EMQ

After one year of preparation, the Chinese Congress on Evangelism convened November 9-13, 1970, on scenic Grass Mountain (Yangmingshan) just a few miles from downtown Taipei, Taiwan. It was a historic gathering for the Chinese church as 390 participants attended, representing some 50 different Protestant groups.

Through more than five years of prayer and planning, many factors have converged, in the providence of God, to bring about the establishment of the China Evangelical Seminary.

The concept of “the indigenous church” is widely emphasized today. But how much do we hear about the indigenous mission agency? The task of church planting is fairly well known. But what about the art and science of mission planting? We study the strong and weak points of different types of church policy.

Emergent and revitalized non-Christian religions threaten the churches of Asia like storm clouds on the horizon of the ’70s, while in Africa, sunshine and bright skies suggest a decade of many open doors.

The title suggests two fundamentals: the primacy of the evangel, and the propriety in asserting this primacy in the context of true, mature nationalism.

Missions are doing something to nationalize the churches. A spot check by Evangelical Missions Quarterly reveals some interesting developments.

THE MUSLIM WORLD The region being considered is both geographically and religiously near the heart of the Muslim world. It embraces, however, a number of different nations, races and varieties of religion and culture, so that it is impossible to make statements regarding the work of missionaries from the West that would be true in every situation.

In his book, The Bible Speaks to Our Times, Alan Redpath writes, “If you are a Christian and not a church member, then you are out of the will of God!” Mr. Redpath is right!

The title of this article is important because impressions of Urbana ’70 are likely to be as diverse as the people who went there. People there were plenty of: 10,937 students from 48 states and 72 countries and 50 denominations, plus 406 missionaries and 961 “miscellaneous.”

Protestant missionaries from North America now total over 3,000. They are spread around the world perhaps more widely than missionaries from any other continent. In recent years the distribution of these Christian workers has been altered, and we need to see the new patterns in light of our rapidly changing world.