This past week, a friend who trains missionaries for a living (Thanks Tim) shared with me a link to an article entitled, “A Plea For Gospel Sanity in Missions – From East to West.” In it, the author, who grew up in southern India, makes a plea to Western (“Northern”) churches to be careful when appeals for support by Indian nationals who share outlandish stories of church growth. In some ways, the writer is uniquely qualified to address the question because he grew up in India himself. In addition, he is currently an Adjunct Instructor and Ph.D. candidate in a major seminary here in the West (Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY). He is fairly up front with his bias against church-planting movements (CPM’s), but note that the article isn’t about that. Rather, it’s about the fact that today, there are seemingly more and more claims of outlandish church growth for the apparent purpose of attracting more and more income for national evangelists and partners. The author writes, “Sadly, the Western church’s obsession with numbers has had a destructive effect so that the name of Christ is blasphemed in India.” One of his goals is to “encourage Western churches to be discerning in the missionary works they support and encourage my Indian brothers to seek true gospel growth in their ministries regardless of whether that looks impressive to the West or not.”
I’ve noticed these issues are very polarizing. In fact, some people are so emotionally invested in one side or the other that they have seemingly lost the ability to enter the discussion objectively.
So here’s my request: Would you hop over and read the article at…
http://trainingleadersinternational.org/blog/753/a-plea-for-gospel-sanity-in-missions-from-east
then click to the online version of this item at the link below? Once there, please Comment following this item and give your opinion (please — without any emotional bias and definitely without referring to specific organizations or individuals) about whether you agree or disagree with his opinion. (In this case, Aubrey is indeed a male.) We look forward to hearing your opinion here. Thanks for considering. (Note: Unfortunately, we’ll have to remove comments defaming specific orgs or individuals because they will distract from our purpose, which is to discuss the principle, rather than the person. For this reason, we’re asking you to share your opinion here — because the thread of comments at the author’s site has headed in the direction of negative comments about specific orgs.)
Many valid complaints in this article that are based upon the gullibility of churches in the USA and the temptation to inflate numbers among people-pleasing and cash-needing Indian workers. And this has been going on for a long time.
However, regarding his complaints about CPM’s (and “rabbit churches”) – one can make a different set of similarly valid complaints against ever the deadening effect of “elephant churches” that are run by power-hungry leaders, don’t grow in either numbers or quality, and do the same kind of fundraising from the West. The problem is spiritual corruption on both sides, which will never go away as long as the love of money exists. Which is to say, until the end of the age.
I immediately posted a link to this on my Facebook page because the author makes some valid points. However after reading it more closely, I deleted the link because of his extremely negative view of anything that smacks of rapid growth or signs and wonders. There is a middle ground where both Indian and Western missionaries are making huge and unprecedented inroads into new areas of growth.
I have collected research on our own work in INDIA for the past 15 years and have statistical reports to back up the numbers we have given. My conclusion is that yes, what we are seeing today is in many ways like the book of Acts. Attention must be given to conserving the results through appropriate followup and leadership training, but that does not negate what God is doing.
– Author, TELLING GOD’S STORIES WITH POWER.
SEE: http://us5.campaign-archive2.com/home/?u=3d2da074a39651df94afe59f8&id=b1c3905740 for grass roots reports that we send out weekly.
I have seen and heard similar stories from supporting churches, missionaries on the ground, AND nationals. These things happen. Be aware and be diligent. As a steward, your job isn’t to take someone’s word for anything, but to do the hard work of stewarding the Lord’s resources. I hear churches all the time say, “we can’t get in contact with our national in country, and when we finally do, he won’t give us a straight answer.” They chalk it up to cultural differences. I tell them, you better make sure it’s cultural.
Just a quick thought on the CPM connection. I’ve been a CPM practitioner among Arabs. I love the approach. But, I love it, not because it promises a certain return in a certain time frame, but because of the principles (much prayer, much evangelism, etc) it encourages in the worker.
I think everything shared in this article AND the CPM critique cited in it are fair. Nothing in it says, don’t practice CPM, but instead says, make sure the “outcomes” taught by many CPM proponents aren’t expected as if they are from the Bible. I know that PIONEERS doesn’t include the word “rapid” in their talk of church planting movements. Instead they focus on the faithful multiplication of churches and disciples.
So, I hope we can all listen to this. I don’t think it, at all, means the activities espoused in CPM are unBiblical, but that the expectations are.
We have seen all of the sad things in this article and more in the span of 18 years in Asia. It is good to discuss these issues in the context of how Christ may be best honored and His Kingdom best advanced. We should probably not expect to come up with sytematic ways of illiminating corruption or of rooting out dishonesty — where there is a lot of money circulating, unscrupulous people will surely find ways to get near it. Rather we might concentrate on, and Biblically foster, faithfulness to the Lord, as the author suggests (personally and in any of our partners in the work). Also, many things are capable of shoehorning themselves into the latest terminology. This is perhaps why we keep changing our buzzwords. If a buzzword is used to decorate the false claims of a dishonest fundraising ploy, this should not tarnish the testimonies of the faithful who are privileged to be participating in God’s work in atmospheres of true awakening. So I would hate to see genuinely fruitful ministry criticised simply because, for example, the workers have embraced phrases such as “church planting movement.”
So, are numbers evil when it comes to reporting what God is doing in the world? I mean, I hear this a lot, and it often comes in connection with CPMs as if CPMs were evil as well. Have you looked at the 10 universals of a CPM? Really! Which of them would you not like to see happening in your people group! The problem is not numbers or CPMs, and oh yes, counting is not the same as the Sin of David. David’s sin was a disregard for God’s power to win regardless of the size of the army. If numbers are evil, we’re really going to have to do a lot of redaction when we recount all that God is doing in the world today.
Does this mean that every number reported by partners about what they are seeing is accurate? No way. This is why we go and verify reports. Still there is the belief that the bigger the number, the more likely we are to think that someone is lying instead of God doing something really big. My friends, God is doing something really big in a lot of places. Get used to it; then, go and look at it.
OK, so in my career I’ve answered questions like this a number of times, and one response that seems to satisfy skeptics about numbers is, “We count what is important to us.” For example, someone who is not a footballer may wonder about all the fuss over numbers that is reported. When someone scores in a game, footballers not only note the change in a score, but they record the minute that is was scored, whether it included an assist, whether it was scored off of a corner or set piece, etc. Also, if someone scores three times, we call it a “hat-trick.” All sports are pretty much the same. So, if you tell a footballer that numbers in football match do not matter, he immediately knows you don’t care a lot about football or do not care where your team is in the table.
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> Also, others make the case that quoting numbers is ungodly, and often trace this back to the notorious Sin of David. Of course, we know that counting wasn’t the sin–the sin was lack of trust in the power of God. Interestingly, if God had a disdain for numbers, why did God give David a multiple choice question about naming his own judgment–3 years, 3 months or 3 days?! Scripture is full of numbers, but all of these numbers have something in common–they were all used to show God’s extraordinary acts/judgment/provision/etc.
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> So by extension, if someone does not care about how many people groups are without a gospel witness, how many people have not heard the gospel within a given people group, or the rate of church planting and discipleship in relation to population growth, I would say that the person does not appreciate whether we are winning or losing the ultimate battle. However, let’s take it further, would God not act in a way today that we would want to measure his extraordinary activity. We know the speed of light, the depth of the sea, latitudes and longitudes of local Starbucks, and we create tools that help us measure all of these. So, numbers are important when it comes to God’s activity within the context of that activity. Apart from the context of God’s activity it doesn’t matter how many large fish were caught in John 21, how many fish and loaves the lad brought to Jesus, how many men the Samaritan woman had known, how many coins were lost or how many talents were made through good investments by the wise steward.
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> Because Finishing the Task is so important, it demands to be measured. Because God is so active in the world today, the observation of his phenomenal activity demands notice.
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> Because so many are starving in refugee camps, we predict how many meals we need to feed them one meal a day for 25 cents each because how great an injustice it is for children to be hungry. Then, the surpassing depth of lostness demands that we know the depth and expanse of the mire to redeem the ones who will be lost without the rescue with which we are stewards.
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> My two cents worth.