Missionary Anecdote

I read this account in Outgrowing the Ingrown Church. I thought it highlighted some good missiological principles that are applicable to every church and every Christian.

"Vednayakam Samuel Azariah became [the Anglican] bishop of Dornakal, the smallest diocese in the subcontinent. By the time he died at the end of World Warr II, the diocese had become the largest in all India.

What made the difference? Many things. Azariah stressed the importance of Bible knowledge being systematically imparted in all the churches. He focused on leadership training, regular evangelism, crusades after the harvests, and the use of native Indian cultural forms of worship and music. But he did something else that was supremely important. He insisted that every congregation and every church member get their [sic] identity straight. He stressed continually that each congregation was Christ's and distinct from the world . . . Often Azariah would dramatize the need for outgoing witness when he arrived in a congregation by asking every Christian in the church building to stand up and put his or her hands on their heads and say, "I am a baptized Christian. Woe is me if I preach not the gospel!"