EDUCATION and MISSIONS: A DIVORCE? by CLYDE COOK
D r . C alvin G uy , Professor of Missions at South western Baptist Theological Seminary, has stated, “ The ancient divorce between church and missions, with a small group within the church assuming responsibility for evangelism, is now seen to be inadequate.” This separation of missions is also evident in some educational institutions. A small group within the institution is interested and responsible for missions. “ Yes, we have a missions department.” “What is their responsibility?” “Mis sions.” “What other departments do you have?” “Education, psychology, fine arts, humanities, etc.” “What is their responsibility?” “Well, the educa tion department is responsible for training teach ers, etc.” Is this separation Biblical? Do not the Scrip tures clearly indicate that the responsibility for missions belongs to every Christian? The motto of Overseas Crusades, Inc. puts it well when it says: “ Every heart without Christ, a mission field; every heart with Christ, a missionary.” This is good because it is the Biblical concept o f missions: every Christian a missionary. To prevent this divorce at Biola, one o f the ob jectives o f the missions department is to make every student aware that he is a missionary. Re gardless of his vocation, he is primarily a mission ary ( “ one sent” by God to share his faith in Christ). William Carey, when asked what his busi ness was, replied: “My business is to preach the Kingdom of God. I only cobble shoes to pay ex penses.” This is the attitude we are striving to maintain here at Biola, for this is the concept upon which Biola was founded over 60 years ago. One of the best ways to instill the fact that we are all missionaries is to provide opportunity for the students to be involved in missions while still in school. Besides a minimum 3-hour weekly as signment in some type of Christian Service, there has been spontaneous witness and involvement by the students in many different areas. For the past two years, over 200 students a semester have been working in an evangelistic outreach in Watts in conjunction with World Opportunities, Inc. The Athletic Department has Gospel Teams and Sports Evangelism trips into Mexico. The Psychology De partment has their “Dialogue” ministry which in volves trained counselors answering and helping young people who call in on the telephone. Bible studies started by students have been unusually fruitful. There are evangelistic ministries during the va cation periods, with many of our students going overseas and making a definite contribution to mis
sions. The King’s Players, Biola’s Drama Team, has presented the Gospel to over 200,000 people in South-East Asia and India during the past two summers. These ministries always involve evangel ism, which is so important in this day when ener gies are diverted from evangelism into just social action. Dr. J. T. Seamands, professor of missions at Asbury Seminary, tells the story of a certain Doc tor o f Theology who was speaking to a group of ladies. He was introduced as Dr. So and So. One of the ladies asked him the question, “Dr., where do you practice?” He replied, “Oh, I don’t prac tice; I merely preach.” Dr. Seamand’s point was that sometimes our lives do not match our preach ing, but perhaps it would be good to carry it even further. Some Mission activity doesn’t preach but merely practices. Social service is valuable not as an end in itself but as a means of bringing man into a right relationship to God through Jesus Christ, and it is this type of ministry in which our students are involved. There is another need, however, and that is the need for those to devote full time to the ministry. The early church recognized this need (Acts 6) and so must we. This is not to supplant the lay-witness, only to supplement it. This ob jective of the missions department is also in Biola’s historic tradition. In the early days o f Biola, the laymen had a better knowledge of the Word of God than those coming from some of the seminaries, so more and more came to Biola who were plan ning on a career ministry. Today Biola is still ful filling this need and has a unique program in pre paring career missionaries. The program is unique because it offers an aca demic degree (B.A.), 30 units o f solid Bible prep aration, and 30 units o f missions or mission-related courses. This is accomplished by taking a Social- Science major, modified to give a mission empha sis. This major is similar to a regular social-science major, but with the opportunity to take courses in anthropology, sociology, and history that are espe cially designed to prepare the student for mission ary service. This major can also be taken if the student is interested in the elementary or second ary credential program. Thus, he would secure not only his teaching credential, but also courses that would prepare him for Christian service overseas. Education and missions: a divorce? Not neces sarily, and certainly not at Biola where preparing young people for missionary service, regardless of vocation, still has the highest priority. kb Rev. Clyde Cook is Director of Missions at Biola College, La Mirada, California.
THE KING'S BUSINESS
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