My Life as a Missionary

     Over half my life has been devoted to missions, particularly in New Zealand and the South Pacific. My only regret is that it hasn’t involved most or all of my life. In my younger years this was one of the furthest things from my mind, but God has a way of broadening our horizons beyond our feeble imaginations.

WHY:

     Why did I get involved in missions? When I became a Christian at the age of 14, I fully intended to give the rest of my life to the Lord. Unfortunately, in my later teenage years, I allowed myself to be negatively influenced by the wrong kind of people and went astray. By the grace of God I survived my “wilderness wandering,” and while attending a Christian college (Freed-Hardeman University) I realized that the people I admired and respected the most were those who took their faith seriously. Once I got back on track and started growing again spiritually, I never looked back. I was convicted by God’s love and providential care and was determined to show Him my appreciation and live up to His expectations. As a disciple of Jesus I accepted my God-given “ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:17-21) and was compelled to fulfill it.

WHERE:

     Where would I go to do the Lord’s work? It was never really a matter of where I was needed, since I could faithfully serve God wherever I happened to be. The question for me was where I might be needed the most, and since the majority of full-time workers in the Lord’s church were (and still are) in the USA, somewhere overseas was my main consideration. But there were over a thousand different places I felt that I needed to be, so I had to narrow down my options. Through the influence of former missionaries to New Zealand, and having done extensive research, corresponding with New Zealand Christians, and a lot of praying, I made one of the best decisions of my life. Being a long-term missionary in New Zealand became my primary focus, and the next few years were invested in preparing to achieve this goal.

WHO:

     With whom would I work? I wasn’t successful in forming a team, so it was a matter of either going by myself or not going at all. In my mid-20s I moved to Wellington, New Zealand and worked with the church there as a single evangelist for seven years. I then served as missionary-in-residence at Freed-Hardeman University for the next two years, during which time I married my wife Lynne. As newlyweds we moved to Wanganui, New Zealand, where our two daughters were born. We spent seven years establishing the church in Wanganui with two other families (a mix of New Zealanders and North Americans). After teaching Bible and missions at FHU for another seven years, I took a two-year leave of absence and we returned to New Zealand to plant the church in Porirua City, with the assistance of the nearby Wellington congregation. Now we’re back at FHU, while three other couples (FHU graduates) are carrying on the Porirua work.

WHAT:

     What have we done to reach the lost in New Zealand? The very best source of contacts for the gospel are friends and family members of those who are already Christians. Visitors to our worship assemblies are also good prospects. But when a brand new work is being started, other means are necessary. Bible literature distribution (letterboxing) and door-knocking are good ways to make initial contacts, with whom we always try to set up Bible studies. While this type of work is done on a smaller scale by the evangelist and local Christians, periodically larger campaign groups (principally from the USA) are utilized to make an even greater impact on the community. Other outreach efforts have included gospel meetings and special seminars, Holiday Bible Schools, Bible correspondence courses, youth and family activities, and benevolence. When conversions result from personal Bible studies, continued follow-up is invested to ground new converts in the faith and incorporate them into the life of the church.

HOW:

     How can you get involved in this kind of work? Here are five suggestions:

1. Dream. This is where it all begins. You must envision yourself actively involved in God’s work, not only enjoying His rich blessings but fulfilling your God-given responsibilities in His kingdom.

2. Desire. Your dream will at some point convict your heart and compel you to pursue it. We must have faith that the Lord will help us do whatever He has commissioned us to do.

3. Decision. The next step is to move beyond merely thinking about it and resolve to do something about it. This includes deciding where to go and making the necessary preparations.

4. Determination. It’s not going to be easy, and you can’t allow the inevitable setbacks and discouragements to prevent your dream from becoming reality. Giving up cannot be an option. As you are determined to do your part, trust that God will open the doors and take care of the rest.

5. Dedication. You have to be wholeheartedly committed to what you are doing for the Lord. Never let the devil win. As you remain faithful to the task, believe that with God on your side anything you set your mind to do can be accomplished.

CONCLUSION:

     While I am currently involved in recruiting and training prospective missionaries, admittedly my heart is still in the mission field. Once you’re a missionary, you’re always a missionary. Whatever you decide to do in the Lord’s service, and wherever you plan to do it, just think about where you might be needed the most and how you can make the greatest impact in view of eternity. I can confidently say without reservation that when you step into those missionary shoes, your life will never be the same! 

--Kevin L. Moore

Originally appearing in Hashtag Media's Mission (May 2013) under the title, "New Zealand Missionary."

Related Posts: Obstacles or Opportunities?, Called to Be a Missionary Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

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Early Restoration Pioneers Outside the United States

     Along with the concerted effort in the 19th century to restore New Testament Christianity in North America, similar movements were underway in other parts of the world. The present study documents some of these works from Scotland to New Zealand, from New Zealand to Australia, and from Australia to Southern Africa.      

From Scotland to New Zealand:

     Thomas Jackson, a product of the restoration movement in Glasgow, Scotland, arrived in New Zealand in November 1843, bringing with him the simple plea for undenominational Christianity. With the help of George Taylor from Yorkshire, a congregation was planted in the South Island city of Nelson in March 1844, becoming the first church of Christ in the Southern Hemisphere. A second congregation was started in Auckland by Jackson and some of his converts the following year. Word eventually spread to the United States, and in 1846 Alexander Campbell devoted two pages in his Millennial Harbinger to the news of the establishment and growth of churches of Christ in New Zealand. 
     By 1885 there was a membership of over 1,200 New Testament Christians among twenty-five congregations. J. W. Shepherd, who would later serve as editor of the Gospel Advocate, preached in Christchurch and Oamaru from 1888 to early 1890 before heading to Australia. Near the turn of the 20th century, human innovations began creeping into the New Zealand churches, including a conference system of church organization, ecumenical philosophies, and instrumental music in worship. Although a small number of disciples resisted these changes, a denominational organization known as the Associated Church of Christ eventually formed.

     Cyril Tucker, having been influenced by the Gospel Advocate, was instrumental in getting staff writer John Allen Hudson from Oklahoma to come to New Zealand in 1936 to teach the Bible for a year. Californian Paul Mathews arrived in 1956, locating a six-member congregation in Nelson, eight members in Auckland, and two in Wellington. Mathews helped establish additional churches in Invercargill (1957), Tauranga (1958), and Dunedin (1959), with the Bill Watts family and more U.S. workers arriving in the following decades. Today there are about two dozen autonomous churches of Christ in New Zealand.

From New Zealand to Australia:

     One of Thomas Jackson’s first converts in New Zealand was Englishman Thomas Magarey, who moved to Australia in 1845 at the age of twenty. By 1848 Magarey had successfully led out of denominationalism a Scotch Baptist assembly in Adelaide, thus establishing the Lord’s church in Australia. The previous year, however, a group of Christians from the New Mills church of Christ in Scotland had immigrated to Australia and settled in the Willunga Maclaren area.

     In the 1860s and 1870s North American missionaries began arriving in Australia, including Henry S. Earl and Tommy J. Gore. J. W. Shepherd worked in Sydney from 1890 to 1892. While the brotherhood in Australia reached as many as 130 congregations consisting of approximately 8,000 members, the introduction of the missionary society and mechanical instruments brought about division in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Only about 100 Christians were left who opposed the innovations, mainly around the Sydney area.   

     Gospel Advocate staff writer John Allen Hudson, having spent the previous year in New Zealand, visited Australia in 1937. In 1948 Charles Tinius was the first full-time evangelist from the United States in Australia since J. W. Shepherd fifty-six years earlier, and Tom Tarbet arrived in 1955. Additional U.S. missionaries contributed to the work in subsequent years, and today there are over eighty-five nondenominational churches of Christ in Australia.

From New Zealand/Australia to Southern Africa:

     John Sherriff, the son of English immigrants, was born in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1864. At the age of twenty-one he moved to Melbourne, Australia to train as a stonemason. It was here that he learned and obeyed the gospel and became active in the work of the church. In 1889 he married Marguerite Wilson, but when their first child died in infancy, Marguerite became mentally unstable and had to be confined to an institution for the rest of her life. In later years, following her death, Sherriff married Emma Dodson, one of his Australian converts. 

     Sherriff decided to leave the South Pacific region to become a self-supporting missionary, arriving in Cape Town, South Africa in February 1896. He organized a church of twelve members in Cape Town, and he settled for a time in Pretoria where he started a congregation there also. He then moved further north into Southern Rhodesia (modern-day Zimbabwe), arriving in Bulawayo in the last hours of 1897.

     In 1898, while working as a stonemason during the day, Sherriff began teaching his African workers at night. Meeting twice a week, he taught them to read English using the Bible as a textbook. Many were baptized and then trained to preach. By 1904 he had baptized two whites, six African women, and sixty-seven African men and boys. 

     Sherriff enthusiastically wrote to friends in Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand about the missionary prospects in the area and gained additional support. It was during this time that the missionary society was growing in prominence, and it appears that some support initially came from the Foreign Missions Committee of New Zealand. Additional workers from New Zealand and Scotland came to help in the work.

     At Forrest Vale (five miles/eight kilometers from Bulawayo) a 412-acre farm was purchased, becoming Sherriff’s permanent home, with his wife, two daughters, and two African girls they raised from childhood. There an agricultural school was begun, where Sherriff trained and sent out African evangelists to other parts of Zimbabwe and to other nations in Central and Southern Africa. In later years Sherriff was instrumental in establishing the work at Livingstone in Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and in Blantyre in Nyasaland (now Malawi), and he also helped to start another congregation in Cape Town, South Africa. 

     By 1918 churches of Christ in the United States became involved in this work. Jesse P. Sewell persuaded the church in Sherman, Texas to support Sherriff, with additional support coming later from A. M. Burton of Nashville, Tennessee, allowing brother Sherriff to shift his energies from stone-cutting to full-time ministry. In 1921 Will N. and Nancy Short became the first U.S. missionaries to join the work. John Sherriff died at his home in Forrest Vale in 1935. Today there are over 400 churches of Christ in Zimbabwe.

     From Great Britain to New Zealand to Australia to Southern Africa: “So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:11 NKJV).

--Kevin L. Moore

Works Consulted:

     Hastings, Marvin W. Saga of a Movement: Story of the Restoration Movement. Manchester, TN: Christian Schoolmaster, 1981: 51-64.

     Jacobs, Lyndsay. “The Movement in New Zealand,” in The Encyclopedia of the Stone Campbell-Movement. Eds. Douglas A. Foster, Paul M. Blowers, Anthony L. Dunnavan, and D. Newell Williams. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004: 563-66.

     Kyle, Rod. “From the Heart of New Zealand,” in The Voice of Truth International 32 (n.d.): 102-110.

     Lyn, Mac, ed., Churches of Christ Around the World. Nashville, TN: 21st Century Christian, 2003: 28, 160.
     Major, Trevor. "J.W. Shepherd's Work in New Zealand (1888-1890)," in Gospel Advocate 154:12 (December 2012): 30-31.

     Meredith, Don L. “John Sherriff,” in The Encyclopedia of the Stone Campbell-Movement. Eds. Douglas A. Foster, Paul M. Blowers, Anthony L. Dunnavan, and D. Newell Williams. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004: 684.

     Merrit, Dow. The Dew Breakers. Nashville, TN: World Vision, 1971: 10-23.

     Rutherford, Rod. Practical Principles of World Evangelism. Powell, TN: Rutherford Publications, n.d.: 53-54.

Related articles: David Padfield's Christianity Before Alexander Campbell

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