Send the Light

            The evangelical mission drove Franson. He saw himself as God’s chosen messenger to deliver the message of salvation through Jesus Christ to the world. He spent nearly ten years in Europe conducting revival meetings from country to country, even into Germany by 1890. He experienced opposition in most locations as his message challenged existing structures of authority and even leaders of the Mormon presence in those countries. European opposition attacked from entrenched authorities and superb organization and became increasingly burdensome. He continued to preach, believing God guided him. For Franson, God guided his next step through the well-known missionary to China—J. Hudson Taylor.

            Itinerant evangelism showed that one man could be a force in the world through the preaching of the gospel. Franson had not thought much about a career change—he preached as long as he believed that God brought results. While he continued his itinerant ministry, a transformation occurred in the way missionary work preceded. Interdenominational “faith” missions blossomed in the late nineteenth century and almost every believer became aware of J. Hudson Taylor and his China Inland Mission. . . . The “faith” mission goal of enculturation for missionaries required them to learn how to communicate within the rules and regulations of established cultural behavior. The missionary internalized normal patterns of everyday life in order to contextualize insights of the culture as a conduit for bringing the message of the gospel to the inhabitants. China Inland Mission missionaries lived among the people to whom they sought to bring ministry in order to have a greater identity with them.

A “faith” mission lacked denominational assistance; therefore, God took on the role as supplier of the individual missionary. Generally, the missionaries raised money without direct personal or institutional solicitation of funds. They gained income through informing church audiences and praying. For many religious communities of the western world, the idea of “faith” missions presented an approach based on unsound planning. For others it possessed an incredible appeal in the faith principles.

. . . It was no more than a simple plea from Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission that moved Franson in a new direction. Taylor repeatedly requested more missionaries for China through the years. Usually the number increased little by little, until December 1889 when he asked for 1,000 new missionaries to come to China and evangelize the 250 million people in its deepest inland provinces. Taylor printed his appeal in China Inland Mission’s publication China’s Millions and other religious publications of the day picked it up. The program was logically presented:

if one thousand whole-hearted evangelists, male and female, were set free and kept free for this special work, they might reach the whole number of China’s millions before the end of 1895, and this allowing two years of the five for study of the language and preparation for the work. Estimating the population of China as we do at 250 million, there will be about 1,000 days by each of the 1,000 evangelists, every creature in China could be reached in three years’ time, leaving the evangelist two or three Sundays for rest each month.