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.