When I arrived in China in 1948 I was confident that I had received a "divine call" to spend the rest of my life there as a "missionary to the heathen." I followed in the train of a great host of foreign missionaries who had gone before, holding in reverence such names as Robert Morrison (who arrived in China in 1807), Hudson Taylor (1853) and Jonathan Goforth (1888).

But something went terribly wrong. The Communists took over in 1949 and 6000 foreign missionaries were forced to leave, never to return. How could God allow such a thing?

Or was the hand of God involved in it, as He was in the Babylonian captivity of the ancient Hebrews? The prophet Jeremiah declared that the king of Babylon was God's servant (Jeremiah 43:10). Could it be that God was trying to tell us something when He allowed the largest "mission field" on earth to become permanently closed off to thousands of professional missionaries who said we had been "called" to work there?

Likewise India, the second largest. After His resurrection our Lord declared His eternal purpose to take out a people for His name from among every tribe and nation on this earth. So why should He permit 1600 “nations” in the subcontinent of India to be permanently cut off from thousands of idealistic young people in other countries who said they had received a "call" to go there?

Obviously there are some things amiss in our thinking about the whole concept of "foreign missions," and the purpose of this book is to reveal what they are.

Also, it is to present how things ought to be, in view of the fact that the multi-billion dollar missionary enterprise has largely missed out on what we should be doing. That's why a reformation is necessary.

I intend to show how the foreign missionary movement of the past 100 years is simply a church tradition that has no basis or precedent in the New Testament. That the ways in which we conduct it are often a denial of the most basic principles of Biblical Christianity. And it should be phased out and replaced with an entirely new approach that more closely conforms to the will of God. There are other alternatives which are much more sensible and far more effective than those being followed today by mission organizations based in America, Canada, Korea and other industrialized countries.

But before I discuss the faults of the system and the ways to change it, I want to express my appreciation for the deeds of the early pioneers who went out beginning over 200 years ago. Whenever I have mentioned the need for reform someone usually retorts, "Are you suggesting that great men of God like William Carey, Adoniram Judson and David Livingstone were outside the will of God?"