Financially
supporting national pastors and missionaries may not always be the
bargain it's cracked up to be. --Craig Ott
In the light of the skyrocketing costs of sending North American
missionaries, more and more churches and individuals are supporting
national pastors and evangelists, who generally require a fraction
of the support of Western missionaries. These native workers not
only cost less but know the language and culture of their people,
and they often have access to countries closed to traditional Western
missionaries.
Many churches have established direct partnerships with churches
in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, which include
considerable financial subsidies. By sending dollars to support
national Christians to evangelize their own people, one proponent
claims a new wave of missions has come that offers "the best and
only hope for taking the Gospel" to the world.(1)
A careful study of the history and theology of missions will, however,
reveal that financial support of national pastors and evangelists
is fraught with dangers. In fact, such well-intended subsidies often
weaken receiving churches and undermine world evangelization in
the longer term. Think twice before you start supporting nationals
in your missions giving, and consider the following dangers.
The Nine Caveats
Western support of native workers is a model that national
churches cannot reproduce. To be effective, any missionary strategy
must be reproducible. Missionaries normally try to model ministry
that national believers and churches can both carry on after
the foreigners leave and reproduce in further evangelism. In
this way the missionary multiplies his or her efforts, and the
gospel's spread does not depend on foreign presence or assistance.
Western funding of native workers is a model nationals can never
reproduce themselves because it, by definition, depends on outside
funding. As a result, churches will tend to assume that seeking
support from mission agencies or partnerships with wealthy Western
churches is the normal way to support pastors and send missionaries.
Success in ministry becomes tied to Western purse strings. When
the dollars stop, so does the evangelism--a very questionable
strategy indeed, considering the precarious future of the U.S.
economy.
A missionary who was working in a tribal group in Mexico had
to spend days traveling from village to village by donkey. Thinking
of the travel time that could be saved, a well-meaning friend
offered to buy him a four-wheel-drive vehicle. The missionary
wisely rejected the offer, explaining, "If I use such a vehicle,
the natives will say, 'We can't do evangelism unless we also
have such a vehicle.'" His ministry would cease to be reproducible.
Having a good long-range strategy often means rejecting methods
promising greater short-term results.
To reproduce themselves, native churches must discover creative
ways to spread the gospel and plant churches without outside
support.
Such a strategy is based on the assumption that the spread
of the gospel depends on money. Financial resources can help
disseminate the gospel, and sacrificial giving is an important
Christian discipline demonstrating commitment, love, and devotion
to God and his purposes. But making the fulfillment of the Great
Commission dependent on the church's ability to raise money
is a fallacy Western Christians have uncritically, unconsciously
accepted. It reflects our Western materialism and commitment
to a professionalized ministry. Again, this theoretically limits
God's work to the measure of the church's economic prosperity.
Encouraging nationals to seek Western support for evangelism
sends developing churches a not-so-subtle message: "In order
to evangelize and send missionaries, you must have money to
support professionals. Because your resources are limited, you
must seek Western financial aid."
While we may encourage nationals to give sacrificially to support
their own, we must avoid communicating that professional pastors
and missionaries are the only, or even the best, way to reach
the world for Christ. One of the greatest missionary movements
in the church's history was initiated by Count Zinzendorf and
the Moravians, who achieved a ratio of one missionary to every
12 communicant members. Eventually they had three members on
the mission field for each one at home.(2) They did this by
developing creative ways of generating partial to full self-support;
in modern jargon, they became tentmakers.(3)
Roland Allen said the apostle Paul never took financial support
to the churches he started and argued persuasively against such
a practice.(4) When we make finances a "key" to world evangelization,
the danger is great that we are basing our mission strategy
on cultural, materialistic values rather than biblical principles.
It can create dependency and stunt giving in national churches.
Admittedly, there is great poverty in many countries, but teaching
new churches to depend on Western resources can blind them to
recognizing their own giving potential or seeking creative ways
to overcome obstacles by trusting God.
The history of missions is replete with sad stories of resentments
created when developing churches became dependent on Western
funding. (5) Programs are developed and workers are hired on
the basis of outside subsidies, and national churches come to
expect and count on them. When sending churches seek to reduce
the subsidies, or when the national believers spend or hire
ways disagreeable to the supporting churches, hard feelings
and misunderstandings normally result. Any giving to mission
churches or native workers must answer two questions: "Will
this stimulate or discourage local giving?" "Will it create
unhealthy dependency and foreign dominance, or help the church
mature and become self-sustaining?"
The amazing growth of the church under communist oppression
in China demonstrates that churches can grow and mature even
under the most severe conditions without Western support. Indeed,
when the Chinese churches received Western assistance, they
experienced minimal growth.
Heavy dependence on Western funds can reinforce feelings of
inferiority. Because of the extreme poverty in many countries,
nationals already feel inferior. Western support of native pastors
and evangelists, and the resulting dependency, strengthen the
belief that only Western Christians have the resources (namely,
money) to evangelize and maintain their churches. Such support
can result in a new form of the old paternalism that so characterized
the colonial era. Giving in ways that advance self-sufficiency
and self-worth demonstrates love, but giving that creates dependency
is dehumanizing and oppressive.
Western support can create a mercenary spirit among nationals.
While the motives of most national pastors and evangelists are
above reproach, even motives for Christian service can become
easily mixed when a secure and steady income is offered to those
willing to become pastors or evangelists. Competition and jealousy
can arise among believers vying to secure coveted, paid positions
in a land of hunger. Westerners are rarely in a position to
discern motives, and they all too often tap leaders the nationals
would not have chosen.(6) Churches can become resentful or jealous
of other churches receiving extravagant subsidies from American
partner churches due to personal connections.
Eastern European churches, which have learned to survive, and,
in many cases, carry on significant ministries under great hardship,
relative poverty, and, often, lay leadership, are now facing
the challenges of new freedoms and adjustment to Westernization
and materialism. If not done with the greatest care, the outpouring
of well-intended financial gifts from Western churches could
do much to further confuse and pollute churches that have been
purified by 45 years of communist oppression.
All too often native pastors and churches have become preoccupied
with ministries that attract Western dollars (such as orphan
work), while neglecting more basic pastoral care and evangelism.
Even development work, if not wisely administered, can hinder
church growth.(7) A great missionary statesman of the last century,
John L. Nevius, observed how employing native evangelists in
China tended to stop the work of volunteer lay evangelists,
who resented not being paid, thus hindering the natural spread
of the gospel.(8) William Kornfield describes how churches among
the Quechua Indians in Latin America that were once self-supporting
and self-propagating have, as a result of financial paternalism,
become divided and have lost the vision for reaching the lost.(9)
Foreign paid workers are not always more effective, and sometimes
are even less effective and credible than lay workers. When
the mission stopped paying national workers in India, the number
of lay workers multiplied, which resulted in mass movements
to Christ in the Methodist Episcopal Church.(10)
National evangelists are sometimes rejected by their peers when
the latter discover that Westerners pay them. In China they
are called "the white man's running dog." Foreign nationals
may judge foreign- paid evangelists as mercenaries, or even
subversives, who have become Christians and preach the gospel
only for the financial benefits. The communist Chinese saw subsidies
of Chinese churches and workers as evidence that Christianity
was not only a foreign religion, but an instrument of Western
imperialism.(11) The heavy Western subsidizing of national evangelists
and pastors could reproduce these kinds of suspicions in Asia,
Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe today.
Nevius wrote, "While working with their hands in those several
callings they bore testimony to the truth wherever they went,
and were exciting great interest in their own neighborhoods.
It was not long, however, before these men were employed…and
the interest in and about their homes ceased….I have not been
able to learn of any one of them, that his after career was
a specially useful one. I refer to these not as unusual and
exceptional."(12)
When national believers fail to support their own workers, the
impression is reinforced that Christianity is in fact a foreign
religion that has neither taken root nor inspired the deep commitment
of its followers. Furthermore, church members can resent a pastor
who is not accountable to them because his salary is paid by
a foreign mission or church. This danger is especially great
today, as some North American churches have started directly
supporting pastors of poorer Eastern European churches, bypassing
the local congregations those pastors serve.
On the other hand, it is a tremendous testimony of love and
commitment when national believers who have so little sacrifice
greatly to support their own pastors or send evangelists to
tell others the Good News. This demonstrates that Christianity
is not a Western religion or an agent of imperialism, but has
in fact commanded the deepest commitments among the various
peoples of the earth.
It can rob the national church of the joy of being a truly
missionary church. When the Evangelical Free Churches of Venezuela
caught a vision to send their first missionary to tribal work,
they sought assistance from the North American mother mission.
The mission leaders responded, "If you are to be a truly missionary
church, you must send them and support them yourselves." At
first the Venezuelans didn't understand, and they protested,
"But you have so much and we so little!" Soon, however, they
raised the necessary support and were able to send their first
missionary. There was tremendous joy at that commissioning service,
because the Venezuelans saw how God provided and knew that they
had become a truly multiplying, missionary church. Had North
American funds been provided, they would have been robbed of
that joy.
Employing national missionaries may not be the bargain it
appears. While not all native missionaries will need costly
higher education, we have to ask what kind of preparation they
will require. Cross- cultural ministry, contextualization, and
so on are challenges faced by Western and non-Western missionaries
alike. To avoid the mistakes of the past and to increase their
effectiveness, missionaries must have careful preparation and
training. Specialized ministries in particular--such as Bible
translation and medical work--demand extensive training, which
normally does not come cheap.
Larry Poston questions whether native missionaries really live
as cheaply as some claim, especially in the cities, where the
cost of living can be staggering. Given the fact that the world
is rapidly urbanizing, a long-range strategy must include reaching
the urban masses.(13)
Donors should carefully ask about the training and placement
of "bargain missionaries" before assuming that they really are
receiving more "bang for their missionary buck."
Sending money instead of missionaries comes dangerously close
to compromising the very essence of the Great Commission. The
Great Commission calls us to not only send dollars, but ourselves.
Just as the Father sent the Son to become man and dwell among
us, Jesus sends us into the world to personally identify with
those whom we would reach. This will not always be the most
economical solution, but it will be the greatest demonstration
of love: We cared enough to surrender our comfort and way of
life to share God's love with others.
Conclusion
I do not mean to underestimate the importance of sacrificial missions
giving. Missionaries must be sent. Relief and compassion ministries
must go on. There is a place for certain types of financial assistance
to developing churches.
This article, rather, is a call for discernment in how those funds
are spent. To truly promote the long-range purposes of world evangelization,
subsidies of national churches and workers must promote the planting
of reproducing churches, protect the integrity of national believers
and their witness, and avoid pitfalls described above. Pragmatism
cannot be allowed to overrule spiritual principles and blind us
to the lessons of history. Short-term gains can sometimes mean long-term
disaster. As Wade Coggins writes, "If our churches give only their
money, and not their sons and daughters, our missionary vision will
be dead in a generation or less. We can't substitute money for flesh
and blood."(14)
To reach our ever-changing world for Christ, new and creative strategies
are indeed called for. But we must not become bound by unbiblical
methods that are outdated or rooted in materialistic assumptions.
There are no short-cuts in the task of world evangelization. It
demands total commitment. It also demands careful discernment.
End Notes
K.P. Yohannan, The Coming Revolution in World Missions: God's
Third Wave (Altamonte Springs, FL: Creation House, 1986), p.
14.
J. Herbert Kane, A Concise History of Christian World Missions
(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1978), pp. 79-80.
See J. Christy Wilson, Jr., Today's Tentmakers (Wheaton, IL:
Tyndale, 1979), pp. 29-31.
Roland Allen, Missionary Methods: St. Paul's or Ours? rev.
ed. (London: World Dominion, 1927), pp. 73-83.
See W. Harold Fuller, Mission Church Dynamics (Pasadena, CA:
William Carey Library, 1980), pp. 180-3.
See Roland Allen, The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing House, 1962), p. 154.
Jim Yost, "Development work can hinder church growth." Evangelical
Missions Quarterly 20 (October, 1984): pp. 352-60.
John L. Nevius, The Planting and Development of Missionary
Churches (New York: Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions,
1899), p. 16.
"What hath our Western money and our Western gospel wrought?"
Evangelical Missions Quarterly, 27 (July 1991), p. 231.
Frank W. Warne, "India's Mass Movements in the Methodist Episcopal
Church." International Review of Missions 6 (April, 1917): pp.
204-5, cited in Allen, Expansion, p. 111.
See Stephen Neill, "China and the West," chapter 4 in Colonialism
and Christian Missions (New York: Mc Graw-Hill, 1966), pp. 116-69.
Planting, p. 12.
See "Should the West stop sending missionaries?" Evangelical
Missions Quarterly, 28 (January, 1992), p. 60.
Wade Coggins, "The risks of sending our dollars only," Evangelical
Missions Quarterly, 24 (July, 1988), p. 204
[Used with permission from Mission
Frontiers magazine (Sept-Oct '94)]