I read Revolution in World Mission a couple of weeks back. The book was written by K.P. Yohannan, who founded the Gospel for Asia (GFA).

I actually not quite sure how the book ended up on my bookshelf – apparently Lina ordered it (not sure why and how) – but yeah, it’s been sitting there for awhile and one day I just feel like a read and so I read it.
It was a very challenging book to read, as always the case, when reading Christian book you just cannot help being reminded or rebuked. Anyway, if you are interested in evangelism and mission work in Asia (if you are a Christian than you should), I thoroughly recommend you to read the book – you can borrow it from me or you can get it for free from the website.

I am trying to think through some of the things that I learned and being challenged with while reading this book, originally I wanted to write several posts, but just to get this out takes weeks already – am such a proscatinator – so not promising anything.

In the early chapters of the book, KP described his early Christian life, he was born in India, he became Christian there and how he received his calling to the mission field. He then went to U.S to study in a bible college and then serving in churches in U.S – however he felt in his heart that he should go back to India and minister there. Later on, God convinced him, that he’s actually needed to serve by raising support for the natives missionaries rather than being directly on the field himself. You’ll hear the word Native Missionaries a lot on his book – in short natives missionaries are locals that are trained for evangelism, church planting and church ministering – the emphasis here is on the native/local.

The first time K.P sets his foot in American soil – he was immediately overwhelmed with the richness of Americans. The word that he uses is affluence. Here are some of his impressions of U.S, but I would imagine the same things can be said of Australia or the Western the world in general.

What impresses visitor from the Two-Third World are the simple things Americans take for granted: fresh water available 24 hours a day, unlimited electrical power, telephones that work and a most remarkable network of paved roads. p46
….
Even in their cars, I noticed that the radios were on even when no one was listening. why do they always have to be either entertained or entertaining? I wondered. It was as if they were trying to escape from a guilt that they had not yet defined or even identified.

He’s also amazed at the richness of Christians in the West and to their pattern of spending.

To my horror, the food and fellowship frequently cost more than then money they just given to mission. And I was amazed to find that American families routinely eat enough meat at one meal to feed an Asian family for a week.

Many natives missionaries and their families experience days without food.. especially when they start work in villages where there are no Christians.

A friend in Dallas recently pointed out a new church building that cost $74 million.. These extravagant building are insanity from a Two-Thirds World perspective. The $74 million spent on one new building on United States could build more than 7000 average-sized churches in India,

So how does the reading challenge me? Well, I am reminded, that I am (and we are) really the rich of the world. And it such a shame sometimes, that I spent a lot of time trying to make myself richer – wait, I am Christian, rich is a bad word, how about financial independent, financially free?

I can’t help but thinking that God gives us the richness for a purpose – not to be spent on ourselves, but to glorify Him and to further His cause. And this seems to be one of the driving arguments of the book, the Western Christians (which actually include me and possibly you – the rich Christians) are responsible for supporting the work of the gospel in the poorer countries.

Anyway that’s one of the points that I got from the book, there other good points from the book too.

There are things in the book that I have questions of – for example – the author seems to downplay the value of Western Missionaries in favour of Native Missionaries (he did argue for the case for Western Missionaries but in so little attention compared to the Native ones) – his arguments which are mainly centered around the cost comparison between two do make sense – but I wonder whether cost alone is the only measure that we should consider.