The 7 Year Itch: Faithfulness or Success?

Faithfulness in mission can sometimes be threatened by our pragmatic views of success. Mission agencies, local churches — even missionaries themselves — get overly focused on success.

How many converts? How many church plants? How can I go on if I’m not seeing fruit from my work?

This problem only intensifies when one speaks of missions in the hardest corners of the world. Whereas many of the works being started among unreached people groups today, especially in remote regions like Central Asia, or Amazonian type jungles, are pioneering ventures, still these criticisms hound missionaries and mission organizations alike. It’s not worth it to spend time on such unprosperous ventures!

Let me challenge us to think of this difficulty in terms of “the seven year itch”. Here’s what I mean: in the pioneering mission ventures of the early 1800s, it often took 7 years before the first converts were seen.

William Carey, one of the first missionaries to India, often heralded as “the Father of Modern Missions”, arrived in Calcutta in November of 1793. By the end of 1800 (7 years later), he had his first convert.

Robert Morrison, the first protestant missionary to China, arrived in Macau, China in September 1807. He baptized his first convert nearly 7 years later on May 14, 1814.

Adoniram Judson, the first Baptist missionary from America, and one of the pioneer missionaries in Burma, arrived in India in June of 1812, and finally reached Burma in July of 1813. His first convert wasn’t baptized until 1819 (seven years after arriving in Asia, six years after beginning work in Burma).

I would hope we would all clamor for faithfulness before success. In the eyes of many in their day, the efforts of Carey, Morrison and Judson were futile. Converts were slow to come and much money was “wasted” in a vain effort to convert the savages. Today we would laugh at that assessment, yet we turn around and frown on the pioneering efforts of our own day. Let’s remember the “seven year itch”, and purpose to wholeheartedly support, and even to jump out in faith and attempt, bold pioneering ventures marked by faithfulness to Christ and his commission!

~~posted by Bob