Sending Missionaries or Money Instead?

Welcome to our first excursion into the world of blogging. I confess I had to look it up (on the web no less) to make sure I knew what I was getting into. If a blog is a personal diary, a daily pulpit, a collection of private thoughts, or memos to the world, I guess I could do that. And I would want to if perhaps these exercises might encourage those interested in extending God’s kingdom and who are willing to consider all that entails. And I am sure any comments that may come back will help me as well to clarify my thinking on these matters. As you have gathered, The Master's Mission is a mission organization – what is less obvious is that we have become a bit unique among contempary mission agencies. That’s the bad news, if you consider we are among a minority of agencies trying to be faithful to the New Testament principles of doing missions in a way that focuses on congregationalizing new believers. The trend away from what commonly used to be considered missions began in earnest about thirty years ago. Profound changes have taken place in the methods employed by both mission agencies and churches in doing global missions. One of my seminary profs warned us fledgling pastoral students that if we adopted the ‘new concepts’ in missions we would inadvertently set back the progress of global evangelism by a generation. That was 1975, and since we are not replacing the missionaries that are retiring in 2006, and since the agencies that are involved in church planting, as their number one activity, have been declining for the last several reporting editions of The Missionary Handbook (the ‘bible’ of missionary stats), I think his prophecy has unfortunately come true. The ‘new concepts’ are no longer new and are usually embraced without much scrutiny – the 10/40 Window, the homogeneous and indigenous principles, short-term trips – to name a few - I hope to address these and other issues in due time, but since this is the first blog, consider with me that there are some loud voices in the world of contemporary missions that argue that we should not even send missionaries at all. Not because they don’t want to get the gospel out or because they fear that missionaries will damage any cultures they enter. No, these are not their concerns. Their concerns center around cost effectiveness. They reason that ‘national missionaries’ who know their own language and culture are better than foreign missionaries in reaching their own people. They further reason that the money used to outfit and support the foreigner could support as many as ten or more nationals. Hence they argue, ‘the sending of cross-cultural missionaries is too expensive and the greatest obstacle hindering missions advance today.’ The solution from their prospective is to send the money overseas to national believers instead. At first blush, their arguments sound good but only if you ignore the realities of mission work. Reality: until someone brings the gospel across cultural barriers there are no ‘national missionaries’ (the term itself is an oxymoron) to spread the gospel. Reality: the number of studies conducted by nationals that have shown that nationals supported by foreign money tend to be less productive, less accountable, and are most often resented by the peers they are trying to reach. Reality: the argument breaks down when the receiving country is wealthier than the sending country. Reality: an expectation of subsidy kills the motivation of nationals to be faithful stewards in congregations that have become dependant on a missionary ‘welfare system’ from afar. Reality: nationals reaching their own is one thing (evangelism) while the attempt of an adjacent group to reach its neighbor (missions, usually involving the crossing of language and culture barriers) is usually hindered by centuries of conflict and a third party from afar is usually more effective in making the initial breakthrough. Reality: sending ‘money only’ instead of us or our sons and daughters could be a rationalization for disobedience because of our fears or our unwillingness to leave our ‘American dream.’ But even if we don’t consider these realities, God’s word is clear when it tells us to go and teach the nations all that Jesus commanded. Going personally is what Jesus and the apostles taught and did themselves. If we would be faithful to His commission, we must send out those He calls into his harvest fields regardless of the costs. That is true for all of Christ’s churches whether in America or in other lands. Missions has never been cost effective and very few of us have been financially precluded from either sending money or sending missionaries or both. Many nationals have proven themselves gifted in ministry and worthy of our support and partnership, but never as a substitute for sending our own.