total confusion

Missionaries who return from the field often find themselves in a bipolar reality. On the one hand they just come back from having been one of a handful of Christians in an overwhelming population of non-Christians. Every day they look at the world's poorest poor. On the other hand, missionaries return to a context that is geographically removed from mass lostness and is flushed with benefits, cash, services, and other manifold comforts. Neither stateside Christians nor returning missionaries understand what the other sees, thinks, and feels.

This description used to be sufficient. Due to the influx of internationals into western cities, however, the issue of
churches being geographically distant or out of touch is no longer so easily brushed aside. Now missionaries return from the field and are able to live along side people from their former host country. Now when missionaries speak to churches about the unreached they are no longer speaking about "over there" but are taking about "right here." I suspect that missionary angst will increase. Years ago one could dismiss the church's complacency by pointing to the geographic distance. Now we can point to the unreached next door.

I'll be honest, it wears on me. The distance between the church and the mission has to be the single greatest challenge to my faith in my adult life. I work with a team of dedicated believers (including a few gospel-centric churches) and then I go visit churchs on Sunday and it seems like we have read two different books. When I lived overseas, I dismissed these feelings with the notion that we can't all go. Now that I live stateside, I see people who work with, go to school with, and live next to internationals around the world and still see the same complacency. Before, I had the hope that the foreign feeling of church would dissipate with time and readjustment. Now, I fear these will be lingering sentiments.