Priorities: Church Planting or Bible Translation?

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OK, missiologists, let me know what you think about this.

In the July-August 2010 issue of Missions Frontiers magazine (I had never heard of it) Paul Eschleman (or him), founder of the JESUS Film Project and Vice President of Evangelism Strategies for Campus Crusade, lists what he sees as the top five “global evangelization priorities for the Church,” the focus of which is “disciple-making breakthrough in every people group of the world.”

  • 5 – Church planting and presence
  • 4 – Reaching oral learners – “Two-thirds of people worldwide are oral learners. That is, they prefer to learn through proverbs, music, poetry and especially stories.”
  • 3 – Increasing evangelization, with a focus on Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus – “We need more intentional demonstration of love and prayer for the largest religious blocs throughout the world: Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. If you add the folk Chinese of China, the total population of the three groups is 3.5 billion people – over half of the world’s population.”
  • 2 – Engaging the unengaged people groups – “At present, there remain about 3,500 people groups (of all population sizes) that are still unengaged; the total population of these groups is over 350 million.”
  • 1 – Scripture translation – “Scripture translation is the #1 priority throughout the world because it’s impossible to do ministry without a Biblical foundation.”

Now I was initially drawn to this list because, well, Bible translation is listed as the top priority and I’m pursuing work with Wycliffe as a Bible translator. So, the list looked pretty good to me. Secondly, what’s interesting is that church planting is listed number five when everywhere you turn today the emphasis seems to be on church planting. Do a search on Twitter for Darrin Patrick.

Respond

Is church planting overrated? Should Bible translation really be the Church’s top priority?

PDF

Read the full PDF of Paul Eschelman, “The State of the Unfinished Task” in Missions Frontiers (July-August 2010), 10-11. Don’t miss the nifty diagram.

2 responses to “Priorities: Church Planting or Bible Translation?”

  1. Lonnie Avatar

    That’s certainly an interesting list.

    Dropping a translation into a society without anyone around to guide them through the hard topics and common misunderstandings is, in my opinion, a dangerous thing. It’s better than doing nothing at all, though.

    In the same breath, dropping a church plant into a society without any reference material for that society can be a risky endeavor as well. As you well know, it’s so very important for the people to be able to check what’s being taught with what is written in the Bible.

    In the end, I’m not sure that it’s good to have one without the other. As I’ve been studying and observing lately, a lot of churches are lacking in discipleship training. Perhaps a larger emphasis on that in the priority list both for local and global evangelism should be included in the list.

  2. drew Avatar

    Hi Lonnie!

    It’s never the case that a translation is “dropped into a society.” That wouldn’t be much of a missions strategy, would it? “Here, read this. See you later.” That would be terribly misguided and you’re right it’d probably be better to do nothing at all.

    Wycliffe always works very closely with local pastors or other interested locals and ensures that translation projects are as grass-roots as possible. We’re not doing translation for, but with. Often there are local pastors begging for translators to come and help them begin translation work in their language; rather than translators showing up, learning the language, and tossing a finished product at them with which they had no involvement.

    I agree with your concerns about church planting and would want to echo your call for more rigorous discipleship training. Absolutely. Both of these endeavors emphatically require a Bible in the language that people best understood. I hope to help make that happen!

    Thanks so much for reading and offering your thoughts, Lonnie. I greatly appreciate it!

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