I'm Back

Hi all!

Sorry for the month long break from posting but I have been quite busy over the past month. First we did two weeks of training on Church Planting using the book of Acts. If you haven't heard of the OneStory project of the International Mission Board, Wycliffe Bible Translators, Campus Crusade for Christ, YWAM, and Transworld Radio, check out the site! After that training I had a few days home before doing a training for YWAM. This training was for many organizations but the purpose was to see how Latinos could be moblized to work in Latin America and around the world using oral methods to do church planting.

I will post more later but having been away from home and off-line most of the past month means I have lots to catch up on. I hope to share more about our Church Planting training soon.

Preaching What We Practice?

I encourage all of you to subscribe to EMQ (Evangelical Missions Quarterly). You can read all of the archives from .

Today I want us to look at an article written by Paul Johnson way back in April of 1998. The article, Preaching What We Practice: Not Always the Answer is a great article dealing with subsidy and the role of Missionary vs. the Role of Pastor/Elder.

Perhaps the best paragraph in the article is,

I believe there's often a lack of delineation between pastors and missionaries. As Wayne points out, they are two distinct entities. Evangelist and missionaries carry Christ to where there is no church, with the objectie of establishing one. Pastors and elders minister where a body of believers is already established. Biblically it seems the ways in which they are sustained also differ.

The article goes on to discuss how missionaries are supported over and against how local church leaders are supported. One of the criticisms that the author finds is that too often, financial renumeration is the "calling" from denomination to denomination. We find some pastors going to the highest bidder. Also, he points out how the catalyst usually comes from the outside but that in order for new testament principles to be carried out, leadership must be grown from within the body.

Let us join together to pray that God would clearly present His vision for us and that we would be able to work together in order to assure that He is praise everywhere, all the time.

Oh yeah, go subscribe to EMQOnline and read this yourself!

The Tithe - how clear cut is it?

Having grown up in a small Southern Baptist Church, there were three things that were certain, death, taxes, and several sermons a year from the pastor on tithing. When I was in college, I began to look at the Biblical basis for tithing and when I asked our college Sunday School teacher (the pastor's wife) about the issue, it was as if I was a heretic. My questioning the written in stone 10% rule was not looked upon very highly.

Can we open a discussion on tithing here? I think it would help me work through the issue. BTW, even before I get started. I don't want to be accused of not being a tither. Our family gives beyond the 10% amount so we are safe :)

Here are some of my comments, would you care to opine as well?

I guess the most used verse for tithing is Malachi 3. I know that I have heard dozens of sermons on how we Christians are robbing God if we do not give our 10%. Perhaps when everyone were farmers, it was easy to identify the 10%. What about someone who owns his own business? Is his 10% of everything he sells, is it after expenses, is it his taxable income (if so, most would never need to tithe again)? Tithing is interesting in the modern world, especially if we become legalistic about it.

Viola, in his book Pagan Christianity, makes the point that the tithe was sort of like the income tax. He also points out that every third year the tithe was 23.3%, not the 10% that we practice.

How do we reconcile the modern day tithe with the New Testament example of sharing everything in common with other believers in need?

I could go on for a while, but I will allow some of you to jump in on this one.

Motivation for Mission

What is the motivation for missions? As I look around at different people who are on mission, sometimes I wonder what motivates them. I know what should be our motivation for missions but often my observation has been that it is something else.

Main Entry: mo·ti·va·tion
Function: noun
1 a : the act or process of motivating b : the condition of being motivated
2 : a motivating force, stimulus, or influence (as a drive or incentive)

Our motivation should be that God be glorified in all that we do at home and while we are on mission. I do not want to paint with too broad a brush here so please hear what I am saying. The motivation for many is to glorify God and see his name proclaimed amongst all peoples. My observation has been that many people are motivated by something other than desire to glorify God. I would say that at times, all of us are guilty of this probably more often than we would like to admit it.

Let's examine some of the alternative motivations:

Money

Well, you may be thinking that money probably doesn't apply to being on mission or not but I believe that it is a motivation in the Christian life. Sometimes money keeps us from being on mission. I haven't seen too many missionaries who are retiring as millionaires but to be honest with you, many missionaries are not doing to poorly either. The idea of the suffering missionary is (in some cases) not that accurate.

How else can money be a motivation to either be on mission or not be on mission? I am open to your input here.

I look at people who are unwilling to sacrifice their time while they are in the states so they are on mission one week every year or so while they help poor people in another country.

Is it good enough to be on-call, on mission? By this, I mean that you really do not do much through your daily life to be on mission but you do this when you schedule it.

Emotion

Today many people are motivated by their emotions.

Perhaps this has always been the case but we see people committing to do things not after they have spent time alone with God seeking His will, but after they have heard some motivational missionary/pastor/salesman who tells them about the poor children in another country or a church that doesn't have a place to meet. The being on mission is a response to a physical need that pulls on the heart strings.

Emotion is a dangerous driving force. Instead of motivated/driven to glorify God, often emotions mean that we are driven by our projects.

Guilt Syndrome

I believe that for some, their actually participating in missions is a way to feel better about their own wealth. I have actually had people tell me that they wanted to do this because they have so much that it helps them to know that they helped someone else.

Maybe guilt is a good motivator but it can't be the only thing that motivates our being on mission. Our desire must be motivated out of glorifying God.

Exodus 34:14 for thou shalt worship no other god: for Jehovah, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:

What does a jealous God desire? Absolute, total dedication. We are to serve HIM everywhere, everyday. I have already said that none of us live up to this. What I am afraid of the on mission term is a fad that has been set up in our post-modern world to be the time to serve Him. We have set apart a time when we are suffering for Jesus and then we go on with our life.

Anyway, I am rambling. I would appreciate your input on what you see as the motivation behind the push to be on mission.

Let's Talk about Jesus... today

I recently picked up the book, How to Give Away Your Faith by Paul Little. I first read this book some 12 years ago but have read it a few times since then. I find it is good to read this book every year or so to refocus my ministry.

Here are some highlights of the book on Hurdling Social Barriers.

"To expect Christian conduct from a person who is not born again is heresy. The appeals of the gospel in terms of conduct and ethics and morality are always based on the assumption that people to whom the injunctions are addressed are Christian."

I read this and have to remind myself that too often I focus on what people are doing wrong and not what is missing in their life. How can we expect a non-believer to act like a believer when they do not have that ability? We need to distance ourselves from being judgemental and instead communicate truth as revealed in Scripture. Too often Christians are identified as the holier than thous but we never can live up to the perfect ideal. Let's meet people where they are and disciple them to Christ!

So you wannabee a missionary?

I ran across this article today. Quite interesting ready. I think our friend in Portugual makes some deep observations. If you have a few minutes, read his articles.

So you wannabee a missionary?


Portuguese blogger (online author) Nuno Barreto wrote a series of articles on missions. He says: "I've seen the good, the bad and the ugly of foreign missionaries to Portugal, and it's time to speak out. This is for everyone that wants to know how it feels to have missionaries sent to him." Joel News summarized his unconventional advice for wannabee missionaries:

1. Skip Bible school; instead learn how to plant churches in real-life.
2. Engage with the culture, but dare to be authentically foreign; don't imitate the locals.
3. Count the cost and learn the language.
4. Get a job that helps you meet lots of people, and join a club.
5. Forget about targets and 5-year plans; get a (family) life.
6. Resist the temptation of forming a holy bubble with other missionaries.
7. Beware of support with strings attached; stay financially free to be able to move with God.
8. When you plant a church, don't stay on as a pastor; your best gift to the church is to move on.

Book Tag

Well, well, well. I've been tagged too, and by none other than "David Rogers"

Here are my picks...

1. One book that changed your life: Isaiah.
2. One book that you’ve read more than once: Church Multiplication Guide by Patterson and Scoggins
3. One book I’d want on a desert island: Other than the Bible, Survive on a Desert Island by Claire Llewellyn
4. One book that made me laugh: Contemplating your Bellybutton by Jun Nanao
5. One book that made me cry: Hmm, can't remember one off hand.
6. One book that you wish you had written: Understanding Church Growth by McGavran
7. One book you wish had never been written: The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary - it says that most of my words do not exist!
8. One book that you are currently reading: Pagan Christianity, by Frank Viola
9. One book that you’ve been meaning to read: The Narrated Bible in Chronological Order.
   

Input needed

Here is a question for everyone. In the midst of our blogging about strategic use of short-term missionaries, I find the timing of this appropriate.

How do you respond to a church who contacts you concerning their ongoing work in a certain part of the country with Primera Iglesia Bautista XYZ? I don't know why I was contacted but I guess they want me to work with them. All that they are doing is dependency driven and the national pastor with whom they are working doesn't have the best reputation as regards to volunteers and finances. I look at this and it is a field of landmines. I would normally not enter into the scene but having been contacted, I am looking for an easy way out.

On the one hand, I would like to politely tell them why I am not partnering with this pastor without offending the church in the states and creating a problem with the national church. On the other hand, this is the exact type of partnership that is doing much more harm than good. The bad thing is that those in the states look at it as a success because they see the buildings and pastors they are paying but in reality, it is just propping up a church that should have been self-sufficient 50 years ago (literally) and perpetuating the subsidy mentality. We also have personnel working in this area trying to begin reproducible churches but having the sugar daddy church in town that is doling out the dollars makes our low (no) budget works less attractive.

ARGHH!!! Any of you want to make this phone call for me? :)

This Month's Bombshell Readings

I wish to propose a monthly must read books/articles. This month I would like to plug EMQ (Evangelical Missions Quarterly). It is a great read each quarter and you can even get an online subscription. www.emqonline.com

Let's look at the latest issue called The Local Church and Missions. What an appropriate topic to deal with considering our discussions on these blogs.

Here are a few excerpts from this journal. First let's talk about incarnational missions.

Martin Visser, in his article Education is Not That Important points out,

Some may be thinking, "But if we move to an area that has almost no churches and missionaries, my children won't get the best education I can provide for them!"

He goes on to say,

Since when do the perceived schooling needs for our children take precedence over serving God to the best of our ability?

Why do I say that this is bombshell reading? Because it is challenging reading.

In the comments section this month, Laura Propst had great input with her letter entitled The Long-term Impact of Short-term missions. One excerpt from her letter is as follows,

There are also questions regarding dependency. How can STM participants encourage reliance upon God instead of upon rich westerners? Do STM participants believe that poor people cannot do things for themselves and that without Western money things will not happen? How can this attitude not affect the local national? There needs to be serious thought concerning the limitations of money. Churches, missions leaders, and STM participants need to consider how God can work through people even though they live in mud huts and do not have much modern technology. We need discussions on what STM participants can bring that will be applicable to those who have little and that can encourage them to believe that God can use even those who lack materially.

Here are other articles from this quarter's issue.

• The Depth Chart of a Church Missions Program
• Six Challenges for the Church in Missions
• The Holy Spirit and the Pace of Missions
• Spirit-guided Mission
• Upgrading Member Care

These are just a few of the articles. If you do not currently subscribe to either a print or online version of EMQ, you are missing out. Cough up the dough and get the subscription!

Subscribe to EMQ Here

Already subscribe? Then post your comments on this quarter's journal.

More on Short-Term Missions

After reading through the Christianity Today article and the research paper, I have a few more thoughts on this. I post a crazy way to use volunteers here, what crazy ideas do you have for volunteers that leave satisfied (very important to them), create some help, and most importantly do not cause great dependency.

First a few comments about the CT articles. I think that the articles were written with a bias against most short-term volunteer teams. I am sure that his research is good but from reading the larger study (available online but I can't find it now), it is obvious the position he is coming from even prior to the research.

I believe that much that he said in the articles are true but many people just do not want to hear it. We are in a pickle because on the one hand we want to use the absolute best ways to transform a culture but on the other hand we have pressure from short-term teams to do non-strategic things. I understand that many are willing to be taught how to do it differently, but I have real questions of how do you use someone who does not speak the language or understand the culture to present a contextualized Gospel? Contextualization is not an easy thing to do and it takes much longer than the typical hour or so of orientation to make that happen.

Career missionaries go through weeks (if not months or years) of training and orientation and we still do not get it right much of the time. How do we expect short-termers to get without language and cultural understanding.

MY CRAZY IDEA

I believe that short-termers can be used as part of a much larger strategy. One example I thought of recently. As you drive through Mexico City you see street vendors everywhere. When there is a traffic jam, people will sell everything from windshield wiper blades to satellite dishes to those little annoying dogs with their heads bobbing. People are giving away home depot ads, invitation to motels, and even samples of flu medication (are we supposed to drive after taking that?) We have people juggling, breathing fire, and walking on stilts. This is all while walking up and down the stalled traffic.

Why not produce a very culturalized comic book (or whatever other form of Gospel presentation you choose) that explains the Gospel with a contact info for more information. You could literally distributed 10,000-15,000 per day on a street corner without walking more than half a block. You could do this at the metro rail depots where over 4,000,000 people per day take the rail in Mexico City. You have a captive audience of people who would actually read something that was produced well. What else do they have to do? I find myself reading all of the Home Depot ads that I am given while waiting in traffic.

Now, if I were designing the ideal strategy for evangelizing the city, this would probably not be in my plan. I would rather use a mentoring evangelism/discipleship to reach people but if I am strugging with how to use volunteers, this might just be a way to use them.

Let's examine this particular strategy.

• Does it create dependency? Nope, it is just a saturation project.
  
• Is it something that can be reproduced, sure. This is saturation, anyone can do it. The cost of the saturation material can be quite small if it is produced locally.
  
• Is it something that will result in deep relationships with Christ? Maybe, this depends upon the follow-up which is crucial.
  
• Does it create the 1253 decisions and 21 new churches started in a week that so many teams like to see? Probably not, but I question anyone who says that they see that many decisions without knowing the language or culture.
  

If we distrubuted 10,000 of these per day and had just a 0.1% return on those that would still mean that we would have 10 new contacts per day. If a team did this for a week, that is 50 new contacts that week. If you increase the number distributed per day, you could easily see many more contacts than you could ever follow-up with. The key to this would have in place a system of follow-up that would make sure and contact all of these people.

This is just one crazy idea. What is your crazy idea?

Check back soon for a discussion about another issue with Short-Term workers. What is their purpose? How are they best used?

Do Short-Term Missions Make a Difference?

Have any of you read the article in Christianity Today that was written about STM? Check out http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/127/22.0.html and http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/125/12.0.html

According to Kurt Ver Beek, professor of sociology and third-world development at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, traditional STMs don't do much at all. Interesting discussion going on here.

What do you think of his work?

TRADITIONAL MODELS OF PARTNERSHIP

While missionaries and mission agencies should try to partner with national conventions, associations, churches, pastors, and missionaries, this partnership should be well defined and based upon mutuality, not merely a cash flow from the mission agency to the national entity. What is often termed partnership is actually paternalism. The models of partnership presented here are not exclusive, but they make up the majority of the missionary/national relationships that exist today. Remember, I am looking at the traditional forms of partnership.

Model One - Personal Support Model

The first model to be examined is the subsidy or personal support model of church planting. The personal support model looks something like this: A mission agency sends a missionary to a country; the mission agency also provides financial support for national pastors, leaders, or
missionaries; and finally the foreign missionary partners with the nationals to begin new churches. The benefit to this model is that the missionary will rarely have difficulty in recruiting assistance. As long as the funds continue from the mission agency, there will always be a
steady flow of national workers willing to participate in what the missionary believes is strategic.

The dangers of the personal support model are many.

• Many times dependency can leave nationals with a feeling that they cannot begin new churches without the foreign support.
• The number of new churches started relates directly to the amount of outside financial assistance that is received.
  
• Outside support oftenbrings with it requirements or expectations that are not always in the best interest of the work.
• The dependency upon outside financial support requires that the national missionary accept much of the mission agency’s directions without question for fear of losing the support. The missionary sending agency maintains control of the national missionary and little dialog takes place between the two entities making the national an employee of the sending agency, not a partner in ministry.
  
• A third problem of the personal support model is that it creates a professional class of church planters. The responsibility for church planting is left to the professional foreign and national missionaries, not to the local churches; thus, the capacity for exponential growth is limited.
• This professional class of church planters often loses touch with the people they are trying to reach. Due to the foreign income source, the lifestyle of the national missionary increases to the point that they are no longer able to relate to the people to whom
  they minister. While the personal support model may appear to be productive in the short-term, it is self defeating in the long-term.

Model 2 - An Indigenous CP Model

The indigenous model would look something like this: A mission sending agency provides support for an expat missionary to begin new churches, nurture young Christians in these churches, equip national leaders who are supported by their own people and resources, and then pass the baton of leadership to these developing Christian leaders.

Benefits:

• Those nationals who are participating as church planters or national missionaries are doing so because of deep spiritual convictions and are motivated by the call of God, not the money provided by the missionary.
  
• The number of church planters and missionaries is not limited by the amount of support that the mission agency is able to provide.
  
• This model does not emphasize a professional status for church planters.
  
• All churches and believers have equal ability in the church planting process.

Criticisms:

• The expat missionary himself is never indigenous. I hear this one all the time. No matter how long he works within a given people group, he will always be seen as an outsider. He does not speak the language equally as nationals, he does not understand the culture equally as nationals, and his support usually is derived from an outside mission agency. A response to this criticism is that the outside support that comes with the presence of a missionary should act only as a temporary support system and catalyst for the building of a larger indigenous movement.
• Another unjustified criticism of this model is that it is often difficult for nationals to dedicate their complete time to the church planting task as they normally must continue to provide for their families.
• Some who favor the personal support model have said that there is a biblical mandate for “obligatory economic sharing from wealthier donor-nation churches to poorer receptor nation brethren.” This position is held by many who espouse a social ministry approach to missions. The criticism of indigeneity as opposed to the continued paternalistic approach is unfounded. In reality, financial paternalism perpetuates a Westernized version of the gospel that fails to connect with the host culture. The critics of indigenous church planting on the basis of economic fairness do not take into account the harm that outside financial influence brings upon the national church nor the control that remains with the foreign entity instead ofbeing turned over to national leadership.
  

In order for the movement to be indigenous, the movement should be able to continue even if the support system of the missionary is removed. If the missionary conducts his ministry with the goal of an indigenous church planting movement, he will not introduce more foreign involvement into the church planting process than is absolutely necessary.

Model 3 - True Missionary Partnership

A third model of partnership carefully maintains the principles of indigenous church planting, but realizes that there are circumstances where strategic foreign assistance may prove beneficial to the church planting strategy. The partnership model realizes that truly indigenous church planting works are rare. Anytime there is any outside interaction or support either by foreign missionaries or by mission sending agencies, the resulting work is not truly indigenous.

The key is for the outside catalyst to seek to be as indigenous as possible in every given circumstance. Realizing that true indigeneity is unlikely, the strategic missionary cooperates with nationals in a healthy partnership. Every population segment is different and thus
hard and fast rules determining what is a healthy or an unhealthy partnership are not universal formula. Missionaries should proceed into new partnerships with much caution as relates to financial supplementation. Financial resources should only be considered for strategic ministry.

Once a subsidy system is established, it becomes difficult to transition to an indigenous model. For this reason, missionaries should understand the culture in which they are working prior to the initiation of any projects that might run counter to indigenous methods.

Now you may be thinking, yeah but... this strategy is strategic. Is it now? There are some things that will probably never happen if there is not some outside catalyst... but those are few. A few examples include Scripture translation, initial evangelistic encounters amongst closed peoples, mass media blitz, etc... Other things should be avoided like the plague. These include non-contextualized evangelism, buildings, social projects that become the reason for the ministry, etc... Actually, we should probably say anything that is not absolutely necessary to get the Gospel into the people group should be avoided no matter how "good" it is.

More later... it is late.

Partnership or Dependency? (Intro)

This is a topic that I will introduce today and add different chapters to it. Feel free to weigh in on this topic.
---------------------------------------
Missionary efforts are best achieved through partnership relationships bound in Christ. Even missionaries who are taking the gospel to a new people group need partners in order to minister effectively. Lone ranger missionaries are not very effective; all missionaries need cooperation from others who complement their strengths and weaknesses. These partners may come in the form of other Great Commission Christian missionaries, national missionaries, or local new believers. However partnerships are formed, they help facilitate the missionary task.

In the past, partnerships have tended to be one-sided, with financial support flowing from mission boards to national churches, pastors, and conventions. Effective partnerships include dialogue and participation from both parties. Partnership is the cooperation to realize common tasks, not the provision of financial support.

Cultural understanding and language skills suggest that a discipled national believer is innately better equipped at communicating the gospel to people in his own culture than is an outsider. Because the national is a better communicator within the cultural context, it is beneficial for missionaries to include nationals as part of the team or partnership. When missionaries are beginning new works, this might not be immediately possible. Where national believers are already present, it is priority to include some existing national believers as intimate partners on the church planting team from the very beginning. If new believers are not already present, new believers should be brought into the team as soon as possible (preferably even before they accept Christ). The second option is preferable so long as it does not entail compromising the vision of indigenous church planting.

(Check back tomorrow for the next part of this article)

My First Post

Welcome to our Blog about Reproducible Missions. We are about one thing, seeing the Truth of God's Word proclaimed around the world in a way that does not create dependency upon outside resources. God's plan throughout the Book of Acts is that His saving message will move naturally through an entire people group.

Check back for more posts and feel free to post your thoughts.