When I arrived as a new missionary to Japan thirteen years ago, seeking to minister to the world’s second-largest unreached people group, I believed fervently in the importance of the church. I was a founding elder at an international church plant, our church was evangelizing and baptizing new believers, and I taught church polity and ecclesiology courses to seminary students. Nevertheless, for all my love for the church, I gradually discovered a church-shaped gap in my missiology.
This gap can be illustrated by how I used to lead prayer walks through a section of our city. We would begin at Nagoya Station (one of the largest train stations in the world), ride the subway to an old and established Buddhist temple, walk to a Shinto shrine, and then end in a popular shopping and entertainment district. I chose that route early on because of how well it revealed the missional need among the Japanese — a people entrenched in traditional religion yet also living in a materialist and secular society.
It has been powerful to pray in these places with many over the years, but it took far too many prayer walks before I eventually noticed a small evangelical church nestled in a busy arcade between the temple and the shrine. It’s not that the church wasn’t clear enough to see; the truth is simply that I wasn’t looking. My gaze was fixed on the imposing lostness in Japan represented by Buddhism, Shinto, and secularism, and I completely overlooked that gathering of local believers.
For years, I had prayed for what God might do in the future, but now he invited me to consider what he had already done in the past.
Glory of the (Existing) Church
The best missionaries love the local church. The church in this fallen world has always been troubled with weaknesses and imperfections, but as Charles Spurgeon once declared, the church is still “the dearest place on earth.” Scripture teaches that the church is the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27), the bride of Christ (Ephesians 5:31–32), the place where the manifold wisdom of God is revealed (Ephesians 3:10), the people to whom God has entrusted his gospel, which bears fruit and increases throughout the whole world (Colossians 1:6).
The church is not simply a gathering of saints to worship and fellowship for their grace and good (Acts 2:42–46; Hebrews 10:24–25). The church is also God’s designed means of making his glory known to all nations (Matthew 28:18–20). It is in and through the church that his people are commissioned to declare his glory throughout all generations (Ephesians 3:21).
Missions is the church’s pursuit to see the triumph of the gospel throughout the world, and missionaries are those commissioned by the church to spread the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ to peoples and places where his glory is not yet well-known or enjoyed (2 Corinthians 2:14–17). The work of missions is thus deeply connected to the ministry of the church, and the growth and flourishing of the church is the primary fruit of missions. And missions goers and senders with a high view of the church are poised to fulfill God’s mission most faithfully.
However, this high view of the church is sometimes forgotten or not fully applied when ministering among unreached peoples. Since ministry to the unreached normally begins by highlighting need, absence, and opposition, it is easy for new missionaries and their senders to focus on everything that could be or should be done without realizing all the good that God has already done. In the process, they may overlook the glorious presence of existing churches.
Indigenous churches in unreached places are often small and struggling, but for a people group who needs the gospel, these churches can make all the difference in the world!
Paul’s Local Partnerships
My new awareness of that small church (and hundreds of others like it throughout the country) did not make the Japanese more reached with the gospel, but it did introduce me to thousands of brothers and sisters whom God had already called to be on mission in Japan — and they spoke the language and knew the culture better than I could dream.
Getting to know the church in Japan better has also not removed the real weaknesses and imperfections present in the existing church. However, taking the existing church seriously brings new opportunities for relationship and partnership. Now we can address these challenges together, for the glory of God and the blessing of the Japanese people. (The pastor of that small church now hosts missionary interns from our ministry!)
This approach to missions was further reinforced when I considered the example of the apostle Paul. Paul was a pioneer missionary who helped found many new churches, but once a church was established, he engaged with these Christians as friends and partners on mission. When writing to young churches like those in Corinth or Thessalonica, he addressed concerns over their theology and practice, but first he embraced them as saints and brothers and sisters in Christ (1 Corinthians 1:2–3; 1 Thessalonians 1:2–10).
When engaging with churches he did not plant himself, Paul sought to strengthen them and minister with them. Paul praised God for his work of grace in the Colossians and Romans (Colossians 1:3–12; Romans 1:8), and he involved them in his mission (Colossians 4:7–17; Romans 15:22–24). In Romans 1:13–15, Paul expressed his desire to preach the gospel and reap a harvest in Rome, but he expected to do so in cooperation with the churches that already existed there, trusting that they would “be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith” (Romans 1:12).
Importantly, Rome and the many peoples who dwelled there were far from “reached” when Paul wrote to them. But the believers there constituted a real church, and he embraced them, expressed a desire to serve with them, and even invited them to support his mission to bring the gospel to Spain, where it was not yet present (Romans 15:28). Paul engaged the churches across Asia as local expressions of that “dearest place,” and he sought to minister with them and not only for them.
Ministering With
This idea of “ministering with” rather than just “ministering for” was missing from my own missiology.
Missionaries do not have to give up on church planting, but “church planting for” can become “church planting with.” Similarly, missionaries need not dismiss aspirations for church revitalization, but “church revitalization for” can become “church revitalization with.” I’m also not suggesting that missionaries should ignore the desperate need for the gospel to be preached to lost millions as they seek to get along better with indigenous pastors. Nor should missionaries acquiesce in every matter to their indigenous partners; where there is real relationship, we can wrestle over issues together.
However, if missions senders and goers truly know the church to be the dearest place on earth, then we will be eager to see God’s glorious work in existing churches and will seek their flourishing, even when those churches seem hidden between a temple and a shrine.