discovering missions - Southern Nazarene University

245187 Disc Missions ins 9/6/07 1:04 PM Page 72
72 A Global Church
failure to teach about stewardship and the regular subsidizing of pastors and
evangelists with outside funds. “We’ve ruined a lot of good leaders by teaching
them to rely on foreign funds,” missionary Terry Barker has lamented. 24
When outside funding is used in global mission work, it must be disbursed
in restricted and strategic ways. As mission leaders set up administrative structures,
start new programs, and plan construction projects, they must be continually
asking, “Is this sustainable?” and “Is this reproducible?”
Edward Dayton and David Fraser have said that “mission has its source in
the Triune God.” 25 Within the divine Trinity of the Father, Son, and Spirit
there is a continual giving and receiving. Mission that truly reflects God and is
grounded in and shaped by Trinitarian theology will be done in that same attitude
of reciprocity. Such reciprocity is not primarily something financial (e.g.,
“I’ll buy our lunch today; you pay for it tomorrow”). Reciprocity means people
seeing each other as equals with a willingness and even eagerness to learn from
each other. It means never giving the impression that the Holy Spirit speaks
through some people and not others. Reciprocity means sitting under each
other’s ministry.
In terms of money, reciprocity means that everyone will contribute financially
in a proportionate measure of giving reflective of Luke 12:48 (“from the
one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked”). Churches
in the less affluent parts of the world need to experience the blessedness that
comes with giving. To foster the growth of healthy churches that can be mature
global partners, leaders must enable churches and believers to internalize a lesson
about giving that Paul attributed to Jesus, “It is more blessed to give than
to receive” (Acts 20:35). A Navajo Indian believer once lamented how the paternalism
of missionaries robbed them of divine blessing, “The missionaries
did not teach us to tithe because they thought we were too poor. They did not
know that we were poor because we did not tithe.” 26
The embracing of Reuben Welch’s book title We Really Do Need Each Other
as a theme for cross-cultural relationships will foster a sense of mutuality
that creates an authentic interdependence. Purposefully cultivating mutuality
will help church leaders resist paternalistic temptations to use their global outreach
programs as bragging points. One example of mutuality in action was
noted by historian Frederick Klees when he said, “Much of the success of the
Moravians in converting the Indians [in America] was due to the fact that they
looked upon the Indians as fellow human beings.” 27
Identification is the process in which an outsider gains a sense of belonging
and is able to feel empathy with those of a different culture. Identification
does not mean exuberantly “going native” and abandoning one’s own cultural
identity in order to uncritically embrace a new one. Good identification leads