Missionary Qualifications: GUIDELINES FOR FOREIGN AND HOME MISSIONS
This booklet is designed to help elders to evaluate the qualifications for both a home and foreign missionary. It is also useful for the churches that sponsor a military chaplain.
As the introduction states it is expected that the sending church will use these guidelines with the candidate to determine the suitability of the candidate for ARBCA supported missions.
INTRODUCTION
Just before he died in 1895, Professor John Broadus spoke to his seminary class one frigid, winter morning. It would be the last time he would teach his New Testament English course. One of his students reminisced his expounding on the life of Apollos that day:
“Young gentlemen, if this were the last time I should ever be permitted to address you, I would feel amply repaid for consuming the whole hour in endeavoring to impress upon you these two things: true piety and, like Apollos, to be men ‘Mighty in the Scriptures.’” Then pausing, he stood for a moment with his piercing eye fixed upon us, and repeated over and over again in that slow but wonderfully impressive style peculiar to himself, “Mighty in the Scriptures,” “Mighty in the Scriptures,” until the whole class seemed to be lifted through him into a sacred nearness to the Master. That picture of him as he stood there at that moment can never be obliterated from my mind.
-Life and Letters of John A. Broadus by James P. Boyce
This booklet, Guidelines for RBMS Missionary Qualification, describes the kind of godliness and training in the Scriptures that Reformed Baptists believe should characterize Gospel ministers. Whether pastoring a church in suburban America or teaching the Gospel as a missionary in third world huts, we believe these qualifications form the standard for qualified Gospel preachers and church planters.
It must also be said that these qualifications are such that a man cannot evaluate himself sufficiently. His local church, and in particular his overseeing elders, must guide in the building of such a man. This man must have obvious gifts and graces being exercised in the ongoing life of his church to the satisfaction of his fellow brethren before he can say with confidence, “God has surely called me to the Gospel ministry.” In the Scripture the Holy Spirit spoke to the church as to whom He was calling to missions (Acts 13:2). The church must verify his ability to communicate the Gospel effectively as a mouthpiece of the living God. They must witness his boldness, humility and perseverance in the fiery trials of opposition and discouragement. They must be convinced this man is disciplined in the study of the Word, in consistent, daily prayer, and has instituted order in every area of his life, including and especially within his family. The elders of a local church are responsible to see that every missionary candidate’s mind is trained sufficiently in the Scriptures, theology, church history and apologetics. While the seminary will provide great assistance, the church must not abdicate her responsibility in the overall equipping of servants of God. It is no small task to develop preachers of the Word – men of true piety and mighty in the Scriptures. No wonder John Newton, author of the hymn “Amazing Grace,” said, “None but He who made the world can make a minister of the Gospel.”
Upon the opening of London Theological Seminary, Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones stated, “The supreme need of the hour is preachers, not just teachers.” Men are needed who have fire in their bones to proclaim Jesus Christ and Him crucified to a lost and dying world. There are far too few Gospel preaching church planters in comparison to the many who are willing to go in auxiliary missionary support roles. The need of the hour continues to be gospel preaching church planters who are full of Christ and mighty in the Scriptures. This is our burden as Reformed Baptists. We long to see more men who are consumed with the conviction and passion to preach the Gospel, win sinners worldwide to our Savior and plant local self-governing churches. With this focus regulating our vision, RBMS has adopted two policies as part of our constitution. They are:
1. Apart from unusual and obvious exceptions, RBMS will require that missionaries applying for services will have received formal biblical and theological training.
2. RBMS will limit its services to men, who have been called by God to declare God’s Word in evangelism, preaching and teaching, with a view to establishing and strengthening churches.
This booklet is designed to be a help to elders in having a comprehensive gauge to evaluate the development of missionary candidates. Churches should also be familiar with these qualifications. It will raise bar in their minds and keep them from thinking of the Gospel ministry in a light way. Let not elders or candidates be overwhelmed by the standard. Rather they should not settle for anything less by way of training. We must have truly qualified men being sent and supported in Gospel labors.
May the Lord of the harvest raise up such men in the power of the Holy Spirit. May our generation witness a significant advancement of the kingdom of God in this earth by the preaching labors of Christ’s men – men of true piety and mighty in the Scriptures.
GUIDELINES FOR RBMS MISSIONARY QUALIFICATION
I. EXPERIENTIAL GUIDELINES FOR AN RBMS MISSIONARY CANDIDATE
A. The Experience of Regeneration and Conversion
1. The candidate has experienced the new birth (regeneration) by God the Holy Spirit.
2. The candidate has experienced conversion (repentance and faith).
3. The candidate has experienced a changed life as a result.
QUESTIONS TO THE CANDIDATE UNDER EVALUATION:
1. Is there a difference between regeneration and conversion? If so, what?
2. What is the difference between conviction of sin and repentance?
3. Historically, Protestants have seen saving faith as having three component elements.
Can you name them, explaining each and their importance?
4. Would you please give your testimony of your conversion and your present assurance of being regenerate?
5. If the candidate is married, would the wife give her testimony of conversion and her present assurance of being regenerate?
B. The Experience of Baptism and Church Membership
1. The candidate has experienced believer’s baptism by immersion.
2. The candidate is currently experiencing membership in a local RBMS Baptist church
QUESTIONS TO THE CANDIDATE UNDER EVALUATION:
1. What is the biblical basis for the baptism of believers only by immersion?
2. How do Reformed Paedobaptists and Reformed Baptists differ on the role of baptism in the new covenant?
3. What is the importance of the subject of baptism and the mode of baptism for the doctrine of the church?
4. When were you baptized since becoming a believer? What did it mean to you?
5. How can a pastor instruct his congregation so they can benefit from others’ baptisms?
C. The Experience of the Power of the Holy Spirit in Gifted Ministry
1. The candidate has experienced the fullness of the Holy Spirit to witness, preach and teach the Word of God to the lost with clarifying, convicting and converting power since his conversion.
2. The candidate has experienced the fullness of the Holy Spirit to preach and teach the Word of God to the saved with claryfying, convicting, converting and sanctifying power since his conversion.
3. The candidate has experienced the fullness of the Holy Spirit that inspires God’s people to want to follow and emulate him as a leader who follows and emulates Christ.
4. The candidate has experienced the fullness of the Holy Spirit in sacrificially giving of himself and his resources to the Lord and His work in such a way as to inspire others.
QUESTIONS TO THE CANDIDATE UNDER EVALUATION:
1. How is the fullness of the Holy Spirit experienced by the believer?
2. What is the role of God the Holy Spirit in the preaching of the Word of God?
3. What is the role of the Holy Spirit in producing fruit? What is the interrelationship between human responsibility in preparation and preaching, and the role of trust in divine enablement ? How do faithfulness and prayerfulness correlate to fruitfulness?
4. Give examples of the various responses to Spirit-filled preaching and teaching on the part of a room full of hearers?
5. Give examples of hopeful conversions through your ministry.
6. Give examples of those who have been discipled by you upon their conversion.
D. The Experience of Consistency in the Spiritual Disciplines of the Christian Life
1. The candidate has a consistent desire and persistent discipline in the reading, studying and meditation upon the Word of God.
2. The candidate has a hunger and habit of secret prayer and communion with God.
3. The candidate has an appreciation for and faithful attendance to the public means of grace.
4. The candidate appreciates and utilizes the balance of corporate and private means of growth.
5. The candidate has learned to be independently dependent upon God while at the same time regularly seeking and enjoying fellowship with other members of Christ’s Body in an interdependent way.
QUESTIONS TO THE CANDIDATE UNDER EVALUATION:
1. What is the relationship between divine grace and personal responsibility in the sanctification of the believer? How is justification necessary for sanctification?
2. Is regeneration monergistic or synergistic? Is sanctification monergistic or synergistic?
3. How does one avoid viewing spiritual disciplines as meritorious?
4. How does one’s understanding of imputed righteousness affect one’s practice of the spiritual disciplines? How does Roman Catholicism conflate justification and sanctification in such a way as to confuse and damage both, and thus to mislead its adherents?
5. What is the interrelationship between the public and private means of grace, between corporate and private worship?
6. What does it mean (and why is it necessary) to preach the gospel to oneself daily?
E. The Experience of the Sanctifying Grace of the Holy Spirit
1. The candidate demonstrates the fruit of the Spirit consistently (Galatians 5:22-23).
2. The candidate demonstrates supreme love for God coupled with a compassionate love for people (Matthew 22:34-41).
3. The candidate demonstrates a hungering heart for God, a teachable spirit and a consistent servant-like attitude.
4. The candidate demonstrates self-discipline and faith in perseverance, trust, endurance, and a forebearing spirit which is able to face disappointment, delay, opposition and heartache and keep on following Christ with a good attitude.
5. The candidate demonstrates a fervent zeal for God’s glory, is intrinsically motivated and has a sense of vision for the direction in which he is to lead.
6. The candidate demonstrates a consistent trust in God’s character, God’s Word, Christ’s finished work, and God’s revealed purposes and promises, thereby living a life of faith.
QUESTIONS TO THE CANDIDATE UNDER EVALUATION:
1. Why must love for God precede love for people while still holding both as vital to the Christian life and ministry?
2. How could one’s love for God motivate while one’s love for people may languish?
3. Why is the pursuit of holiness the essence of the Christian’s job description?
4. How does the Holy Spirit work sanctifying graces into the believer’s life?
5. How does the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints relate to life on the mission field? Why is “faith” a necessary component of a Christian leader?
6. How does godliness relate to being a Christian leader?
7. How does the Holy Spirit apply the work of Christ to the believer’s life in persevering?
F. The Experience of a Loving, Stable, and Well-Ordered Family
1. If the candidate is single:
a. He has demonstrated in recent roommate situations and parallel living situations that he is able to live in an amiable and edifying manner with others.
b. He has demonstrated sufficient sanctifying grace and self-control not to become physically involved with the woman in his recent dating relationships.
c. He has demonstrated an awareness of either his calling to be celibate with its appropriate contentment or the understanding that his desire is to marry, and he has the contentment to wait upon the Lord’s timing.
d. He has the maturity and discipline to pursue holiness in his singleness and is not participating in masturbation, pornography, or homosexual practices.
QUESTIONS TO THE CANDIDATE UNDER EVALUATION:
1. How are roommate situations a barometer of one’s ability to function in the church?
2. Why is self-control absolutely vital for dating relationships? Have you participated in sexual intimacies and/or intercourse in your recent relationships? Would the woman agree with your assessment?
3. Do you believe yourself to have the gift of celibacy? If not, are you content to wait on God for his timing to bring the woman to you?
4. Are you now or have you in the recent past participated in masturbation, pornography, or homosexual practices?
2. If the candidate is married:
a. He consistently fulfills his biblical role and duty as a husband and father.
b. His wife is spiritually minded, respectful, submissive, hospitable, united in burden for Christ and the ministry, and the direction of their lives.
c. His children are disciplined, respectful, instructed regularly in the things of the Lord and obedient in a well-ordered household.
d. His household is marked by the graces of Christian love and discipline, mercy and holiness, giving those who visit the sweet- smelling aroma of true godliness.
e. His marriage and family can serve as consistent, though not perfect, examples of Christian marriage and family life to those he seeks to minister to.
f. His love for Christ and his wife, as well as his maturity, motivate him to pursue purity in marriage, thereby not dishonoring Christ nor defrauding his wife through adultery, masturbation, pornography or homosexual practices.
QUESTIONS TO THE CANDIDATE UNDER EVALUATION:
1. What do you understand to be the biblical role of the husband? Of the father?
2. How is the sacrificial (“as Christ loved the church”) and practical (“as he loves his own body”) love of the husband related to the respectful and submissive conduct of the wife?
3. How is leadership in the home different than dictatorship? How is love in the home different than sentimentality? Does your spiritual life flow outward to your family?
4. How does a Christian father keep from frustrating and exasperating his children?
5. What is Paul’s logic about not enlarging the sphere of influence of a man from his family to the church?
6. Do your children see you as a man who loves God supremely and without hypocrisy? Does your son want to know God like you and to grow up and be like you? Does your daughter want to know God like you and to grow up and marry someone like you? If the answer to any of these questions is “No”, why?
7. Why is it important to maintain the dynamic tensions in the home and church between holiness and mercy, discipline and love, God-centeredness and yet human sensitive?
8. How is the family a microcosm of the church? Is your family an asset or liability?
9. Are you still pursuing purity in your life and marriage? Explain.
10. Would you rejoice to see the other families in your church becoming like yours?
QUESTIONS TO THE CANDIDATE’S WIFE:
1. Do you believe your husband fulfills the biblical role of a husband? Of a father?
2. Does your husband love you sacrificially (“as Christ loved the Church”) and practically (“as he loves his own body”)? Would you characterize your conduct and speech toward your husband as submissive and
respectful? Does he? Would another person perceive you as submissive and respectful?
3. Are you a helpmeet to your husband? How? If not, why not?
4. Is your husband the leader of your home? Do others see it? If not, why not?
5. How does a godly wife and mother help to set the tone of a family, especially about the children’s attitude toward the ministry? What message do you think you have given to your children and others about your husband’s calling?
6. Are you growing spiritually? How would you characterize your love for Christ?
7. Is there a spiritual overflow from your life outward to your children and to outsiders?
8. Do your children see you as a woman who loves Christ first and foremost? Does your daughter want to grow up to be like you and know Christ like you do? Does your son want to grow up to marry someone like you, with your walk with Christ? If your answer to any of these questions is “No”, why?
9.Why is it important to maintain the dynamic tensions in your home and church between holiness and mercy, discipline and love, God-centered yet human sensitive?
10. How is the family a microcosm of the church? Would you rejoice to see other marriages and families in your church becoming like yours?
11. Do you cheerfully agree with your husband’s calling? How would you rate the certainty of God’s leading you and your husband to the gospel ministry? (High-Med.-Low-Uncertain)
12. What misgivings do you have about the ministry? About your husband’s calling? About your potential future assignment? About your home church’s support? About RBMS support? About the mission field?
G. The Experience of the Recognition of God’s Calling to the Ministry of Preaching the Gospel and Planting/Pastoring Churches
1. The candidate has experienced an inward, subjective calling from God to preach the gospel and plant and pastor churches.
2. The candidate has experienced an outward, objective recognition of his calling from the local church of which he is a member through its observation of and agreement with his doing the work of the ministry with the Spirit’s blessing with power (see C, 1,2 above).
3. The candidate has proved himself as a hard-working man and a humble servant in the tasks and assignments entrusted to him, thereby opening the way to larger spheres of labor. He has learned to follow and take orders with a positive attitude, as well as lead.
4. The candidate has experienced the calling and blessing of God in such a way that his local church recognizes and concurs with his assessment of God’s will and enthusiastically wants to see him exercise his ministry on a larger scale.
5. The candidate meets the criteria for an elder as revealed in I Timothy 3 and Titus 1.
6. The candidate’s calling and the local RBMS member church’s recognition of his calling triangulates with the RBMS Candidate Credentials Committee’s recognition of his calling.
QUESTIONS TO THE CANDIDATE UNDER EVALUATION:
1. What is your understanding of the relationship between the inward, subjective call of the Holy Spirit and the outward, objective confirmation of your calling by the local church?
2. Explain how you were subjectively called to the gospel ministry and how the Lord objectively confirmed your calling through the local church’s recognition of God’s work.
3. Explain how Luke 16:10 relates to ministry. How is servanthood related to leadership?
4. Please give your own running commentary on the qualifications listed in I Timothy 3 and Titus 1 for a man who desires to be an elder in the local church. Do you meet all of them? If not, why?
H. The Experience of Stable and Balanced Health (Mental, Physical and Social)
1. The candidate is free from abnormal deficiencies of mind or intelligence which would render him unable to study, understand and proclaim the Word of God.
2. The candidate is free from abnormal deficiencies of mental and emotional health which would render him unfit for the ministry (e.g. excessive insecurities, sense of inadequacy, need to control, paranoid, overly concerned with his image, morbidity, etc.)
3. The candidate is free from abnormal deficiencies of body that would render him unfit for and unprofitable in ministry (e.g throat, mouth or lung problems, etc.).
4. The candidate is free from abnormal deficiencies of social health and interaction that would render him unfit and unprofitable for the ministry (e.g. extreme loner, afraid to meet new people, extreme rigidity and thus unable to adjust to change, need to always control others, insensitive to others, insensitive to cultural norms, etc.)
QUESTIONS TO THE CANDIDATE UNDER EVALUATION:
1. What kind of grades did you get in school? If your grades were good, was that from natural intelligence, hard work or a combination of both? If your grades were not good, please explain why?
2. Have you ever had a mental or “nervous” breakdown? Have you ever been rejected for employment or denied admission to a program because of mental/ emotional problems?
3. Have you ever been under the care of a counselor, psychologist, psychiatrist or pastor for mental/emotional problems? Do you have any recurring fears or phobias?
4. Are you now or have you recently been under treatment for lung and/or throat ailments?
5. How do you normally get along with people? Do you meet new people easily? Do you make friends readily? How do you get along with people with different personalities than your own? How do you get along with people from other cultures? How does it make you feel when you are not in control? How do you feel about change? How easily do you empathize with others? How much of the time do you like to be alone?
6. Do you understand how an unbiblical and unhealthy need to be in control (which is idolatry of “control”) sets you up to “lording it over” people? What is the difference between the biblical parameters and exercise of pastoral authority and that of someone who is in the thralldom of the “idol of control” and thus “authoritarian”? How could a situation arise such as John speaks of in III John 9 where Diotrophes wanted to have the pre-eminence in all things? How does such a sinful pattern of life dominate a man?
7. Do you have close friends? How would you describe the qualities of a close friend?
II. BIBLICAL & INTELLECTUAL GUIDELINES FOR AN RBMS MISSIONARY CANDIDATE
A. Biblical, Theological, Historical and Apologetics Training
1. The candidate must have a working knowledge of the Word of God, including:
a. The background, theme, purpose and content of the books of the Bible.
b. A basic understanding of biblical theology, redemptive history, the relationship of the Old Testament to the New Testament, the covenants, etc.
c. The basic principles of historic Protestant biblical interpretation.
QUESTIONS TO THE CANDIDATE UNDER EVALUATION:
1. Have you studied the background, theme, purpose and content of the books of the Bible? If so, when and how? Can you do this now for Romans or Galatians?
2. Where did you get your basic understanding of biblical theology, redemptive history, the relationship to the New Testament, the covenants, etc.?
3. How are biblical theology and redemptive history related to systematic theology?
4. What is the difference between the Reformed Paedobaptist understanding of the covenants and the Reformed Baptist understanding of the covenants? What are the differences in their respective understandings of continuity and discontinuity between the covenants? What is “new” about the New Covenant?
5. Where did you get your understanding of the principles of biblical interpretation?
6. What is the role of the Holy Spirit in the illumination of the biblical texts which the exegete applies himself to understand?
7. Does the “priesthood of the believer” relate to biblical interpretation? If so, how? If not, why not? How does private interpretation relate to the consensus of history?
8. What is grammatical-historical exegesis? What is critical exegesis? What is higher criticism of a text? What is lower criticism of a text?
2. The candidate must have a working knowledge of the systematic theology of the Bible.
a. Including the major heading of systematics, from Bibliology to Eschatology.
b. Including the ability to gather material from the Scriptures under distinct heads of doctrine.
c. Including the historic Protestant understanding of the “analogy of Scripture”.
d. Including the history and contents of the London Confession of Faith of 1689 and its sister documents, the Westminster Confession of Faith and catechisms.
e. Including the Reformed Baptist understanding of the New Covenant.
f. Including how ministry methodology, evangelistic practices and worship practices are determined by the Bible’s theology.
QUESTIONS TO THE CANDIDATE UNDER EVALUATION:
1. Please name the major heads of doctrine of systematic theology.
2. What standard textbook of systematic theology have you worked through?
3. What is the historic Protestant understanding of the “analogy of Scripture”? How does it relate to systematic theology? How does it relate to biblical theology?
4. Can you briefly explain the historical background of the writing of the London Confession of 1689? How does this confession relate to the Westminster Confession and the Savoy Declaration? How do these documents differ in their theology?
5. Can you explain the Reformed Baptist understanding of the New Covenant, and how it is different from both dispensational and paedobaptist positions on the covenants?
6. Please explain with some thoroughness how the Bible’s theology regulates ministry methodology, evangelistic practices and worship practices? Give examples of current practices in Christendom that are not biblically warranted but “popular”.
7. What is the moral law? Where is it found in Scripture? What was Christ’s teaching on the moral law? What was the apostles’ teaching on the moral law? How does the moral law relate to love? How does the moral law relate to the Holy Spirit and His “leading”? How does the moral law relate to the character of God? Why is the 4th Commandment not observed by so many Protestants today? How is the 4th Commandment valid today?
8. What is the role of a confession of faith? Should it be strictly or loosely subscribed to, and why? Doesn’t it limit the Holy Spirit’s ongoing ministry to us?
9. Do you have any reservations about anything taught in the 1689 Confession of Faith?
10. Do you agree with the 1689 Confession in regard to the Lord’s Day?
11. Describe your own efforts to keep the Lord’s Day and to teach it to your family?
12. How would you help others avoid antinomian and legalistic views of the Lord’s day?
3. The candidate must have a working knowledge of the history of Christianity.
a. Including a knowledge of the major periods and personalities of church history.
b. Including a knowledge of the historical development of doctrine as unfolded by the providence of God.
c. Including the history and theology of revival and spiritual awakening, “revivalism’’.
d. Including the history of missions and its personalities and practices.
QUESTIONS TO THE CANDIDATE UNDER EVALUATION:
1. In your own words, give a synopsis of the Reformation? Explain what you think B. B. Warfield meant when he said that the Reformation was the victory of Augustine’s doctrine of salvation over his doctrine of the church.
2. What do you understand Martin Luther had in common with Reformed theologians and how did he differ?
3. Are Reformed Baptists children of the Reformation or the Puritan Revival? Explain.
4. What standard textbook on the history of doctrine have you studied thoroughly? (e.g. Louis Berkhof, William Cunningham, William G. T. Shedd, etc.)
5. What is one reason you can think of why God in His providence led the churches to clarify the doctrines of human nature, sin and grace in the time of Pelagius and Augustine, before the doctrines of salvation and the church in the time of the Reformers of the 16th century?
6. What is your understanding of a revival? Name one period of revival you have studied in some depth? What standard texts have you read on revivals?
7. What is the difference between revivals and “revivalism” as practiced in America?
8. How are the doctrines of grace related to evangelism and missions?
9. Who was William Carey and what was his significance? Adoniram Judson?
10. What is your understanding of the role of the Holy Spirit in revivals and spiritual awakenings? What role do human instruments play in these events? Are different means employed in times of awakening than in times of normal ministry? Explain.
11. How do Arminian or semi-Pelagian methodologies in evangelism and missions differ from Reformed methodologies? Does it matter? How is Finney alive and well today?
12. What is the “Church Growth Movement”? How has it affected missions and evangelistic theory and practice? What is its theology?
13. What is “experiential Calvinism”? How do the Reformers, the Puritans, John Bunyan, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Spurgeon, J.C. Ryle, and Martyn Lloyd-Jones and the 1689 Confession and its sister documents fit into this descriptive phrase? What does the word “scholasticism” mean in contrast?
14. What is the ecumenical movement? What are its dangers? What difference should experiential Calvinism make for unity on the mission field among missionaries?
15. What is the Evangelical movement? What are its strengths and weaknesses? What is its basis for unity? What is its historic relationship with Calvinism?
16. What is the charismatic movement? What is its basis for unity? What is its impact?
17. What standard texts have you read on Church History? What areas of Church History particularly interest you and why?
4. The candidate must have a working knowledge of biblical and cultural apologetics.
a. Including the general overview of apologetics (e.g presuppositional, evidential, etc.).
b. Including the biblical critique of the culture to which he is aiming to preach the gospel and gather believers into local churches (cultural apologetics).
QUESTIONS TO THE CANDIDATE UNDER EVALUATION:
1. What is “apologetics”? What texts have you studied on apologetics?
2. What are Evidential Apologetics? Who are some of its leading exponents?
3. What are Presuppositional Apologetics? Who are some of its leading exponents?
4. What are Cultural Apologetics? What texts have you studied in this area?
5. How does the Word of God sit in judgement upon the culture (and its values) to which you wish to go?
6. Can apologetics be overvalued? If so, how and how? If not, why not?
7. What apologists of the Christian faith have you studied extensively? Explain.
8. What are the limits of apologetics in Christian ministry? Do apologetics help create faith or bolster existing faith? Explain.
B. Applied Theology and Specialized Skills
1. The candidate must have the aptitude and willingness to study and learn languages:
a. to gain a working knowledge of the biblical languages.
b. to gain fluency in the foreign language of the mission field.
QUESTIONS TO THE CANDIDATE UNDER EVALUATION:
1. What is your knowledge of the biblical languages? How did you get it?
2. Can you work your way through the original biblical languages to gain knowledge? Do you know English grammar well enough to understand the grammar of the biblical languages?
3. What is your aptitude for foreign language study? Do you learn languages well?
4. Do you now speak or have you studied the language of the culture to which you wish to go? How do you plan to acquire the language skills necessary to be effective there?
2. The candidate must have basic communication skills:
a. basic biblical principles governing faithful communication of biblical truth in a way that the Holy Spirit will honor (e.g. clarity of expression, careful marshalling of evidence, logical development of thought, biblical order of argument, etc.).
b. basic principles governing cross-cultural communication.
QUESTIONS TO THE CANDIDATE UNDER EVALUATION:
1. What have you studied about preaching, teaching and communication? What does the Word of God say about the kind of communication that God will honor?
2. Explain the interrelationship between mastery of the biblical message and content, understanding of principles of communication (clarity of expression, careful marshalling of evidence, logical development of thought, biblical order of argument) and the anointing of the Holy Spirit upon the preacher.
3. Why must a communicator know the thought-forms of his listeners? How does this directly apply to the missionary?
4. Why must listeners be taught God’s thoughts in God’s words? How does understanding relate to faith?
3. The candidate must understand basic missions’ studies:
a. the philosophy and practice of a biblical theology of missions.
b. understanding the differences and diversities of people and cultures standing, as all do, under the Word of God.
c. understanding world religions, sects and cults.
QUESTIONS TO THE CANDIDATE UNDER EVALUATION:
1. What texts have you studied on the Bible’s theology of evangelism and missions?
2. Given that people and cultures are different, nevertheless, how are people the same the world over and cultures similar?
3. Does the Bible’s theology, or the good news of the gospel, change from culture to culture or person to person? Explain your answer with reference to biblical texts.
4. Discuss the idea that the greatest opponent of biblical religion is not atheism but false religion. Explain your answer with reference to biblical texts. Explain the difference between mere “formalism” and “heart- religion”.
5. What similarities are shared by all humanly originated religions and cults?
6. How can the gospel be preached and Christ offered to all sinners if Christ did not die for all? What are the mirror faults of hyper-Calvinism and Arminianism?
4. The candidate must have undertaken supervised, specialized studies and field training for the anticipated field of ministry:
a. specialized studies on the history and culture of the anticipated field of ministry (e.g. the history and culture of an area and its relationship to the larger geographic or political entity).
b. cross-cultural evangelism and teaching here in the U.S.
c. supervised and guided field work overseas.
QUESTIONS TO THE CANDIDATE UNDER EVALUATION:
1. What experience do you have in evangelism, small group teaching, preaching and counseling of individuals concerned about their souls? Explain in some detail.
2. Who supervised your ministry experiences mentioned above? What feedback and accountability did they give you? Were you ever told that you were “authoritarian”? What have you done with the feedback you have previously received?
3. What experience do you have in cross-cultural ministry? Explain in some detail.
4. Have you ever been to the area you now wish to minister in? If so, explain.
5. Have you studied the history of the area to which you wish to go and its religious history? How does the Word of God critique these local religions?
SOME QUESTIONS AND OBSERVATIONS:
1. QUESTION: Does the Bible differentiate between “home missions” and “foreign missions”?
2. QUESTION: If not, for what purposes do the current differentiations exist?
3. OBSERVATION: Without the numerical growth of churches at “home” there will not be a growing pool of human and financial resources (missionaries & money) to sustain a growing deployment on the “foreign” field.
4. QUESTION: Are the impediments and obstacles to “home missions” biblical-theological or psychological- sociological in nature? Does home missions pose more of a threat to the doctrine of the independency of the local church than does foreign missions?
5. QUESTION: Can cooperation in foreign missions be sustained even while cooperating in the work of home missions?
6. QUESTION: Can the memories and fears of some brethren on matters of “denominationalism” and our desire to be sensitive to their concerns become an actual stumbling block to obedience to a truly biblical course of action?
7. OBSERVATION: Confessional Baptists, to live and grow as a movement of God, need the following to be viable:
a.) Seminary–to train our men for our understanding of the ministry; our distinctives matter; we need to
propagate our theology and our distinctives; doctrine does have practical consequences
b.) Home Missions–to grow by design and not by default; not merely to hope that another fundamentalist Baptist or Primitive Baptist or Southern Baptist (ad infinitum) sees the light and brings his church along but that we consciously seek to reproduce ourselves.
c.) A Theology–what we believe and why; why we are Reformed Baptists but not Presbyterians nor general Baptists; why we are covenantal and baptistic
d.) A History–who we are and where we came from; we are not of the order of Melchizedek!
e.) A Phalanx of Godly Young Men to Be Raised Up by God and Sent Out from the churches
8. QUESTION: What practical concerns of money and manpower must be overcome to begin to cooperate in home missions?
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