{"id":76,"date":"2002-09-04T10:58:58","date_gmt":"2002-09-04T18:58:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/archives\/2002\/09\/04\/do-universities-really-need-missionaries\/"},"modified":"2002-09-04T10:58:58","modified_gmt":"2002-09-04T18:58:58","slug":"do-universities-really-need-missionaries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2002\/09\/04\/do-universities-really-need-missionaries","title":{"rendered":"Do Universities Really Need Missionaries?"},"content":{"rendered":"

For a while now I\u2019ve been mean\u00ading to add this our site, but I\u2019ve been a lit\u00adtle too busy. I should have read Jon Walk\u00ader\u2019s arti\u00adcle Did Jesus Rush Through His Week?<\/a>!<\/p>\n

My wife and I are con\u00adsid\u00adered mis\u00adsion\u00adar\u00adies by the Assem\u00adblies of God<\/a>. That catch\u00ades some peo\u00adple off-guard. After all, aren\u2019t mis\u00adsion\u00adar\u00adies peo\u00adple who serve exclu\u00adsive\u00adly in pagan lands (prefer\u00adably while wear\u00ading a pith hel\u00admet in the jun\u00adgle)?<\/p>\n

Not nec\u00ades\u00adsar\u00adi\u00adly. A mis\u00adsion\u00adary is some\u00adone who is called to pro\u00adclaim the gospel where there is no church to pro\u00adclaim it.<\/b> <\/p>\n

There are a lot of nuances and qual\u00adi\u00adfi\u00adca\u00adtions I could add to that def\u00adi\u00adn\u00adi\u00adtion of a mis\u00adsion\u00adary, but I think it will suf\u00adfice for this dis\u00adcus\u00adsion. The key phrase is where there is no church to pro\u00adclaim it<\/b>.<\/p>\n

That describes the col\u00adlege cam\u00adpus. Col\u00adlege cam\u00adpus\u00ades (exclud\u00ading com\u00admuter schools) are com\u00admu\u00adni\u00adties unto them\u00adselves. Stu\u00addents can attend class\u00ades, sleep, eat, watch movies, play games, do laun\u00addry, and shop for the neces\u00adsi\u00adties with\u00adout ever leav\u00ading their cam\u00adpus. In fact, many cam\u00adpus\u00ades don\u2019t even allow fresh\u00admen to have vehi\u00adcles.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the ram\u00adi\u00adfi\u00adca\u00adtion? It does\u00adn\u2019t mat\u00adter how many church\u00ades there are in the sur\u00adround\u00ading town\u2013the col\u00adlege cam\u00adpus is a dif\u00adfer\u00adent world. Stu\u00addents are in great need of the gospel, yet they are insu\u00adlat\u00aded from the church\u00ades that pro\u00adclaim it.<\/p>\n

And so when we min\u00adis\u00adter on cam\u00adpus we\u2019re pro\u00adclaim\u00ading the gospel in a place where there is no church to pro\u00adclaim it. We\u2019re mis\u00adsion\u00adar\u00adies.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say there aren\u2019t any dif\u00adfer\u00adences between us and oth\u00ader mis\u00adsion\u00adar\u00adies. For exam\u00adple, the goal of most mis\u00adsion\u00adar\u00adies is to estab\u00adlish an indige\u00adnous church that is self-gov\u00adern\u00ading, self-sup\u00adport\u00ading, and self-prop\u00ada\u00adgat\u00ading. In oth\u00ader words, they\u2019re try\u00ading to estab\u00adlish a church that makes the mis\u00adsion\u00adary unnec\u00ades\u00adsary!<\/p>\n

Our goal is dif\u00adfer\u00adent. We can\u2019t cre\u00adate a church at Stan\u00adford that meets all three cri\u00adte\u00adria (being self-sup\u00adport\u00ading, self-gov\u00adern\u00ading, and self-prop\u00ada\u00adgat\u00ading) because of the nature of the cam\u00adpus and the stu\u00addents who inhab\u00adit it. The chal\u00adlenges are chiefly in the area of self-gov\u00ader\u00adnance (the stu\u00addents keep grad\u00adu\u00adat\u00ading, mak\u00ading total\u00adly stu\u00addent-run groups unsta\u00adble) and self-sup\u00adport (col\u00adlege stu\u00addents have no mon\u00adey to pro\u00advide for a full-time pas\u00adtor). Inci\u00adden\u00adtal\u00adly, that\u2019s why we raise mis\u00adsion\u00adary sup\u00adport<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In oth\u00ader words, the col\u00adlege cam\u00adpus is a per\u00adpet\u00adu\u00adal mis\u00adsion field. We sim\u00adply can\u2019t build a church that will make our min\u00adistry unnec\u00ades\u00adsary or redun\u00addant. <\/p>\n

And that\u2019s why uni\u00adver\u00adsi\u00adties need missionaries\u2013they are self-suf\u00adfi\u00adcient com\u00admu\u00adni\u00adties that are iso\u00adlat\u00aded from any near\u00adby church\u00ades. Since the stu\u00addents won\u2019t come to church, the church must go to them.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s mis\u00adsions.<\/p>\n

Oh\u2013I should\u00adn\u2019t fin\u00adish this with\u00adout men\u00adtion\u00ading two more details:<\/p>\n

1) There are rough\u00adly 14,000,000 col\u00adlege stu\u00addents in Amer\u00adi\u00adca: almost half the nations in the world have low\u00ader pop\u00adu\u00adla\u00adtions!<\/p>\n

2) The world comes to Amer\u00adi\u00adca for edu\u00adca\u00adtion: of those 14,000,000 stu\u00addents over 500,000 are from oth\u00ader nations<\/a> (over half of those are from Asia and anoth\u00ader 7% are from the Mid\u00addle East). Walk\u00ading across vir\u00adtu\u00adal\u00adly any col\u00adlege cam\u00adpus you can find stu\u00addents from coun\u00adtries that don\u2019t allow mis\u00adsion\u00adar\u00adies entry. They\u2019ve come here and they can be reached here. That\u2019s one of the rea\u00adsons Chi Alpha empha\u00adsizes Inter\u00adna\u00adtion\u00adal Stu\u00addent Friend\u00adship Min\u00adistries<\/a> so strong\u00adly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mis\u00adsion\u00adar\u00adies are peo\u00adple who are called to pro\u00adclaim the gospel where there is no church to pro\u00adclaim it, and there ain\u2019t no church on cam\u00adpus!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stanfordministry-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Ded-1e","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}