Steve Hoke and Bill Tay­lor have observed that “as we move into the third mil­len­nium, the church of Jesus Christ had become truly glob­al­ized, and mis­sions is now from all nations to all nations” (Hoke and Tay­lor 1999:19). With the growth of the Two-​​Thirds World Church, it has begun to assume a greater respon­si­bil­ity for world mis­sions (Harley 1995:4). In this brief arti­cle, I would like to dis­cuss the cru­cial need for this decen­tral­iza­tion and how West­ern mis­sions ought to respond

The Great Omis­sion: Church Plant­ing with­out Mis­sions Planting

As a mis­sion­ary, I have strug­gled with the chronic prob­lem of “depen­dency” in national Chris­t­ian lead­ers which leads to “high costs with low effi­ciency.” Evan­gel­i­cal mis­sion­ar­ies and local pas­tors planted many churches in the Philip­pines between 1975 and 2000, but many of these churches are still weak and dying. They strug­gle with both finan­cial short­ages and lead­er­ship prob­lems. With more than 51,625 evan­gel­i­cal churches in the Philip­pines as the result of the DAWN 2000 project, few pas­tors are being paid enough to sur­vive. Accord­ing to the Philip­pine Coun­cil of Evan­gel­i­cal Churches’ sur­vey, about 80% of pas­tors in Luzon receive less than 20 dol­lars a month from their churches. Fur­ther­more, the aver­age atten­dance of each church is only about 35 peo­ple. I have myself planted sev­eral churches in var­i­ous mis­sion fields, only to see those churches become “depen­dent” and strug­gle in sim­i­lar ways to survive.

Reflect­ing on this gloomy pic­ture of national churches in places like the Philip­pines, I con­cluded that we evan­gel­i­cal mis­sion­ar­ies were plant­ing churches but not mis­sions. In the past, the West­ern churches and agen­cies were seen as the torch bear­ers who led and funded mis­sions. Non-​​Western churches were con­sid­ered “depen­dent” enti­ties, not ade­quately devel­oped or resourced for the task of cross-​​cultural mis­sions. It became obvi­ous to me, though, that church plant­ing is not the end goal of min­istry; mis­sion plant­ing is. The prob­lem in places like the Philip­pines is not a short­age of money or strate­gies but a lack of own­er­ship of the Gospel.

A Mis­sions Plant­ing Model: The Asia Vision Short-​​Term Mis­sions Project

In 2002, after vis­it­ing the Tuol Sleng geno­cide museum and one of the Cam­bo­dian “killings fields,” I wanted to move my mis­sion sta­tion from the Philip­pines to Cam­bo­dia. Instead, the Lord chal­lenged me to send Fil­ipinos out to Cam­bo­dia and neigh­bour­ing coun­tries as Short-​​term mis­sion­ar­ies. Since then, I have served as a mis­sions cat­a­lyst to encour­age not only Fil­ipinos but other Asian Chris­tians to join the Great Com­mis­sion. I have chal­lenged them to proac­tively attempt and expect great things for God, rather than pas­sively wait­ing for God to do those great things. By send­ing these Asian mis­sion­ar­ies out to the world I hoped to cor­rect their long time “depen­dency” and fos­ter a new “own­er­ship of the Gospel.”

From these hum­ble begin­nings has emerged the Asia Vision Short-​​term Mis­sions Project (AVSTM). From 37 Short-​​term mis­sion­ar­ies (STMers) in 2003, the AVSTM grew to about 700 STMers in 2008. The project has a vision of send­ing 3,000 STMers from Asia (espe­cially from the Philip­pines) to Asia by the year 2015, so that more peo­ple in Asia can hear the Good news and enjoy sal­va­tion through the work of com­mit­ted Asian missionaries.

One chal­lenge fac­ing the AVSTM has been poor finan­cial sup­port. Since Asian churches are still finan­cially weak, it is hard to sup­port their mis­sion­ar­ies on the high-​​cost West­ern mis­sions sys­tem. It was obvi­ous to me that Fil­ipino churches could not afford $1,000 to $2,000 a month to sup­port their mis­sion­ar­ies. On the other hand, the afflu­ence of such financ­ing might be a hin­drance in the mis­sion­ar­ies’ rela­tion­ships with the local peo­ple. So we devel­oped a new approach to fund­ing our mis­sions. I line up work for each STMer in the host coun­try. I also arrange for the STMers to stay in the houses of local peo­ple and encour­age the hosts to cover board and lodg­ing for the STMers while they work. In most areas of Asia, this allows STMers to serve for no more than $100 a month. Besides low­er­ing costs, though, this sys­tem is very effec­tive in help­ing the STMers to iden­tify with the host peo­ple. Almost all of our STMers enjoy life-​​changing expe­ri­ences liv­ing with the local peo­ple, and on their return STMers find them­selves miss­ing the peo­ple whom they served. Many decide to return to serve as long-​​term mis­sion­ar­ies. Many churches have been planted across Asia through the incar­na­tional min­istry of these STMers, and they have helped to cre­ate a new image of Christianity.

Since the STMers live in the areas where the peo­ple are, I have chal­lenged them to do min­istries at least 8 hours a day. Most labour­ers work 8 hours a day but it seems that aver­age evan­gel­i­cal mis­sion­ar­ies do not work that much while the Mor­mon mis­sion­ar­ies work 8 hours or more a day. Hence, the Mor­mons expe­ri­enced remark­able 173-​​fold growth in the Philip­pines between 1960 and 1990 while the evan­gel­i­cals enjoyed only 11 to 25-​​fold church growth. They were known and char­ac­ter­ized by their zeal and an admirable mis­sion­ary spirit. Tens of thou­sands of Mor­mon mis­sion­ar­ies (mostly, short-​​termers) work actively today. They visit every prospect (and church mem­bers) at least twice a week, and meet about 20 peo­ple a day.

Though lead­ers have tended to view Fil­ipino Chris­tians as weak and depen­dent, I have found that they pos­sess some strate­gic strengths for mis­sions. Fil­ipinos are:

1. multi-​​lingual: Most Fil­ipinos speak Taga­log, Eng­lish, and 1 or 2 addi­tional lan­guages. Thus, they can eas­ily learn a new lan­guage or teach a lan­guage (such as Eng­lish) to others.
2. multi-​​cultural: Cen­turies of colo­nial rule and their country’s multi-​​racial com­po­si­tion helps them to adapt eas­ily to a new culture.
3. ver­sa­tile: They eas­ily blend in other Asian cul­tures with­out being noticed. One of the most impor­tant val­ues in Fil­ipino cul­ture is SIR (Smooth Inter­per­sonal Relationships).
4. resilient: They have been made strong by hard­ship and are able to adjust with­out com­plaint to con­texts with­out elec­tric­ity or suf­fi­cient water.
5. highly edu­cated: Most have an oppor­tu­nity to study in col­leges and they can teach effec­tively in var­i­ous mis­sion fields.
6. non-​​threatening: Since the Philip­pines has no his­tory of aggres­sion, they are wel­comed in many Asian coun­tries. Even visas are waived, espe­cially among ASEAN coun­tries in South­east Asia.

These par­tic­u­lar advan­tages do not make Fil­ipino Chris­tians bet­ter suited to mis­sions than mem­bers of other Asian churches. What they illus­trate, how­ever, is that the sup­pos­edly “weak” mem­bers of Two-​​Thirds World churches are often equipped with unique strengths of their own.

How Can West­ern Mis­sions Respond?

If we are to fos­ter own­er­ship of the Gospel among Two-​​Thirds World churches, the role played by mis­sion­ar­ies from North Amer­ica in these part­ner­ships also has to change. Since most non-​​Western mis­sion­ar­ies are in need of proper train­ing and care, West­ern mis­sion­ar­ies can often con­tribute best by equip­ping them as train­ers, coaches, con­sul­tants, and encour­agers in their fields. West­ern mis­sion­ar­ies also need to pre­pare for multi-​​cultural and multi-​​lingual team­work. The indi­vid­u­al­is­tic mis­sion­ary of the colo­nial era is no longer viable. An abil­ity to work with, and under, lead­er­ship of other nation­al­i­ties is essen­tial (John­stone and Mandryk 2001:12). The ideas of inter­de­pen­dency (in con­trast to inde­pen­dency) and account­abil­ity must be cen­tral to the emerg­ing par­a­digm for con­tem­po­rary missions.

Mis­sion agen­cies are already respond­ing by becom­ing more prag­matic about whom they will accept as mis­sion­ar­ies from the Two-​​Thirds World. Many show an increas­ing inter­est in the actual com­pe­ten­cies of their can­di­dates rather than in their for­mal cre­den­tials or degrees. The key ques­tion asked is: “Can they do the min­istry they will be assigned to do?” This means in some cases requir­ing less for­mal the­o­log­i­cal edu­ca­tion before the first term and pro­vid­ing more prac­ti­cal, men­tored, on-​​the-​​job train­ing (Hoke 1999:336). Indi­vid­u­als pre­vi­ously excluded from mis­sions can then be val­ued for the unique life expe­ri­ences which may pre­pare them for reach­ing out to grow­ing seg­ments of the population.

Mis­si­ol­ogy is respond­ing with sev­eral trends that promise to re-​​shape the dis­ci­pline. An attempt is being made to cap­ture a more global per­spec­tive, acknowl­edg­ing the dynamic and poten­tial of the churches in the Two-​​Thirds World. An increas­ing empha­sis is also being placed in the­o­log­i­cal and mis­sions train­ing on a holis­tic approach to min­istry, one that high­lights the inter­lock­ing causes of poverty, oppres­sion, and hope­less­ness. Per­haps most sig­nif­i­cant is the emer­gence of Two-​​Thirds World mis­si­ol­ogy and the will­ing­ness of West­ern thinkers to take seri­ously the per­spec­tive of their non-​​Western broth­ers and sisters.

There may still be a role to be played at times for finan­cial sup­port from West­ern churches, pro­vided it is re-​​thought in ways that are less pater­nal­is­tic and do not fos­ter depen­dance. Steve Mur­dock, for exam­ple, sug­gests that “if the sup­port is seen as ‘seed money’ and not as a per­pet­ual life­line, and there is an exit strat­egy that is viable and real­is­tic, then mon­e­tary sup­port can be healthy” (Mur­dock 2009:66–71). He then exhorts West­ern mis­sion­ar­ies: “[D]o not cre­ate a min­istry or struc­ture that is not duplic­a­ble within the cul­tural or social con­text in which you are work­ing; do not begin fund­ing a work with no growth strat­egy plan or exit plan; and do not do all the work your­self” (Mur­dock 2009:66–71).

Most impor­tant, though, is the basic shift that is tak­ing place in the way West­ern mis­sions agen­cies under­stand their rela­tion­ship with their Two-​​Thirds World coun­ter­parts. The buzz­word in mis­sions today is “part­ner­ship,” as opposed to “spon­sor­ship” with its sug­ges­tion of an unequal rela­tion­ship. West­ern churches and mis­sion agen­cies are rec­og­niz­ing how, if they are will­ing to work closely with their non-​​Western coun­ter­parts, resources can flow in both direc­tions. Spon­sor­ship and pater­nal­ism can be replaced by mutual recog­ni­tion of self­hood and coop­er­a­tion as equals (Pier­son 1987:9).

Con­clu­sions

Paul Pier­son notes the rapid growth of the non-​​Western Chris­t­ian mis­sion­ary move­ment as “the great­est new fact of our time” (Pier­son 1987:9). Such marked changes always cre­ate crises in our mis­sion strate­gies. A cri­sis, how­ever, is not an impasse. From a divine per­spec­tive, a cri­sis may con­sti­tute a call from God for pio­neer­ing work to be done. We are being called now to plant mis­sions among the nations, to fos­ter own­er­ship of the Gospel among the Two-​​Thirds World churches. This does not mean an end to West­ern involve­ment in cross-​​cultural mis­sions. Instead, we need to max­i­mize our mis­sions forces for the sake of the world. We are fac­ing increas­ing chal­lenges and hos­til­ity from Mus­lims, Hin­dus, Bud­dhists and many other groups in the var­i­ous mis­sion fields. The remain­ing task is too great for us to waste resources per­pet­u­at­ing mod­els shaped for a van­ished past.

Works Cited

Books

• Harley, David. Prepar­ing to Serve: Train­ing for Cross-​​cultural Mis­sions. Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 1995.
• Hoke, Steve and Bill Tay­lor. Send Me! Your Jour­ney to the Nations. Pasadena, CA: World Evan­gel­i­cal Fel­low­ship Mis­sions Com­mis­sion and William Carey Library, 1999.
• John­stone, Patrick and Jason Mandryk. Oper­a­tion World: 21^st Cen­tury Edi­tion. Way­nes­boro, GA: Pater­nos­ter Lifestyle, 2001.

Periodicals/​Articles

• Mur­dock, Steve. “Cut­tings the Purse Strings: How to Avoid and Over­come Pater­nal­ism.” In Evan­gel­i­cal Mis­sions Quar­terly 45:1 (Jan­u­ary 2009): 66–71.
• Pier­son, Paul. “Non-​​Western Mis­sions: The Great New Fact of Our Time” In New Fron­tiers in Mis­sion. Patrick Sookhdeo, ed. Exter, UK: Pater­nos­ter Press, 1987.

Fur­ther Reading

• Castillo, Met and Katie Sisco eds., Into the 21^st Cen­tury: Asian Churches in Mis­sions. N.p., Evan­gel­i­cal Fel­low­ship of Asia, 1998.
• Day, Lynn Joest­ing. “Con­sid­er­ing the Con­texts of Twenty-​​First Cen­tury Mis­sions.” In With an Eye on the Future: Devel­op­ment and Mis­sion in the 21^st Cen­tury. Mon­rovia, CA: MARC, 1996.
• Fox, Framp­ton. “For­eign Money and Indige­nous Min­istry: To Give or Not to Give?” In
  Evan­gel­i­cal Mis­sions Quar­terly 43:2 (April 2007):150–57.
• Fuller, Lois K. The Mis­sion­ary and His Work. Jos, Nige­ria: Nige­ria Evan­gel­i­cal Mis­sion­ary Insti­tute, 1991.
• Hiebert, Paul G. Anthro­po­log­i­cal Insights for Mis­sion­ar­ies. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1993.
• _​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​_​. Anthro­po­log­i­cal Reflec­tions on Mis­si­o­log­i­cal Issues. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1994.
• Hoke, Stephen T. “Par­a­digm Shifts and Trends in Mis­sions Train­ing — A Call to Servant-​​Teaching, A Min­istry of Humil­ity.” In Evan­gel­i­cal Review of The­ol­ogy 23 (Octo­ber 1999):329–346.
• Roger S. Green­way, “World Urban­iza­tion and Mis­si­o­log­i­cal Edu­ca­tion.” In Mis­si­o­log­i­cal Edu­ca­tion for the 21^st Cen­tury: The Book, the Cir­cle, and the San­dals. Mary­knoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1996.