The following ideas for this article are taken from the book Mission in the way of Paul: Biblical Mission for the Church in the Twenty-First Century by Christopher R. Little, 2005 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York, NY

I came across this book before I came to the mission field. It was recommended to me by my professor of Cross-Cultural Ministry and I have found it to be very thought provoking. His research is thorough and his insight is worth looking at and thinking about. The topic he really hits on is partnering with nationals. We all agree that you must partner with national men in some way for a ministry to even begin. He looks at the pitfalls that often befall both the missionary and the national man.

My missionary philosophy is pretty simple, “Travel light or not at all”. This is because so many things can deflect a missionary from his main purpose. A missionary by definition is one who goes to those who have not heard to evangelize, disciple, and seek to plant churches using divinely called national men. Some times it is very difficult to separate the divinely called from the opportunists that are just looking for free housing, food, and education. This is the missionary’s fault not the national. We often create a dependency that is hard to break and in the process create a social welfare system. How can we best meet the spiritual needs of men and women in a developing country? This past week I went to a US Embassy meeting and we were told that the US Government is spending over $300 million dollars in Zambia alone this year. Should our Independent Baptist Churches be in the same business?

Look at what Little and others have to say.

Problems with Partnering

“Westerners often create projects, programs and institutions, which cannot be carried on or reproduced by those they are trying to help. Sometimes those who create this outside-induced dependency carve out a future for themselves from which they cannot seem to be extricated, if indeed they want to be extricated. If they really don’t want to be extricated, a conspiracy develops which thrives on the need to be needed by outsiders. The need to be needed is a very powerful force.”… (Schwartz) (Page 184-Little) Glenn Schwartz “Missionary Demeanor and the Dependency.” Syndrome.”http://wmausa.org/demean.htm

When we create institutions and build westernized churches–

1. The local agenda is set by outsiders -the one who pays the piper calls the tune

2. Progress locally is determined by the availability of outside funds

3. Foreign salaried local leaders are not free to innovate—for two reasons

  • out of respect for donors
  • for fear of losing their jobs

4. Both self-image and community image are diminished

5. Local value systems may suffer long-term damage

6. What may have been thought of as a short-term assistance becomes a long term addiction.

(Schwartz) (Page 184-Little) Glen Schwartz Dependency Among Mission-Established Institutions: Exploring the Issues. Lancaster, PA: World Mission Associates p48-49

Is our focus in the right place?

Gailyn Van Rheenen observes “ In this age of international contact missions leaders’ vision is frequently skewed by their experience with the poor. They are almost always shocked as they see hundreds of people crowded into poor apartment buildings or shanty towns of urban centers or living in clap-board or mud-walled, thatched-roofed houses cooking food over an open fire. What frequently grips them on these first forays into poverty-stricken areas is not the lostness of the people without the Gospel or the power of the Gospel to overcome the bondage of sin but the great disparity between the rich and the poor. Mission thus is increasingly driven by a response to poverty rather than by an understanding of lostness. (Page 235-Little) “Monthly Missiological Reflection #2 “Money and Mi$$ion$.” http://www.missiology/org/MMR/mmr2.htm

Robertson McQuilkin states “The church or church leaders that secure a financial pipeline to the USA soon become mired in an ecclesiastical welfare state, because the send-money approach, rather than strengthening the souls of national churches, keeps congregations from becoming “self-governing” and “self-supporting.” The recipients of these funds suffer the following maladies. Believers learn to depend neither on God nor themselves…. Leaders become preoccupied with raising North American Funds…. Those leaders who can’t get to the “pipeline” become demoralized…. Believers sue believers…. An independent and unaccountable higher class of Christian workers arises whose stylish life-styles are envied by “unconnected believers.”…. Recipients become ungrateful. (page 182-Little) Robertson McQuilkin “Should We Stop Sending Missionaries?” Mission Frontiers 21(5-8):38-41

Our affluence has led us to develop the ecclesiastical analog of capital-intensive methods of work. In our economy, the most expensive this is human time, and any procedure or equipment which saves human time is an improvement. We have thus developed methods and techniques which require the large amounts of money we have at our disposal, and we unthinkingly give others the impression that is the way to do Christian work. In most of the rest of the world, equipment is prohibitively expensive, and the cheapest and most abundant resource is human time and strength. But we bypass the resource in which nationals are rich and major on the ones which we have in abundance. In such a “partnership” it is inevitable that the partner with the most highly valued resource will dominate. (page 220-Little) Charles Taber The World is Too Much with Us. Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press 1991 Page 69

Alexandre Araujo came up with these questions that we as missionary sending churches, agencies, and missionaries must work through, wrestle over, and come to conclusions that will aid in the furtherance of the Gospel, not diminish it or derail it. (mine)

1. Are local believers being prevented from learning to give sacrificially?

2. Is the ministry failing to increase its income level from local/national sources?

3. Is the ministry losing local credibility because of foreign funding?

4. Is the ministry’s goal-setting and decision-making unduly influenced by foreign funding sources?

5. Is foreign funding stunting development of indigenous para-church structures?

6. Is the foreign funding agency unwittingly assuming moral responsibility for personal care of workers, such as their medical and financial needs?

7. Does the ministry leader have exaggerated power and authority because he has access to foreign funds?

8. Is worker support level set by outside funding sources rather than by the worker’s peers? (Pages 175-176-Little) Alexandre Araujo “Freedom and Dependency in Christian Partnerships.”

As a missionary, missionary supporter or national leader these questions should be looked into and given careful consideration. I am by no means saying that I have all the answers or even the right answer. I am just asking you to thoughtfully consider what our mission really is. As I was studying the period of the Great Awakening in America I came across some statistics of those men who graduated from schools with a degree in theology. Barely 20% went on into full time Christian service during this height of spiritual awareness. I wonder how many of my fellow Bible majors that I graduated with back in 1994 are actually in full time Christian service today? These were not men who were largely given free boarding, food, and education. Care must be given when partnering that we are not hurting the very people we are seeking to help by crippling them with dependency and “calling” men to the ministry because they are interested in what we have to offer. Money is the least common denominator when developing a relationship. When the pipeline of funds dries up the people that are left are the ones that were really serious. The others will go and find a new group to be dependent upon. “Give a man a fish [and take his initiative and faith away]and feed him for a day, teach a man [faith and the initiative and ability] to fish and feed him for a lifetime.”