Bruce Dipple, former director of SIM Australia/East Asia and ex-head of Missions at Sydney Missionary and Bible College, has challenged missionaries and churches to reconsider their use of the words “sent” and “called”.

Speaking at the CMS “Summer Under the Son” conference in Melbourne in January, Dipple called on churches to move away from associating the biblical concept of sentness with only a select few being sent to share the gospel.

During a Q&A, he questioned CMS describing themselves as a sending agency, rather than referring to the local church as the sending body.

“I have a problem with any suggestion of CMS being a ‘sending agency’. I think that’s unbiblical and unhelpful in practice. But CMS know my view … I have sat down with their leadership to try and explain my view … they still invited me back to speak,” he said wryly.

The discussion at Summer Under the Son is a local example of a worldwide debate in mission circles about who does the ‘sending’.

Dipple says Jesus’ prayer in John 17 shows that we are all sent people, with many ways of expressing our sentness.

“What I would love to see—and there are many churches expressing it this way—is your church extending its ministry, expressing its sentness through [the missionary family] to the location they’re going to. Not sending the missionary off to do their ministry over there, but rather extending your church’s ministry through them.”

He argues that by shifting the way we think and speak about mission, more people will become engaged in the gospel work that’s being done by their church through their mission partners.

“You will ask yourself, who is it you’re trying to reach? We better find out who those people are. What are they like? What’s their culture like? What’s their language? Should we go and have a look ourselves, and have a visit and learn about our ministry that’s taking place there through you?”

Bruce Dipple speaking in Victoria in January.

Following his comments, the head of development and training at CMS Victoria, David Williams responded to Bruce:

“Bruce, you helped us in the development of our current vision statement and part of the outcome of that was an internal conversation within CMS about exactly this question of who sends …

“And our current key purpose vision statement says: ‘We work with local churches to set apart long-term workers who cross cultures to share the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.’

“So thank you for helping us make progress on this issue. We’re a huge ocean liner and we have a very large turning circle.”

Both Dipple and Williams’ comments were made with obvious respect for the other, and were met with laughter and appreciation from those present.

Speaking to Eternity later in the day, Bruce said he also thinks the concept of ‘calling’ has become distorted by people using the word in a supernatural sense to refer to their path to becoming missionaries, which Bruce believes is unbiblical.

“The biblical call is always to salvation,” says Bruce. “Ministry is for all; we’re sent into that world to minister, and we’re promised the guidance and wisdom we need to do it.

“So let’s get on board helping people to discover the way forward in their life instead of waiting for this super-spiritual zap from above.”

Dipple has written a book on church engagement with global mission called Becoming Global (Sydney: SMBC Press, 2011).