VULNERABLE MISSION

MISSIO DEI 4.1 (FEBRUARY 2013): 68–80
70
that is, of contextualization] at the U.S. Center for World Mission. However, in my
experience . . . I still find this perspective to be largely lacking.” 7
y Two weeks ago I was requested to answer a few survey questions for a researcher,
one of which was, “The multi-language translating software can be used to translate
foreign languages. The use of SMS, multimedia, internet, and satellite services
can enable followers of Jesus Christ to communicate the gospel with non-believers,
whose language is different, more efficiently and effectively than a missionary physically
going to a nation in which the native language is different.” I’ll admit that I
checked “strongly disagree,” but only because there was no option that said, “violently
disagree.” 8
y Three weeks ago a missions pastor friend of mine returned from a trip where he
heard a veteran missionary say, “Satan has taken full advantage of the short-term
missions movement in [his Asian country]. We would be so far ahead of where we are if
no teams had ever come.” 9
To sum up, VM does not propose different goals than mainstream mission and missiology. 10 We are
arguing that the mainstream methods of reaching those goals are not achieving them
very well. The contextualized, sustainable, missional church is not here yet.
BETTER METHODS OF REACHING THE AGREED GOAL,
INCLUDING ORAL THINKING STYLE
As someone has said, “Stupid is not doing stupid things. It is doing the same things and
expecting a different result.” Let’s apply that to mission.
The biggest shift in mission from Western countries in the last twenty years is a massive
increase in short-term trips and short-term workers (a year or less). In a sense, this is a
new “method,” but in a deeper sense, it is the same old method of the colonial era, putting
monocultural, ethnocentric people into cross-cultural settings.
In a way it is worse, because now that quick trips are possible and affordable, the trippers
have no time to grow out of their ethnocentrism and no clue about why they should.
They stick to the methods that ethnocentric people can use, even though these fly in the
face of the goals of mainstream missiology. They rely on English or a personal transla-
7 Steven J. Ybarrola, “Avoiding the Ugly Missionary: Anthropology and Short-Term Missions,” in Effective
Engagement in Short-Term Missions: Doing it Right!, ed. Robert Priest, Evangelical Missiological Society Series 16
(Pasadena: William Carey Library, 2008), 101–119.
8 My experience with translation software is that really ordinary conversations are difficult enough, let alone
communicating the gospel into a culture I have no feel for. I recall one message where the software translated
a Russian speaker’s greeting as, “Hello, expensive brother!” After pondering what kind of an insult my friend
intended by this greeting, I eventually figured out that “expensive” was the software’s way of translating “dear.”
But it didn’t give me much confidence in the rest of the message.
9 This is not to deny that short-term trips can be mutually beneficial if they follow strict “Standards of Excellence
in Short Term Mission” guidelines referred to in fn. 11. The anecdote above only illustrates that as of this
writing, the problems are still dire in spite of efforts to mitigate them.
10 We are with the missiologists at this point, battling against the popular temptation to define “better world”
as “more like the wealthy part of the world.”