What will the future work of the Christadelphian Bible Mission (CBMA) be like? And how will our past and our present affect our future? We all pray that our Lord will return and we will be able to preach under the conditions described in the Bible: a period when everyone will know the Lord and sin will be held in check. But until that time we need to press on from where we are today.
First, why is it that so many people don’t enjoy history? It explains so much about the present and can spare us from repeating many of our past mistakes in our future. It explains why we are, who we are, why we are where we are, when we came to be where we are. In large measure it accurately defines what we are about. So, how do we see mission work changing in the near future?
Rather than assume anyone is interested we will seek to establish the need for our Bible missions. We will try and make digesting some facts about our past and present a little more palatable by framing the information in a Q & A format.
WHY the Two Organizations (CMBA and CBMC)?
The Christadelphian Bible Mission of America (CBMA) and the Christadelphian Bible Mission of Canada (CBMC) are the two committees responsible to the brethren in North America. They work in tandem to provide the guidance, continuity and resources necessary to enable preaching, pastoral and welfare work to be done in Latin America and the Caribbean. Both organizations are approved to receive donations that are tax deductible to the donors. They meet frequently via conference calls and periodically in person to discuss bible mission needs and opportunities.
Christadelphian ecclesial activities are predominantly internal in nature, not external. Most ecclesial duties are primarily directed toward serving our own ecclesia’s needs. Our work in preaching to the public, our community services and welfare needs, are all probably less than 10% of our efforts for the Truth.
There are many legitimate reasons for this. Today Christadelphians are the product of the few individuals who responded 150 years ago (pardon the history) to the Scripturally-based call of one man to come out from the rest of apostate Christianity. We were called to separate ourselves from the institutions that make up this world. We were to do this without any professional, formally educated, full-time help. Therefore, it is totally reasonable to expect that, given those parameters, the vast majority of our volunteer efforts and our donations are going to be spent maintaining our basic ecclesial functions. This does not leave much time for preaching to the public. It leaves almost no time and resources to commit the ecclesia to mission work outside our immediate areas.
In addition to this, mission work relies on a number of external factors. The region cannot be at war. Transportation and communication must be safe and affordable. Language differences must be accommodated. We have to be able to pool together sufficient resources to enable volunteers to go and do the work. Most importantly, a few brethren and sisters have to feel that there is an imperative to preach the gospel to those who are strangers to the covenants and aliens from the commonwealth of God.
That is why we have the CBMA and CBMC organizations. We need them. It requires a long-term, concentrated effort for an internally-oriented culture to begin to be more externally focused.
It also takes a long term commitment to bring the Truth to a new area and start up a functioning ecclesia. Unlike a short-term campaign, which can be put on for a weekend or a week by an established ecclesia, when we are in the mission field we are starting from scratch in a foreign location. It is important that we be committed for the long haul.
WHEN did the CBMA begin?
Our brethren in England (CBMUK) had been actively involved in overseas preaching work since shortly after WWII. International travel had again become possible. They set up a formal organization sponsored by the brotherhood in the U.K. They began placing advertisements offering correspondence courses in newspapers in various parts of the world and sending volunteer brethren to follow up with interested contacts. The world is a big place and the more workers the better. They saw in Southern California a cluster of ecclesias that might supply the nucleus of a Bible Mission organization to further the work. When they made their suggestion, a number of brethren agreed to form a committee, draw up a constitution, and submit it to the brethren in the West for their response. The ecclesias enthusiastically approved this project on May 4, 1968, and dedicated Bible mission work began in the Americas.
Originally the organization was called the Pacific Coast Christadelphian Bible Mission and it envisioned drawing on the brethren west of the Mississippi River for support and providing preaching work in Central America. South America and the Caribbean would continue to be overseen by the CBMUK for preaching work and the eastern part of North America would continue to support those areas through the CBMUK.
There was one ecclesia in Colon, Panama at that time that had been started by Bro. Noel and Sis. Trudy Gibson who lived and worked in the Panama Canal Zone with their six children. The annual budget of the CBMUK for this work was $3,000 and we had no idea initially if we would be able to raise that amount of money.
WHERE did outreach begin with the CBMA?
Initially, our first work naturally was in Colon, Panama. Soon afterwards, an ecclesia was formed in Panama City, Panama. From there the work moved north and an ecclesia was formed in Costa Rica. Later, ecclesias were established in El Salvador, Guatemala and Guadalajara, Mexico. The CBMUK then asked us to take over responsibility for South America. There are now ecclesias in Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, and baptized brethren in many other countries where no formal ecclesias have been set up as yet.
In 1999 CBMUK asked us to take responsibility for helping the Caribbean ecclesias and to represent all of the brethren in North America. Brethren in our eastern ecclesias had a long history of assisting the Caribbean brotherhood and the region readily agreed to continue to serve in these areas. In the Caribbean, there are 28 ecclesias and a total of 405 brethren on the various islands.
Therefore, our North American brotherhood is currently assisting 45 ecclesias, 685 brothers and sisters, with 385 Sunday School students in Latin America and the Caribbean.
WHAT do Bible mission workers actually do?
Here are a few descriptions of various aspects of current Bible mission work.
Correspondence tutors: This is how one can become a missionary and never leave your own home. Correspondence course tutors serve students around the world by providing tutoring and coaching as they work through correspondence courses. Once a strong relationship is formed, many tutors will connect the student with Christadelphians near the student’s home. This has resulted in many baptisms over the recent years. Additionally, tutors who become linked to outreach in specific countries may place advertisements, correspond with students, make phone calls and coordinate with visits by missionaries and link brethren.
Missionaries in residence: These brethren and sisters move to a country, find a place to live, learn the language, hold meetings in hotels, teach the truth, baptize new brethren, rent a meeting room, organize an ecclesia, teach Sunday School and generally perform all the jobs usual to a Christadelphian ecclesia.
Link brethren: Assist established ecclesias via regular visits, correspondence and phone calls. Arrange for speakers for Bible gatherings. They may exhort, teach classes, visit the homes of members and act as interface between the brotherhood in North America and the mission ecclesia.
Speakers: They often teach at Bible schools and other gatherings overseas, in many ways similar to what would be done in North America.
Short term volunteers: Assist with special preaching efforts, campaigns etc. CBMA/CMBC Councils
As far as the CBMA/CBMC Councils are concerned, we all wear at least two hats. One role we all have is to give advice and consent via participation in the regular meetings.
Each member usually has one or more specific responsibilities as well, such as:
- Chairman: Organize the meetings and follow up as required.
- Secretary: Maintain official records. Process elections. Minutes.
- Finance: Deposit donations, disburse as required to missionaries.
- Coordinate Latin America activities
- Coordinate Caribbean activities
- Truth Corps program
- “This is Your Bible” website project
- Publicity: Newsletters, Magazine articles, Annual report to brotherhood, special presentations.
HOW will mission work be done In the future?
While we do not know exactly how things will change, we know that change will occur. The Apostle Paul preached in synagogues and on Mars Hill. He traveled under extreme conditions of hardship and peril. Today we fly in ease and comfort. Paul adapted his presentation of the gospel to the times and conditions in which he found himself: “I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some” (1Cor 9:22).
We have seen huge changes during the last 40 years. Today hand billing, newspaper advertisements and hard copy correspondence are being supplemented by Internet contacts, e-mail tutoring, intercontinental telephone baptismal instruction via Skype, and frequent phone calls. Some of these methods were simply not in existence or were cost prohibitive a few years ago.
CBMA/CBMC are making concentrated efforts during 2011 and 2012 to explore new avenues of communication and to make mission work available to many more brethren. While continuing the methods that have worked in the past, we want to initiate projects that can profitably utilize short term volunteers by having follow up visits overseas on a regular basis. The website “This Is Your Bible” is introducing the truth via pamphlets and correspondence courses that provide opportunities for brethren and sisters to teach the Truth from home. We look forward to having “Tutor Tours”. Imagine going on a one or two week visit to mission areas with an experienced missionary and having the opportunity to meet some of your correspondence students who will be attending a lecture!
We are determined to be as open-minded towards the future as we can be. We need to review techniques and methodology while conserving and teaching the fundamental principles of our faith. At the end of the day, it will still almost always come down to two people talking one-on-one about the gospel.
Whether we are on the front line or serving at home to make all this possible, it is wonderful to think that in the soon coming Kingdom of God there will be men and women who will live forever and we were part of it all. We cannot cure all the ills of the world, but we have not been asked to do that. We’ve been challenged to just do what we can to preach the Word.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One