9. The Crisis of Ingrownness Localism or World Missions?
Alliance Witness, 1980.05.14, P. 24-25.

IT IS only natural for people to fall into groups and keep to themselves, more concerned with their own business than with anybody else’s. Family spirit, clanism, nationalism, racial affinity, class spirit, trade unionism are all expressions of this ingrownness of man.

The church is no exception to this natural tendency on the human level, which carries with it a great potential crisis in her expansion program. But divine intervention saved the apostolic church from this crisis in four ways.

1. Through the giving of the Great Commission. The Great Commission is the conceptive foundation of church expansion. It is the Magna Charta of world missions and the cornerstone of evangelism. It is the basic orientation of the church of Christ. Every church leader and church member must be well taught about it.

The Lord made special and emphatic preparation for the giving of the Great Commission. Three times, once before the death of the Lord and twice after His resurrection, the disciples were told to go to a mount in Galilee where He was going to meet them.

These repeated orders from the Lord made them wonder what He was going to do with them there. When the Lord appeared to them, the Bible says emphatically that He drew near to them and gave them the Great Commission: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15).

Go! Go! Go! This was the resounding voice in the ears of every disciple.

2. Through the promptings of the Holy Spirit. In prophesying about the

ministry of the Holy Spirit, the Lord said something that was as true as it

was vivid: “He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water” (John7:38).

That is exactly what the Holy Spirit does in a Christian-He flows in to fill and flows out to bless. The full- ness of the Holy Spirit never means getting filled only; it also means flowing out. When you stop flowing out you also stop being filled. We are filled in order to overflow.

The Holy Spirit is ever reaching out. He thrusts us out into the field to reap the harvest. The battle cry of the Christian church is forever Acts 1:8:

“Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me . . . unto the uttermost part of the earth.” The Holy Spirit always points to the utter- most parts of the earth. As soon as we are filled with the Holy Spirit we be- gin to lift our eyes and look at the field of the whole world and start to press for the furtherance of the gospel.

3. Through persecution. The apostles were busy building up their church in Jerusalem, and they remained too long inactive in sending the gospel to the surrounding areas. Maybe they were getting a little in- grown, so God used persecution to thrust the disciples out for evangelization (see “The Crisis of Persecution,” 2/6 issue).

It is most interesting to read, “At that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria. . . They that were scattered abroad went every where preaching the word” (Acts 8:1, 4).

The believers established many churches in those areas (see 9:31). We find that none of these churches were started by the apostles, who stayed behind in Jerusalem to look after the church there, but the gospel spread in at least six directions because of this persecution.

4. Through missionary outreach. We read in Acts (9:32 ff.) that Peter left Jerusalem for missionary trips that took him to many places in different provinces. Although the Bible does not tell us that he was formally sent out by the Jerusalem church as their missionary, we can reasonably infer that he must have had the blessing of all the other leaders of the church when he left for these evangelistic journeys.

The Jerusalem church sent Peter to the mission field before the Antioch church sent out Paul and Barnabas as their missionaries. Usually the Antioch church is given credit for being the first church to send out missionaries, mainly because of the longer and better-known ministry of Paul.

The Antioch church was a marvelous church in every way. it was a church whose leaders fasted and prayed. It was a church of strong lay ministry. It was a church blessed with a Spirit-filled leader in the person of Barnabas, who demonstrated his deep spirituality and self-denial by his willingness to turn over his leadership to the better-qualified Paul. It was a church international in its leadership: two African brothers, Simeon called Niger and Lucius of Cyrene; two Hebrew brothers, Barnahas and Paul; and one member of the royal household, Manaen, who had been brought up with Herod. And above all it was a missionary-minded church.

The Holy Spirit spoke to the leaders of the Antioch church about missions when they fasted and prayed together. They prayed more about it and then they obediently took action. They did the hardest thing possible in sending out their best and most needed leaders, Paul and Barnabas, as their missionaries.

This was an event of the greatest significance and consequence. It set an example for all churches of all times to follow. Missions was born of three factors: the guidance of the Holy Spirit, prayer and obedience — obedience on the part of the Antioch church, which was willing to give its best, as well as obedience on the part of Paul and Barnabas, who were willing to go in dedication and faith.

There are those who raise their voices in objection to missions. If you are one of them, will you please examine the issue more deeply and thoroughly to see whether you are doing a service to the church or doing it harm?

I am absolutely convinced that when missions becomes a general movement, there will be the greatest church growth as well as the greatest revival we have ever experienced.

Ingrownness is a great hindrance to the expansion of the Christian church. We must warn people against it. Church members must have a wide outlook in service, fellowship and evangelism.

The following are some of the symptoms of ingrownness:

1. Little other churches for un-Biblical reasons.

2. Little or no regular evangelistic outreach either in terms of local or foreign missions.

3. Little or no participation in interdenominational or interchurch evangelistic efforts.

4. Little or no budget for evangelism or missions or church expansion.

5. No personnel for expansion.

6. No plan for church planting or church-membership increase.

7. No annual goals for prayerful implementation by the whole congregation.

8. Little or no preaching on the Great Commission or on church members’ responsibility for evangelism.

9. Little or no prayer for evangelism, missions and church expansion. 10. The presence of a sense of complacency because of what the church has already accomplished.

11. Greater emphasis on the deeper life than on evangelism.

12. Self-centered prayer meetings with a small circle of concern.

We should be alarmed if such symptoms appear, and deal positively with them. Ingrownness is probably the greatest threat to church growth and it should never be ignored.