The shortest path between two points is not a straight line, as conventional wisdom says, but a wrinkle. Think paper napkin, slightly crumpled.

It’s a metaphor a leading Christian missions agency leader used to describe the rapid multiplication methods needed to reach the last frontier of unevangelized people groups, as related by M. David Sills in his book “Reaching and Teaching: A Call to Great Commission Obedience.”

Sills is professor of Christian missions and cultural anthropology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a veteran missionary who served the SBC International Mission Board in Ecuador as a church planter and educator.

Sills’ book critiques such “need for speed” (thus the wrinkle) in what he views as a well-meaning but flawed missiology that is eschatologically dubious.

He argues for a full-orbed Great Commission missiology rooted in Matthew 28:18-20 to make disciples worldwide, baptizing them and teaching them all of Christ’s commands?a complex task as varied in difficulty and duration as the many cultures missionaries engage.

History and experience have shown, Sills writes, that a lack of adequate discipleship (teaching) by theologically grounded missionaries often leads to nominalism, syncretism or an outright return to paganism. He rightly lauds the urgency of gospel proclamation, but laments a trend toward quick-strike missions that leaves too much of the work to native peoples before, he contends, they are properly equipped.

Sills’ book is welcomed and overdue if the prevailing missionary culture is how he describes it, with long-held missiological tenets that involved years of plowing the proverbial hard soil supplanted by methods to “reach” (meaning 2 percent evangelized) every known people as quickly as possible so that Jesus may come back.

In perhaps the most important chapter, “Search versus Harvest Theology: Reaching or Teaching?” Sills argues that a biblical missiology doesn’t divide between “search” missions (preaching Christ to the unreached peoples) and “harvest” missions (harvesting among responsive people).

He writes: “It is a mistake to view harvest and search theologies as incompatible or mutually exclusive positions. God has called and equipped some missionaries to take the gospel to unreached, unengaged areas of the world, while He has called others to disciple, teach, organize disciples into churches, and establish schools and support ministries.”

Throughout the book, Sills mentions the IMB at various points, but never directly addresses the board’s strategies, preferring instead to speak in general terms about trends in evangelical missions culture. The reader is left to wonder if the IMB is partly in view in his critiques, but it seems apparent it is.

Sills summarizes how, beginning in the 1970s with a desire to identify unreached peoples, some mission groups began moving toward a greater emphasis on these “hidden peoples,” eventually leading to a formula for deciding which groups were “reached” or “unreached” based on whether or not 2 percent of the people were identified as evangelical.

The 2 percent figure was intended as an arbitrary marker for statistical purposes, Sills writes, and a much lower percentage than the business model from which it was borrowed that said if 20 percent of a culture adopted an idea, they had a sufficient base to propagate that idea. But some mission agencies took the 2 percent figure and adopted it as a benchmark for a strategy of engaging the unreached people groups.

“In most missions circles, it has become a ‘fact’ as widely accepted as the laws of physics that when a people group’s population is 2 percent evangelical, the missionaries can pass over them because they are considered reached,” Sills wrote.

ESCHATOLOGY & THE MISSION
In addition to repeated references to Matthew 28:18-20 and 2 Timothy 2:2 (Paul’s mandate to Timothy to train faithful men to teach others), Sills also interacts with the context of Matthew 24:14, which he says has become “the driving force of the missionary task” for many organizations.

The passage?”And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come”?is part of a discourse in which Jesus is urging his disciples to be patient and endure the coming afflictions in their time, not a strategy “to speed up the kingdom,” Sills argues.

“[Some mission agencies] further believe that Jesus cannot come back until we have finished this task,” he writes.

It is debated among conservative scholars, Sills writes, about whether Jesus is speaking of the end of the world or the end of the Jewish state and Jerusalem in the first century, noting Jerusalem’s destruction in A.D. 70. He adds that the Greek word used in the passage for “whole world” is oikoumene, which was also used in the New Testament by Paul to describe the world of the Roman Empire.

Sills asks, if such interpretations are correct that Jesus was speaking of the end of time, then what is considered “the gospel of the kingdom?” How may we determine if it has been thoroughly preached? And was Jesus promising to return immediately after the task was finished?

“Given the doctrinally unsound state of the church around the world where the need for speed has led missionaries to preach a simple gospel message through an interpreter, get a show of hands, call them a church, and move on, we should shudder to consider what the church would be like at the end of such a missions strategy,” he adds.

“What would become of the church should Jesus delay His return for fifty years? Or, five hundred years? How many heresies would creep into an untaught church?”

Sills goes on to address other relevant subjects such as church planting movements (CPMs), championed largely by the IMB, the need to re-emphasize theological training, and the challenges of reaching a world of 70 percent oral, mostly pre-literate peoples.

In addressing church planting movements, Southern Baptists will be encouraged to read that the IMB has written that “no rapid reproduction of churches can be contrived or manipulated by human ingenuity or programming. An explosive eruption of legitimate churches is the work of the Holy Spirit; but often takes years of patient planting until a rich harvest is reaped.”

Sills’ discussion of ecclesiology (“Your ecclesiology will drive your missiology”) is also helpful; he contrasts the New Testament requirements against tempting definitions of church that may pad numbers and affirm missionaries.

The book carries endorsements by SBC seminary presidents Daniel Akin of Southeastern and Al Mohler of Southern, as well as David Hesselgrave, professor emeritus of missions at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

When Fortune magazine compiled a list of the “50 Biggest Mob Bosses,” Michael Franzese came in at number 18, five behind the notorious John Gotti. His autobiography, “Blood Covenant,” tells his story of mafia involvement as part of La Cosa Nostra and ultimately, his conversion to Jesus Christ.

He has been featured in Vanity Fair, on “The Jim Rome Show,” PBS’ “All Things Considered” and in Sports Illustrated.
Franzese will share his testimony on Monday evening, Feb. 28 during the opening session of the Empower Evangelism Conference at Frisco’s Dr. Pepper Arena.

FRISCO?The Women’s Conference on Feb. 28, preceding the Empower Evangelism Conference, will feature renowned vocalist Babbie Mason, popular women’s speaker and author Angela Thomas, Pam Tebow, mother of the Denver Broncos’ Tim Tebow and a former missionary to the Philippines, and Dorothy Patterson, professor of theology in women’s studies at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

The conference will be held across the street from the Dr. Pepper Arena, site of the evangelism conference sessions, in the Frisco Convention Center at the Embassy Suites.

Mason, the daughter of a Baptist pastor, often accompanied her father, the late George W. Wade, as he preached at home and at churches across the Great Lakes states. She has sung at Billy Graham Crusades worldwide, Carnegie Hall, for Presidents Carter, Ford and Bush, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, comedian Bill Cosby, and NBA great Michael Jordan.

Thomas is the best-selling author of numerous books including “Do You Think I’m Beautiful” and “My Single Mom Life.” She is Bible teacher and storyteller and a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Dallas Theological Seminary.

Tebow is a member of First Baptist Church of Jacksonville, Fla., and the mother of Bronco’s rookie quarterback and Heisman trophy winner Tim Tebow. The two were featured in a highly publicized pro-life commercial that aired during last year’s Super Bowl.

Patterson, the wife of Southwestern Seminary President Paige Patterson, is a theologian in her own right, having authored or contributed to numerous commentaries and scholarly articles. Her books include “The Family: Unchanging Principles for Changing Times,” and “A Handbook for Parents in the Ministry: Training Up a Child While Answering the Call.”

For this reason God also highly exalted Him and gave Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow?of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth?and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. ?Philippians 2:9-11

FRISCO?”Jesus Christ is Lord!” taken from Philippians 2:9-11, is the theme of the 2011 Empower Evangelism Conference, scheduled Feb. 28-March 2 at the Dr. Pepper Arena in Frisco.

The annual conference will feature a wide array of speakers, including pastors Jack Graham, Kie Bowman and Johnny Hunt, best-selling author and apologist Lee Strobel, and “Total Church Life” author Darrell Robinson. Musical guests include Babbie Mason, Charles Billingsley, and Jason Crabb, as well as choirs and orchestras from Hyde Park Baptist Church in Austin and Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano.

“The Empower Evangelism Conference is designed to inspire and motivate followers of Jesus to be more zealous about the Great Commission and the Great Commandment of our Lord,” said SBTC Evangelism Director Don Cass. “You will be blessed by great music, dynamic testimonies, and great preaching that will lead us to refocus on the Lordship of our Savior.”

The Women’s Session will begin at 1:30 on Monday afternoon, Feb. 28 at the Frisco Convention Center (in the Embassy Suites Hotel across from the Dr. Pepper Arena) and will include speakers Dorothy Patterson, Angela Thomas and Pam Tebow, as well as music from Babbie Mason.

In addition to Graham, Bowman, Hunt and Strobel, other evangelism conference speakers are Texas pastors Chet Haney and Clark Bosher, Danny Forshee, New Mexico pastor Todd Cook and Ken Ellis of the North American Mission Board.

For more information on the Empower Evangelism Conference, visit sbtexas.com/evangelism or call the SBTC’s evangelism department toll-free at 877-953-7282 (SBTC).