Even cross-cultural missionaries can struggle with faithful evangelism. Those “set apart for the gospel of God” (Romans 1:1) are not immune to apathy and disobedience. Sometimes negative thinking about their task actually encourages this. We have already considered Theological Traps That Hinder Evangelism. Now we will discuss some "missiological" traps that can hinder. Unbliblical thinking about missions encourages evangelistic inactivity as well.
How can it be that any of God’s people would battle with faithfulness in verbal witness for our Lord? After all, we know salvation through Jesus ourselves because someone preached the Gospel to us.
Making disciples is a supernatural activity, a work of the Spirit. Evangelism isn’t designed to be done in our own strength. Neither the right motivations to do the work nor the ability to carry it out come from within. That is why Jesus told His disciples to remain in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit came upon them (Luke 24:45-49). Part of the Spirit’s work is the renewing of our minds to enable us to proclaim Christ’s name. God’s Spirit teaches us to think correctly about God and His ways. We must allow God’s Spirit to recalibrate our minds and affections leading to active obedience.
For those of us serving cross-culturally, some missiological traps can hinder our evangelism. By “missiological traps” I refer to errors in our thinking about making disciples cross-culturally. Missionaries can become immobilized in their personal evangelism if their thinking about their task and mission strays from Scripture. We need frequent realignment by God’s Spirit to stay faithful. Here are five missiological traps to avoid.
Overreach in Zeal for Indigenous Missions
We are keen to erase any trace of a colonial mindset that dominated Western missionaries in the past. While seeking to correct those flaws, a different missiological trapdoor has been created. Some missionaries have now so de-emphasized the role of cross-cultural missionaries in their thinking that they feel they cannot really reach locals for Christ—only the nationals can, or at best it is unhealthy for foreigners to evangelize because doing so somehow hinders the local believers.
To those who embrace this extreme line of thinking, foreign missionaries as a group are portrayed as almost completely incompetent and even unnecessary. Some see cross-cultural workers as a necessary evil, tolerated for access to their (often) superior Bible knowledge and financial resources. This thinking is tragic, for the Great Commission is a call for God’s people everywhere to participate in cross-cultural disciple making in Jesus’ name!
Glaring Failures Past and Present
It is true, however, that many cross-cultural workers have failed in glaring ways. Some of us have not been spiritually or theologically prepared for what we would face and have caused real problems on the field. Many have not taken learning the language and culture seriously. Unhealthy methodology has encouraged anemic and dependent churches. Plenty of books available today seek to inform, teach, and encourage cross-cultural workers to avoid these failures.1
Of course, local believers can reach their own people more effectively. We are called to make disciples who go on to make disciples. Missionaries ought to work themselves out of a job (see Replacing Ourselves in Missions).
Missionaries must not be intimidated by these popular but mistaken conclusions about cross-cultural ministry. If we are intimidated, we will excuse ourselves from faithful verbal witness for Christ. Thus ensnared, we lose faith that God can use us to see conversions to Christ cross-culturally.
Over-emphasis on Skills
We certainly should strongly advocate that missionaries obtain language and cultural fluency. However, insecurity is one ditch we might fall into when following such convictions. Some of us deal with never feeling fluent enough, which can make us feel we can’t really be used by God. The point of expertise and skill that would make us useful always remains in the future. This insecurity and fear of failure severely limits us.
It is possible for us to become truly fluent and wonderfully adapted to the host culture. Yet, without the power of the Holy Spirit working through us, nothing will ever happen of eternal consequence. Someone far less gifted might be used by God more than the cross-cultural “expert.”
While we must do our best in cultural adaptation and language acquisition, we can’t depend on those things for success. God will use the skills we gain, but He also overcomes our weaknesses. We must not fall through the trap door of insecurity and find ourselves immobilized in evangelism. We must instead trust God’s power and strength, including His own stated purpose to use weak people such as we are: “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us” (2 Corinthians 4:7).
Leaning too Heavily on Apologetics
For some, the slick spot in the road sliding us into the ditch of evangelistic inaction is the feeling of apologetic inferiority. We don’t know enough arguments, aren’t quick enough to answer, or can’t debate well without adequate preparation. Fear of losing arguments, insecurity over our capacity to take on difficult people—the inability to recall those wonderful debate points we’ve gleaned from apologetic videos—simply shuts us down.
As we struggle with this, we find that we are too intimidated to talk to most people. We now only witness to those few we feel are within our conversational comfort zone. This struggle is exacerbated by cross-cultural difficulties. In this and other traps, we find ourselves conquered by our pride and selfishness. The love of Christ and humility can help us climb out of these missiological traps. Humility teaches us that we will never know enough or be prepared enough, which is okay. God is at work in and through us “to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us” (2 Corinthians 4:7b).
Idolatry of Ideals in Evangelism
What is the best-case scenario for evangelism? Most of us would say an extended regular evangelistic Bible study with those interested. That way, we can explain the gospel message clearly, the listener can ask questions, and relationships can be established. This has the highest probability of making disciples. The problem is this ideal doesn’t frequently happen for many of us.
If we hold too strongly to these ideals, we will fail to witness when we cannot obtain them. We might pass out tracts or invite people to church, but that is all. We can come to the place where we aren’t willing to give a brief sentence, share a few verses from God’s Word, or appreciate a simple five-minute chat. Those of us committed to a Creation to Christ approach to evangelism greatly desire regular Bible studies to have the time to lay foundational truths for the gospel message. However, we must believe that God can take the bits and pieces of truth we are able to share and use them to draw people to Himself (See Taking Advantage of Conversation Prompts in Scripture).
Hypercriticism of Methods
All God’s people should take ministry philosophy seriously. For cross-cultural missionaries, this missiology is extremely important. Some of us are gripped by our conclusions and passionate about our philosophy of missions while others approach ministry in a less detailed way. Missionaries with the same doctrinal commitments and overall missions philosophy will also apply them differently.
Ministry philosophy includes methods of outreach and how to preach Christ correctly and effectively in the context where we serve. Those who have thoroughly thought through these methods can fall into the trap of hypercriticism. When we continually hyper-analyze methods of evangelism and the way other people do things, we know we are in trouble. With that frame of mind, we may have a reason why every single method of evangelism and outreach out there isn’t good enough. We may even have something bad to say about everything everybody else is doing. As a result, we ourselves do little or nothing.
As we ponder reasons why we struggle in faithful verbal evangelism, we readily see that unfaithfulness is rooted in wrong thinking. Our hearts are in continual need of teaching and gracious renewing because our sinful flesh is diametrically opposed to disciple making. That is why Christ told His disciples to wait in Jerusalem to receive the Holy Spirit (Luke 24:46-49). We greatly need the continual ministry of the Spirit in our own lives to enable us to be effective as Christ’s witnesses (Acts 1:8).
The conversation on these pifalls in our thinking continues with the final article in the series, Circumstantial and Emotional Traps That Hinder Evangelism.
1 No Shortcut to Success: A Manifesto for Modern Missions by Matt Rhodes and my own book, Pioneer Missions: Meet the Challenges, Share the Blessings, are examples.