In the previous post I mentioned some of the strengths and weaknesses of a missions philosophy that was proposed in the book Revolution in World Missions by K.P. Yohannan. One aspect of the his proposal that I did not mention before involved the likelihood of missionaries from Western countries to be involved in ministries that were not related to evangelism or church planting. I appreciated Yohannan's analysis of the situation. Of course ministries of mercy such as schools and hospitals and providing food are good things to do. But Yohannan was concerned that we have more missionaries involved in these ministries than in proclaiming Christ to people. The proclamation of the gospel is mankind's greatest need, so it is problematic when we ignore this need in order to meet lesser needs.
I am not against ministries of mercy. Neither is Yohannan. But we both agree that these ministries need to follow the gospel and must be given less priority than the gospel. It is not enough to have a hospital if we never tell the sick people about Jesus. In my opinion, this focus on the evangelism and church planting is a strength of Yohannan's philosophy.
It's also the strength of a group like "Frontiers" that solely focuses on reaching Muslims through planting churches among them. They do not build schools, hospitals, etc. They are solely about local believers being gathered together, discipled in that context and multiplying. They do not denigrate those who do these vital other things, but recognize just what the strongest need of the world is.
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