1 – Exacerbation of poverty and dependency through reckless deployment of resources
Billions of dollars today flow easily and effortlessly into thousands of mission ventures around the world. One of the great marks of the church of Jesus Christ is its incredible generosity and generous ethic. While this is the calling of every church and every believer, there is surprisingly little accountability in how these Great Commission resources are applied.
In his book Toxic Charity, Robert Lupton recounts numerous case studies of how Western largesse has not only had little effect in certain parts of the world, but has in many cases stifled indigenous economic growth and business.
He writes that Africa has received more than $1 trillion in benevolent aid over the last 50 years, yet they are worse off today than they were half a century ago. Per capita income is lower today than it was in the 1970s. African economist Dambisa Moyo, in his book Dead Aid, calls such careless donations “the disease that claims to be the cure.” More care and attention should be given to our projects, plans and partnerships. Are we doing more harm than good? Are we exacerbating poverty and dependency with our loose pockets?
It’s always easy to make partnerships happen when you’re willing to pay for everything. But this is not always wise. We need to think first before committing resources. I have lost partners due to my unwillingness to financially commit to projects. Many of our prospective partners have been completely conditioned to accept funds and resources at the expense of their own independence and business.
2 – Ignore the insight and wisdom of national leaders
As Westerners, we are known throughout the world as visionaries and doers. And that is a necessary quality in the Body of Christ. But if we don’t take the time to understand those we wish to serve, we risk making massive investments that produce little self-sustaining long-term results. We know how things work in our own culture and context. We have proven strategies, talented people, education and many resources. Our tendency is to move fast and hard into foreign cultures without slowing down to understand and listen to national leaders first.
But it is very insulting and unwise not to have the wisdom and collaboration of indigenous leaders and churches. Servant leadership is required. We must listen first if we want to understand how our talents and resources can have a lasting impact.
3 – Building structures dependent on Western leadership and resources
It is a proven principle of all missionary work that the sooner national leaders can be involved in the building of the church or organization, the better long-term viability that work will have. However, many Western churches continue to launch projects that do not have a succession plan. The average Western missionary term of service is approximately 3-4 years. How is it then that we can hope to nationalize the work if the entire operation is supported by outside people and resources? Such structures quickly evaporate like dust in the wind.
Instead, careful planning must be done at the beginning of any project or mission to ensure a solid and workable succession plan is in place. I personally witnessed 17 campus ministries being reduced to 5 over a 7 year period in Russia for this very reason. We relied too heavily on recruits and western dollars to keep things going. Once interest among campus ministry partners in the US waned, momentum was lost and we began to rapidly downsize.
4 – Lack of contextualization of the message and methods
Western culture is a very commercial culture. We do trade and business very well. One of the things we also do well is standardization and scale. Henry Ford showed the world how powerful this can be for the auto industry. Somehow this is ingrained in our psyche. We tell ourselves, “If it works here, surely it must work there.” We cannot make such assumptions in foreign cultures.
Much has been written about the need to contextualize missionary methods. In short, contextualization means adapting our message and methods to fit the unique cultural paradigms in which we work. We do not dilute the message, but we adapt it so that it can be heard and assimilated quickly.
While taking our cross-cultural training class and preparing for my second missionary stint in Russia, our instructor issued a challenge that I think bears repeating here: “Never use methods in your ministry that are not replicable by nationals.” Wow ! That is very difficult to do. But think about it. If I’m doing something that only I can do as a Westerner, how empowering is that going to be for the National? They’ll eventually conclude, “Yeah, he can do it here because he’s American, but that’s not for me.” All messages and methodology must be stripped of their cultural bias and reformatted to fit the host culture.
5 – Ignoring the Current Reality and the Composition of the Global Church
The facts are there and the data is mind-boggling. In the last 50 years we have witnessed a massive sea change in the makeup of the global Body of Christ. Today, researchers and missiologists estimate that 80% of the global church is NOT WESTERN! However, when you analyze the assumptions of many Western church missionary programs and para-church sending agencies, the results are startling! Most still operate under the old assumption that the western church is the majority of the global church.
Can you imagine how this data point could radically change the way westerns “do” mission? What new strategies would emerge if the majority of the church simply updated their information and education on the current state of global Christianity?
Today we are witnessing the rapid rise of the global church. Places that were once mission fields are now producing powerful and emerging mission forces. This is a game changer that every mission-minded church needs to wrap up their mission force and begin to understand! These are indeed exciting times!