The Strategic Role of International Churches
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STATEMENT
Healthy international churches commend the gospel to the world and are a key missions strategy for the Great Commission; consequently, they are launch pads for gospel ministry throughout the world, worthy of partnership, resources, and support.
William Carey is often praised as a pioneer for world missions and the standard for language learning, cultural acquisition, and gospel proclamation. Given his giftedness with language and his commitment to indigenous peoples, students of missiology could be excused for not realizing that one early key to Carey’s strategy to spread the gospel in India was planting international churches–that is, churches that gather in a language other than the majority one (usually, though not necessarily, a trade language [1]).
Carey’s early letters and journal entries indicate loneliness and a deep loss because he missed his local church [2]. In 1795, however, Carey and his missionary partners established the first church, an English-speaking congregation in Mudnabati, resigning his membership in his home church to join this new church. The church book of Leicester notes that the church was happy to hear that a gospel church had been planted in Asia [3]. Then, in 1800, Carey planted The Mission Church in Serampore, a Danish Colony. While this church eventually began services in the Bengali language, the English-speaking congregation played a pivotal role in the early years of the mission. The baptism of Carey’s first convert from Hinduism occurred within this context [4].
Objections to International Churches
Despite their rich legacy, many missionaries, missiologists, and sending organizations today question the usefulness of international churches. Sadly, the skepticism has been earned. International churches often exist as cultural enclaves—where expatriates can escape into a culture that feels more like ‘back home.’ Others see international churches as rivals for the time and energy of missionaries who are meant to focus on outreach to local people.
International churches often attract people from various countries and denominational backgrounds whose understanding of church practices and even doctrine are very different. International churches can start watering down Biblical principles and teaching to avoid conflict and accommodate as many as possible. The church leadership is often untrained in what a healthy church should look like. In response, many missions-minded Christians, begin to see international churches as fairly irrelevant to the Great Commission.
But are all international churches doomed to isolate expats and missionaries from the host culture? Are they just inevitably “lowest common denominator” gatherings? In other words, are they actually a hindrance to gospel advance?
In this article, we will argue that international churches commend the gospel and are a key mission strategy for the great commission. First, we will summarize a biblical theology of churches to demonstrate that any faithful church glorifies God. Then, we will consider how healthy international churches are launch pads for gospel ministry. Finally, we will note the danger of neglecting international churches as a mission strategy.
A Theology of Churches
Our contention that international churches commend the gospel and are a key mission strategy is built upon our fundamental belief that a local church made up of born-again Christians gathered around God’s Word, devoted to spurring one another onto faithfulness and good works, will always glorify God. There is no such thing as a church that God does not care about; there is no such thing as a church outside of God’s good purposes. That’s true of churches in rural North America, churches in the far reaches of Siberia, and churches in the jungles of Peru—why would it be otherwise for international churches?
When Peter became the first person to confess that Jesus of Nazareth was the long-awaited Messiah, Jesus made a remarkable statement. He announced his intention to build his church on this rock of a single person making a true profession of gospel truth, and then he made this promise about his church: “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18).
Though we don’t know the future, and though the future of any given local church is not guaranteed, we do know that Jesus has promised that his church will prevail over the gates of hell. Jesus’ promise is usually understood as an assurance that the Lord will preserve the church, which is true! But it’s important to note that gates are a defensive weapon, so Jesus’ promise is mainly about victory, advance, and conquest. In his manifold wisdom, God has ordained that as a church strives to live faithfully together, Christians will be helped spiritually, and non-Christians will be saved.
Our Lord has kept his promise to advance the gospel through churches throughout Christian history. This includes those churches considered “indigenous” to a particular time and place–such as the remarkable growth of Christianity in China during the Cultural Revolution when all missionaries were locked out. And God has also kept his promise through past “international” churches–such as John Calvin’s congregation of French refugees in Strasbourg or Knox’s congregation of English refugees in Geneva, which became a hothouse for future gospel workers.
Today, the opportunity for the Lord to build his church through international churches is more significant than ever. Globalization has increased the number of people living outside their home country. Those who relocate for work may not speak the language of the specific country they reside in—but they typically speak a lingua franca, such as English or Chinese [5]. International churches are a means of leveraging that transient population for the spread of the gospel and the support of ministry.
Most of the negative critiques we mentioned above are valid critiques of weak, unhealthy churches—international or not! But Christ’s promise to use his church empower us to pursue greater faithfulness. He does not give us an excuse to give up on true, weak churches that aren’t yet with the program.
We can’t foresee all the ways that God might use an international church to accomplish the Great Commission. Still, we can be sure that as any church seeks to honor the Lord by living faithfully together, the Lord will keep his promise and use that church for his glory.
Launch Pads for Gospel Ministry
International churches have been used not only by God to bless expats and their families but also as a launching pad for gospel ministry. Consider six ways we have seen healthy international churches serve the gospel.
1. International Churches Can Import Maturity
We’ve seen international churches uniquely serve the Kingdom in cities where the indigenous church is young. International churches often profit from the maturity of experienced elders from healthy churches in the West. Local believers see models of mature, godly leadership in the international church, and so, in turn, see a picture of what they should aspire to.
For example, in my (Caleb) city in Central Asia, I can count the number of second-generation local believers on two hands. Where do Christians in this city go to learn from older saints about the challenge of raising children in a spiritually hostile world? Who can they observe to learn how Christians apply the Word to challenging work situations? Where can they see an example of a Christian couple who have remained faithful to each other for decades?
An international church allows young indigenous churches to see examples of Christian maturity that will strengthen and spur them on. Yes, there will be cultural differences. Yes, the two churches will have their unique challenges. However, the example of Christian faithfulness that more mature believers provide can still have a significant impact.
2. International Churches Can Model Health
During the Reformation, communities of Protestant refugees fled to England from the European Continent. Because they were foreigners, their ‘stranger churches’ were given more freedom in their church order than the national church. Not only were they able to work out how the gospel informs the structure of a church for themselves with greater freedom, but they were also able to stand as a model to the English churches around them (and churches back in their home countries). When Thomas Cranmer introduced a new liturgy–breaking from Roman Catholic mass to a Protestant understanding of the Lord’s Supper–his teaching and order were borrowed from the Polish ‘stranger churches’ of London. [6]
In the same way, in countries that attempt to regulate the spiritual practice of their citizens, expatriate churches are often tolerated, promoted, and given much more leeway in their practice by governing authorities. This allows international churches to be a visible picture of how a church can be ordered and how the gospel transforms lives.
3. International Churches Can Be a Gateway for Resources
The Western world has access to an incredible array of theological resources in Western languages. The Western church generally has more financial resources than many other places. But how to best distribute those resources is difficult to discern from afar and often problematic [7].
International churches can filter between the Western world and young Christian communities. For example, what are helpful translation projects in this language? On-the-ground knowledge helps Western publishers produce books that are useful in a local context. Even language groups with long histories of Protestant mission work (such as Thai or Zulu) have only recently begun to benefit from efforts to make theologically robust material available in those languages.
One practical way an international church can serve as a gateway for such resources is not only by directing money but also through programs such as pastoral internships for potential indigenous pastors. For example, the Evangelical Christian Church of Dubai has trained interns who are now planting and pastoring in many other nearby nations. Our point is not only that they’ve raised up leaders—they’ve also provided robust theological and ecclesiological foundations for those men to apply in their own cultural contexts.
4. International Churches Can Sustain Missionaries
Many missionaries are confused about their need for a church on the field. Many mission philosophies conclude that an international church hinders ministry by taking missionaries away from their ministry or making them look “too western” to the local people. Some missionaries are discouraged from joining a local church because they have to retain formal membership in their sending church. Others, trained in methods that promote rapid growth, typically don’t commit to any church.
Sometimes, a missionary may want to join an indigenous church, but circumstances (cultural differences, economic disparities, security concerns, or language challenges) make that unfeasible.
Regardless of the reason, lack of church involvement puts the missionary at risk spiritually. Many sending organizations have developed member care infrastructure, which can be helpful. But the best place for missionaries to be cared for is within a church community that knows and encourages them to walk faithfully in their day-to-day lives [8].
John Calvin said, “We see that God, who might perfect his people in a moment, chooses not to bring them to manhood in any other way than by the education of the church,” a school we spend our whole lives studying in” [9]. If missionaries are God’s people, they also need that school. An international church sustains them and their families in their work. The mutual care and oversight of a church is not something you ever grow out of, so providing that is a crucial service to enable missionaries who have already sacrificed much to keep going.
5. International Churches Can Promote Cooperation
If people meet expats and learn the gospel from them but don’t speak English, what church will they join? This simple question demonstrates what we have lived out. The transient nature of expatriate life puts pressure on faithful Christians to find other people who can continue discipling young believers.
The fact that international churches may see converts who would be better served by joining an indigenous church means international churches are pressured into building relationships with other churches. In a frontier context, relational ties between churches are often neglected, whether because of security concerns or just the difficulty of finding each other.
We have both seen the Lord use international churches as the kernel that has facilitated genuine Christian fellowship and cooperation between indigenous churches and international churches.
6. International Churches Can Reach Expatriates from Hard-to-reach Places.
Among the increasing number of expatriates around the world are people from nations whose governments attempt to close off their people from the gospel. It might be dangerous or illegal to associate with Christians in their home country, but as an expatriate, they have more freedom. Often, they speak a trade language or share a mother tongue in common with some members of an international church. All these things allow an international church to reach out to these expatriates with the love of Christ and humanly speaking, often mean such people are more open to Christian conversation.
For example, we know people from a closed country who lived in a neighborhood where members of an international church also lived. Some from this country have become believers and are being discipled in the church–and aiming to plant a church in their mother tongue. Some of them hope to take the gospel back to their home country. In another city, ethnically Chinese Canadians from the international church had a vision to minister to the hundreds of Chinese laborers in the area. Now, a Chinese-speaking church has been born.
The Danger of Dismissing International Churches
International churches can and do play a key role, alongside other good mission strategies, towards fulfilling our Lord’s command to go into all the world and make disciples.
We’ve described some ways international churches commend the gospel and propel missions, but unfortunately, they can be overlooked because they don’t fit into a traditional mission mindset.
We should never disdain any way the Lord advances his gospel. There are many ways the Lord can work. He delights in using different people with different gifts to make his singular glory known. We ought to be unswerving in our commitment to what God has made clear in his Word and simultaneously open-hearted toward the ways the Lord might work.
Christians are in danger of overlooking and missing out on wonderful opportunities to see the gospel advance, indigenous leaders trained up and Christians discipled into greater faithfulness, simply because an international church doesn’t fit a preconceived notion. My (Caleb) father, who served as a missionary for decades, did not initially consider missions for years because he was neither a doctor nor a preacher. 35 years later, it’s clear to me he was able to serve in a frontier setting precisely because he had a different skill set which he used to the glory of Christ. How many faithful believers with a heart for the nations have been dissuaded from cross-cultural ministry of any kind because their view of ‘missions work’ is too narrow?
Christians have a bad habit of treating one possible strategy as the strategy. International churches are not the silver bullet to international missions, but they are one of many key strategies. God, in his wisdom, gives different gifts and different assignments to his people (cf. 1 Cor 7 and 12). We don’t all have to spend our lives for Christ the same way—even on the mission field.
The Lord uses a variety of gifts and means to advance His Kingdom, and international churches are one of those. We believe they deserve the recognition and support of sending churches and mission organizations because of the unique opportunities they provide.
Footnotes:
[1] By ‘trade language’ we mean a common or bridge language spoken in the public realm. For example, Greek during Paul’s ministry, Latin in late Medieval times, English or Chinese today.
[2] C.J. Moore, “An Ecclesiological Mission: The Basis for William Carey’s Threefold Mission Strategy,” STR 12.1 (Spring 2021): 83-109, 89.
[3] See Brian Stanley, “Planting Self-governing Churches: British Baptist Ecclesiology in the Missionary Context,” Baptist Quarterly 34 [1992] and John Brown Myers, ed., The Centenary Celebration of the Baptist Missionary Society 1892–1893 (Holborn: The Baptist Missionary Society, 1893), 120.
[4] Moore, “An Ecclesiological Mission,” 91 and William Carey, in George, Faithful Witness, 131.
[5] Perhaps in the same way that Acts 2 reports the church in Jerusalem was made up of Jews from many nations, speaking many different languages, but worshiping in Greek—the Roman Empire’s trade language?
[6] Reformation Worship: Liturgies from the Past for the Present, eds. Jonathan Gibson & Mark Earney (New Growth Press: Greensboro, NC, 2018), 455. For a description of the not-always-appreciated pressure the Polish leader Jan Laski applied to Cranmer for further reform, see Diarmaid MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer (Yale: New Haven, 2016 2nd edition), 478-83.
[7] For more on this topic see GCC’s article “Be Generous but Avoid Financial Dependence”
[8] We recognize that in frontier missions efforts there is no established church for a missionary to attend. Although beyond the scope of this paper, we would desire for the team to aim to form themselves into a church.
[9] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion IV.1.5.
