The Gift of Prophecy

Strengthening Mission: The Fruits of Experience

Once Seventh-day Adventist missionaries had gone abroad, Ellen White repeatedly urged the strengthening of the denomination’s missions overseas. Of course, she wanted the homeland of North America to be evangelized, along with the new homelands that emerged out of Adventist missionary effort in Europe and Australia. But she identified a symbiotic relationship between “home missionary” and “foreign missionary” work. She distinguished between them in terms that stressed the importance of the latter for the third angel’s message, including the profound statement: “The home missionary work will be farther advanced in every way when a more liberal, self-denying, self-sacrificing spirit is manifested for the prosperity of foreign missions; for the prosperity of the home work depends largely, under God, upon the reflex influence of the evangelical work in countries afar off.” ²¹ In 1893, in a testimony to the Battle Creek church regarding foreign missions, she had stated: “The best way to keep your own souls in the love of God is to become diligent workers for the salvation of others.” ²² In 1907 she wrote: “Very precious to God is His work in the earth. . . . But before this work can be accomplished, we must experience here in our own country the work of the Holy Spirit upon our hearts.” ²³ In Ellen White’s missional thought, then, missionary work is very important: foreign missions have unique significance because the “homeland” is directly affected by work “in countries far off,” yet progress in unreached regions also requires revival in the Adventist homelands. GOP 344.2

Ellen White herself spent two years in Europe (1885-1887), experiencing for herself what it was like to work in countries in which Catholicism and state Protestant churches were entrenched, and evangelism, as a consequence, far more difficult than in the egalitarian society of the United States. ²⁴ Subsequently, she spent nine years in Australia (1891-1900). ²⁵ From her experience overseas, she learned several important lessons about mission. GOP 345.1

First, she was skeptical about leaders who claimed to know what was best overseas when their experience was mostly or only in just one country. She set out an important principle: those who lead foreign mission work should have experience in a foreign field. In late 1886, writing from Europe to a correspondent in America, she bluntly observed: “No one can tell or understand the real situation of this mission field unless he stays long enough to get the inside view of the matter and the workings of the people. Such efforts are made to suppress the truth by the ministers as you would hardly think credible.” ²⁶ Thirteen years later, regretting the way in which expansion of mission had stagnated in the 1890s, she wrote: “God’s directions have not always been followed. Men have been selected to fill places on the Foreign Mission Board who had not sufficient experience for the work.” ²⁷ Ellen White’s testimony indicates it is vital for church leaders at the divisional and global levels to have cross-cultural experience and understanding. GOP 345.2

Second, her experiences in Europe reinforced a tendency toward trusting youth with great responsibilities in missionary work. In 1883, in an article in the Review, she had unequivocally declared: “Young men are wanted. God calls them to missionary fields.” They could, she argued, more easily “adapt themselves to new climates,” cultures, and “inconveniences and hardships.” ²⁸ Acknowledging that “the church may inquire whether young men can be trusted with the grave responsibilities involved in establishing and superintending a foreign mission,” her response was definite: “We must manifest confidence in our young men.” ²⁹ In 1886 she wrote perceptively of the needs of Europe, encouraging young people to become missionaries, and identifying the need for specialist training. “The work of our missions in foreign lands must be extended,” she urged, and she looked forward to seeing “our youth . . . pressing into the ranks of the workers.” She also set out what was needed for this to happen. GOP 345.3

Greater effort should be made . . . to prepare [them] for labor in these foreign fields. A fund should be raised to [assist them] to prepare for the work. . . . In every mission established there should be a school for the training of laborers. The very best talent among the Germans, the French, and the Scandinavians should be enlisted in the education of promising young men and women of the different nationalities. And in all our educational institutions special facilities should be provided for the instruction and training of those who want to become missionaries among their own people in foreign lands. ³⁰ GOP 345.4

Third, Ellen White recognized during her two-year sojourn in Europe that assistance would be needed from the American heartland if progress were to be made in Europe; ever after she prioritized the needs of the foreign mission fields. During her time abroad, she made some criticisms of both indigenous believers and American missionaries in Europe. ³¹ In general, however, she identified the problem as insufficient labor and resources, the solution for which required more assistance from the United States. GOP 346.1

She penned a strong testimony that was published less than three weeks before Christmas 1887, around four months after her return from Europe. ³² “The laborers in this mission are striving to the utmost of their ability, to meet the wants of the cause. But money is needed to sustain and extend the work. The call is coming in from different countries, ‘Send us a minister to preach the truth.’ How shall we answer this call?” ³³ She continued by making a seasonal appeal to church members: GOP 346.2

Every dollar and every dime that we can spare is needed now, to aid in carrying the message of truth to other lands. At the holiday season much is spent by our own people upon gifts and various gratifications which are not only useless but often hurtful. . . . If the money usually devoted to these objects were all brought into the mission treasury, our foreign missions would be lifted above embarrassment. . . . How can we more appropriately celebrate the coming Christmas, how better express our gratitude to God for the gift of His dear Son, than by offerings to send to all the world the tidings of His soon coming? ³⁴ GOP 346.3

White’s concern for strong financial support of foreign mission endured. In 1892 she averred “that the Lord has placed ample means in the hands of His servants . . . to meet the demands for this time, to plant the banner of truth in many dark places of the earth. But the blessing which the Lord has bestowed upon His stewards,” she lamented, was frequently “misappropriated, bound up in selfish enterprises where God does not direct.” She concluded: “The Lord’s work calls for labourers everywhere. As God bountifully gives, we should deliberately, prayerfully resolve that we will honour God with our substance, and with the first-fruits of our increase.” ³⁵ Six years later, in 1898, she returned to this theme in a pamphlet entitled An Appeal for Missions. “If God’s people had the love of Christ in the heart,” she wrote, “if every church member were thoroughly imbued with the spirit of self-sacrifice, if all manifested thorough earnestness, there would be no lack of funds for home and foreign missions.” ³⁶ In this pamphlet, as well as encouraging church members to donate to mission work, she directed denominational leaders to make regular earnest efforts to raise funds among members for foreign missions. In 1898 she made an “appeal to our brethren everywhere to awake, to consecrate themselves to God.” She wrote: “I appeal to the officers of our conferences to make earnest efforts in our churches to arouse them to give of their means for sustaining foreign missions.” ³⁷ GOP 346.4

White warned church leaders against using funds to multiply institutions in America, and she encouraged sensitivity to the needs of the rest of the world. In 1892 she urged: “Carefully should every dollar be considered, that it shall not be expended to please fancy, to administer to pride in expensive buildings, but to administer where there is a necessity, working in lines where God is working to establish His kingdom in the earth.” ³⁸ In her 1898 foreign missions appeal, she expressed herself even more clearly and strongly. GOP 347.1

Those who have means should understand that now is the time to use it for God. Let not means be absorbed in multiplying facilities where the work has already been established. Do not add building to building where many interests are now centered. Use the means to establish centers in new fields. Think of our missions in foreign countries. Some of them are struggling to gain even a foothold; they are destitute of even the most meager facilities. Instead of adding to facilities already abundant, build up the work in these destitute fields. Again and again the Lord has spoken in regard to this. His blessing cannot attend His people in disregarding His instruction. ³⁹ GOP 347.2

The problem of pouring resources into existing centers, rather than using them to expand into unreached areas, was not confined to America, however, for missionaries took their habitual ways of working with them when they went overseas. By 1899 White was writing regretfully of lost opportunities in Africa, where “consecrated workers” could have pushed “their way into unworked fields, with the full cooperation of the men who are bearing responsibilities, [and] the influence of this work would have added large numbers to the Lord’s kingdom.” Unfortunately, however, “the same error has been committed in Africa that was committed in Battle Creek—a centre was made in one place at a large outlay of means, while other portions of the Lord’s vineyard which should have been worked were neglected.” ⁴⁰ GOP 347.3

Nevertheless, her enduring concern was that work in the homeland, where resources were plentiful, should not be prioritized over work in mission fields, where, without help from the homeland, little could be done. In 1900 she addressed this twice, in letters to church leaders. In February she affirmed: “He [The Lord] would not have them in this work engross many workers or exhaust the treasury by erecting institutions . . . thus hindering the work of foreign missions. God calls for one hundred missionaries where there is now one. These are to go forth to foreign countries.” In June she wrote: “The many fields in the Lord’s vineyard which have not been touched call upon the places in which institutions are already established to understand the situation. . . . Let there not be on the part of churches, families, or individuals any withholding of the means needed to furnish God’s servants with facilities for doing the work in regions beyond.” She continued: “The third angel’s message is to go to all parts of the world, and we are not to help in the creation of any interests which will absorb God’s money in a work which has in it much which belongs not to the work for this time.” ⁴¹ GOP 347.4