The Nations Reaching the Nations–Starting in Your Church

David: I’m joined by two sisters and a brother with whom I can’t wait to have this conversation about making disciples from all the nations to all the nations. So let me start by just asking them—because some of you may not know these two sisters and this brother—to introduce themselves. So Kori, would you start?

Kori: Hey, guys, my name is Kori Porter. My background for 13 years was in campus ministry. I came to faith at the University of Mississippi and had the privilege of serving as a campus minister in various campus ministries around the U.S. The last four years I’ve been able to lead out in executive leadership spaces in non-profits. A lot of that work has been in religious freedom and helping the gospel to be proclaimed in unreached spaces, as well as places where Christians are persecuted. I’m really thankful to be here.

David: Soojin.

Soojin: Hey, everyone, my name is Soojin. I have a little mixed bag of experiences. I started out in the secular world. I was doing conferences at tech companies. Then the last five years I spent on staff at my church doing youth ministry and adult education. Now I’m part of the TGC events team, running this conference. So I’ve switched my hats. It’s been a fun experience, just kind of mixing all of my various experiences with events, and now ministry and being able to serve TGC in this way.

David: Well, we are all super thankful for your leadership in TGC events and making this happen. Jairo.

Jairo: I’m Jairo Namnún. I’m a pastor of Cornerstone Church in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. I promise I sound just as dumb in Spanish as I do in English. I spent the last ten years working at TGC as International Director, but I currently also work, on top of being a pastor, I’m the editorial director at Radical. So I work with you, David.

David: Yes, you do, and it’s an honor to work with you, brother. All right. All of us on the stage come from different ethnic backgrounds, so let’s just put that on the table. Particularly here in the United States, but also in other parts of the world, many people oftentimes view missions as a predominantly white and predominantly Western endeavor. 

I think about a conversation I was having just today about Japan, one of the most unreached countries and people groups in the world for so long. There are so many efforts to try to reach the Japanese with the gospel. They would say, “Yeah, we see Christianity as white and Western; certainly Christian missions as white and Western.” How have you seen that play out? Have you seen that in your own ethnic background? And how have you seen that be really unhelpful? So I’ll let any one of you dive into that first.

Kori: When I was an undergrad, I do think that was the strong narrative. I came to faith around 18, right before my freshman year, so I got heavily involved in my campus ministry. In my senior year, I had just done this social impact movement on campus and felt like I labored and labored and labored for racial reconciliation. What I didn’t see people go to was the gospel. So I was like, “God, I really want us to have social impact, but I want your name to be made great in the process.” When I was looking to see what to get involved in , I looked on a map and there was Cambodia. I kind of stumbled across the unreached, in that they have less than 2%. So I spent the fall of my senior year spreading the gospel, having conversations about Christ in that area. They knew Justin Bieber, but they didn’t know Christ. 

As an African American, it was interesting to see that when I went to a church and tried to get funds, there was this thing about missions. They weren’t quite sure what I was doing and why I would go international. That’s not to say that the African American church doesn’t have a rich tradition in reaching out and spreading the gospel, but I do think that the narrative has been so strongly biased toward one position that we lose sight that other minorities may not consider the possibility of them making an impact in that space.

David: I have a real quick follow-up on that, Kori. Would you say, in your own experience, as you have been in a variety of Christian circles and received biblical training, that that narrative is predominantly white or Western? Has that been reinforced in ways that you, at times have just not been told all the rich history that there is in the African American tradition along these lines?

Kori: Yeah. It’s unfortunate. So my first master’s attempt was at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi—an amazing institution, men and women after the heart of God. Then I finished out at Princeton Theological with my master’s in religion and society. But at both institutions, I don’t believe that narrative of minority engagement in missions was highlighted. But I was mentored well by a woman named Karen Ellis. She is phenomenal. Her background and research are heavily in the space of minority involvement in missions. What Karen highlights is the rich tradition of my people throughout the history of minorities’ involvement. So I do think what happens is that we have to be intentional about resourcing ourselves, because the narrative will not necessarily approach us. So we have to go find the more rich narratives that are out there.

David: Very good.

Jairo: You were asking, David, how is it unhelpful. I can think of at least a couple things. A couple of months ago I spent some time talking to a Venezuelan, a pastor/missionary who’s hidden in Iran, doing work. He’s very welcome in Iran because he’s from Venezuela. He can do a lot of work there because he’s from Venezuela. If he was an American, there’s no way he could get in, but he’s doing work there. 

We did a series of documentaries in Iran because the guys who went in and did the filming were “tourists”, not Americans. So I immediately think how helpful it is to have other people who are white Americans go and start doing work that allows others to do new things, that just because the way the world works right now in 2023, it’s simply impossible.

More importantly, I know a young girl in my church—a church plant that has grown too fast, unexplainably so. I think of this young girl and how excited she is that she’s being trained to go to a mission field. If we keep up with the myth that became folk lore, then became the narrative that’s become the truth for many—that only some from one specific country can go out to others—she would be robbed of the joy of being trained, then actually going out and preaching the gospel to others. That’s robbing God’s glory.

David: One of the things we talk about a lot at Radical is that we want to help reached mission fields see themselves as mission forces to the unreached. I think about all the brothers and sisters in Christ across Latin America;  yes, there are unique open doors for the spread of the gospel to the nations that we would be missing out on if we’re in any way feeding that narrative and not cultivating a counter narrative. Soojin, what would you add?

Soojin: Just bouncing off of what everyone has shared, I think it’s a natural tendency for people to stick to their lane. Especially in America, I feel like we’re so America-centric that we focus a lot on what are we’re doing in America. We talked a little bit about this, about how if you have the mentality, then I think there are biases that go in all sorts of directions. I think there’s a bias to think, “Well, we’re American, missions in our kind of our thing, so we’re going to go out and do missions,” not considering there are other nations sending people and they have strengths that we don’t have. So how can we work with them? Instead of filling our weaknesses with others’ strengths, we’re kind of fractured in that way, right? I think it’s frustrating when you think about all the potential chemistry there could be in global missions right now, if the nations were to work with one another. 

Then thinking on a national scale, I think even within America, we don’t even know what other communities are doing outside of our own community. I think about do I even know what the Spanish-speaking Hispanic churches in my area are doing to reach other Spanish speakers in my area? I don’t. And that’s partially on me. That’s on me for not taking the time to learn about that. I also think, even in America, so much of what’s represented and so much of what is being projected is monoethnic in some way. A lot of the leadership is represented by a particular type of person, or a lot of the movements are being led by particular people. So a lot of the conversation around that is being portrayed a certain way, so even within America, I think there’s so much being done in different communities, but we’re just not communicating with each other. We’re not seeing that, so even within America, even as an ethnic minority, I think we can often feel that missions can be driven by a white Western culture.

David: I hope that as we’re listening to this, it’s super-obvious that this narrative is not true, that the spread of the gospel in the world has been white and Western. It’s just not true. The nations have been going to the nations. And secondly, it’s extremely unhelpful. So it’s not just untrue but unhelpful, because it stifles, divides and inhibits the spread of the gospel to the nations and through the nations.

So how would you all encourage the followers of Jesus and leaders of churches in this room to counter this narrative. You started hitting on it, Soojin. Part of it would be to be intentional about working together and being aware of what God’s doing. I’d love to hear your thoughts on what practical encouragement you would give Christians and church leaders for us to cultivate a culture together as the church of the nations going to the nations?

Jairo: Well, first, I want to thank you for doing it. I’m a first generation Christian. The person who preached the gospel to me heard it from an American who came to our country right after we had a tyranny. We had a tyrant there, we had a dictator, and an American missionary came in and preached the gospel in the middle of all of that, when it was completely prohibited. So I thank you for doing that. 

I do thank all the American missionaries who have gone out. I keep hearing their stories. I don’t really know any white American that’s living a healthy Christian life that’s not close to what’s going on all around the world. Dr. Piper said it, [? @ 11:58] also said it as well. When you’re passionate for Christ, you want to know what’s going on around the world as well because we don’t serve a tribal God; we serve a sovereign God above all. So if you can listen to the stories, if you’re already supporting a missionary, and you go and say, “Please tell me the stories of what’s going on,” that’s incredibly encouraging. Please listen to them and reach out to those who are already going out.

There’s also something that’s really been helpful to me in our church. I have somebody in our church who is always reminding me in a very nice way—in an edifying way, never on a Sunday afternoon or a Monday morning—about the text that I preach, if there was something there that I should have included, that encourages the church more to go to the nations. Always in a nice way. Never criticizing, or most of the time never criticizing. That is incredibly helpful to me. He brings up the nations to my eyes, so that I don’t forget as I’m preaching regularly. That to me has been a blessing. Encourage somebody or somebodies in your congregation to point out where your church could be supporting and where they should go. And include it in your church prayers. 

In my country, in the Dominican, we never, ever, ever, none of our churches—except for some new ones that are popping up now—are thinking of going anywhere else. I mean, we’re still a mission field. If anybody gets on a plane, they’re going out for vacation—if they’re able to afford it. The fact that we are starting to pray for other churches in other countries is completely wild. What if you find a couple of churches from the global south that you start partnering with, you start praying for them on Sundays, start hearing their stories and start inviting them. Maybe they’re not yet in the Red Zones, but you’re thinking long term. These are churches that could actually start going to those Red Zones. Those are simple, practical things that we are seeing in our church right now that are incredibly helpful.

David: That’s good exhortation your brother is giving you. How important it is that they’re seeing the nations in the text, as you’re talking about, but also hearing stories about the nations going to the nations. Don’t just tell stories about people who look like you and what they are doing around the world. That’s one of the good things about Gospel Coalition with various denominations and networks of churches represented. So celebrate, not just what God’s doing through your network and your tribe. Yes, there’s a place for that, but also acknowledge people who actually have some things wrong theologically, yet are still followers of Jesus. Let’s celebrate what they’re doing for the spread of the gospel, especially when those people look different than us. That’s really valuable. Instead, we get into this insulated idea of what we see with people who look like us and our tribe. What God is doing in the world is so not limited to people who look like us and are in our stream, whatever that might be. 

Soojin: I think to do that, it takes a lot of intentionality. It takes a lot of conscious effort to say, “I’m going to take time to go out and find information and learn about them.” Actually, Jairo was just telling me how he was doing some research about the missionaries in Korea. South Korea is a huge sending nation, but it was so hard for him, because a lot of it is in native Korean, not translated into English. So that means English speakers aren’t looking for it, in some ways. So I think it takes effort and intentionality. I also think the beautiful thing about America is that the nations are here. So sometimes it is a matter of going down the street and visiting the ethnic minority churches that are around you, who look different from you, hearing from them what they are doing, not just locally, but globally. So let’s learn what the sending churches are doing in their own countries. I feel like that’s a huge advantage that we have. 

I love what Pastor John said earlier about not wanting this to be a burden to the pastors and church leaders, but something that is freeing. I feel like in that way it could feel like a burden, it could feel like a weight, if we’re sitting up here saying, “You’ve got to learn about the history of world missions from every county.” But it really just starts with, “Hey, I’m just going to get to know this church on my side of town, where their congregation looks and sounds different from us.” Start there. I feel like it can start small. 

Kori: I love that, Soojin. That’s so wise. There’s so much wisdom in the word you used—intentionality. I mean, even the fact, David, that you would think to make a minority panel to have this discussion, to highlight this gap. So, what is missing when we don’t enter into other cultures’ stories, is the redemptive nature of God and what he’s doing. We don’t get to rejoice. That’s simply put. You don’t get to know what God has done. We’ll know in the heavens when we get to be rejoined with him and see the saints of all nations praising him. It’s going to be beautiful, no doubt. But we don’t get to rejoice on this side of glory, so missing out on that is a real deficit.

So intentionality is important. So to be here on this panel, to listen to our voices and to be informed really does mean a lot.

Lastly, Soojin, I just think it was just a practical explanation with the partnership. You know, the most segregated hour still is church hour on Sunday. So what does it look like? Maybe you’re not partnering in the local church on Sunday from 8:00 a.m. to noon, but maybe you are doing your missions with a local African American, Korean or Latin church in your area once a year. See what fellowship and what type of relationships can be built out of that service together. I’ve seen the Lord really work in my life and bridge gaps of animosity and conflict when I’m serving God with someone of a different background. So I think it’s just a beautiful opportunity for us to work together and really show the world this redemptive, beautiful Christ that we have.

David: I love all that. This whole conversation is not about multi-ethnic or multi-cultural church. Let me insert right here that I do think, if we are serious about making disciples of all the nations and ethnicities, but in our communities we only make disciples among the people who look like us, there’s a disconnect there.  I’m assuming for most communities in this room, there are people around your church who look different than you. So let’s make disciples among the ethnicities—the ethnic groups, the ethne—in ways that one, will reach the nations right here, and two, help us in all these ways. I have certainly found in the church that I pastor, with 100 different countries represented, that my understanding in all these ways grows as we’re making disciples of the nations together right here. We’re learning more about what God’s doing among the nations, but that happens really in the context of local church disciple making in our communities. So we would be missing it if we just make disciples among people who look like us in our Christian lives and in our churches, then say we’re passionate about the spread of the gospel to the nations. 

There’s a lot to process here. Anything else that’s pressing on your heart that you want to add before I lead us all to pray.

Jairo: I just want to repeat what my sister said. I know it’s hard when you bring in somebody who comes from a different background. Maybe we don’t have the same theological background. We maybe use words differently. It is hard. It doesn’t mean you need to be condescending. But sometimes you do need to condescend. We don’t use the right tone. The culture might be different. We might worship differently. But it does give you a taste of heaven, so it’s worth doing. It is what Jesus did too. So at the end of the day, if it’s truthful, it’s worth it.