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KELANG,Malaysia-“Why do churches conduct missions?”That was the question posed by a prominent Chinese evangelical minister to mission leaders who had gathered earlier this week.At the 29th Kelang Methodist Mission Conference in Malaysia, the Rev. Dr. Thomas Wang, president of Great Commission Center International based in Sunnyvale, Calif., noted how “some churches take missions as extra work for God.”“This belief is wrong,” he affirmed in his message, titled “World Missions, Everyone's Responsibility."“On the contrary, if a church does not participate in missions, then it is not obeying the will of God.”Citing from Matthew 28, Wang reiterated the words of Jesus, who said, “Go and make disciples of all nations.”“This is the command of the Lord,” he exhorted. “We must obey the Lord’s command of making all people in all nations ‘my disciples;’ this is world missions."Wang, who served as the international director for the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization in 1987, brought up three suggestions regarding world missions.First suggestion Wang brought to the table was concerning a movement called “One Leading One,” which the Chinese minister encouraged all believers to participate in for their own ethnic groups. The movement requires each believer in the church to lead at least one person to Christ and have them attend church. If this is followed, then churches shall grow exponentially, Wang said. Second, he said, the congregation must continue to develop. As the number of congregants increases non-stop, the churches must set up churches non-stop in order to contain more people.Lastly, the commission of the church is not limited to a believer’s own ethnic group."Let’s look at Mark 16:15,” he told mission leaders. “Let me know if I am reading this correctly: ’He said to them, go into all the world and preach the good news to all Chinese?’ Why didn’t the Lord say Chinese but all creation?"Wang said Chinese believers for many years have been engaging in missions to overseas and mainland Chinese because of similarities in language, culture, and background. But God’s Great Commission is beyond tribes and cultures, Wang said. The gospel is to be proclaimed to all people in all nations, he added.As in the days of Noah...
