From Urbana.org

I got this in an email from Urbana.org and loved it, so I thought it worth passing along. (It is kind of long but worth the read...)

Internationalism (1967)Message from Urbana 67 by Michael Griffiths
more from Urbana 67

"The command to go and make disciples of all nations is found in all Bibles—in whatever language they may be translated. In other words, the Bible teaches that God's men are sent from all nations to all nations."
As I stand before you, my knees knocking a little, I'm encouraged that the organizers of this convention apparently have decorated this platform expressly that we might speak about internationalism.

My mind goes back to the time of the Olympic Games in Tokyo. We were living in that city then, and we watched the opening ceremony on a borrowed TV set. The vast crowds in that huge stadium gathered from all countries. Groups of athletes marched behind their respective country's flag. If your country begins with a U, it takes an awful long time for your turn to come, and you realize you're only one country among an awful lot. Then comes that magnificent ceremony, so beautifully organized, so superb, before the Emperor of Japan. Though a foreigner, I was very moved, even watching on TV, at this terrific sight.

Then I realized that it was pale and insignificant compared with the day that will come, when a great multitude, which no one can count (no turnstiles there) from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues, will stand before the throne and before the Lamb. It will be the most wonderful international gathering.

If we're having international gatherings in sports and art in the United Nations, we are also, thank God, having them in missions. There have been missionaries from countries other than Western for many, many years.
In the year 1912, the Korean church organized its first general assembly. They said, We must send missionaries to Shantung in China. Who will go? The whole general assembly stood to its feet. It was a missionary church from its inception.

Even before the war the Japanese church was sending missionaries to Manchuria. But I do not want to talk about national missions—not even the fact that in Asia, national missions are arising. I want to talk to you about internationalism in missions.

I have to say a little bit about the fellowship that I belong to, not because it is the only international mission. It is not. You can soon find that out by going around to all the missionary display stalls outside this room. Nor are we the only interracial mission. I apologize for speaking of ourselves, but it is the situation I know best.

Three years ago—we had been international for years—we suddenly realized that we were not interracial. We were all Caucasian. We included Europeans, German, Swiss, Dutch, New Zealanders, Australians, Canadians, people from these United States, from Britain, from Ireland, but we were not interracial. We realized that it was all wrong. There was nothing to boast about, nothing to blow our trumpet about.

Then we began to realize we had to reorganize. We have now on our Board of Directors Dr. Chu, a Singaporian Chinese. We have home councils in Philadelphia, London, Melburn, New Zealand, and Europe. We now have them also in Japan, the Philippines, etc. We have Filipino missionaries (not very many yet), Korean missionaries, Chinese missionaries working with us.

Now that sounds grand. But I confess that when this decision was first made, one began to think of all the problems—problems of language, of education, of missionaries, problems of integrating people from different countries, problems of organization—and I had doubts. Is this just some gimmick, just something that improves the mission image? Perhaps our society was better national than international.

Just around that time, shortly after Christmas, I went to Hong Kong for a conference sponsored by IFES for people who were engaged in student work in different countries in Asia. I was there from Japan. Mr. Chandapilla of India was there, just back from the [Missions Convention] in Urbana in that year. As we gathered together, we were discussing this matter of internationalism in missions.

I remember Mr. Chandapilla saying, "Don't you see, brother, haven't you read your Bible? Look at Revelation 7:9. You're going to have an international church in heaven. Are all the missionaries to go home; are we just to be left with a lot of national churches, and then suddenly the last trumpet sounds and there's an international church? Don't you see, brother?"

And there we began to see it in that very exciting gathering. We all came from Asian countries, but we began to realize how very different we all were, and what a blessing and challenge we were to each other: our Indian brethren, very emotional, but very perceptive; our Filipino brethren, delightfully happy-go-lucky (they needed to be--they had not had any salaries for six months!); our Chinese brethren, so cheerful, so efficient (the conference was very well organized by them); our Korean brethren, scholarly and yet so warm and affectionate towards the rest of us. All these nations are different.

There was with us one Vietnamese brother. He could have gone back to Thailand to translate the Vietnamese Bible, but—so quiet, so small, shy but so determined—he said, "I must go back to my people." And so you see how different we all were, but how complementary, and what a blessing to each other. We were different and yet what a wonderful group we made together, and what wonderful fellowship we had because we were all different. We began to realize why God had made us different nations and different people, although he has made of one blood all nations of the earth to grow together.

This is an exciting day to live in. In my thinking that conference was an exciting gathering. What saneness! God's blessings are not limited to certain nationalities. I think of our overseas student's group in Tokyo and the blessing brought to us by an African brother there studying earthquake engineering. He was a blessing to both Europeans and Asians. God's blessing is not restricted.

In fact, if we want God's fullest blessing, we are more likely to find it together. And this surely is God's great plan that we see set before us; that reaches its climax here in the book of Revelation.
I want now to give you ten reasons for internationalism in missions. Nobody has ever said, There are these ten reasons, therefore we must do this. Rather, it is something that is happening, something that God is working out among us in spite of our conservatism and our over-organization and love for red tape and committees and all the rest.

The first reason is that it is biblical, in accordance with Christ's command. The command to go and make disciples of all nations is found in all Bibles—in whatever language they may be translated. In other words, the Bible teaches that God's men are sent from all nations to all nations.

Second, there is nothing new about it. That is another reason why missions that have become international and interracial should not blow their trumpets about it or think they have done anything. It is just that, in many cases, they have missed something for about 1700 years. If you look in Acts 20:4, you will see that Paul was accompanied by Sopater of Berea, Aristarchus and Secundus of the Thessalonians, Gaius of Derbe, Timothy, and Tychicus and Trophimus of Asia. There were three Europeans, Greeks, and four Asians, together with Paul, who was a Jew—men of different races, men of different nationalities, in Acts 20, going together and taking the gospel with them. So it is not only a biblical command, it is a biblical practice.

Third, as I have tried to show you already, this is something which heralds the coming of the international church glorified in heaven.

Fourth—we now get to practical reasons—this lifts missions above national politics. If your country is in bad odor in the world for some reason, and you are one mission among many, the mission does not suffer because of the bad odor of that particular nation and that particular time.

This works out in a wonderful way. For instance, there was a time in Indonesia when we were able to put in lots of British missionaries. Then came a thing called confrontation, and some of those had to leave, especially one who was teaching Animal Farm as a textbook in a country that was going Communist. He went. Suppose there is a war. What then? This happened to us in China, even then when we were only international and not interracial. There was a war and those who were the enemy nations of Japan had to go into internment camp—but not the Germans. They were of an allied nation, and so they were able to carry on their missionary work. They were able to bring food parcels to their "enemy" brethren, if you can think of such a word, in the prison camps.

Internationalism lifts you above these political problems. If, for example, the English are no longer acceptable in Indonesia, all right, let Germans and Dutch and Americans go. If Westerners are not acceptable in Cambodia, then let Asians go.

Fifth, you are international. You are not identified with any one country. Certainly it avoids a head-on collision between one national foreign group and the local Christians if you have differing viewpoints. But if you are international, you have a whole row of viewpoints and they are all complementary. There is no head-on collision, and together you can come to a common mind because of the mutual blessing that comes through our different national temperaments.

Sixth, it will avoid chaos organizationally. Now you just think about this. In the country that I have been in—Japan—there are about 120 foreign mission boards, mostly derived from North America with just a few European missions. Now suppose all the Japanese denominations start sending out missionaries to all the other countries. And suppose the Koreans, Filipinos, Malaysians, and so on, start sending missionaries from all their denominations to all the other countries. There would be chaos. And if all missions set up home councils in other countries, look at all the wasted administrative time of Christian men and the nonsense that would go on. I personally believe that there is both a minimum and maximum size for effectiveness. We do not want great monster missions. Deliver us!
I am sure that some nationalism is important, and that we should work together where we can.At our recent conference, we received a letter from the Indian Evangelical Mission, the Indian members of the Evangelical Fellowship of India. They wrote, "May we send Indians to your part of the world? We will examine the candidates and send them out to work with you in Southeast Asia." I expect somebody else working in Africa has had a similar letter from them. This is the kind of thing that is happening.

Seventh, it avoids the shame and scandal of division and competition between all these groups, living perhaps in different scales of salaries. We need to be together as brethren.

Eighth, this is a day of scandal of racial discrimination, of tribal wars in East and West Africa, of racial problems not only in the West but between Japanese and Korean, between North Korean and South Korean. These things are everywhere. Christians are all one in Christ Jesus, and together we go on and on with the gospel. That means something in today's world. That is the kind of way we should do missionary work.

Ninth, because it is right. Everything bones cries: This is fitting. This is proper. This is suitable to anything which calls itself Christian. It is real. We go together, from all nations to all nations.

Tenth, I believe this is for the glory of God as in that day a great multitude which no one can count from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues will stand before the throne and before the Lamb and worship him