A friend of mine sent me a PDF file on a study entitled, Nine Game-Changers for Global Missions: Trends that Shape the Future, by the Leadership Network, and asked for my thoughts. So here it is.
Large Churches Versus Average Churches - Almost all of the examples of “best practices,” in this article were churches of substantial size. The average congregation in the U.S. is less than 200 in membership. While large churches with substantial mission budgets may be able to focus their resources to their particular interest, churches with modest resources would probably find this article stifling. Most of what is written in this piece would likely be irrelevant to the majority of American churches.
Mutuality and Partnerships – The trend today among larger churches is to by-pass, or at least minimize, North American career missionaries and focus on partnering with nationals. As a non-resident career missionary I understand and appreciate the need to come alongside the majority world church and partner with them in their efforts to reach their own nation with the Gospel. However, the underlining theme of “game changers,” is that partnership from the Western side is overwhelmingly financial, either in giving aid to the developing church or sending teams to assist the foreign church. Though this article is careful to point out that they don’t want to be guilty of paternalism, I question if that is possible.
I contend that good partnership is assisting the national church in what they need (not necessarily what they want) in terms of training. If partnerships is about assisting the church in how to take the message of Christ cross-culturally to Muslims, Hindus and Buddhist, or helping the national church leaders know how to properly disciple their congregation in contextualized outreach, then I am onboard. However, most programs discussed in this article is woefully lacking in missiological understanding, which is my next point.
Missiologically Challenged - Having just returned from teaching in Kenya I was amazed by how many short-term mission groups had invaded the country (by some estimates, over 4 million North Americans take a short-term mission trip throughout the world each year). Many of these groups were there to do evangelism or social work. In a country that claims to be 80% Christian I wonder how many of these groups worked among the most least evangelized people groups in the country, i.e., the Somali refugees in the north, Muslims on the coast or the animists living in the northwest.
Most of what I read in “game changers,” hardly anything to say about reaching the most unreached peoples of the world. 3.6 billion people in this world have never met a Christian. While I applaud the efforts of the North American church to build hospitals for AID patients, schools and orphanages, how do these good works reach the Sufi’s of Bangladesh, the Buddhist of Laos or the Hindu’s in India?
Missions always have been and always will be about building relationships. While “game changers” will make the Western church feel as though they are truly engaged in the Great Commission, the world will not be impacted significantly without a well thought out strategy and a commitment to fundamental principles of evangelism – a dedication to live among those who have never heard about Christ and His salvation.
I realize that I am a throwback of an era of old missions. However, I still believe that missionaries, be they American or non-American, must incorporate the biblical principle of incarnation, which means learn the language of the people, live among them, and learn how to contextualize the message of Christ to those God has called them to serve. Being actively engaged in going overseas, developing partnerships and all of that has merit, but being missional is not the same as being missiological.
