EMQ » January–March 2023 » Volume 59 Issue 1
Uncharted Mission: Going to the Final Frontiers
By D. C. Keane
William Carey Publishing, 2021
236 pagesUS$19.99
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Reviewed byDaniel Topf (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary), missions coach with World Team in Pompano Beach, Florida.
Uncharted Mission tells the captivating story of why and how Greg Livingstone founded Frontiers in 1982 with the distinct vision to focus exclusively on reaching the Muslim world for Christ.
Even though this book specifically highlights Frontiers as one particular sending agency within the evangelical spectrum, it introduces many other major actors of the missions world as well. Among these important individuals, institutions, and events that are interwoven into the narrative, one finds scholars (like Ralph Winter, Tom and Betty Sue Brewster, Paul Hiebert, Dudley Woodberry, and Chuck Kraft), conferences (such as the Lausanne Congress of 1974 and Intervarsity’s missions conferences in Urbana), theological schools (like Fuller Seminary, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, William Carey International University, and Talbot Seminary), organizations (such as the US Center for World Mission, Campus Crusade for Christ, Food for the Hungry, Youth With A Mission, Wycliffe Bible Translators, and World Vision), as well as resources that have been influential (like the prayer guide Operation World and the Perspectives on the World Christian Movement course).
Besides introducing these major players, Uncharted Mission also tells the stories of many lesser-known individuals who have served with Frontiers. Given the security concerns associated with doing missions among Muslim peoples, the reader only gets to know their first names. And so, one reads, among others, about Randy and Dana who spent 13 years in North Africa, as well as Aiden and Becca who are now serving in their fourth Middle Eastern country. Many of these testimonies describe the pioneer work these individuals initiated in the early days of the organization (in the 1980s), but most chapters end with a section entitled “The Story Continues …,” which gives the reader an update regarding more recent developments.
Most of these individuals highlighted in the book are Western missionaries, while other workers (such as from South Korea) play a secondary role. To some extent, this is understandable, considering that Frontiers is an organization that was founded in the United States. Still, in an age of world Christianity in which missions is from all nations to all nations, one wonders if the book could have been written from a more global perspective. Another potential shortcoming is the lack of theological and missiological reflection. Certain concepts are briefly mentioned, such as the C1 to C6 spectrum, but for the most part, Uncharted Mission tells the story of what happened, without addressing some of the more fundamental questions related to missions in the Muslim world. Nonetheless, Keane has written a helpful book that students of contemporary missions, as well as practitioners, will find both inspiring and informative.
For Further Reading
The Muslim Majority: Folk Islam and the Seventy Percent, by Robin Dale Hadaway (B&H Academic, 2021)
The Oxford Handbook of Mission Studies, edited by Kirsteen Kim, Knud Jørgensen, and Alison Fitchett-Climenhaga (Oxford University Press, 2022)
EMQ, Volume 59, Issue 1. Copyright © 2023 by Missio Nexus. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from Missio Nexus. Email: EMQ@MissioNexus.org.
