Seems like more and more, we’re hearing from multiple churches, agencies, teachers, and individual missionaries about the need to involve locals (nationals) in each of our ministries. I have more questions than answers on these topics. Can you help flesh out some responses, even if they’re just one line at a time? Just use the “Comment” feature after this item to give your opinion please.
a) How will churches and agencies in the USA (or in another homelands, for that matter) design/acquire the infrastructure to effectively select the workers that God is seeking?
b) What will be the most effective model for training this new wave of workers, home or foreign?
c) How will we finally effectively deal with the salary disparity between [typically] American Whites, and locals.
d) What level of accountability will we desire/expect/require? Must the local person fill out a form, turn in receipts, or just write an email?
e) What are the most potentially dangerous rough edges you can imagine in these “blended” teams? Where can they break down?
Please answer these and other questions in the comments that follow. Let’s get to the bottom of this:
I would highly recommend Jim Pludemann’s new book: Leading Across Cultures: Effective Ministry and Mission in the Global Church. It comes from a lifetime of experience. I loved it. It deals with a number of the questions raised though its focus is on integration of teams,decisions, etc there is a lot applicable for local church in global mission thinking as well. Here is one majority world mini review via Amazon site:
“I read and reread Plueddemann’s book Leading Across Cultures with extreme excitement. I can say this book has transformed my thinking and understanding on intercultural leadership of global missions. I am thankful for his contribution and efforts not only for readers from the West, but also for the global church and overall global missionary endeavor. Therefore, I hope this book will transform the understanding of many, many mission leaders, pastors and missionary trainers. It will also bring new ways of doing missions for those who are ready to change and truly want to expand God’s kingdom in missions and church planting in different cultures. Reading this book with conviction will bring humility and harmony among missionary teams, inspire for action, and give direction and vision for new ways of doing missions in crosscultural contexts.” –Dr. Desta Langena, director, Kale Heywet School of Missions, Ethiopia
All of the discussion on this topic that I have seen focuses on integrating nationals into our western or western type agencies. It appears that such a move is misguided from the start, for it assumes that our institutions are worth “imposing” on their cultures.
A whole different set of answers to the above questions would arise — no, a whole different and more appropriate set of questions would arise — if we realize that our mission structures are of value in our context of calling, preparing, and holding accountable the servants that we send, but are not necessarily useful on the field, and certainly are not something nationals would want to join.
Admittedly, nationals who have already become westernized to a great extent through their education at western or western style training programs or universities may well feel comfortable with our ways of doing things and thus could serve our mission structures. But the more that the above questions arise, the less appropriate it is to even attempt the to answer them.
Thus, the issue is not how we can integrate national workers into our work, but how can we become integrated into theirs!! I do not mean that it would be appropriate for westerners to join in non-western structures any more than they should ours, but that individuals who are accountable to western senders should be able to join in God’s work as outside specialists or servants to non-western churches. This often would mean ad hoc services where very little structure even exists (or at least what westerners might recognize as structure).
Interesting line of thinking, Mark. I’ll have to ponder how that will work with the expectations of accountability from Western donors? These thoughts are made more serious by the bad press that a few cheaters have garnered. So as consultants, we’ll have to be very creative to come up with accountability structures that “fit” and that “work.”
I agree with Mark that an attempt to bring everyone into our mission sending structures probably will create more problems. As an agency, we made the decision not to try to create replicas of ourselves in other countries as we start churches or build relationships with existing churches. Instead, we decided to do all we can to encourage them to create whatever sending structures and processes that make sense to their context, then find ways we can work together for the Kingdom in other places. Our relationship will be one of collaboration rather than of formal, structural connection. This enables each to have structures and processes appropriate to their own cultures.
My guess is that economic and cultural differences will create challenges to any attempt to have a single structure. More likely, the understanding of mission team will be much more loosely structure, more organic, and more dynamic. Hierarchical accountability and positions like ‘regional director’ will probably not serve a more global mission approach well. This means we’ll have to get used to ambiguity and choose to be in unity rather than having a structure that forces it (or attempts to). Even traditional ideas of how missions is funded need to be reconsidered – the western model of funding is not sustainable in much of the world. And it could be argued that it really is not sustainable in the west!
If anyone wants a primer on this – say, to work through with members of their church mission committee – that “Beauty of Partnership” curriculum Doug recently promoted looks like a great tool for laying the foundation. You can get copies of the workbook for everyone in the group for a pretty reasonable price, and work through it as you might with a small group Bible study. They estimate 18-24 hours of study to work through the six lessons. Plus… stay tuned for some wisdom on this topic from the Lausanne conference in Capetown. I’m planning to participate from Denver, one of many sites being set up for simulcasts. (Last I looked there wasn’t a complete list of those posted yet).