Is your ministry model a good one? Wouldn't it be better to use the traditional method of going and staying?
These kinds of questions are usually said quietly to one or both of us but rarely spoken during a public Q&A. We sometimes see it written on the faces of people who are listening to us present our ministry, especially when it's the first time they've heard something like this. After all, we spend lots of money to travel great distances to spend a short time there.
Yes, we believe it's worth it for many reasons. Here are just a few.
These kinds of questions are usually said quietly to one or both of us but rarely spoken during a public Q&A. We sometimes see it written on the faces of people who are listening to us present our ministry, especially when it's the first time they've heard something like this. After all, we spend lots of money to travel great distances to spend a short time there.
Yes, we believe it's worth it for many reasons. Here are just a few.
- The US missionary force is dwindling. This is not necessarily a bad thing because God is raising up missionaries from many other parts of the world. The U.S. is no longer the leader in sending out missionaries. So it is fitting that we allow the nationals to do the work that they do better than a foreigner will do - that of establishing churches.
- Time to learn the language. When US missionaries go abroad to share the gospel and plant churches, it takes them years to learn the language. Depending on the language, it may take even more years to be able to teach at above an elementary school level to help develop future leaders and teachers in that community. Yet a national church planter does not have to spend time doing that. He already knows the language and can communicate with ease.
- It takes years to learn the culture. Most likely, American missionaries will never be accepted as one of the people. They will always be an outsider. If their race does not give them away, their inability to speak, look, and act like a national will do it.
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| Leadership meeting in Peru |
Approximately 80% of the world has already been reached with the gospel. Approximately 77% of all US missionaries are going to these already reached places. If we are going to reach the world for Christ, it is better to further equip the nationals to reach their own people and send Americans to places that are still unreached.
After the iron curtain fell, Charlie attended a seminar where pastors from the former Soviet block were asked, "What can we do to help you?" Over and over again, they answered. "Send us Bibles, literature, and send people to help us train leaders. One person asked, "What about church planting?" The response? "We know how to plant churches. We need Bibles, literature, and training."
We are willing to go wherever God calls us. If He wants us to spend years in a country, we will do it. For now, however, we believe that strengthening the hand of national church planters is God's direction for us right now.
We recognize that a national pastor is better equipped to reach his own people than we are. So we go in, at the request of a pastor, and teach what he needs. Sometimes our teaching provides a "second witness" to their own teaching. As one pastor put it to me recently, "I have already taught my people about this, but they will hear it better from the visiting speaker."
When we go, we work under that pastor. We are not his boss. He is ours. We respect him as the leader of the ministry and do what we can to assist him in the building and encouraging
of his people. We want to see that ministry grow, and he knows better than we do how to make that happen.
of his people. We want to see that ministry grow, and he knows better than we do how to make that happen.
