Mythbuster #5: The Myth of the Specialized Missionary

February 24, 2009 – 4:50 pm

“Versatility is the greatest single human virtue any missionary can possess. Without it he may feel like a square peg in a round hole and blame the mission for his feelings of frustration.”

BUSTED- The Myth of the Specialized Missionary

We hear much these days about specialization in all fields of human endeavor. Automation and cybernation make it possible for more and more tasks to be performed by fewer and fewer highly skilled people in key positions. Before long only the specialists will be able to find employment. By the year 2000 only 10 percent of the work force will be employed. The other 90 percent will be paid by the government to do nothing!

There is no doubt about it - specialization is the name of the game. Wherein then lies the myth? There are really two myths, not one, so far as missionary work is concerned.

The first myth is the idea that the day of the general missionary is over; now only specialists need apply. Indeed, there seems to be a conspiracy to downgrade the general missionary in favor of the specialist. The general missionary is regarded as a jack-of-all-trades and therefore master of none. As such he is definitely a second-class worker in the vineyard of the Lord.

There is some misunderstanding at this point. The truth of the matter is that from the beginning of the missionary movement we have had both general and specialized missionaries. There is no rivalry between them. The one supplements and complements the other.

What people don’t understand is that the East is still several decades behind the West and the need for specialists there is not so great as it is here. Moreover, there are not enough missionaries to permit the missions to indulge in the luxury of specialization.

A good seminary in the United States will probably have two or three professors in the New Testament department, and the Old Testament department will have the same. These men teach only in the area of their concentration. But on the mission field, where the average seminary has twenty-five students and only two or three full-time faculty members, it is obvious that specialization, however desirable, is out of the question. The Old Testament professor will be asked to teach homiletics and apologetics in addition to Old Testament. The church history man will be required to teach evangelism and missions as well as church history.

For this reason mission executives prefer men who are versatile and flexible. Indeed, versatility is the greatest single human virtue any missionary can possess. Without it he may feel like a square peg in a round hole and blame the mission for his feelings of frustration.

The same goes for the medical missionary. The doctor on the mission field must be both physician and a surgeon, for often he is the only doctor on the hospital staff. The heart, eye, and bone specialists will have ample scope for their special skills, but they must be prepared to function as general practitioners. Indeed, most mission doctors have to pitch in and help solve the problem when there is a short in the electrical system or when the incubator, the jeep, or the X-ray machine breaks down. At such times versatility is a priceless asset. Some doctors have been known to build their own hospitals!

The other myth is the idea that only doctors, nurses, teachers, radio technicians, agriculturalists, etc., are specialists. All others are lumped together and referred to as general missionaries. Is the evangelist not a specialist? What about the seminary professor, the youth worker, the business manager, or the area superintendent? Are they not specialists? If a man has four years of medical school we call him a specialist. If another man spends three or four years in a seminary, he is a general missionary. This doesn’t make sense.¹

If Kane only knew how deeply “automation” and “cybernation” would alter culture in the first decade of the 21st century… Though we might be tempted to chuckle at his prediction regarding the workforce by the new millennium, we’re definitely closer to the 90%/10% ratio than they were in 1978. Kane exposes two supposed myths: 1) the day of the general missionary is over; 2) only doctors, nurses, teachers, radio technicians, agriculturalists, etc., are specialists - all others are lumped together and referred to as general missionaries. These will be evaluated in detail below.

1. The day of the general missionary is over. By general, Kane seems to be referring to a traditional church planter, theologically trained and commissioned by a local church. I wholeheartedly agree with his assessment that this is a missions myth. Kane, an established expert on missions history,² authoritatively states that “from the beginning of the missionary movement we have had both general and specialized missionaries” (par. #4). Names like Carey, Taylor, Livingstone, Judson, Morrison come to mind as “general, yet specialized” missionaries. He goes on to point out the value of both categories - “the one supplements and complements the other.” I wish that he would have specifically stated that the specialized supplement and complement the general (implying that the planting of churches and maturing of leaders is the primary goal), nevertheless, I am thankful that he at least admits the necessity of both categories of missionaries, a concession that many evangelicals are not willing to make.I agree with the second sentence of the fifth paragraph, but wholeheartedly disagree with the first. Kane leads off by stating that countries in the East are “several decades behind the West” and therefore do not need as many “specialists.” That is clearly not accurate in our contemporary setting, either in the secular or church setting. Sure, there are rural areas which do not need “specialized” individuals, but, then again, areas like this exist in the America too! As the world is “urbanizing,” so the need for “specialized workers” is increasing. While his first statement is a bit off, he scores a ten with the next statement: “there are not enough missionaries to permit the missions³ to indulge in the luxury of specialization.” But isn’t this true with nearly every other church ministry, not just with missions? This reality-check hits deeper than just at the missions level. Our churches are plagued with the “specialization syndrome.” Many people choose not to minister in a local church because the church doesn’t “appreciate their specialized giftedness” or because they haven’t been given a “specialized title” with which to serve.David Doran, in a pamphlet addressing the problem of “market-driven ministries” touches on this matter. In it he quotes marketing guru George Barna for a basic definition of the market-driven ministry mindset - “the major problem plaguing the Church is its failure to embrace a marketing orientation in what has become a market-driven environment.”⁴ Later in the pamphlet, Doran states that “the very strategy adopted in marketing runs counter to its proposed ultimate goal. The pursuit of self’s perceived needs is at the core of man’s flight from God, and it is poor handling of Scripture to cast God in the role of Cosmic Need-Meeter. The driving force of redemption is not meeting needs, it is to magnify God’s grace (Eph 2:7).”⁵

   Because many churches are driven by the marketing mindset, there is a push to hire “specialized staff” members (pastor of counseling, pastor of youth, pastor of children, pastor of technology, pastor of worship, pastor of missions, etc.) and establish “specialized ministry programs” (counseling ministry, literacy ministry, children’s ministry, pre-teen ministry, teen ministry, pre-adult ministry, adult ministry, etc.) to meet the “needs” of current or prospective church members. While there is nothing inherently wrong with any of these positions or programs, a church ought to determine what type of mindset is driving them: man-centered or God-centered.

   Tying this back to our “general vs. special missionaries” discussion, if a church has a healthy view of ministry roles and programs, this will have an affect on the mindset of the missionaries that they send out. Healthy “senders” might not guarantee healthy “goers,” but it certainly increases the opportunity for them to be so.

2. Missionaries with non-theological advanced training are considered specialized, while those with advanced theological training are considered general.

Kane points out the logical fallacy of this statement. To summarize his questions - what makes a specific secular degree any more “specialized” than a seminary-based, theological degree? The answer is clear: there is no difference. There ought to be as great a respect for theologically-trained, ministry based missionaries as university-trained, “tentmaking”-type missionaries. Different positions, same team. The crucial questions that churches ought to be asking are: What is the team’s primary goal? Who is the leader(s)? Are the secondary roles supplanting or supplementing the primary role?

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¹Kane, Understanding Christian Missions (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1978), pp. 21-22.
²See, for example, his A Concise History of the Christian World Mission: A Panoramic View of Missions from Pentecost to the Present (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1978) which offers one of the best concise overviews of missions history.
³By the use of “missions” here, Kane is describing mission agencies or mission organizations within a denomination. For local churches that support and send out missionaries independent of both, this idea could be applied to the local church.
⁴Marketing the Church (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1988), p. 23. Quoted in “Market-Driven Ministry” p. 4.
⁵“Market-Driven Ministry: Blessing or Curse” (Allen Park, MI: Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary, 1996), pp. 55-56.

J. Herbert Kane in his missions classic Understanding Christian Missions, attempts to debunk 9 popular missions myths. We will post each of these “mythbusters” in a series entitled “Missions ‘Mythbusters’” and offer critique of and elaboration upon the issues that Kane surfaces.

Key: Busted = a claim proven to be false; Plausible = a claim that possesses some validity, but is not entirely true; Confirmed = a claim proven to be valid.

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