Rufus Anderson, a famous missionary statesman from the 1800s, claimed that both pastors and missionaries are ministers of the gospel, and as such they must each maintain a focus on reaching all peoples with the gospel. In other words, the work of evangelizing people in other parts of the world should not be relegated simply to the foreign missionary; rather, pastors at home should also keep this aim in view as they shepherd their churches to live life on mission.
His words are well worth heeding:
“To me it is a self-evident truth, that ministers at home are as much bound to do what they can, in their circumstances, for the vigorous extension of Christ’s kingdom, as are those brother ministers, whose sense of personal duty calls them to go abroad. The ministers of Jesus Christ, wherever their post of duty, stand related to the whole work on the broad scale of the earth. Foreign missions have, therefore, a claim upon all Christian ministers, according to the means of affording aid. Not the pastoral work alone, not home missions alone, not foreign missions alone, but laboring to make the gospel known ‘to every creature,’ at home and abroad, is our proper business as the ministers of Christ.”[i]
[i] Rufus Anderson, Foreign Missions: Their Relations and Claims (New York: Charles Scribner, 1869), 267.
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