A Crisis in Missions—Its Lesson
By G. B. THOMPSON
A SERIOUS crisis has come in the history of the foreign missionary work of the Moravian Church. In 1732, before any other Protestant church was carrying forward foreign work on a systematic basis, the Moravians began work among the Negro slaves in the West Indies. In fact, it was a number of decades before the Protestant world awoke to the responsibility of carrying the gospel to all the world. Since 1732 the Moravians have been carrying on their work in ever-extending fields, with practically the same home resources. That is to say, their work has extended in foreign lands, and the calls have multiplied, faster than the home resources have increased. The disproportionment of the home membership to the work abroad has brought about a tragic crisis in the splendid work of this great missionary people. In 1907 their deficit was sixty-four thousand dollars; in 1908, it had reached seventy-two thousand dollars, with a prospect of an equally large deficit for 1909. They have, in all Europe, Great Britain, and America, a membership of only forty-three thousand to make up this deficit, and carry forward the work already in hand, besides providing for further aggressive work. At the meeting of the last General Synod, in 1909, the historic work of the Moravian Church in Greenland was transferred to the Danish State Lutheran Church, and the mission board was ordered to bring about retrenchments which would make a reduction in the annual budget of about fifty thousand dollars. It is said that when these resolutions were finally passed, strong men broke down and wept. “It is comparatively easy to issue such instructions to a mission board; but when it comes to carrying them out, the problem becomes frightfully difficult. The board is dealing, not with figures, but with human souls, which have been purchased by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and which have been rescued from the degradation of heathenism as a result of his suffering. . . . This retrenchment is like killing the children you have borne and nursed and reared. It is stopping natural growth. It is hurling the people back into heathenism.” The crisis in the work of Moravian missions contains a lesson for us that we shall do well to study. Increasing our work in foreign fields without making adequate provision for strengthening the work at home, will bring a crisis in our work no less than in theirs. There must be a corresponding growth at the base of supplies to meet the growth in the regions beyond; otherwise bankruptcy or retrenchment must inevitably follow. This suggests two things which must be done in carrying forward our work; for we can think neither of bankruptcy nor of retrenchment:— 1. Provision must be made year by year for raising the necessary means to finance the work, by making provision for the extension of the message in new fields, as well as strengthening the posts already established. Whatever other work is done, whatever new work is brought forward, must in no way be allowed to weaken our work in foreign fields, but rather to strengthen it. Provision must also be made for the selection and proper training of consecrated workers to send into the field to supply the calls which come from these great centers of darkness. The resources we already have must be continually shared with more needy fields. 2. In the home field there must be carried forward a strong evangelical work in the cities, villages, and country,—in short, everywhere,—that the base of supplies may be strengthened by the addition of many strong churches which can contribute of their means, and from which recruits can be mustered for service at the front. To carry forward a symmetrical work, and shun a crisis, the evangelical work in the home field must be proportionate with the growth and the needs abroad. We believe the call that has come to us to work the cities now in no way means a slackening of our work in the foreign lands, but it is a call to a mighty movement along evangelical lines, a storming of the centers of population, which will result in many believers being added to the work at home, from which men and women may be obtained to carry forward the work in all parts of the world. The special work in the cities is in the order of God. It means the finishing of the work in the whole world.