The Validity of Crossing Cultures in the Work of the Great Commission

The missionary advance of the gospel can no longer be mistaken as a Western enterprise alone. More and more nations from the two-thirds world are sending their own workers, and, not surprisingly, without American passports and unaccustomed to Western comforts, they are getting into some of the most difficult and limited access regions of the world. Believing nationals from within under-evangelized countries are mobilizing for the spread of the church among their own and neighboring peoples. In many regards, a new day has dawned in the epic of the great ingathering, and some of the rules have changed. They have changed so drastically, in fact, that some argue there is little or no place for traditional Western missionaries to do the long-term task of planting churches among the unreached. The expense and trouble involved in transplanting an American or Western European family overseas makes it, according to some, unwise, unstrategic, and a poor stewardship of resources when six or more national pastors can be funded for the same price. Perhaps the traditional model has run its course. Is the role of the Western Church now only to fund nationals, operate training hubs, and perform short-term services?

The church should most definitely give consideration to these things. National believers are, in many regards, the best equipped to carry on the work of church-planting in their own contexts. In too many cases, expatriate workers have over-stayed themselves. Their lack of a clear exit strategy and/or distrust of national believers has done damage to the health and mission of the national church. But I do not believe it is true that there is no longer a place for long-term goers who do the hard work of leaving home and learning a new language and culture with the goal of establishing the church in new contexts. The following is a beginning defense of why:

First, there are still places in the world where there is no national church capable of reaching its own without outside help. In these places, the call of Christ must involve someone crossing cultural and linguistic barriers – it is inherent in the task (Rom. 10:14-15; Matt. 28:18-20). I suggest that it would be in keeping with the thrust of the New Testament for the sending Church to focus on these least-reached areas in the commissioning of workers (Rom. 15:20-21). There are no doubt places where, indeed, the best thing foreign workers can do is pack their bags and leave in a timely fashion to enable the Church of Christ to come to maturity in its own context and shoulder the burden of mission to neighboring tribes and peoples. But this is not the case everywhere. As long as there are peoples with no witness for Christ, as long as there are places where no foundation has been laid, there will be the need for some to do the costly, difficult, Jesus-ordained work of going.

Second, supporting national pastors long term with Western dollars is not an ideal scenario. Of course, there is biblical precedent for the church in one place giving to the church in another. The account of the church in Antioch taking up a collection for the church in Jerusalem in Acts 11:27-30 would be one familiar instance. But this is an example of a one-time gift to relieve a crisis, which is far from parallel to indefinitely underwriting the salaries of foreign pastors and church-planters. Where the goal is indigenous communities of worshipers, the subsidizing of national elders leaves an unmistakable foreign influence. It may work to mark benefiting pastors as belonging to a separate class, it may make them vulnerable to attacks of greed (Titus 1:7; 1 Peter 5:2), and it may discourage the national church from supporting her own Christian workers and having a sense of ownership and autonomy. As long as Western donors hold the purse-strings, they are going to want to exercise some form of control over the recipients of their gifts, which in the long-run almost necessarily hampers indigenization. On the other hand, where Western dollars are behind Western missionaries, as messy and expensive as that can be, the dollars will leave with the missionaries. Both are temporary. The dollars along with the expatriate say: “something is not right here. Christ’s church is not living here. We must live among you for a time, to bless you with the Word of the Cross, and then we will go.”

Third, I don’t believe it would ever be suitable for the Western Church’s only form of “partnership” with the Church in the East to be financial support and training institutions. Might God be pleased by a fuller partnership and interdependence between us? For an affluent society such as our own, writing checks is one level of commitment to the commission of Christ and our brothers and sisters in the two thirds world. Sending our sons and daughters is another. God has allowed the Western Church (mainly owing to lack of persecution) to progress far in the development of doctrine and resources – something we should not disregard or conceal. While we must encourage new church plants toward mission to surrounding peoples, we should not assume that in every case infant churches will be ready to fulfill the Great Commission in their own countries without partnership. The task is still pretty gigantic, and we will not necessarily be robbing opportunities from churches in least-reached regions by continuing to do our own sending, especially when in partnership and consultation with any local believers that may exist. Of course, partnership is a two way street, and we need our brothers and sisters in the East as greatly or more so than they need us. Let us pose the question: who might have the most effective voice for revival in America? In spite of all our resources, heritage and education, might it not be a Chinese house church elder who has suffered for Christ and has come over to learn our language and give us a message from God? There is a rich effect when not everyone “blooms where they are planted.”

Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, there is something about the message of the cross that is validated, sweetened, illustrated and adorned when it is delivered at the hands of those who have sacrificed status, economy and comfort to bring it. The widely-used term “incarnational ministry” maybe not be the most appropriate, since Christ’s taking on of human flesh was a once-for-all redemptive action in a class by itself. But He who is not ashamed to call us brothers does call us follow Him in laying aside comfort, familiarity and ease to publish the message of His incarnatory work to all the nations. In the wisdom of God, the means are appropriate to the message. The Savior has come a long distance to ransom a people for Himself. In fact, He has gone so far as to die to make our salvation a reality. He asks us, as ambassadors for the ingathering of that people for whom He died, to also condescend, identify, and if necessary die to see this message take root in the ends of the earth.

~~posted by Ambassador