Postscript
In retrospect, the most striking aspect of the Christian world mission has been the vast numbers of men and women who, against all odds, left family and homeland to endure the privations and the frustrations of cross-cultural evangelism to follow God’s call. It was that nebulous and indefinable “missionary call” that impelled them to move out. If ministries in the homeland could be pursued without a “call,” foreign missions could not. The stakes were too high. And it was that sense of calling, more than anything else, that was the staying power. Of course, there were those who went but did not stay, and who were relegated to the role of missionary “returnee.” But at least they went out, and in many cases made significant contributions. Many who remained might have been far happier staying home. Yet they stayed on, decade after decade, prodded on by their sense of calling.
Who were these who were afflicted by such a high calling? Were they men and women especially fitted for that calling? Probably not—at least no more than earnest believers in any other segment of the Christian church. The history both of humankind and of missions is a saga checkered by shortcomings, failures, and setbacks.
After centuries of less-than-spectacular growth, the “Great Century” dawned, only to launch the “father of modern missions” with an unwilling wife and an associate of questionable character. The domestic unhappiness represented by even that famous missionary was hardly an ideal example; and later on, the bitter strife between junior and senior missionaries at the Serampore mission station in India further damaged the testimony Christianity was supposed to demonstrate.
But it was not just in India that the name of Christ was besmirched. In China, Christianity was indelibly linked to opium smuggling. In Africa, it was associated with racism and exploitation. In the Pacific islands, there were instances of sexual immorality among the missionaries. And on virtually every mission field in the world, moreover, there was embarrassing and amateurish understanding of cultural traditions, and the Western institutionalized church was taken for granted as the only way converts could follow the Lord.
Many modern scholars investigating the history of missions concede that often the failures were incidental and, in some cases, excusable; they were only ripples on the surface of a powerful groundswell of grace that flooded the earth. Yet it is no wonder that the critics have had a heyday with Christian missions. The very humanity of the missionaries themselves provided all the fuel that was needed. Why should we be surprised at their mistakes and sins and follies? Missionaries were neither the super-saints their admirers have created nor the unlearned and zealous misfits their detractors have described. But they were somehow called by God, and they made significant sacrifices to follow that call.
The spread of Christianity into the non-Western world, principally as a missionary achievement, is one of the great success stories of all history. After moving forward in the Middle Ages and the Reformation era and gaining momentum in the Evangelical Awakening, after escaping the vigorous counterforces of rationalism and secularism, and after surviving the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, the Christian movement suddenly expanded to become a vibrant, universal religion passionately adhered to by people from every corner of the globe. True to form, this massive extension has been a working faith. No other cause in history has fostered such far-reaching humanitarian efforts of goodwill as has Christianity.
The very fact that this incredible worldwide expansion was carried out by frail and sinful human beings, backed by only a minority of Christians back home, only enhances the glory that must be given to God alone. Nevertheless, it is difficult from a human perspective not to admire and idealize those who were willing to go—those who so willingly sacrificed their own ambitions to make whatever contribution they could to a far greater cause. There were Henry Martyns and Helen Roseveares on every field—those who relinquished what surely would have been brilliant careers in their homeland and gave up the joys of marriage and family only to suffer pain and humiliation—all in obedience to God’s call.
Far less attention has been paid to those who stayed behind and who may have been no less obedient to the heavenly vision. Countless individuals heard the same call and had good intentions of making the same kind of sacrifice but never went. Were they less spiritual? Were they less committed to God? Indeed, there may be only a fine line that separates those who went from those who stayed home.
It has been said that for every missionary who goes to the foreign mission field there are at least fifty individuals who at one time or another committed their lives to missions but never carried through with their commitment. Was their call to missions unrealized? In many cases it was. Their commitment was forgotten. In other instances, however, they played an indispensable role on the home front. Where would missions be today without these “stay-at-homes”?
Of the one hundred thousand student volunteers who signed the “Princeton Pledge,” twenty thousand actually went abroad as foreign missionaries—but how could that army of volunteers have endured on the front lines without the powerful backup support network at home? During those years, monetary giving to missions more than quadrupled. There was a similar support system behind the vast movement of women that poured into cross-cultural missions beginning in the late nineteenth century. For every woman who went out, there were a dozen or more wholly committed female mission supporters on the home front—among them many who had felt called to go but never went.
In recent decades another student movement was launched, largely by devoted missionary-minded “stay-at-homes.” C. Stacey Woods intended to go to India in 1934, but he ended up staying in America to develop and direct InterVarsity Christian Fellowship—a student organization involved in promoting missions on university campuses. InterVarsity is also known for its triennial Urbana Missionary Conferences—attracting thousands of students from campuses around the world. Dawson Trotman, who also stayed home, played a crucial role in missionary outreach through his founding of the Navigators. Trotman caught a vision for missions while in Paris in 1948, and since that time the Navigators have spread out across the globe with a zeal to disciple others in the Christian faith.
Campus Crusade for Christ, founded by Bill Bright, was initially focused on reaching students with the gospel, but by the 1980s it had thousands of staff members involved in evangelism in more than one hundred fifty countries around the world. Few areas of the world have remained untouched by that organization’s “Here’s Life” campaigns and the Jesus film, which has been translated into dozens of languages.
There is a growing consensus among many of today’s leaders in missions that less distinction should be made between the career foreign missionary and the one who promotes missions from the home front or the one who serves as a mission consultant or a short-term missionary. Individuals such as George Verwer of Operation Mobilization and Loren Cunningham of Youth with a Mission have dedicated their lives to challenging young adults to commit themselves to missions—be it short-term or lifetime careers and be it at home or abroad.
So what about those who did not go overseas? How should their lives be evaluated? Are they any less a part of the Great Commission? Is their “missionary call” any less valid? Each one must answer that question individually before God—and perhaps reevaluate the very nature of the missionary “call.” Indeed, what often seems to be so plainly a geographic call to a foreign field might better be described as a call to join in completing the unfinished task of world evangelism.
The story of those who served in overseas mission is a thrilling drama—far more exciting, no doubt, than the story of those who stayed home. Yet those who stayed behind also have a story that needs to be told, and sometimes it closely resembles the story of those who went out.
One of those stories began in the 1950s in a farming community in northern Wisconsin. The setting was a summer Bible camp where missionary Delmer Smith of the Christian and Missionary Alliance was the featured speaker. There in the rustic pavilion, under his moving messages, a thirteen-year-old farm girl caught a vision for missions, and at the closing meeting she stood to commit her life to God as a foreign missionary. Through her high school years that followed, foreign missions was her life’s goal. Nothing, she vowed, would ever deter her.
Following high school graduation her life was busy and eventful. Bible college, Christian liberal arts college, university, marriage, family, teaching career. One followed on another. But as the years slipped by, the prospect of embarking on an overseas missions career became less and less a reality.
Only three miles away from her childhood home another young farm girl was growing up—her cousin, Valerie Stellrecht. They attended the same schools and the same little country church. Valerie too felt called to foreign missions. She too enrolled at the St. Paul Bible College to prepare for her life’s calling. And she too longed for marriage and family. But her sense of calling to the foreign field came first. Valerie graduated from Bible college and soon thereafter bade farewell to her family and loved ones and set out alone for Ecuador, where she continues to serve today with the Christian and Missionary Alliance.
Two young women whose lives paralleled each other’s in so many respects. Two young women who felt called to foreign missions. Valerie went. I stayed home.