Bill Hutchison

Hudson Taylor is often referred to as the father of modern missions. He was a missionary to China for 51 years, and founded the China Inland Mission (CIM) in 1865, which is now the modern day OMF International.

CIM brought over 800 missionaries into China, began 125 schools, established more than 300 mission stations in China and involved more than 500 locals in the work. His work in China was directly responsible for around 18,000 Christian conversions in China.

Unlike many missionaries of the time Hudson Taylor was very sensitive to the Chinese culture, while remaining zealous in his desire to bring the message of Christ to the people. He adapted wearing Chinese clothing to better affirm and relate to the people he was ministering and evangelising to.

CIM was non-denominational and accepted members from all Protestant groups. The only requirement for the recruits was that there was soundness in their faith in what they called the “fundamental truths”.

China Inland Mission was very unique in that it accepted individuals from many different vocations, which very much challenged the normal practice at the time. CIM accepted people from the working class, single women and many multinationals into the mission, which was almost unheard of at the time.

Reading about China Inland Mission reminds me a lot of Youth With A Mission (YWAM), the Christian missions group that I have been working in for the last 12 years. Hudson Taylor’s work with CIM has been talked about and featured a lot in Youth With A Mission (YWAM), but until now I have not taken the opportunity to read more about the man, or his work with CIM.

Like CIM Youth With A Mission (YWAM) is a multi-national and multi-denominational organisation that includes missionaries from nearly every country in the world. YWAM accepts people from every vocation and educational background, as long as their faith is built on the truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Also like CIM the missionaries working with YWAM are called to live by faith, relying on God and His provision through His people to do the work that they are called to.

As a father of modern missions there is a lot to learn from reading what was written by Hudson Taylor.

I hope that you enjoy his book, “A Retrospect”.

You can download the book A RETROSPECT by J. Hudson Taylor here.

It is a question that I hear from a lot of people; “Can I be a missionary?“. The simple answer is “Yes”, but let’s look into it a bit more than that …

God has created everyone with a plan and a purpose. None of us was an accident in God’s eyes, even though some of us may have been “unexpected” to our parents.

One of the greatest challenges I have found in my life was to discover what God’s plan and purpose is for my life. The beauty of it is that the discovery is an ongoing discovery, so if we stuff up a few times we can usually still get back on track. One step on my journey to find God’s plan for my life was a Discipleship Training School with Youth With a Mission. It was on my YWAM DTS that I feel God started to reveal to me more of His plan for my life.

Although we can all be missionaries, God does not want us we all to be missionaries.

I had a great e-mail conversation a few months back with a good friend in Australia.  He is not a missionary and knows that being a missionary is not what God has called him to. If he were to choose to become a missionary, without God’s go ahead, then he would be walking outside of God’s will for his life, even if his plan was to do good and serve God in that way.

I remember a few years ago having another discussion with a different friend. He was saying that he felt God didn’t have a call on his life because he didn’t feel a call to ministry or missions. It’s a very damaging thing to think that because God doesn’t call you to missions that He doesn’t have a plan for your life. God will use you and call you to be  a witness for Him everywhere He leads you, but you need to be obedient to that call, and seek Him about it.

The best way that we can honour God is to be obedient to His call on our lives, even if that call does not appear to be very “spiritual” or if we have no involvement in missions or ministry. God doesn’t want us to “do good things”, He wants us to be obedient to Him.

But Samuel replied: “Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. (1 Sam. 15:22 NIV)

So regardless of what we do, or how “spiritual” what we do appears, we need to be doing it in obedience to God’s will and call for our lives. That is how we will bring honour and glory to God, and that is how we will have the greatest impact of the world around us for God’s glory.

* For the purpose of this article I am referring to the Levitical call of a full time missionary, being reliant on donations and support to meet our day to day needs. Setting ourselves aside to work full-time in service of God and the Church. Read a bit more about what I mean by this here.

I’ve noticed an unfortunate trend lately for the misuse of the term “missionary”. I’ve noticed it a lot in some church circles and also in YWAM.

My kids have a Bible Bingo game that defines a missionary as:

A missionary is someone who often goes to another country to share the good news about Jesus with people who do not know about Him.

I’ve heard a lot of people using that term a lot more loosely than that. According to some people being a missionary is being Christ like where ever you are, be it at school, work, or in ministry.

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but being Christ like at school or work isn’t being a missionary, it’s called being a “Christian”!

Living out our Christian Faith means being a witness for Christ in all situations. We are all called to be  witness for Christ, regardless of if we are teachers, electricians, or missionaries. You don’t need to be a missionary to show Christ to other people around you.

Another disturbing trend with this is that Christians are forgetting that Christians don’t need a special “call” to be a witness to the people around them. There is no need for a “special” call to be a witness, if you are born again in Christ, and have accepted Him as your Lord and Saviour, than you are to be a witness to the ends of the earth …