Revolution in World Missions

Chapter 18 A Global Vision Should all Western missionaries pull out of Asia forever? Of course not. God still sovereignly calls Western missionaries to do unique and special tasks in Asia. But we must understand that when it comes to nations in which Western missionaries are no longer able to do church planting as past eras allowed, the priority must then be to support efforts of indigenous mission works through financial aid and intercessory prayer. As gently as I can, I have to say to North Americans that anti-American prejudice is still running high in most of Asia. In fact, this is a section I write with the greatest fear and trembling, but these truths must be said if we are to accomplish the will of God in the Asian mission fields today. There are times in history, writes Dennis E. Clark in The Third World and Mission, when however gifted a person may be, he can no longer effectively proclaim the gospel to those of another culture. A German could not have done so in Britain in 1941, nor could an Indian in Pakistan during the war of 1967, and it will be extremely difficult for Americans to do so in the Third World of the 1980s and 1990s. This is much more true and the situation is even worse today. For the sake of Christ, because the love of Jesus constrains us, we need to review the financial and mission policies of our churches and North American missionary sending agencies. Every believer should reconsider his or her own stewardship practices and submit to the Holy Spirit's guidance in how best to support the global outreach of the church. I am not calling for an end to denominational mission programs or the closing down of the many hundreds of missions here in North America, but I am asking us to reconsider the missionary policies and practices that have guided us for the past 200 years. It is time to make some basic changes and to launch the biggest missionary movement in history, one that primarily helps send forth Native missionary evangelists rather than the Western staff. The principle I argue for is this. We believe the most effective way to now win Asia for Christ is through prayer and financial support for the Native missionary force that God is raising up in the two-thirds world. As a general rule, for the following reasons I believe it is wiser to support Native missionaries in their own lands than to send Western missionaries. 1. It is wise stewardship. According to Bob Granholm, former Executive Director of Frontiers in Canada, it costs between $25,000 to $30,000 per year to support a missionary on the field. Although this may be true for ministries like Frontiers, Operation Mobilization, Youth with a Mission, and a few other organizations, in my research with more traditional agencies, the cost may be much higher. One mission organization estimates it costs around $80,000 per year to keep a missionary couple in India. With even a modest inflation rate of 3%, this cost will exceed $100,000 in less than 10 years. During a recent consultation on world evangelism, Western missionary leaders called for 200,000 new missionaries by the year 2000 in order to keep pace with their estimates of population growth. The cost of even that modest missionary force would be a staggering $20 billion a year. When you realize that in 2000 North American Christians contributed just $5.5 billion for missions, we are facing an astronomical fundraising effort. There has to be an alternative. In India, for only the cost of a missionary from New York to Bombay, a native missionary already on the field can minister for years. Unless we take these facts into account, we will lose the opportunity of our age to reach untold millions with the gospel. Today, it is outrageously extravagant to send North American missionaries overseas unless there are compelling reasons to do so. From a strictly financial standpoint, sending American missionaries overseas is one of the worst investments we can make today. 2. In many places, the presence of Western missionaries perpetuates the myth that Christianity is the religion of the West. Bob Granholm states, While the current internationalization of the missionary task force is a very encouraging development, it is often wiser to not have a Western face on the efforts to extend the kingdom. Roland Allen says it better than I in his classic book, The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church, Even if the supply of men and funds from Western sources was unlimited, and we could cover the whole globe with an army of millions of foreign missionaries and establish stations thickly all over the world, the method would speedily reveal its weakness as it is already beginning to reveal it. The mere fact that Christianity was propagated by such an army, established in foreign stations all over the world, would inevitably alienate the native populations who would see it in the growth of the denomination of a foreign people. They would see themselves robbed of their religious independence and would more and more fear the loss of their social independence. Foreigners can never successfully direct the propagation of any faith throughout a whole country. If the faith does not become naturalized and expand among the people by its own vital power, it exercises an alarming and hateful influence, and men fear and shun it as something alien. It is then obvious that no sound missionary policy can be based upon multiplication of missionaries and mission stations. A thousand would not suffice. A dozen might be too many. A friend of mine who heads a missionary organization similar to ours recently told me the story of a conversation he had with some African church leaders. We want to evangelize our people, they said, but we can't do it as long as the white missionaries remain. Our people won't listen to us. The communists and the Muslims tell them all white missionaries are spies sent out by their governments as agents for the capitalistic imperialists. We know it isn't true, but newspaper reports tell of how some missionaries are getting funds from the CIA. We love the American missionaries and the Lord. We wish they could stay, but the only hope for us to evangelize our own country is for all white missionaries to leave. Untold millions of dollars still are being wasted today by our denominations and missions as they erect and protect elaborate organizational frameworks overseas. There was a time when Western missionaries needed to go into these countries in which the gospel was not preached. But now a new era has begun, and it is important that we officially acknowledge this. God has raised up indigenous leaders who are more capable than outsiders to finish the job. Now we must send the major portion of our funds to native missionaries and church growth movements. But this does not mean we do not appreciate the legacy left to us from Western missionaries. Although I believe changes must be made in our missionary methods, we praise God for the tremendous contribution Western missionaries have made in many two-thirds world countries where Christ was never before preached. Through their faithfulness, many were won to Jesus, churches were started, and the scriptures were translated. These converts are today's native missionaries. Silas Fox, a Canadian who served in South India, learned to speak the local native language of Telugu and preached the word with such anointing that hundreds of present-day Christian leaders in Andhra Pradesh can trace their spiritual beginnings to his ministry. I thank God for missionaries like Hudson Taylor, who against all wishes of his foreign mission board became a Chinese in his lifestyle and won many to Christ. I am not worthy to wipe the dust from the feet of thousands of faithful men and women of our Lord who went overseas during times like these. Jesus set the example for native missionary work. As my Father has sent me, He said, even so I send you. John 20, verse 21. The Lord became one of us in order to win us to the love of God. He knew He could not be an alien from outer space, so He became incarnated into our bodies. For any missionary to be successful, he must identify with the people he plans to reach. Because Westerners usually cannot do this, they are ineffective. Anyone, Asian or American, who insists on still going out as a representative of Western missions and organizations will be ineffective today. We cannot maintain a Western lifestyle or outlook and work among the poor of Asia. Western missionaries and the money they bring compromise the natural growth and independence of the national church. The economic power of the North American dollar distorts the picture as North American missionaries hire key national leaders to run their organizations. Recently, I met with a missionary executive of one of the major U.S. denominations. He is a loving man whom I deeply respect as a brother in Christ, but he heads the colonial style extension of his denomination into Asia. We talked about mutual friends and the exciting growth that is occurring in the national churches of India. We shared much in the Lord. I quickly found he had as much respect as I did for the Indian brothers God is choosing to use in India today. Yet he would not support these men who are so obviously anointed by God. I asked him why. His denomination is spending millions of dollars annually to open up their churches in Asia. Money I felt could be far better used supporting native missionaries in the churches the Holy Spirit is spontaneously birthing. His answer shocked and saddened me. Our policy, he admitted without shame, is to use the nationals only to expand churches with our denominational distinctives. The words rolled around in my mind, use the nationals. This is what colonialism was all about, and it is still what the neo-colonialism of most western missions is all about. With their money and technology, many organizations are simply buying people to perpetuate their foreign denominations, ways, and beliefs. In Thailand, a group of native missionaries was bought away by a powerful American parachurch organization. Once effectively winning their own people to Christ and planting churches in the Thai way, their leaders were given scholarships to train in the United States. The American organization provided them with expense accounts, vehicles, and posh offices in Bangkok. What price did the native missionary leaders pay? He must use foreign literature, films, and the standard method of this highly technical American organization. No consideration is being made of how effective these tools and methods will be in building the Thai church. They will be used whether they are effective or not, because they are written into the training manuals and handbooks of this organization. After all, the reasoning of this group goes, these programs worked in Los Angeles and Dallas. They must work in Thailand as well. This kind of thinking is the worst neo-colonialism. To use God-given money to hire people to perpetuate our ways and theories is a modern method of old-fashioned imperialism. No method could be more unbiblical. The sad fact is this. God already was doing a wonderful work in Thailand by His Holy Spirit in a culturally acceptable way. Why didn't this American group have the humility to bow before the Holy Spirit and say, Have thine own way, Lord? If they wanted to help, I think the best way would have been to support what God already was doing by His Holy Spirit. By the time this group finds out what a mistake it has made, the missionaries who messed up the local church will be going home for furlough, probably never to return. At their rallies they will tell stories of victories in Thailand as they evangelize the country American-style. But no one will be asking the most important question, Where is the fruit that remains? Often we become so preoccupied with expanding our own organizations that we do not comprehend the great sweep of the Holy Spirit of God as He has moved upon the peoples of the world. Intent upon building our churches, we have failed to see how Christ is building His church in every nation. We must stop looking at the lost world through the eyes of our particular denomination. Then we will be able to win the lost souls to Jesus, instead of trying to add more numbers to our man-made organizations to please the headquarters that controls the funds. Western missionaries cannot easily go to the countries where most so-called hidden people live. More than two billion of these people exist in our world today. Millions upon millions of lost souls have never heard the gospel. We hear many cries that we should go to them. But who will go? The hidden people almost all live in countries closed or severely restricted to American and European missionaries. Of the more than 135,000 North American missionaries now actively commissioned, fewer than 10,000 are working among totally unreached peoples. The vast majority are working among the existing churches or where the gospel already is preached. Although more than one-third of the countries in the world today forbid the Western missionary, now the native missionary can go to the nearest hidden people group. For example, an Indian can go to Nepal with the gospel much easier than anyone from the West. Western missionaries seldom are effective today in reaching Asians and establishing local churches in the villages of Asia. Unlike the Western missionary, the native missionary can preach, teach, and evangelize without being blocked by most of the barriers that confront Westerners. As a native of the country or region, he knows the cultural taboos instinctively. Frequently, he already has mastered the language or a related dialect. He moves freely and is accepted in good times and bad as one who belongs. He does not have to be transported thousands of miles, nor does he require special training and language schools. I remember an incident, one of many, that illustrates this sad fact. During my days of preaching in the northwest of India, I met a missionary from New Zealand who had been involved in Christian ministry in India for 25 years. During her final term, she was assigned to a Christian bookstore. One day as my team and I went to her shop to buy some books, we found the bookshop closed. When we went to her missionary quarters, which were in a walled mansion, we asked what was happening. She replied, I am going back home for good. I asked what would happen to the ministry of the bookshop. She answered, I have sold all the books at wholesale price, and I have closed down everything. With deep hurt, I asked her if she could have handed the store over to someone in order to continue the work. No, I could not find anyone, she replied. I wondered why, after 25 years of being in India, she was leaving without one person whom she had won to Christ, no disciple to continue her work. She, along with her missionary colleagues, lived in walled compounds with three or four servants, each to look after their lifestyle. She spent a lifetime and untold amounts of God's precious money, which could have been used to preach the gospel. I could not help but think Jesus had called us to become servants, not masters. Had she done so, she would have fulfilled the call of God upon her life, and fulfilled the Great Commission. Unfortunately, this sad truth is being repeated all over the world of colonial-style foreign missions. Regrettably, seldom are traditional missionaries being held accountable for their current lack of results, nor is their failure being reported at home in the West. At the same time, native evangelists are seeing thousands turn to Christ in revival movements on every continent. Hundreds of new churches are being formed every week by native missionaries in the two-thirds world.