Introduction to There is NO TIME 

The world has changed. Missions has not.

Back before the turn of the twentieth century, when many mission agencies were birthed by the Student Volunteer Movement of the 1880s, including Avant Ministries, travel was by steamship, communication was difficult, and terms were long. Even fifty years ago, when the conclusion of World War II brought a tidal wave of new missionaries, little had changed.

But now warp-speed change has gripped this world fueled by globalization and terrorism. The static has been replaced by the fluid. Old paradigms based upon assumptions and not realities prove to be increasingly ineffective.

Today communication is instantaneous and global. Today travel is fast and relatively cheap. Today the doors to countries open and close quickly as governments form, fall and re-form again. Today the most unreached nations are also the most unstable. Today there are more unbelievers alive than at any other time in history. Tomorrow there will be even more.

What does this mean for the evangelical missionary enterprise? It means that present and future effectiveness requires a willingness to look at new models, new structures and new paradigms.

The model presented on the pages of this book is not intended to be viewed as the only way the pieces of the puzzle can be re-assembled. I am not that presumptuous. However, it does represent one plausible attempt to address the problem. It is a model that draws equally from academic research, field experience and the corporate world. And it is a model that has rapidly accumulating evidence for its effectiveness.

I have been heavily influenced by learned men who have sought to communicate conceptual truth not in a didactic fashion but via the medium of story. The fable that follows represents my attempt to communicate in the same manner.