To All the World for Jesus’ Sake: Mid-America and Missions

Mike Morris, PhD

Mike Morris is a senior professor of missions at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He earned the DMin and PhD degrees from MidAmerica Baptist Theological Seminary. He served as an IMB missionary for ten years and is a co-editor and contributor to Make Disciples of All Nations: A History of Southern Baptist International Missions (Kregel Academic, 2021). He is the author of Growing a Great Commission Church: Biblical Principles and Implications for Methods (Seminary Hill Press, 2017), and he is also the author of various journal articles. He is the pastor of Stadium Drive Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.

Introduction

As a two-time graduate of Mid-America Baptist Seminary, I have great appreciation for the Seminary’s emphasis on missions. I enjoyed taking my classes at all three campuses in Memphis: downtown, Germantown, and Cordova. The missionary training and encouragement that I received there have served me well as a pastor of an established church, IMB church planter, domestic church planter, and seminary professor. Indeed, missionary training is very useful for pastors of established churches. Many churches, especially in urban areas, are surrounded by diverse groups of people; their pastors must learn to think like cross-cultural missionaries to be the most effective in evangelism and discipleship. I also treasure my time at Mid-America because of the enduring relationships that I have with former students and faculty members.

After serving two terms as an IMB missionary, I was privileged to learn alongside former missionaries (both students and faculty members) in the PhD program at MABTS. We were able to draw from our experiences on the mission field and bounce ideas off each other in a valuable collaborative learning environment. Important dissertations focusing on missions topics have been produced by PhD students at MABTS.

According to the IMB’s global research team, at least 250 IMB missionaries have attended MABTS.1 Mid-America students have also served with other missions groups overseas and in the United States. The seminary’s continuing efforts to reach the Northeast through its prior campus in Schenectady, New York, and its current MOVE program are notable. Another example of the Seminary’s missionary influence around the world is its partnership with Emanuel University in Oradea, Romania. The Seminary’s official song begins with “To all the world for Jesus’ sake,” stressing the missionary heart of Mid-America.

Theological Contributions

Since its founding in 1972, Mid-America has been characterized by conservative theology, including the belief in the inerrancy of Scripture. As the Seminary’s website states, “Mid-America’s founder and first president, Dr. B. Gray Allison, possessed a commitment to biblical inerrancy, expository preaching, and the Great Commission that continues to permeate the school today.”2 Because missionaries have a powerful effect on the people whom they evangelize and teach, particularly in areas where few trained pastors are available, the theological positions held by missionaries are crucial to the spiritual health of new Christians in the missionaries’ spheres of influence.

John Fulks, a PhD graduate of MABTS, has served as a professor at Global Theological Seminary in Uganda and at Moffat Bible College in Kenya. He stated, “Without a solid foundation in conservative, evangelical, biblical doctrines, the preacher/teacher could fall for any wind of doctrine…With the rise of cults and the Charismatic movement sweeping through denominations in Africa, a solid foundation on the basic biblical doctrines is important.”3 Thorough teaching of biblical doctrine should not be neglected by missionaries. Fulks cautioned, “If training leaders is not kept as a priority alongside multiplying churches, then the multiplication turns into the reproduction of cults, false teachings, and fewer genuine salvations.”4

Missionaries who help start seminaries, Bible colleges, and denominations overseas have a particularly important responsibility to make sure that such institutions are confessional and have a conservative theological foundation. In many cultures, once a precedent is set, that precedent is difficult to change. For example, I did not see a Korean Baptist confession of faith during the time that I served in South Korea as an IMB missionary. Malcolm Fenwick, who went to Korea in 1889 and formed the group that would become the Korea Baptist Convention, did not promote a denominational confession of faith. Yong Gook Kim described the continuing problem: “The Korea Baptist Convention does not have any denominational confession of faith. Therefore, it can not [sic] offer local churches an objective guideline for their faith and practice. The Convention also is without tools effectively to solve theological controversies when they arise.”5 After decades without a confession of faith, a denominational group can have difficulty uniting churches around a proposed confession.

A missionary candidate who has not engaged in personal evangelism regularly in America is unlikely to engage in it regularly overseas. One of the most important characteristics of Mid-America is the requirement to witness to an average of at least one non-Christian per week. Paul Chitwood, current president of the IMB, explained, “Because Mid-America students are required to share the gospel each week while enrolled in Seminary, we know we are getting missionaries trained in evangelism and disciple-making.”6 The witnessing experience gained in diverse situations while enrolled at MABTS can be utilized wonderfully in cross-cultural situations on the mission field. In addition to the diverse witnessing experiences of the individual student, hearing about other students’ witnessing experiences during Report Hour on Tuesdays in chapel encourages evangelistic fervor.

The witnessing requirement was a valuable accountability factor for me in both the DMin and PhD programs. The requirement also led to some unexpected theological stretching in my life. As a PhD student, I attended a weekly meeting at a particular educational institution in Memphis. I became acquainted with an atheist who approached me each week with a new question about the Bible. If I did not have an immediate answer for him, I would research the question and give him an answer the next week. My knowledge of apologetics greatly expanded. We became friends, and he knew he could approach me with any question. After two years of this approach, I finally asked him the following question: If you could understand everything in the Bible and then came to the conclusion that there are no mistakes in it, would you then surrender your life to Jesus Christ? He refused to answer the question. I understood at that point that even though he had genuine intellectual objections, the most important issue was that he was not willing to change his life. I wish that I could report that he has become a Christian, but so far, he has not done so.

The IMB’s respect for Mid-America is evidenced by the fact that the IMB continually has invited Mid-America missions professors to its two-day annual meeting for missions professors, known as the Consortium. Mid-America has been the only seminary invited to participate besides the six seminaries supported by the Cooperative Program. During the consortiums, which have often taken place in March, missions professors and IMB leaders discuss missiological issues, including theological education. During the years that I have attended the meetings, MidAmerica missions professors have always championed biblical missiology at the meetings.

Faculty members in the missions department at Mid-America have consistently advocated the missiology of Donald McGavran (1897–1990), who was the founder of the classic church growth movement. My chief research topic at MidAmerica and at Southwestern has been the receptivity principle, which is a biblical principle described by McGavran.7 He believed that unreached people groups that are also receptive to the Gospel should be prioritized: “The rule which guided missionary societies during the nineteenth century—‘Go where no one has been before’—is currently not a good rule. Today’s rule, specially for beginning societies, is ‘Find populations in which many want to become Christians, but are not being evangelized. Go there.’”8 He thus emphasized receptive unreached people groups over resistant unreached people groups. Under a previous administration, the IMB moved away from its dual mandates, which emphasized both receptive groups and unreached groups, and that administration began to emphasize only unreached groups, regardless of receptivity.

Another important missiological issue was a past IMB administration’s emphasis on rapid reproduction of churches. This missiology of the IMB was “radically” changed for the better during the IMB presidency of David Platt. Thankfully, the IMB’s emphasis shifted from rapidity to health, as explained in the IMB’s current book of guiding principles:

The need for the gospel among the lost is urgent, and we desire to see churches multiply as rapidly as God chooses to favor. At the same time, we recognize God’s Word gives us no promise that our faithfulness to the missionary task will be rewarded with a certain rate of reproduction. Rapid multiplication is biblically possible, but is not biblically promised. The gospel will spread at different rates in our work around the world…Our primary aim in church planting is healthy churches that multiply, and we do not sacrifice or delay introducing any characteristics of a healthy church for the sake of rapid reproduction.9

Also, the IMB shifted from using new converts as pastors to using biblically qualified pastors in newly planted churches:

He must be discipled, tested, and affirmed by the church.…The pastor/elder/ overseer must know the Bible and he must know doctrine. He must know both well enough to teach them accurately and to discern and refute false teaching. This indicates a high level of biblical and theological knowledge…The Bible never mentions academic credentials as necessary for service in church leadership…Other levels and styles of theological training should be provided.10

A rapid approach of using new converts as pastors can lead to churches being absorbed by cults and the proliferation of false teaching. Thorough evangelism and thorough discipleship are both necessary for healthy churches. I vividly remember a PhD seminar at Mid-America in which I and my fellow students, some of whom had served as IMB missionaries, discussed the differences between McGavran’s missiology and the IMB’s missiology of that time. I firmly believe that Mid-America’s missions faculty members and students have made important contributions to the research of important missiological issues.

Mid-America’s Journal of Evangelism and Missions has included articles by key missiological thinkers through the years. The journal was published once each year in the spring. Volume 2 of the journal (Spring 2003) had “Assessing the Church Growth Movement” as its theme and included articles by Elmer Towns, Sonny Tucker, Gary McIntosh, Thom Rainer, Cal Guy, Wade Akins, Robin Hadaway, and Bill Bright. Volume 4 (Spring 2005) had church planting as its theme and included articles by Ed Stetzer, “Church Planting: Observations on the State of North America Missions Strategies,” and David Garrison, “Global Church Planting: Something is Happening.” Volume 6 (Spring 2007) had Church Planting Movements as its theme and included articles by IMB leaders Jim Slack and Clyde Meador. In the same issue, Wayne Lovelace, a PhD graduate of Mid-America and the founder of a church planting organization, had an article entitled “Is Church Planting Movement Methodology Viable? An Examination of Selected Controversies Associated with the CPM Strategy.” Wayne understood the CPM methodology used by the IMB at that time. Another PhD graduate from Mid-America, Ebele Adioye, has served as president of Seminaire Baptiste de Formation Pastorale et Missionnaire in Côte d’Ivoire, as secretary for the All Africa Baptist Fellowship in West Africa, and as a church planter and disciple maker. He wrote an article entitled “Spiritual Warfare in Times of Revival: A Case of the Daloa Baptist Revival” in the Journal of Evangelism and Missions (vol. 8, Spring 2009). Before the Journal of Evangelism and Missions was first published, the Mid-America Theological Journal included articles on missions. An example is the issue (vol. 10, no. 2, Fall 1986) that had the theme “Focus on Missions.”

Some Mid-America graduates have become influential in both missiological education and publications. An example is John Massey, the current dean of the Fish School of Evangelism and Missions at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He was a contributor and co-editor of Making Disciples of All Nations: A History of Southern Baptist Missions (Kregel, 2021). He was also a contributor to Missiology: An Introduction to the Foundations, History, and Strategies of World Missions, 2nd Ed. (B&H Academic, 2015) and World Mission: Theology, Strategy, and Current Issues (Lexham, 2019). His article entitled “The Fellowship of the Gospel: The Dual Nature of the Church’s Mission in Philippians” appeared in The Journal of Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary (vol. 4, Spring 2017). Two of his articles appeared in the Southwestern Journal of Theology: “Wrinkling Time in the Missionary Task: A Theological Review of Church Planting Movements Methodology” (vol. 55, no. 1, Fall 2012) and “Theological Education and Southern Baptist Missions Strategy in the Twenty-First Century” (vol. 57, no. 1, Fall 2014).

Other Mid-America graduates became influential executive directors of state Baptist conventions in the United States. In the summer of 2020, five men were serving in those positions: Jack Kwok in Ohio, Jim Richards in Texas (SBTC), Sonny Tucker in Arkansas, Thomas Hammond in Georgia, and Fred MacDonald in the

Dakotas.11 State Baptist conventions often focus on cross-cultural missions in their spheres of influence, and state executive directors who are well trained in missions are definite assets for effective work.

Missions Degrees at Mid-America

Mid-America’s Master of Divinity in Missiology and Intercultural Studies degree plan has been instrumental in preparing students for overseas missionary work. They can choose the ninety-hour on-campus or online version of the degree, or they can choose the International 2+2 On-Campus and On-Field Combination Degree, which requires seventy-five “normal” credit hours plus fifteen credit hours of field study and completion of a master’s thesis. This combination degree includes “a two- or three-year appointment with the International Mission Board” after two years of normal work (hence 2+2 or 2+3): “The objectives of the on-field study are accomplished through prescribed research, field ministry, and language acquisition under the immediate direction of experienced field missionaries and under the final auspices of the Missions faculty at the Mid-America Cordova campus.”12 A dissertation at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary described the good retention results for 2+2 students compared to other IMB missionaries in an interview transcript that quoted Bruce Ashford: “Dr. Ashford: I think there are at least a couple of types of retention you want to look at…One would be how many of those students stayed on the field after their initial two year or three year term… Dr. Eitel had some records on that and it hovered in between I think 87 and 100 percent for all our deployments which is far superior to what the average has been with 1MB.”13 Because the 2+2 programs at Mid-America and at the six seminaries supported by the Cooperative Program are similar, one can reasonably assume that the Mid-America program has also made a positive difference in retention.

When I was a PhD student at Mid-America, my major was missiology, and my two minors were systematic theology and practical theology (preaching). Foreign and domestic missionaries obviously need to have an understanding of biblical missiology, but they also need to have a good grasp of systematic theology and preaching. I thoroughly enjoyed all eight of my research seminars and the professors who taught them, and all of the seminars were useful to me. During the time that I was in the PhD program, I became a church planter in Tennessee after resigning from the IMB. Mid-America’s PhD program requires an external reader of the dissertation. I asked that Keith Eitel, who at that time was dean of the Fish School of Evangelism and Missions at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, to be my external reader. The external reader provides objectivity to the process, and a fringe benefit is that the external reader could possibly hire the doctoral candidate after graduation. After graduation one of my Mid-America missions professors sent my resume to Keith Eitel, and he hired me as a missions professor at Southwestern. After becoming a missions professor, I went with Southwestern students five years in a row to Japan on short-term mission trips. My training at Mid-America was useful during those trips.

Prior to becoming an IMB missionary, I earned the DMin in Pastoral Ministry at Mid-America while serving as a pastor in Kentucky. The DMin seminars were immediately helpful in my work as a pastor as I became a better preacher, administrator, and counselor. I remember listening to Adrian Rogers describe his preparation for sermons during a seminar on preaching. That time was priceless for me. The DMin in Pastoral Ministry, my advanced age, and my pastoral experience helped me as a missionary in South Korea as I worked with pastors there. I have noticed that some emphasis is now placed on revitalization in the DMin program, which is necessary because so many churches are plateaued and declining.

Mid-America now offers a Master of Arts in Missiology and Intercultural Studies, a degree which requires the completion of sixty credit hours and which can be completed online. This degree is a valuable alternative for students who cannot invest ninety hours in the MDiv degree. My preference is that students interested in missionary service get as much preparation as possible, but I also understand that time and money may be limited.

Other Contributions that Mid-America Made in My Life

I am thankful for the opportunity that I had to serve as assistant editor of the Journal of Evangelism and Missions. That experience helped to prepare me to serve as the general editor of the Great Commission Research Journal. In the current climate where blogs and forums seem to rule the day as to what people read, peerreviewed journals may not be as popular as they once were, but they are certainly important. The professors trusted me with the assistant editor job, and they also trusted me to teach a class during the PhD program. That teaching experience was great preparation for my job at Southwestern.

I am also thankful for the deep spirituality displayed by missions faculty members at Mid-America. They were and are men of prayer who love to see lost people saved. They do set a good example for students as they witness to the lost, go on mission trips, preach in various churches and chapel services, and display a good sense of humor at appropriate times. I remember that each one of them prayed individually for me at graduation as they made their way down the line of graduates. Mid-America was big enough to offer all the courses needed by students, but it was also small enough to feel like family. When I was around the professors and students there, I felt as though I were part of a wonderful group of people who shared the same values and goals. Whether sitting at a table on Catfish Friday or in the chapel during Report Hour, the spiritual fellowship was palpable. Truly, my spiritual cup was filled while I was at Mid-America.

Finally, I am thankful for the wonderful student housing in Cordova. My older son lived with my wife and me in the student housing while he attended law school. He led the music at the church plant where I was working. After he graduated, he moved with us to Fort Worth, passed the Texas bar exam, and took courses at Southwestern. He married a Korean seminary student, helped plant a church in Arlington, worked in the international office, and eventually felt a call to missions. He and his wife are now serving as IMB missionaries in South Korea. I believe that his exposure to the seminary environment at Mid-America was important.

At the beginning of the second half of my time in South Korea, I moved to a city of a million people. I was the first IMB missionary to live there, and few people there could speak English fluently. I utilized my computer when I wanted to have deep theological conversations in English, but it was not the same feeling as being in close physical proximity to other students and faculty members during such conversations. I am thankful that Mid-America now offers online classes, but I would encourage any prospective student to be residential if possible. Online relationships with other students can be developed, but developing those relationships is much easier in person. For me, there was no substitute to eating with other students after walking to the Commissary from the Germantown campus or after driving to La Hacienda from the Cordova campus.

Conclusion

I was saved as a tenth grader in 1972 toward the end of the Jesus movement in America. That year was the best year for baptisms for Southern Baptists. Many people who were saved during that era eventually sensed a call to ministry. Thus, during the 1980s, seminaries had many students sitting in the classrooms. There was no need for them to recruit students. I sensed a call in 1980, and I automatically understood that I needed to enroll in a seminary to prepare myself for ministry. There was no such thing as online education. A leap of faith was necessary to move to a seminary campus. Missionary candidates, with a few exceptions, were expected to have MDiv degrees.

In the past decades, the situation has dramatically changed. Many young adults are not Christians. Some young adults who are Christians see no need for seminary preparation for missionary work; rather, they think that all they need to be able to do is share the plan of salvation, and many of them choose to do so on short-term mission trips rather than as long-term missionaries. More seminaries exist now than forty years ago, but there are fewer potential seminary students. A 2013 article explained the decline:

Evangelical Protestantism enjoyed a boom in the late 20th century, and the enrollments at schools associated with the movement also mushroomed. Sociologists now report that membership is declining in evangelical churches, and seminary enrollments are down. Total headcount enrollment is declining, and full-time-equivalent enrollments are declining even faster. Total course credit levels are falling as more students enroll in shorter M.A. programs and fewer in master of divinity programs. The losses are not great—they do not erode the gains of the prior period—but they are felt keenly, because most evangelical theological schools are tuition dependent.14

Very recently, things have changed for the better in terms of seminary enrollment. According to the Association of Theological Schools, “2020 is indeed a noteworthy year. More than half (54%) of ATS schools showed enrollment increases in fall 2020 when compared to fall 2019—this swing reversed a trend where only about 45% of ATS schools had been growing over the last decade.”15 Mid-America is a truly great seminary for future pastors and missionaries. I will always speak highly of my experience there, and I hope that many future students will have the wonderful missions preparation that I had there.

Notes

1. IMB Global Research, “Re: Information Needed,” email message to author, June 4, 2021.

2. “History,” Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary, accessed August 20, 2021, https://www.mabts.edu/about/history.

3. John K. Fulks, “Designing Effective Theological Education to Influence Indigenous Church Planting with Emphasis on Southeastern Uganda” (PhD diss., Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary, 2011), 73–74.

4. Fulks, 84.

5. Yong Gook Kim, “An Analysis of the Theological Development and Controversies of the Korea Baptist Convention, 1889–1997” (PhD diss., The Southern Baptist Seminary, 2001), 305.

6. Paul Chitwood, Mid-America Messenger 47, no. 3 (Winter 2019): 12.

7. McGavran stated the principle: “Evangelism can be and ought to be directed to responsive persons, groups, and segments of society.” Donald A. McGavran, Understanding Church Growth, 3rd ed., rev. and ed. C. Peter Wagner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 187.

8. McGavran, “Basics of Effective Missions Anywhere,” Church Growth Bulletin 11, no. 4 (March 1975): 431.

9. IMB, Foundations (Richmond, VA: IMB, 2018), 90–91.

10. IMB, Foundations, 95–97.

11. “Mid-America Alumni Lead Five Baptist State Conventions,” Mid-America Messenger 48, no. 1 (Summer 2020): 22.

12. “Here or There: Domestic or International, All Roads Lead to Missions with MidAmerica’s MMICS Degree,” Mid-America Messenger 43, no. 1 (Spring 2015): 6–7.

13. Simeon Lee Childs, “A Mixed Method Evaluation of the First Fifteen Years of the Master of Divinity with International Church Planting Degree at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary” (EdD diss., Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2011), 181.

14. Anthony T. Ruger and Barbara Wheeler, “Sobering Enrollment Figures Point to Overall Decline: New Research from the Auburn Center for the Study of Theological Education,” In Trust Center for Theological Schools, Spring 2013, accessed August 31, 2021, https://intrust. org/Magazine/Issues/Spring-2013/Sobering-enrollment-figures-point-to-overall-decline.

15. Chris Meinzer, “An Enrollment Surprise—More ATS Schools Grow Than Decline for First Time Since 2006,” ATS Colloquy Online, Holiday 2020, 3. https://www.ats.edu/uploads/ resources/publications-presentations/colloquy-online/an-enrollment-surprise.pdf.

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