Common Hindrances to missions in Asia (3)

Let me share with you some experiences that I’ve encountered that I believe have hindered the spread of the Gospel in Asia.

Several years ago, I was in Vietnam. At that time, the southern part of Vietnam was just opening its doors to foreigners. When I heard that an old missionary friend of mine was already in Vietnam, I was excited at the prospect of learning from him about how to effectively share the Gospel in Vietnam. When we sat down over a lovely spread of pastries in his apartment, I asked many questions about the situation in Vietnam and his ministry in Vietnam. I was shocked to find out that his main concern was to “correct the music” in the Vietnamese church. The Vietnamese church had suffered great persecution resulting in the deaths of hundreds of pastors and faithful men who had refused to compromise their faith under Communist rule. They had stood firm during the twenty years of persecution and God had blessed them – and when the severe persecution was lifted, tens of thousands were flocking into their churches. I had personally seen some of this when I attended some of their churches.

And here we were in my friend’s house, a handful of Christians who had never shed a drop of blood for our faith, sitting over a table full of pastries criticizing men about their music (which in my opinion was NOT bad). Frankly I did not learn much about how to reach the lost in Vietnam or about how as a foreigner we could be a help to the Vietnamese church to use this window of opportunity to reach the millions of Vietnamese who had yet to hear the Gospel because this was not my friend’s main objective for being in Vietnam. To be fair, he did have an “oblique” ministry to sharing the Gospel but it was secondary to “correcting their music”! I returned home from that visit disappointed that I didn’t learn much, and even more disappointed that we as Christians were “majoring on the minors” when millions around us were dying and going to hell!

It has been years since that visit to south Vietnam and I’ve not been back there. I did go back to northern Vietnam after that and saw the huge difference between the freedoms in the south to share the Gospel, as compared to the northern part of the country.

Maybe it is fine for Christians to focus their energies on the finer points of Christian life and church life in a well evangelized country but I cannot imagine that this is a priority in a country like Vietnam or most any other Asian country!

Read about good projects on www.goducate.org