discovering missions - Southern Nazarene University

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245187 Disc Missions ins 9/6/07 1:04 PM Page 58 58 Doing Mission Together mission enterprise. A person doing research on a particular mission board or agency needs to find out how that board tries to relate to the clusters of churches emerging from its work. The end result that some mission teams are working toward is the spinning off of independent churches or groups of churches. In their exit strategies, such mission agencies fully embrace a scaffolding metaphor in which any structure related to the parent mission group is to be dismantled and taken away. Some mission agencies, such as the Methodists, have opted for loose international fellowships of various national associations. The Anglicans have put together a little tighter organization, using words such as federation or federalism to talk about how their global communion is structured. Still others, such as the Presbyterians, become global partners (usually in terms of financial aid) with groups that may not even have roots in their tradition. A handful of denominations are trying to create global, organically unified associations of churches. Paternalism and Dependency Missionaries are always children of their times. So, paternalistic attitudes lingering from colonialistic times have had to be faced. Students doing research on their mission board need to ask how its mission policies have been shaped by paternalism in the past and how the board is dealing with that problem in the present. Questions such as “Who ultimately calls the shots?” and “Who makes the final decisions?” can help reveal the degree of paternalism tainting a mission agency. The relationship between a national church and the international body that gave birth to it usually goes through a series of stages that have been called pioneer, parent, partner, and participant. 4 These stages define not only attitudes but structural relationships as well. Missionaries infected by paternalism often are satisfied with progress at a snail’s pace through these stages. While the problems of paternalism and dependency are often intertwined, they deal with different issues. Paternalism has to do with decision-making power. Dependency relates to who is expected to provide financial resources. In earlier centuries it was often the gospel being shared between equals or even from poorer to richer. Then, beginning with the Age of Exploration in the 1500s, a reversal occurred and world evangelism became largely a going from well-off Christian areas of the globe to the poorer, unevangelized areas. That reversal in terms of economic levels has too often produced unhealthy dependencies on the financial resources of parent organizations. Funding came to be accorded such a determining role that many assumed evangelism or compassionate ministry work was possible only when outside funds were available. Any study of a mission organization should ask questions about dependency problems it has encountered and take a look at how it is dealing with them.
245187 Disc Missions ins 9/6/07 1:04 PM Page 59 Individualized Research Among the projects students can do when this book is used as a classroom text: 1. Prepare a comprehensive report over one mission board. 2. Research a parachurch organization. 3. As part of a small study group, explore one specific area (finances, history, structure) of a mission organization more fully. The research can be done locally by interviewing a pastor and local mission leaders and using whatever library and Internet resources can be found. Or, students can be encouraged to go global in their research by contacting denominational headquarters, mission leaders, and even field missionaries. Projects can be turned in individually, or the results can be shared and pooled together in a classroom setting. Leadership Training Doing Mission Together 59 Leadership development is a key factor in the progress of a cluster of churches on the journey from pioneer to participant. Thus, knowing how leadership preparation is done is part of understanding the mission organization of which one is a part. How leaders are recruited, trained, and mentored varies from group to group. In pioneering situations, training has often been done one-on-one or in very small groups. Faith groups have tended to set up Bible institutes or schools that copied the residential Bible institute model that sprang into existence in the U.S. with Moody Bible Institute in the late 1800s. Denominations with institutions of higher learning in their sending base usually tried to marshal the resources to set up similar training institutions on their mission fields. Then, in the 1970s creative Presbyterian missionaries in Guatemala revolutionized theological education by shutting down their residential seminary and giving birth to an educational delivery system called Theological Education by Extension. In some ways, TEE was a precursor of online studies because it is a schooling that goes to the students instead of vice versa. Theological Education by Extension students are not uprooted and moved to a residential campus. Instead, they gather at a central location one day a week or for two days at a time twice a month and the professor comes to them. In the early years of the TEE movement, emphasis was placed on developing programmed learning texts with the thought that printed texts developed by experts would be the primary vehicle for delivering course content. Textbooks using that specialized teaching technique are no longer seen as an essential component of a TEE program. In its initial days TEE was seen primarily as a
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discovering missions - Southern Nazarene University

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