Passion Without Purpose

“I understand the big picture, but what do I do on Tuesday?”

Though not many will verbalize it, that’s what many missionaries say each week, all over the world. They go to the field with a deep commitment for the BIG PICTURE, i.e. taking the Good News to those who have never heard and establishing churches. After they raise their support and get on the field they find themselves frustrated. They’re lost and don’t know what to do. Their daily lives are filled with just living on the field (learning a new language, trying to find their role in ministry, surviving daily in a land that will never be home). They wake up on Tuesday morning and ask “I’m not sure why I’m here?”

Why the frustration? One reason is that they really don’t have a role on the mission field. They have a passion, but it’s not matched with a clear defined purpose.

This may come as a surprise to some, but volunteer work (and that really is what a missionary is, a volunteer) depends on two things – First, a need and second, someone qualified to fill that need. In today’s mission world the need for North American missionaries is not the same as it was thirty years ago, not even five years ago.

What are the needs of countries such as Costa Rica, Sweden, Bulgaria or Cambodia? I can tell you what is not needed, North American church planters. In each of those countries there are churches and there are Christian leaders who are capable of handling the BIG PICTURE in their own land. Granted, in some nations the churches are small, they all probably have doctrinal problems and the percentage of evangelicals are in decline, but they are nevertheless the church of their own place. Being weak does not constitute a need for North American church planters.

Missiologically, bringing in a foreigner, who in most cases will need a minimum of two years to function in a different language, is a waste of human and financial resources. If the BIG PICTURE is to reach the nations, even if the country was saturated with expatriates, twenty years later the countries of the world would hardly be touched. Though this is a self-evident truth, North American churches and sending agencies continue to appoint people to go to the field and do PIONEER church planting. The well meaning missionary arrives on the field and soon realizes that he is at best redundant, at worse he is irrelevant and on Tuesday he asks the question once again, “Why am I here?”

In looking at NEED, the most effective role North American’s can play on the mission field today is that of a specialist, people who have the skills that can used in the role of a FACILITATOR.

By definition, facilitation is, “the process of making something easy or easier.” A facilitator is somebody who aids or assist in a process, especially by encouraging people to find their own solutions to problems or tasks.” What does the church in China need? An outsider to establish a congregation or someone to facilitate the church in China to reach it’s own goals in evangelizing their nation? I would argue for the latter.

FACILITATORS are people who have a specific talent to do specific tasks. They may be computer experts developing a network system for a National church or school; a research specialist to help identify the unreached cities and peoples of the country; an experienced businessman to help in create micro-business enterprises or a health care worker to help fight the battle of AIDS. Though the job description may be varied, the crucial question for the FACILITATOR is to find the area of need and then fill that need.

How to determine NEED will be discussed next time.