimilation did not extend to aboriginal church leaders. Other Latin Americans, those whose ancestors immigrated in, usually from some place in Europe, were not really that different from other Europeans. Thus, it was readily possible not only for intermarriage to occur with members of the mission but for the mission itself to absorb a large number of outstanding national leaders into their team.

Ultimately, after a period of many years, this process produced a 'community of Latin American ministries" which in turn became a series of autonomous boards for publishing, medical work, seminaries, etc., which simply worked together under the same banner. One of those many ministries is the basis now for this new missiological institute which Cliff Holland and others are developing.

One of the most unique things about these autonomous ministries is that their incorporation is on the mission field itself. In this phenomenon, the legal strings are held in Latin America itself, not back in the United States. In the case of Cliff Holland's work, the board of directors is in Costa Rica, and there is a parallel board in the United States called IDEA ("inDepth Evangelism Associates") created simply to assist in the initial stages of funding.In other words, the Latin America Mission proved that in at least the "Latin" extension of the Western world in Latin America, it is perfectly possible to set up boards of directors that will function like mission agencies. It is only logical that if these various "ministries" we have already mentioned can be set up in Latin America, it is easily possible for "sending" mission agencies to be established as well. The Missiological Institute will attempt to pave the way for this.

Cliff tells the fascinating story of how the Spanish speaking churches in Central America have tended to overlook hidden people groups, such as the "Black Caribs." These people are culturally and linguistically Indian, but racially more nearly African. They are so different from the other more Europeanized peoples that they have remained outside the purview of national evangelistic efforts as we say, "hidden" from the view of the evangelical congregations in Central America.

Now, however, their existence is being recognized, and steps are being taken to reinforce the tiny efforts that have been put into their sphere in the past.

This kind of probing for overlooked minorities all around the world is essentially parallel to what ought to be happening in the United States. Yes, we also tend to overlook people in our midst that seem culturally different. Here in the U.S. probably only one agency has been truly alert to such groups. It is the entity headed up by Oscar Romo of the Southern Baptist Home Board of Missions. It encompasses thousands of ministries with over 80 ethnic groups in the United States in addition to another 55 ministries with different kinds of American Indians.

Unfortunately, for whatever reason, most denominations  and indeed most foreign mission boards  do not come to grips with the vast ocean of hidden people groups right at our doorstep here in the United States. I mention this because it helps us to understand the problem of the overseas churches in reaching out to the hidden people groups in their areas. It always seems easier to think of sending missionaries a great distance. This has been true in the United States, and it is true elsewhere. We ore readily send our people to gapore, for example, than Singapore Christians send their people to their own hidden people groups in their own country.

This being the case, it is extremely crucial that missiological institutes along the pattern of that described by Cliff Holland become common all over the .world, even in the United States, so that each national church both can do the job at its own doorstep more effectively and also where it is needed at a distance.

In a word, there is now an unused ocean of energy consisting of evangelical congregations all over the world. To boost these congregations and their resources into more specific awareness of, and outreach to, the world's hidden peoples is surely one of the highest strategies in our time.

But. at this point you may be wondering. Am I telling you, dear reader, that there has never been such a thing as a "missiological institute" anywhere in the "overseas" mission fields of the world? Not quite. The superb Friends Missionary Prayer Band in South India, for example, has a regular mission training school.

Even in Latin America we note the outstanding creative effort of the AMEN group which has annually sponsored a School of Missiology in Peru. So what is so unique about Cliff Holland's plan?

Simple! It is a step backward! Back to full cooperation between Western mission personnel and national leadership. Instead of what? Instead of simply waiting for national churches to reinvent the wheel by themselves. Cliff's plan would fail if it were not primarily national run. But it would not exist if North Americans had not "hung in" and offered help. And it will not succeed without continued North South collaboration for some time.

To this very moment, the Western mission agencies still constitute an immense and extremely powerful enterprise. Less and less are Western missionaries needed for evangelism and church planting within the sphere of existing churches overseas. But they do themselves represent and operate within distinctive "mission" structures, which they have hardly begun to reproduce on the field.

In other words, we can either continue to wait and wait all over the world for Third World agencies to appear, or we can follow Cliff's lead and purposefully collaborate with national Christians in the founding of such structures. Before that: found missiological institutes to show the way forward into the new era, the final era, of Third World mission dominance!