What is our church’s vision for foreign missions? Is there a plan to make that vision a reality? Would such a plan offer a practical guide for establishing and developing all missions programs within the PCA so that “each part is working properly” (Ephesians 4:16)? Such questions are as vital today as they have been in each prior generation. Indeed, such questions were contemplated within the sine qua non of the original architecture of the PCA:
How good it was to hear how the Lord moved in the hearts of our founding fathers to establish a “continuing Presbyterian Church” that would be true to the Scriptures and to the Confession, and obedient to the Great Commission (emphasis added).
Many of the lines of this blueprint had already been worked out and were settled in the founding of the PCA. But true obedience to the Great Commission meant that there was work yet to be done on the contours of Presbyterian missions.
The “first real controversial issue” in the PCA was how to be absolutely sure that our foreign missionaries would be free to minister as Presbyterians.1 Since foreign missions means ministering outside of the bounds of the PCA, more direction was needed than existed in our Book of Church Order. Therefore, the General Assembly instructed the newly-formed Mission to the World (a permanent committee of GA) to produce a policy manual to present at the GA’s third annual meeting.
The Assembly approved hiring someone to draft the document, and scholar-churchman David Calhoun (1937-2021), was selected.2 Calhoun was eminently suitable for the task primarily because he was a student of the Scriptures. His credentials included advanced degrees in both Old and New Testaments. He also had experience both as a missionary and in leading a missions agency. And, significant for connecting with his broad audience, he was familiar with American Presbyterian history in both its Northern and Southern streams. His legacy proves that he was well-chosen.3
This manual remains MTW’s guiding document.4 It provides the organic blueprint that roots a plethora of decisions that constitute MTW’s Missionary Handbook (historically a separate document governed by different rules but later published together with the manual). More significantly, the manual provides the organic blueprint that brings coherence to the PCA’s entire missions program.
This essay surveys its lines of beauty that display Christ’s presence as he rules his church-on-mission. This tour is especially for those who have a role in leading the missions programs of PCA churches: pastors, elders, and missions committee chairs.
For its architectural vision, the manual’s first step was to establish historical and constitutional continuity. There would be no personalities, fads, or special interests controlling our foreign missions. Pragmatism, a distinctive of American Christianity, would be vigorously resisted. Foreign missions must be thoroughly and solely grounded in Scripture as interpreted by the Westminster Standards.
The manual’s second step was to establish MTW’s focus: “Priority and Urgency of Planting and Strengthening Presbyterian Churches Overseas.” The third step was the “how.” Only Presbyterian ministry methods will produce Presbyterian churches.
Lastly, the crowning vision of the manual was the entire church working together seamlessly and effectively. The ordering principles of the BCO are extended from Christ’s government of his church within the PCA to his government of the PCA’s missions efforts globally. In sum, the manual’s vision for our church’s foreign missions grounds us in the Scriptures and confession, provides us with a focus, defines our method, and promises effective collaboration in God-glorifying order.
A Theological Mission
The highest aim of the manual is to establish the church’s missions program in the church’s theology. It lays out an all-embracing structure of theological foundation leading unidirectionally to practice, with no gap between.
“The order of the division is important,” it says. “Theology must always judge practice” at every point, and this order “can never be reversed.”
“We commit ourselves to be a theological mission,” declares the manual, because our mandate is revealed in Scripture. Our striving to know God includes knowing God’s will for the nations. True knowledge of God is necessarily fruitful knowledge of God. There can be no separation between true belief and faithful practice.
What is the alternative to a theological mission? In a word, it is pragmatism. Pragmatism begins with a perceived gap between theology and practice, a vacuum waiting to be filled. Pragmatism is the conviction that because Christ offers no direction in this or that practical matter, we are essentially on our own to figure it out. Such autonomy distances our activity from the King’s power and, even more tragically, from the King himself. The more dangerous pragmatists then twist a biblical text into defending their autonomy.
The manual therefore rejects “pragmatism as a guide for our action.” It deplores “a superficiality that seeks biblical grounds for positions already taken for other reasons.” The consequence of failure on this point, the manual warns, is “death not only of theology but also of missions.” Therefore, our practice must “live under the domination of theology.” The manual’s vivid language of “commit,” “reject,” “deplore,” and “domination” is appropriately passionate. The threat of death is intended to elicit the most extreme sobriety.
A Presbyterian Mission
Its theological foundation having been established, the manual asserts the singular focus of MTW’s work with the heading, “Priority and Urgency of Planting and Strengthening Presbyterian Churches.” The rationale for a sharply defined mandate is compellingly set forth:
The [A] priority and urgency of planting and nurturing churches overseas and [B] our God-given Reformed doctrine and Presbyterian polity mean that [C] our mission to the world must, through our own efforts and in cooperation with compatible Reformed churches, be engaged primarily in the work of planting and strengthening true Presbyterian churches.
Since, according to our theology, [A] is true and [B] is true, then [C] is necessarily entailed. The missionary programs of local churches and presbyteries could benefit from such a clear statement of priority to guide decisions.
But how? The PCA is not a global institution, so how can it go about such work abroad? And in an orderly manner? The church planting jurisdiction of the PCA is North America. It is only within this geographic area (with rare exception) that the PCA has presbyteries that can properly look after churches. Churches that are planted by PCA ministers outside of North America are not normally PCA churches.
Therefore, the manual emphatically insists on a singular church planting strategy: “It is of greatest importance that the PCA find Reformed churches overseas to which it can relate its mission work.” This singular strategy entails the corollary: to “create such churches through its own witness where” compatible Reformed churches do not exist. In our missions work, PCA churches always relate to other churches, whether those churches already exist or we are involved in planting them.
This “relating” of PCA to non-PCA churches in missions work is difficult. While pragmatists will offer an easier DIY or parachurch approach, the manual insists on the longer, slower, and humbler path. The original manual warned of “problems and difficulties in establishing such relationships” for which “considerable time may be required,” and “there must be care and caution.” But the rewards for patiently following Christ are far richer than those of published successes that fill coffers and embellish careers.
A Denominational Mission
Only Presbyterian ministry will reliably produce Presbyterian churches that endure from generation to generation.
Since Presbyterian methodology is derived from Christ’s kingship, the manual is concerned with polity. By what power and authority will the work be carried out? Put simply, who decides? The manual asserts that all ministry is by Christ’s authority and Christ’s authority alone. Indeed, the manual affirms that there is no missions program other than the one that Jesus committed to his disciples. Jesus “charges them to mission, but he does not delegate it to them.”
If there is to be a Presbyterian church there must be a Presbyterian mission. So, “the initiative for carrying out the Great Commission belongs” not to inspirational leaders or well-oiled institutions, but “to the church at every court level” (BCO 15-1). Who decides whether to use this or that method? Christ decides. And he does so through his church.
But how do the church courts work together? Affirming that Christ’s power is resident in the church as a whole, the manual emphasizes the limits to the authority of the PCA’s “highest court” in governing missions. GA must not interfere with the authority vested in the “lower courts.” For example, GA has no “sending authority.” The proper sending bodies in the Presbyterian system are “the session of the local church for laymen and the presbytery for ministers.”
Notice, the BCO’s provision for how presbyteries send ordained missionaries is extended by the manual to how local churches send unordained missionaries. Two principles govern how all missionaries are sent: 1) They remain members of their sending body (with all essential privileges and responsibilities). 2) They hold a commission from their sending body, such that their “work is an extension overseas” of the sending body. GA must not interfere with these mutual prerogatives of missionary and sending body.
The manual lays out the important role MTW plays in the process. It delineates the roles for the three parties involved: “1) the sending bodies—the session and the presbytery, 2) the enabling Committee—Mission to the World, 3) the receiving bodies” (This quotation is in the original but not in the current version of the manual.).
The manual goes on to state, “The responsibilities of these sending bodies, in consultation with [MTW], include recruitment, examining, training, support, commissioning, contact and home ministry assignment.” MTW “does not replace the sending bodies,” but rather “works with,” “assists,” “recommends,” “helps,” and “enables.” The original manual was both comprehensive and succinct: MTW’s “role is to serve and offer coordinating facilities” to the PCA’s courts.
Finally, the manual comes full circle by clarifying the role of receiving bodies. This launches a series of guidelines revolving around ministry in contexts external to the PCA. In sum, strategy must be driven by the receiving body.
The manual’s overall intent is to foster effective alignment for MTW within the PCA as a whole.
We believe that fulfillment of this mission is based on harmony, mutual trust and effective, creative cooperation between the MTW committee and the churches and presbyteries of our denomination.
Significantly, the title for MTW’s leader is not “director” but “coordinator.” Missions is a grand program in which coordination is a key function. The original manual ended with the expectation that, properly executed, “this program can maintain the peace and purity of our church and it can unite us in the great work of world missions.”
Conclusion
The manual’s philosophy of ministry is beautifully constructed on the foundation of a zealous commitment to the theology of the PCA’s constitution. It is brief, non-technical, readable, and practical. It was clearly intended to be absorbed not only by GA commissioners, but by missionaries and sending bodies alike. If you are in search of a concise Presbyterian missiology, this is it.
If you are a PCA member and sense a call to missions or to serving on a missions committee, this is a necessary big-picture resource. If you are recovering from a distasteful missions experience, you will identify with this document that sets out to address what has gone wrong in missions and what must be done to get back on the right track. We owe a great debt to David Calhoun and others who drafted and crafted a unique and effective architectural vision for the PCA’s foreign missions.
Philip DeHart is a PCA teaching elder serving overseas. This essay was adapted from a longer version, found here.
1 “Some wondered if it would actually tear us in two.” Kennedy Smartt, I Am Reminded: An Autobiographical, Anecdotal History of the Presbyterian Church in America (Chestnut Mountain, GA: K. Smartt, 1994), 117.
2 Smartt, I Am Reminded, 118.
3 He developed a keen interest in how the “Old Princeton” seminary had become a missionary-producing machine. This led to his doctoral dissertation, “The last command: Princeton Theological Seminary and missions, 1812-1862.” His work continued to a magisterial two-volume history of Princeton Seminary (1994 and 1996) that highlights its missionary-training heritage. For a brief overview, see “Old Princeton: Her Missionary Outreach,” 18 January 2016, http://www.placefortruth.org/blog/old-princeton-her-missionary-outreach. He would then balance the tables with Our Southern Zion: Old Columbia Seminary (1828-1927) (Banner of Truth Trust, 2012). His commitment to the cause of foreign missions throughout his lifetime is evidenced by his final book, Swift and Beautiful: The Amazing Stories of Faithful Missionaries (Banner of Truth Trust, 2020).
4 Unless referenced otherwise, all quotes are from this document.