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For simplicity’s sake, permit me first to characterize the missionary of the seventies in a five-fold manner: (1) He must be rooted in Christ; (2) he must be anchored in the Word; (3) he must be filled with the Spirit; (4) he must be related to the church; (5) he must be geared to the times.

The most pressing need of the church in Asia today is for adequately trained and deeply committed national leadership in the life and service of the church. This crisis in national leadership is being felt particularly in the sphere of theological training in view of the increasing restrictions on foreign missionary work in most countries in Asia.

Some years ago in the city of Shikarpur, West Pakistan, a blind Christian evangelist and I were invited to meet with some of the Muslim religious leaders in the courtyard of a neighborhood mosque.

The relationship of evangelical Christianity to the middle classes of Latin America is a new field of study, although the same problem has been debated for several decades in the English and German speaking world.¹ This is a relationship which some would call bondage.

Has anybody here seen a missionary? It is much easier to spot one than it is to define one. They have been engaged in a variety of tasks from auto maintenance to evangelism, from school teaching to administration, from medical work to translating the Scriptures. But still the question remains: What is a missionary?

The decade of the 60s saw the development of what might well be considered the first Latin American Protestant theological movement. We are referring to the group of thinkers related to the Latin American Commission on Church and Society (ISAL)1, and, through this commission, to the World Council of Churches.

Because so many students have come to me with a very simple question, I have finally decided that it is time to put something down on paper that might help concerned students in the area of missions. And, not only students, but perhaps missionaries.

In Scripture, we see God fulfilling his purposes in the world through men. Usually he begins with one man-burning his divine objective into that man’s heart and mind, and giving him promises to guarantee the fulfillment of the objective. Rarely, however, does God begin and end with one man.

Do students have anything to offer missions in the 1970s? Some missionaries wonder if this generation can be used in missionary service.

The pastoral care of missionaries is not something for which I can produce proof texts from Scripture, although we might reasonably assume that Paul and Barnabas gave loving care to John Mark and other fellow-workers as they traveled and toiled with them.