When we hear the word “missionary,” it is easy to imagine a one-way movement: Christians from one country go to another country, preach the gospel, establish churches, train leaders, and then return home. But the history of the Church of the Nazarene became more complicated than that. Dr. Jerald D. Johnson stood in the middle of that transition, and Mission to the World helps us see why.
There is one bibliographic detail worth clarifying at the beginning. Mission to the World: A History of Missions in the Church of the Nazarene Through 1985 was published in 1988 by Nazarene Publishing House and is credited to J. Fred Parker, with Johnson contributing the foreword. It is a substantial 684-page history. So when I call it Johnson’s book in this reflection, I am referring to his important connection with the work and its missionary vision, not claiming that he alone wrote the volume.
Johnson knew mission from the field
Johnson’s connection to world mission was not merely administrative. He pioneered Nazarene work in West Germany beginning in 1958 and became the first superintendent of the European District. He was also involved in the establishment of European Nazarene College near Schaffhausen, Switzerland.
That background matters. Johnson had experienced cross-cultural ministry before becoming one of the denomination’s central mission leaders. After returning to the United States, he became director of the World Missions Division in 1973. In that role, he helped implement new structures for an increasingly international church. In 1980, he was elected general superintendent and served for seventeen years. 0
This means Mission to the World belongs to a much larger story. Johnson was not simply looking backward at missionary history. He was helping lead the church while the meaning of missionary partnership itself was changing.
From “mission field” to partners in mission
This is where the story becomes especially interesting to me.
The Church of the Nazarene had always possessed an international dimension. Its own historical account points to organized work outside North America from the denomination’s earliest years and identifies national leaders who helped establish the church in different cultures. But by the late twentieth century, the question was no longer simply how to send missionaries farther. The question was how to become one church in which leadership, decision-making and ministry were genuinely shared. 1
During Johnson’s years as World Missions director, the denomination began deliberately restructuring its missionary system around internationalization. Historical material describing his administration records efforts toward new structures, new methods and greater participation from churches outside North America. One example was the development of regular district status beyond the traditional North American and British framework. 2
That is more than organizational rearrangement. It changes how we understand mission.
If missionaries are always the ones who possess the knowledge, while the people receiving the gospel are always the ones who listen, then mission remains fundamentally one-directional. But the New Testament presents something richer.
Jesus commands his disciples to “make disciples of all nations” in Matthew 28:19–20. In Acts 1:8, the movement of witness goes outward from Jerusalem to Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth. The direction is geographical, but the people carrying the gospel are not permanently divided into “senders” and “receivers.” Revelation 7:9 ultimately pictures people from every nation, tribe, people and language standing together before God.
The destination of mission is therefore not the creation of permanently dependent churches. It is a people gathered from every culture into the worship and mission of God.
Johnson’s general superintendency belongs inside that transition
Johnson’s seventeen years as general superintendent, from 1980 to 1997, came during a decisive period of Nazarene internationalization. The denomination’s historical statement records that by 1998 half of Nazarenes no longer lived in the United States and Canada. By 2017, more than half of the Board of General Superintendents were people born and raised outside North America. 3
I would not attribute that entire transformation to Johnson. The history is larger than one man. But it is difficult to discuss the transition without acknowledging his influence. The Church of the Nazarene itself described him after his death as tremendously influential in shaping its internationalization, particularly through his commitment to developing national leadership. 4
That helps me read Mission to the World differently. Mission history is not merely a record of missionaries who went somewhere. It is also a record of what happened to the church when the people who received the missionary message became leaders, teachers, pastors, district superintendents, theologians and missionaries themselves.
The missionary may have something to learn
There is a biblical humility here that every missionary movement needs.
Paul’s image of the body in 1 Corinthians 12:12–27 refuses the idea that one part of Christ’s body can say to another, “I have no need of you.” Philippians 2:3–4 calls Christians to regard others with humility and to look beyond their own interests. These passages do not erase leadership or doctrinal responsibility, but they challenge the assumption that Christian mission means one side always gives while the other always receives.
That does not mean every expression of internationalization was perfect. Structures can change without hearts changing. A church can decentralize administration and still carry cultural assumptions into its theology, leadership and expectations. The important question is whether internationalization produces genuine mutuality or merely a different form of control.
Johnson’s own story makes that question personal. Before he became a general superintendent, he had already experienced the importance of developing national leadership in Europe. Later, as a denominational leader, he helped move that concern into the wider structure of the church. 5
The story did not end in 1985
Mission to the World ends its historical coverage in 1985, but the story it describes continued. The Church of the Nazarene now explicitly describes itself as an international church, with ministry carried forward through cooperation between cross-cultural missionaries and local ministers and lay workers who have indigenized Wesleyan principles within their cultures. 6
That phrase matters: indigenized within their cultures. The gospel does not become less Christian when Christians in another culture faithfully embody it. The missionary story becomes larger.
So when I read Jerald D. Johnson alongside Mission to the World, I do not see only a history of where Nazarene missionaries went. I see a church slowly discovering that the nations were never merely destinations for its mission. They were becoming partners, leaders, teachers and missionaries within the mission itself.
Perhaps that is when the missionary story stops being a one-way story. Not when missionaries stop going, but when the church finally understands that mission belongs to the whole body of Christ.