Why We Are All Foreign Missionaries Right Now

In 1996, I taught English in Xingjian, a remote province in China. Bordering Kazakhstan and Mongolia, this obscure province is where Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was filmed and is currently well known for the Uighur “reeducation camps” located there. My only longer-term (6 weeks) overseas experience left me with many insights:

1. Denominational differences are not as important in spiritually oppressed cultures. The brothers and sisters living there spoke of secret “bathtub” baptisms, ostrasization by family members, “blacklisting” or complete disappearance of new believers, and yes, the death sentence for those found guilty of “proselytizing”. Pentecostal and reformed were not at odds. Believers were truly family. They stuck together despite denominational issues, which might have come between them here in the states.
2. Politics is put on the back burner when freedom/democracy don’t exist. At the time, I remember wondering how Western Christians could define themselves minus the terms Republican or Democrat, Pro-Life or Pro-Choice, etc. . . . For the people there, these were not options. They were simply Christians, no other terminology needed. What a concept.
3. The word of God is cherished when it is scarce. At this time, when the internet was barely a thought, especially in China, people scoured over 3 pages of the Bible at a time, passing them along to someone else when they finished.
4. Lack of freedom of religion, and freedom in general, brought cultures together. In a world where the gospel was scarce and restricted, the Han, the Uighurs, the Kazhaks, and a plethora of other minorities, all had to come together despite their many differences. Was it a struggle? Yes, but they had no choice due to their lack of resources.

With the polarizing political climate controlling the narrative in the West today, Christians could learn a lot from foreign the Christians in oppressive cultures like China. While Western believers are not being martyred, and a surplus of Bibles still exists, Western Christians may do well to put aside minor denominational differences, political tensions, and cultural differences in order to come together as the body of Christ in a time when the Western church is more divided than ever.

When foreign missionaries travel to another culture, whether they be short-term or long-term, they know they will give up many “luxuries”, whether they be physical or otherwise.  They will give up physical comforts, familiar food, cultural norms, stereotypes, and be willing to immerse themselves in a culture completely different from their own. They do it because that is the only way for the gospel to go forth.  The same concept applies for Western believers in a culture we know very well.  In order to achieve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Ephesians 4:3) and share the gospel with others, we now must “go forth” in our own communities, laying our political and cultural ideas aside, and boy are there a lot of them.

With the prevalence of social media, it is almost as if we are all walking billboards. Unfortunately, our billboards are less about Christ and more about abortion, party politics, immigration, gender identification, critical race theory, COVID, and lockdowns, mine included. Don’t get me wrong, these are important issues, but we can’t treat those on the other side of these issues as our enemies. The enemy never has been flesh and blood. Instead, we fight “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12). The people we see as enemies are actually our brothers and sisters or potential future family members. I assert that the time is now, the time for all of us to adjust our spiritual lenses to that of a foreign missionary in a new culture for the first time. Maybe this refocusing will allow us to see people not as adversaries but as souls: fellow believers or hurting souls that are hungry for the truth we have, that will set them free.

Lord, give us your eyes to see others. May we choose to “know nothing but Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2) in order to live out your gospel in a chaotic world.