21 Lessons On How To Avoid Missions - By C.T. Studd

Studd is remembered both as a cricketer and as a missionary. As a cricketer he played for England in the 1882 match won by Australia which was the origins of Ashes. As a British Protestant Christian missionary to China he was part of the Cambridge Seven, and later was responsible for setting up the Heart of Africa Mission which became the Worldwide Evangelisation Crusade. C.T. Studd faithfully served His Saviour in China, India, and Africa .

1. Skilfully avoid the command in John 4:35 to take a long, hard look at the fields. This is not only depressing but unsettling and could lead to genuine missionary concern.
2. Have a good healthy socially legitimate target ahead of you, such as higher qualifications, promotion, bigger home, better car, etc.
3. Get married as soon as possible so you can devote your life to the socially accepted norm of settling down, raising a family and saving up for old age.
4. Stick to generalities. Never allow the stark needs of specific mission fields to make an impact on you.
5. Never expose yourself to personal contact with missionaries. Their testimonies are disturbing, and the situations they describe tend to contrast with the materialistic living in the western world.
6. Insist that your theology of guidance rules out any possibility of specific personal direction from God.
7. Keep busy. Always bow to the tyranny of the urgent and avoid concentration on the importance of the strategic.
8. If you've been wrongly criticized, had a dirty trick played on you, etc. maintain that hurt and stay offended. People with a chip on their shoulder don't usually have time for the needs of others.
9. Rationalise about missions. After all, if 250,000 missionaries can't finish the job, what difference will you make?
10. Develop a closed-door mentality. Remember, Albania, Pakistan, Tibet, North Korea... all turn down visas from time to time.
11. Develop a 'national church can do it' attitude. Never investigate the percentage of the population they constitute, or the severe limitations of their resources.
12. Focus your attention on the evils of your own society. All fair-minded Christians will applaud your concerns about the 'unsaved right here in our own country'. Mission begins at home - make sure it finishes there too.
13. Always keep in mind your past failures. It is unreasonable to expect that you will ever get any better and besides, you're not ready to go yet...maybe never will be. Of course, ignore the examples of Peter, Moses, etc.
14. Always look at those involved in mission as super-spiritual people with extraordinary gifts and saintly characters. This will heighten your sense of inadequacy and remove any guilt complex about trying to be like them.
15. Avoid all books that emphasise the ability of the Holy Spirit to change lives and to provide power for service.
16. You can always claim you don't have `The missionary calling' and since you have not been in a cross-cultural communicating ministry no one can prove you are wrong. (On the other hand, you can't prove yourself right, either!)
17. Finally, if you are getting a little concerned about missions and God's heart for all the world: Go right away without any training at all. That way you will be back soon and can say you tried.
18. Insist that you must find a slot that is exactly tailored to your qualifications (that way you'll never find an opening).
19. Start worrying about money and the impossibility of surviving in a country with an annual one hundred percent inflation rate. (The Lord couldn't possibly cope with that.)
20. Listen to those who feel you are indispensable where you are, and that your church can't do without you.
21. Never sing the hymn 'Onward Christian Soldiers'. Always substitute with the version: "Mark time Christian heroes, Never go to war. Stop and mind the babies Playing on the floor. Wash and dress and feed them, Forty times a week. Till they're roly poly, Puddings so to speak."