Two thousand years ago Jesus faced His followers and said, ‘Look at the fields–they are ripe and ready for the harvest.  Go follow Me, make disciples in all nations.’  Two thousand years later, the fields still remain ‘ripe for the harvest,’ but the granaries are yet to be filled.  There is plenty of harvesting equipment–churches, powerful radio stations, vast printing facilities, mission boards that span the world–there is much action but no harvest!”  What’s Gone Wrong With the Harvest? co-authors James F. Engel and H.  Wilbert Norton posed this question regarding the effectiveness crisis facing the Christian evangelistic enterprise a quarter of century ago.

Today, as we stand at the threshold of Y2K, this question deserves to be asked again with a greater sense of urgency.  Are we truly getting the job done?  Do we see an ever widening circle of committed Christ-followers who are effectively reaching people with the Good News and building them up in the faith?  To be sure, the Christian enterprise is making unprecedented inroads into unreached people-groups worldwide.  And there is a resurgence of spiritual interest among many Americans.  But will the church be able to complete the task of world evangelization in the third millennium?  This issue strikes at the core of every believer’s mission, including medical missions.

The church’s strategy for medical missions has been largely ineffective in the past 50 years.  Furthermore, most traditional medical missions projects are too resource-intensive.  This has happened in part because an inordinate proportion of the mission budget is squandered on brick-and-mortar instead of on the more strategic approach of winning, building, and sending national health workers into their own harvest fields where they are likely to be more effective than foreign missionaries.  The dichotomy between the vertical and horizontal emphasis of medical missions—redemption versus humanitarian service—is not an either-or proposition.  The Great Physician healed both body and soul, and not necessarily in that order.

Most health professionals don’t cultivate a lifestyle of evangelism in their own medical practice prior to participating in medical missions projects.  Most perceive the mission field as somewhere out there; whereas, each person’s mission field is really the soil between his or her own two feet.  Not surprising, once the medical mis-sionaries get to their field assignments, most spend their time doing what they do best and were trained to do–taking care of the endless and overwhelming physi-cal needs.  While some teach a Bible class or preach from the pulpit in their “spare” time, spiritual integration in medical missions seems unattainable to them.

What are some practical steps we can take as mission- minded health professionals?  First, we must develop a consistent lifestyle of evangelism in our own practices.  If we don’t, it is unlikely that we will practice any differently if and when the Lord calls us to another harvest field in the third world where the pressures of unmet physical needs are even greater.  A lifestyle of evangelism means more than creating the trappings of a Christian group practice or even praying with our patients.  The entire seed of the gospel must be planted in the heart or there will be no harvest.  Second, we can make time to acquire formal training in medical evangelism and discipleship as part of our preparation for service.  Third, we can help to build dynamic models of spiritual integration in medical missions, both here and overseas.  The world has an ample supply of humanistic models—medical care to the indigent and to the third world flying under a Christian banner that include a few prayers and Bible verses thrown in.  The next generation of health professionals needs first-hand exposure to the biblical model where the mission is that of saving and changing lives, not merely postponing death.

Contact Dr. Chen at:  ychen@GoMETS.org.