Trust the Local Church
by Dennis Wiles
Senior Pastor
First Baptist Church, Arlington TX
Delivered at the Unreached and Least Evangelized Peoples Forum
November 2007
Irving Bible Church
Irving, Texas
The local church is my area of interest and where I am most involved. The local church is where I have found my place of fulfillment and I am able to live out my calling. As a Baptist preacher, I want to thank you for the work you have done as missions experts, missiologists, statisticians, missionaries, and missions pastors. You have challenged us, helped us, and aided our ministry. Thank you on behalf of my brothers and sisters who serve as pastors of churches across North America. I am coming to you from that perspective, and I am sure that what I have to say today would probably be viewed as preaching to the choir. But I wonder if every once in a while, the choir needs a new song or two. I want to make an appeal to you on behalf of the local church.
I have the privilege of serving as the pastor of First Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas. Our church was established in 1871 when Ulysses Grant was president. We were established before the town actually got its name, and we moved to what was then known as downtown.
Missions Phases within our church
Phase One. The first missions phase within our church was a church planting phase in the city itself. Almost every Baptist congregation in our city—which is now a community of about 350,000—is either a daughter or a granddaughter of our church.
Phase Two. About 20 years ago, our church shifted its missions emphasis. Our pastor at the time attended a conference somewhat like this, and was told that the largest segment of unreached people in America were apartment-dwellers. So he decided to try and reach the apartment-dwellers in our city and the surrounding corridor. We asked a missionary from Korea who had grown up in our church to head up that ministry, and she is still on our staff as the minister of global ministries. That ministry has matured, and we now have 264 apartment churches that we oversee. They meet in their various apartments every Sunday, and we meet at the mother church in downtown. There are about 3.600 people who are attending those 264 congregations. They’ve been very effective at reaching people.
Phrase Three. About six years ago, my wife Cindy and I came to Texas to serve as pastor of First Baptist Church, Arlington. We moved to Texas from Alabama. I know when a lot of people hear me talk, they think we must have spent time in New York or Wisconsin, but it’s really not true. We began to assess the life of our congregation to try to determine exactly what we needed to do in response to the calling of God upon our lives (mine and Cindy’s) as well as the whole life of our church family. What happened is that we really began a journey of ecclesiology.
I’d like to share a passage of scripture with you. When Jesus made his promise that He was going to establish the church, that’s exactly what took place. Our ecclesiology at our church is based upon Acts 2:42 where Luke says ‘they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.’ The NIV translates the word ‘prayer’ as a singular prayer, but in the Greek text underneath it, it’s in the plural. It’s an obvious reference to the schedule of worship in the temple.
Three Pillars for any New Testament church
At our church we have adopted three pillars: (1) spiritual formation; (2) fellowship of community; and (3) worship. Those are the three pillars that were in existence in the very first church, and it is our contention that any New Testament church stands on those three pillars. People are to be led in spiritual formation—to devote to teaching. That teaching is to be lived out in the community–to devote to the fellowship. The community is to worship—to devote to prayer.
And so we committed ourselves to those three pillars: making sure that we were healthy; that our church was living in community and fellowship with one another; that we were being formed spiritually; and that we were offering significant worship opportunities both personally and corporately. When those three pillars are in place and when they’re healthy, then missions and ministry grow out of a healthy congregation. And so I will make the appeal that I believe one of the secret ingredients to effective missions in any culture, in any place, at any time is to establish healthy congregations because that seems to be where God has chosen to work. That’s certainly been true in our church.
The Holy Spirit as strategist
Out of that time of ecclesiological revival for our church, we began to assess our global ministry investment. We discovered that we really didn’t have one that was really making much of an impact. So we asked God for direction. We began to research, and we decided that we would just start going.
My PhD is in church history—not in missions. However, I have discovered that the best missiologist and the best strategist in missions is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has led the church throughout its entire history. The Holy Spirit called the very first missionaries. And the Holy Spirit challenged churches to get the gospel to the world. So our church began to consult the leadership of the Spirit of God in our body, and God led us to just go. We started short-term mission trips.
Go, Adopt, Engage, Prepare/Train/Send
We found ourselves called to West Africa, and that’s where we have spent a great deal of time. Then God called us to adopt an unreached people group, and we adopted the Fulani people of West Africa—a population anywhere from 23 to 28 million. I noticed that some statisticians throw those numbers around by the millions. I don’t know about y’all, but to me there is a big difference between 23 and 28 million. If I ever checked my balance at the ATM machine, and saw a million in my account, that’d be pretty significant! Nevertheless, there are about 28 million Fulani. Yet there are very few believers. Although we focused primarily on West Africa, God also led us to multiple trips with multiple teams literally across the world—to Central America, to many places in the USA, as well as in Africa where our attention has been most focused.
Once we started going, we created a certain environment or atmosphere within our church. We went from adoption to engagement. We decided that God was leading us to actually engage the Fulani, and so we then began to assist people who were on the ground in places like Niger, where the gospel could be proclaimed from one village to the next. Our church began sending some of our own people to spend some time in Niger. One of those would be my wife Cindy. I think last year, she went to Africa five times then I quit counting. But it was a little better than the year before that – she was gone 71 days, then once again, I quit counting. Nevertheless, we decided to have a church that is willing to embrace that kind of load for a pastors’ wife and for the congregation, and so God has honored that in our church and I am grateful for it.
We went from engaging to making the decision that we needed to become a church that would prepare people to go to the field, train them to go, and send them. We as a church decided that that was going to be our decision, what we would do. So I called a meeting. What I’ve learned about preachers is that we like to talk to each other. We like to listen to what each other is doing. We’re very interested in what’s happening in each others’ lives. We pastors like to talk to each other and we want to be challenged by each other.
First Baptist Church, Arlington has begun partnering with other congregations in training and networking and we’ve become a training church and a sending church. We still support our historic connections. Our church is a Baptist General Convention of Texas church, and we still support the BGCT. Our church is a Southern Baptist Convention church, and we still support the IMB (International Mission Board). Our church is a part of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, and we support the CBF. Our church is a part of the Baptist World Alliance, and we support the BWA. We also support multiple other entities that I could give to you. But here’s what God has done to us since that’s happened. God has helped us learn the value of significant accountable relationships.
The Local Church provides the best care for missionaries
One of the things that I have learned about missionaries over the last twenty years of working with them is that missionaries are people. I wasn’t raised to believe that. I was raised to believe that missionaries glowed in the dark. And they just walked into rooms with all their holiness. Their families never had problems. They woke up every morning to angel music playing in their homes or their hut. Everything always worked out for them.
What I’ve learned over the past twenty years is that missionaries get divorced. Missionaries have problem children. Missionaries get depressed. Missionaries get discouraged. Missionaries deal with real life issues. And what I have also learned is that the best place, the best vehicle, the best tool that God has to care for missionaries, is the local church. The local church specializes in providing pastoral care for people. We specialize in nurturing people. We specialize in helping people get healthy and helping them in deal with relationships within their families. We specialize in making sure that they’re growing spiritually. We specialize in loving people and providing them a safe place to return to when they need a respite or they need a retreat or they need haven. We specialize in reaching out our arms around the world and loving them. We specialize in praying for people. That’s what the local church does. That’s who the local church is.
God is really convicting our church that missionaries need us. Missionaries need the church. I am convinced right now—more than I have ever been in my entire ministry—that missionaries and the mission cause needs healthy local churches to be invested and engaged in this process. That’s where our people are. That’s where our resources are. That’s where the stewardship of God’s money takes place for supporting missionaries. So, I want to encourage you and hope to help you if you’re struggling in trusting a local church, I want you to know that there are many pastors and many local churches just waiting to be trusted and waiting to be engaged.
Click here to read more about what God is accomplishing through FBC Arlington.