Years ago (2005-2008), as I and the other co-founders of what is now known as Radius International were laying out the values that would guide this endeavor, there were many concerns about the missions landscape at that time that we wanted to address. In doing so we hoped to keep Radius from drifting into becoming just another ‘missions training program,’ of which there were, and continue to be, many.

As we looked at the existing situation in missions there was a never-ending list of ideas, projects, outreaches, and services being done overseas by well-intentioned Christian workers…but few efforts truly saw leaving behind a functioning healthy church as their unquestioned/measurable goal. In looking at the life of the apostle Paul, who is a model for any missionary, how could ‘Church Planting’ not be the first of many foundational values that would guide us? It continues to be our first core value.

The next value we felt that clearly needed to be stated was to codify Paul’s heart expressed in Rom. 15:20 where he states, “It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation.”  That pioneer spirit coupled with the vision of John that we read of in Rev. 5:9, 7:9 where “every tongue, tribe, and nation” are clearly giving us a view to when the redeemed of all time, speakers of every language, are represented by those 24 elders singing that song around the throne of God.  Even the phrasing that Jesus uses in Matthew 28:19, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations…”  gives focus and scope to the nature of His plan for the gospel to penetrate every ethne.  Jesus in those words is describing HIS plan for the evangelization of all nations!   Yet we must keep in mind that Jesus is not using the term there, or in Lk. 24:47, that would describe geopolitical nations. The phrase clearly focuses on the ethnically linguistically differentiated peoples. All of them. That was to be the focus.  Thus ‘Reaching Unreached Language Groups’ became the second foundational value that would keep us on track.

And then, because of what the two of us had seen too often happen overseas where a ‘good start’ was followed by distractions, loss of focus, and a host of other avoidable (some unavoidable attrition will always be a part of any difficult endeavor) reasons, the idea of putting before Radius students, on a regular basis, the value of ‘Finishing Well’ was seen as essential.  Especially given the age we are living in.  It is that value that I want to address in this article.

Describing the idea of ‘Finishing Well’ is in some ways dictated by the endeavor in view.  For the football player (as I write this, I’m still basking in the glow of Michigan’s unexpected win over Ohio State, sorry to all you Buckeye fans) laying it all out for 60 minutes is to finish well. The goal is to win, but at times it is unattainable.  Those men who landed on Omaha beach on June 6^th, 1944, had many goals. Taking various French villages, taking certain roads, destroying certain gun emplacements…but the initial goal had to be to take the beach.  At an incredibly high price, the men of D-Day finished well. All the beaches were taken that day. In some ways this is the model for the pioneer church planter. Those who see languages learned, evangelism carried out, people saved and discipled, leadership raised up and churches planted (Finishing Well) also long to see the church affect the status of women, care of the elderly and orphans, raising of kids with godly values, even better sanitation and healthier crops raised…but the church must be the springboard that all those things come from.

Too often that order gets reversed, and the attention given to those other goals slowly eats into and finally undermines the primary goal of seeing a healthy church raised up.

Let’s look at what scripture says on this topic.  In Gen. 2:2 it says, “By the seventh day God finished the work he had been doing; so the seventh day he rested from all his work.”

The Lord Jesus himself says while looking at the coming hours of his crucifixion in John. 17:4, “I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.”  Neither God’s work in creation nor Christ’s work in redemption are obviously anything we can imitate, but the pattern of finishing what we start, keeping our eye on the main goal, and getting that done IS something we can and should expend ourselves completely for… even to the point of death if the cause is worthy. And our cause IS worthy.

Who is more of a model of this than Paul himself?! While acknowledging to the Ephesian elders that the Holy Spirit had made clear to him that prison and other hardships awaited him upon his return to Jerusalem, his words to those elders must thunder across the ages to us today, and be spoken by pioneer church planters today, “However, I consider my life worth nothing to me if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.”

Even as I write this I can imagine some thinking, “Well isn’t the harvest God’s business? Aren’t we called to merely sow and water and then relax?” And to a degree, I agree with those sentiments. Yet, unfortunately in our current environment an attitude of ‘Let go and let God’ has so permeated many of God’s people that the focus, drive, and commitment of the Apostle Paul, William Tyndale (who was burned at the stake for His defiance of the King’s orders not to translate the scriptures into the English language), John Paton who buried his wife and child in Vanuatu and continued on in his work, and Adoniram Judson who buried wives and children and continued on working in Burma is totally incomprehensible to many today. Talking in such ways is like speaking a foreign language to many modern Christians. These examples, our forerunners who now make up the cloud of witnesses in Heb. 12, sound so out of sync with our current age that we have nearly been robbed of the need to ‘Finish Well.’  In exchange for such words of commitment, focus, and sacrifice we have substituted, “Well, I gave it my best shot.” “I didn’t know it would be this hard on my children,” “God just wanted me to be willing,” and a variety of other sounds of surrender.  We in the missions world are surrounded by them, even some Radius grads have used those phrases.

I say this in great pain as I love all our grads and respect them greatly. But when I hear these words and ideas coming from those who know better, I will admit I’m saddened.  Isn’t He worthy of our all, our spouses, yes…even our children?  In times of peace, nearly all would say this; it’s in times of testing we discover how worthy He is of our all.

Few missionaries today die overseas due to persecution, abduction, even disease (A father of 6 in my church here in San Diego DID die due to disease just a few years back, but that is truly exceptional today). Mostly they get worn down by the day in day out grind of working with fallen partners, slow fruit, and unrelenting health issues that cause many missionaries to function at 50-75% health, seriously akin to Judson’s ministry.  And in such ways ‘Finishing Well’ becomes a distant ideal.  Instead substituting ‘getting out with a plausible reason’ for not staying through the time of great testing becomes thinkable. And thus, we at RI speak continuously of finishing well, quoting Paul often as he wrote to Timothy in II Tim. 4:7, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

All of us who know Christ desire to hear from Him, “Well done my good and faithful servant.” Even in our fallen state of multiple setbacks, bad decisions, and choices made in times of weakness…have we picked ourselves up and taken His restorative words to a fallen Peter in Jn. 21:15 as our own, “Feed my lambs”? As we trudge through the dark valleys of weakness and loss, may we keep our eyes on the prize so as to finish well. To those who live in such a way, hating this world and LONGING for His appearing, Paul says there will be a crown of righteousness. Not to the casual, not to those who ‘gave it a try,’ but to those who laid it all out for Him, His Kingdom, and His glory.  To those who held back nothing, there is great reward.  HE is worth it, spreading His Kingdom to those peoples who’ve never heard the message of forgiveness is worth it!