Is Conversion Your Primary Concern?

by Phoebe

In the missions conference that we attended earlier this month, one renowned missiologist/former missionary in Thailand asked this question as he presented a paper to challenge us to rethink our motives for ministry with children in the Buddhist world.

Certainly, as we carry out missions and bring the gospel to the nations beyond, we desire people to know Jesus, and to receive the full life that He brings. However, we have to be honest to acknowledge that missions to children and communities in developing contexts can sometimes be too temporal and numbers-driven. We go to on 3 to 5 days short-term missions trips hoping that lives can be transformed. We count the number of hand raised when there is an altar call, considering them to be “salvations” and “souls saved”.

We certainly need to widen our perspective to acknowledge that these children and communities have their unique contexts and God is already working in them. We need to grapple with contextual issues, for example, whether we should build relationships with families of the children that we are discipling; whether we should disciple these children to continue to respect their families by introducing Christ-centred perspectives to existing rituals that are familiar to them; and use appropriate and understandable local words to refer to God, Jesus, mediator, worship, honour, sin and heaven.