What does someone need before being sent by a church to serve in cross-cultural missions? Certainly, one should have a clear profession of faith; certainly, they should give some evidence of fruitfulness in evangelism and discipleship. They should also have a sense of calling for the work, both subjectively and objectively. And there will need to be a team of financial and spiritual supporters. Anything else?
Here’s something that often gets overlooked: Ecclesiology! Before being sent out, missionaries should come to a biblical, convictional understanding of what a church is. This was a lesson Adoniram Judson learned the hard way.
JUDSON’S FIRST TEST
Judson left America with a great deal of fanfare. It was only after Judson leveraged an offer from the London Missionary Society that the Congregationalist churches in America united behind him and his team. Due to Judson’s missionary zeal, these churches formed the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, the first mission agency in America. Now, Judson and his wife Ann were being sent out by these churches as the first American missionaries, fully supported by American Congregationalist churches.[1]
But on the four-month trip over to India, knowing he would soon be working on Bible translation,
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