The changing face of world missions

Missions is changing. Not in terms of the ultimate goal of bringing the Good News to every corner of the globe - but in many of the paradigms about how it is happening. Here are some of the poitive trends that are taking place today.

An emphasis on healthy personnel
Many mission agencies have historically measured their success by how many mission personnel they have. Because numbers was the measuring stick, the spiritual, relational, emotional and skill health of it's personnel was not always a high priority. This is changing dramatically today as agencies realize that "numbers" is not the measurement but "health." Only healthy personnel can train healthy national leaders and result in healthy churches.

Non-paternalistic attitudes
While mission agencies have a long ways to go in shedding paternalistic attitudes and practices, significant progress has been made in many places. Paternalism is the attitude that "we are the experts, we have the money, we have the education and thus we have the upper hand in the relationship with those we come to serve." While unspoken, this attitude has often been the reality and it is complicated by the fact that those who have the money have the power.

There is a growing sensitivity to this issue and its negative implications - and the necessity of a servant leadership model that "partners" with indigenous movements - where both parties come to the ministry table as equals and both have something to bring to the ministry effort. The truth is that missionaries should be there to develop, empower and release healthy national leaders. While an ongoing challenge, the development of healthy partnerships between missionaries and nationals is a growing and God honoring trend.

Multiplication rather than addition.
The move toward doing everything we can to do multiplication rather than addition in missions is directly related to the movement toward non-paternalistic attitudes and relationships. In the paternalistic world, the missionary needs to plant the church and pastor the church. In the non-paternalistic world, the missionary is there to develop, empower and release national workers as quickly as possible and they give ministry away to nationals. This allows mission personnel to multiply themselves and their ministries - an absolute necessity in a world where the world population has grown from 1.9 billion to 6.5 billion in the last 100 years.

Development of international mission movements
Missions today is all people reaching all people and one of the most encouraging trends is the growing commitment of those who have traditionally been on the receiving end of mission ministry becoming sending movements.

Strategic mission agencies encourage those they work with to become sending movements as quickly as possible. Not only does this plant a misssion's DNA from the start but no church movement is mature until it too is taking part in the great commission. This allows the mission agency and the indigenous movement they work with to partner together in the missions endeavor and to raise up large numbers of indigenous missionaries to impact that region of the world. This is huge leverage for missions.

A related development is the development of cross cultural missions teams working together to do cross cultural ministry.
This is a natural outcome of developing non-paternalistic attitudes and encouraging indigenous mission movements. Not only does our organization (ReachGlobal) partner with other western agencies but we partner with non-western mission movements from both the developed and the developing world.

This is resulting in cross cultural mission teams working together to do cross cultural ministry. I am convinced that this is the future picture of missions. While there are challenges for everyone in the process it is a beautiful thing to see people from different cultures working together to accomplish the great commission.

Holistic emphasis
Increasingly, evangelical missions is seeing the need of not only sharing the Good News and planting churches but in showing the love of Christ through holistic ministry - especially in the developing world and among the marginalized in the developed world. This trend is accelerated when we partner with partners in the "majority world" which is a poor world.

Believers in the majority world have always seen the necessity and understood the theology of holistic ministry. Remember that 54% of our world lives on $3.00 or less per day. Holistic ministry not only demonstrates the love of Christ but it opens amazing ministry doors to people who are desperately looking for hope in life.

Missions has become accessible to people with a wide variety of skills. No longer is missions reserved for those who have a theological degree, or are a doctor or teacher. With an emphasis on holistic ministry cutting edge mission agencies are building ministry teams of qualified individuals from many walks of life and with many skill sets. Ministry platforms include compassion, business, micro-development, formal theological training, informal theological training, education, community health, medical, and a variety of other platforms that can all contribute to church planting efforts and the raising up of healthy national leaders.

Informal theological training.
One of the most strategic leverage points in missions today is the training of either lay bi-vocational or full time ministry personnel with non-formal theological training. It does not take formal seminary training to plant or pastor a church. It does take training but it can be delivered through on going education. It is amazing for westerners to watch national workers who do not have the education we have do effective ministry with few resources and see far more spiritual fruit than we typically see in the developed world.

Local church involvement
The local church, around the world is reclaiming its role in the Great Commission. The vision and responsibility for missions was, after all, given to the local church, not to mission agencies. In fact, it is my conviction that the mission agencies that will thrive and survive in the coming years are those who will serve the global vision of the local church and those that do not will not. The globalization of our world has made it much easier for local churches to be involved in global ministry. It will take the involvement of the global church to fulfill the Great Commission.

All of these are positive developments in the changing face of world missions.

Money matters: four categories of giving

A significant issue in helping those in our congregations grow in their spiritual maturity is to help them understand the part that generosity with God plays into their discipleship. It was Martin Luther who said that true conversion is a conversion of the heart, the mind and the pocketbook. In other words, until God has our wallet, he does not have our full follower ship. This is the reason that Christ talked more about money and possessions than almost any other topic in the New Testament.

As we address this issue in the church it is not first about meeting our budgets or funding our ministries. It is first about helping people follow Christ more closely. Those who do not learn to be generous with God miss out on many of the blessings that he shares with those who are. I have often said to my sons, "most people believe that they cannot afford to tithe. I cannot afford not to tithe."

The truth is that only around 2% of those who call themselves Evangelicals tithe. Studies have shown that there is also an inverse relationship between giving and income. The higher the income the lower the percentage that is given to God's work. One study indicated that 20% of those who made $20,000 or less per year tithed while only 2% of those who made more than $100,000 tithed.

I believe that one can categorize giving habits of believers into four categories - which frankly also pretty directly mirror the maturity of the individual. As you talk about giving in your congregation, it can be helpful to talk about these four categories and encourage people to take the next step in their giving commitments by moving from the category they are in to the next one.

Sporadic giving
This is the individual who periodically puts something in the offering. Generally these are immature believers who are also sporadic in their worship attendance. There is no true commitment to giving here except from time to time.

Regular giving
These folks have moved beyond sporadic to regular giving. This is a significant step forward because it indicates a plan and intentionality in their giving. This often reflects those who are more regular in their attendance.

Percentage giving
This is yet another step toward financial maturity because there is a commitment to give a percentage of one's income. Often the goal here is to get to the place where 10% of one's income is being given to ministry.

Generous giving
This reflects the most mature attitude toward giving. As Christ has been incredibly generous with us, so we choose to be very generous with Him, knowing that there are only three things that cross the line from time to eternity: our own maturity; the people we have influenced for the gospel through our lives and those who have found Christ or grown in Christ because of financial investments we have made. You cannot take it with you, but you can send it ahead of you.

If in your teaching about financial stewardship, you talk about these four categories of giving, you will see heads nod in acknowledgement. You then have an opportunity to regularly encourage people to move from one category to the next - as a part of their followership of Christ.

Two great resources:

Crown Ministries - curriculum for small groups.
Money, Possessions and Eternity, by Randy Alcorn. One of the best books ever written on what the Scriptures have to say about money and possessions - and their relationship with eternity.

What missionaries should your church support?

The process for determining who a church will support as a missionary often leaves a lot to be desired. In fact, it is not unusual for a church to support someone that they would never hire themselves!

Here is something to consider: Just because someone is from your church, or feels called by God does not mean they are qualified to serve as a missionary. Or that you need to support them. We need to subject our missions budgets to the same scrutiny as we do the rest of our budgets. We need to subject the health and qualifications of the missionaries we support in the same way we would do with staff members we hire.

Dollars for missions are not unlimited. Just as we would not simply hire someone in our local church ministry who feels "called" we should not do so with our missions dollars. How we invest the limited dollars we have makes a difference.

Who then should we support? First, we need to know that the individual has relational, emotional and spiritual health. There is nothing more problematic in cross cultural ministry than to have unhealthy relational or emotional health. It goes without saying that spiritual health must be present.

Ask yourself the question. If there was a job available in your church, would you hire this person? If not, why not? If not, why would you send them internationally?

Second, we need to know that they possess a skill that will directly contribute to a missions endeavor. It is problematic to send an individual who has no track record in their own country. Ensure that there is a skill that is needed and that they possess the qualifications they need to do the job they are going to do.

Third, we need to know that the missions organization is healthy. Not all mission agencies are created equal. Some are simply support raising umbrellas for any who want to go into missions but they have no discernible strategy for missions, nor do they have a built in accountability structure or require staff to have well worked out plans. The effectiveness of those you send is directly impacted by the quality of the agency they are going with. Don't assume it is a good organization - find out.

Ask about the ministry philosophy and guiding principles of the organization that your prospective missionaries are going out under. Ask about strategy, accountability and intentionality. Find out what kind of support structure there is in place to ensure that your missionaries will be properly supported by the organization.

Fourth, we need to know whether the mission organization does multiplication or addition. Is the mission doing things that nationals could be doing or are they focused on raising up healthy national workers so that they are multiplying themselves.

The cost of missions is high. Once you factor in living expenses, travel, ministry expenses, health care and retirement, it is a significant bill. With limited resources, we need to be stewards of the funds and opportunity we have to reach our world.

Best practices that can help you leverage your missions strategy

World missions is often a large part of a local church's budget (as it should be). However, if a congregation is going to leverage that investment for maximum missional return it would do well to consider the following "Best Practices."

Move from missions as a list of missionaries that are supported at modest levels to a small group of missionaries supported at a high level
The traditional long list of supported missionaries at modest levels is just that - a list. Because the congregation does not have a significant amount of support for any one missionary, there is very little personal contact and most people in the congregation have no relationship, stake, or prayer commitment for those on the list. Raise the stake of support and you raise the relational commitment of both the missionary and the church. I am suggesting you go from a list to a group - with relationship.

Adopt a region or several regions of the world where you can connect long term for long term impact
The world is a big place. Missions becomes "real" and "personal" when a congregation determines that it is going to have a personal stake in bringing the gospel to a specific region or regions of the globe and then connects for long term involvement. This allows the church not simply to support missionaries in that region but to actually contribute something significant themselves over time. The deeper the relationship, the deeper the impact.

Make strategic short term missions a key component of your strategy
Many question the investment in short term missions. However, done well, short term mission trips are the single most strategic thing you can do to generate interest and long term missionaries. No one comes into ReachGlobal today who has not been on one or more short term trips. God uses those trips to capture hearts for long term missions. The key is to connect your short term strategy with your long term commitment to a region of the world and to ensure that the team is contributing to what long term missionaries are doing on the ground (if there are long term personnel there).

Take your people through the perspectives course
The Perspectives course, a ministry of the US Center for World Mission has been a phenomenal tool for mobilizing large numbers of local church members for missions - giving, praying, sending and going. The larger the number of people you can put through perspectives the more passion your congregation will have for missions. It changes peoples perspectives on world mission.

De-silo your missions "committee" if it is not a part of the overall leadership led ministry strategy of your church.
No group in many churches is more siloed than missions committees. This means that what is happening in missions is not part of the overall ministry philosophy of the church and often mission dollars (a significant part of the budget) are the least scrutinized of any part of the church budget. I know this is a political issue but it is also a stewardship issue. We need to ensure that our investments are well used.

Send your pastoral staff on regular missions trips.
When pastoral staff are energized with missions, the rest of the church will be energized by them. Ensure that your key staff have regular opportunities to see what God is doing internationally.

The bottom line is that local congregations far underestimate what they can do either by themselves or in partnership with others for the cause of the gospel globally. Any local congregation can be involved in hands on, strategic and significant ministry globally.

The wounds of ministry

Ministry is deeply painful at times. For those in full time ministry as well as for those who serve in leadership positions as volunteers. Any board member who has had to walk through difficult times in a local church knows. Every pastor bears scars, some that feel raw for years. Missionaries know the pain of cross cultural misunderstandings (as well as nationals working with missionaries) or even conflict on their own teams. At 52, I bear numerous scars from 27 years of full time ministry.

The pain experienced in ministry is often different than other pain. After all we do what we do for God, not ourselves, which makes the pain feel unfair. Further, believers can be even more unkind than unbelievers. How we treat one another is often unconscionable. But, too often the stakes are high so we put a stake in the ground and in our conviction, take the arrows or missiles of others.

How we deal with the pain of the past has a direct influence on our ministry in the present. It can either help and inform our present and future ministry or it can cause us to withdraw, live with bitterness, bring cynicism or cause us to approach relationships with distrust. How we deal with past pain matters to us today.

Here are some principles I have learned in dealing with the wounds of ministry.

First, treat your past wounds as what you see in your rear view mirror. We glance at the rear view mirror as we drive but we focus on what is in front of us. If you drive with your eyes on the rear view mirror you will crash. The same is true if we focus on our past wounds - we will crash.

Paul had as many or more wounds than any of us will ever have. Yet he was able to say, "Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:13-14). His eyes were on the future, not the past.

Second, learn from the past. Pain is one of the greatest teachers. It teaches us to persevere. It teaches us how to deal with people. It forces us to examine our own motives. There is no question that our most significant growth comes through pain. So treat it as an unwelcome blessing that we can learn from.

Paul writes in Philippians 3:16, right after the above reference, "Only let us live up to what we have already attained." Live out, he says what we have learned. Live up to the growth we have experienced. Rather than seeing pain as our enemy, see it as a friend, learn from it but keep your eyes on the present, not on the past.

Third, remember that we do not ultimately serve men but our Father. People will always let us down (as we will let others down). People will take shots. People will be unkind at times and life isn't fair - especially in ministry.

Again, Paul, through his experience gives great perspective. "I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me (1 Corinthians 4:3-4)."

His point is that we worry too much about what others think of us when what should concern us is what God thinks. Not everyone will like us. Join the ministry club of Jesus, Paul, the apostles and everyone who serves in ministry. We often carry around the burden of knowing that there are those who not only don't like us but speak against us and some who actually try to do us harm.

But Paul reminds us that it is not about us, but about the call of God on our lives. Don't carry the burden. Let it go and remember that we ultimately answer to an audience of One.

Finally, where we have wounded those who have wounded us - it often happens in conflict, do what you can to make it right. You cannot control the response of others, but you can seek to make right relationships that are broken. Again, Paul tells us to live at peace with all men as far as we are able.

If we can gain Paul's perspective, pain becomes a friend that molds us, grows us and matures us. But we focus on the present and future, not on the wounds of the past. Keep those in the rear-view mirror.

It is not about trying to forget pain. It is about keeping our wounds in proper perspective.

15 unfortunate things boards do

In the many years in which I have worked with church boards I have kept a mental list of unfortunate (dumb) things boards do. If we can avoid the “dumb tax” of others we can save ourselves a lot of pain. Here are some of the unfortunate or poor practices of boards – church or other.

Manage staff beyond the senior leader

Boards have one employee: the senior leader of the church and that leader is responsible for managing the rest of the staff – often through others – but ultimately they are responsible. When boards do not allow the senior leader to manage the rest of the staff, including letting staff go when necessary, or, when they try to meddle in the staff, they confuse the lines of authority. People cannot report to more than one person .

Cave to loud voices

It is not uncommon for boards to make a decision and then hear from a few loud voices in the church who don’t like the decision or direction. Poor board members are immediately intimidated by the voices and start to waver and question the decision. Wise boards count the cost before they make the decision and then hold fast when the loud voices complain.

Require unanimity

This sounds nice. In reality, a board that requires unanimity set themselves up for not being able to move forward at critical junctures because it only takes one person to hold up the decision making process. And, it puts tremendous pressure on those who might not agree. If Paul and Barnabas could not agree on everything, we certainly will not.

Avoid conflict

How often, people in a church or organization know that there is conflict but its leaders, the board try to ignore it not wanting to face it. Conflict avoidance comes back to bite you with even greater conflict. Unresolved conflict does not go away, it becomes more viral. Courageous boards deal with conflict, weak boards do not.

Spend most of their time managing the present

Boards are not designed to manage - they are designed to chart the future and deal with the large rocks of the organization – mission, vision, values, strategic initiatives and direction. Boards that are spending the majority of their time on the present are doing work that others ought to do, and it is not leadership.

Ignore the spiritual

Congregations will rarely rise above the spiritual commitments and level of their leadership. Healthy boards never ignore the word and prayer, in fact they ensure that it is central to everything they do. They lead on behalf of the Lord of the church and thus need to spend time in His presence, discerning His direction.

Work without a covenant

Healthy boards have a board covenant that spells out how they will relate to one another and the commitments to healthy relationships they will agree to. Never allow anyone to join a board who is unwilling to agree to Biblical rules of behavior that are spelled out and signed.

Don’t guard the gate

Every board is one new board member away from moving from healthy to unhealthy if the wrong person is placed on the board. Wise boards pay a huge amount of attention to who is selected to serve and a best practice is to have prospective board members serve for a year in a non official role to ensure a good fit.

Don’t make decisions

One of the frustrations of good board members is the inability of many boards to make decisive decisions and then stick to them. If a board has to revisit issues time after time or is unable to make decisive decisions they have the wrong board members. Boards lead and equivocation is not leadership.

Don’t require accountability

The ultimate result of our decisions must be ministry results. Healthy boards not only make decisions but require accountability for their own behavior and work and for the work and results of staff. Sometimes we are too “nice” and in our “niceness” we don’t require real ministry results – which God expects.

Allow a church boss to hold informal veto power

It is amazing how many congregations have an individual – whether on the board or off the board who holds informal veto power over decisions. In other words, unless they agree it does not happen. This is not only unbiblical but it hurts the church. No church should have a church boss which is what this is. Healthy boards are never held hostage by a church boss.

Lack transparency

Healthy boards let their congregation know what they are thinking and working on in appropriate ways. Secrecy breeds mistrust while transparency breeds trust. They don’t reveal those things which must be confidential but neither do they withhold what can be shared.

Don’t police problem members

Healthy boards never allow a rogue board member to continue with attitudes, words or behaviors which are counterproductive to spiritual and healthy leadership. This is why it is critical to have a board covenant that spells out acceptable behavior. Boards that will not confront unhealthy board members are displaying cowardice rather than leadership.

Listen to reports

Board meetings are not the place for long reports. Those should be sent out ahead of time and read prior to the meeting unless it is a sensitive subject. Board time is a time for all board members to engage in critical issues, prayer and thinking and learning together.

Don’t use an agenda

Healthy boards have an agenda and stick to the agenda including start and finish times. Board meetings should be very carefully thought out ahead of time and led by someone who can help the group move through the agenda in a timely fashion.

Want more information? Take a look at High Impact Church Boards.

By the numbers: A snapshot of our globe

World literacy has risen to 74% globally.

In 2002, the amount of stored information produced globally was equivalent to 37,000 new Library of Congress book collections. It would take about 30 feet of books to store the amount of recorded information produced per person in the world each year.

In the UK more than 4 million closed-circuit TV cameras are trained on public spaces; a shopper in London can expect to be captured on video several hundred times a day.

The world's fastest supercomputer, Blue Gene/L, run by IBM and the Department of Energy, can now run an exponentially staggering 270 trillion calculations per second.

Percentage of Brits who claimed no religious affiliation in 2000: 44%.
That percentage in 1983: 31%.
Percentage of the British population that will be attending church services in 2040: 0.5%

In the US, incidence of depression in the year 2000 was 10 times what it was in 1900.

Yoido Full Gospel Church in South Korea had 780,000 members in 2003.

An estimated 4 million people are smuggled or trafficked across international borders each year.

In 2003, transactions in counterfeit products accounted for more than 7 percent of global trade, or $500 billion. 10% of all car parts sold in Europe and 10 percent of all pharmaceuticals sold worldwide are black-market counterfeits. Ninety percent of the software running on computers in China has been pirated.

New strains of staphylococcus kill 20,000 patients a year in U.S. hospitals.

Tuberculosis had been nearly eliminated by modern drugs. But now 2 billion people are estimated to have the disease, 60 million of them victims of fatal, drug resistant forms.

The last pandemic, in 1918, killed 50 million people. WHO estimated that a new pandemic, the first of this century, would affect between 20 and 30 percent of the world's population; in its best-case scenarios of the nest pandemic, up to 7 million people would die and tens of millions would get sick.

There are 80,000 computer viruses "alive" in the world today.

In 2003, Americans spent $991 million on liposuction, $667 million on nose jobs, and $54 million on chin augmentation.

Tourism is the world's largest employer, accounting for one in every 10 workers worldwide. In 2003, 691 million people traveled the world as tourists, spending an estimated $523 billion.

Spectator sports are estimated to have revenues of $102.5 billion in 2008.

China has 94 million Internet users.

A mere 0.2 percent of the world's inhabitants had a mobile phone in 1991; by the end of 2004, 1.5 billion were mobile phone users, close to one out of every four people on the planet. In July 2004, China had 310.2 million mobile phone subscribers - an increase of 40.3 million since January 2004.

in 2004, more than 8 million people in the U.S. created their own blogs. 32 million U.S. citizens were regular blog readers.

By 2009, the worldwide market for online games could reach $9.8 billion.

China still uses only 10 percent of the energy used by Americans.

More than one billion people today lack access to safe drinking water, and almost 2.5 billion lack adequate sanitation. Five million children die each year from illnesses associated with dirty water.

In the U.S., a coronary artery bypass costs about $98,000, but in India it costs just $8,000.

1 billion people globally are in need of corrective lenses but cannot afford them.

The number of people living in poverty (defined as living on less than a dollar a day) is still 1.3 billion people, roughly a quarter of the global population.

Between 2002 and 2020, 68 million people will die from AIDS in the developing world.

There are typically around 30 significant conflicts (those with over 1,000 casualties, military and civilian raging in the world, and the vast majority of them are being fought within nations rather than between them.

There have been more than 20 major civil wars in Africa since 1960.

Income per person in the 20 poorest countries was $267 in 2002. In contrast, the richest 20 nations had per person income of $32,339.

In 1700, Earth was home to around 600 million people. By 1800 it was 900 million, and by 1900 it had doubled to 1.9 billion. During the last century alone, the population has nearly quadrupled to the current 6.5 billion. Every year 78 million people are born onto the planet. The world population is expected to increase by 50 percent to 9 billion by 2050.

In 1960, one-third of the world's population lived in the developed world; today it is one-fifth.

Right now, Europe has 35 pensioners for every 100 people of productive working age; that ration is projected to shift to 75 pensioners for every 100 workers by 2050.

99% of all population growth between now and 2050 will occur in the developing world, predominantly in its poorest nations.

Today, the planet's 1 billion wealthiest people consume more than 50 percent of the world's energy supply, while the 1 billion poorest use only 4 percent.

Today, more than 175 million people on the planet reside in a country other than the one in which they were born.

In the year 2000, 174.9 million people migrated from one country to another.

In 1985, there were only nine cities in the world with more than 10 million inhabitants. By 2015, there will be more than 20 cities of this scale. A third of those cities will be home to more than 20 million people. Sao Paulo and Mumbai both have roughly 18 million inhabitants; Shanghai has about 14 million, and Lagos roughly 13 million. Projections for their 2015 populations are extraordinary: Mumbai to 22 million, Sao Paulo to 21 million, Lagos to 16 million.

India now has 32 cities with more than a million residents; by 2015 it will increase to 50 cities. China already has more than 160 cities with populations of more than 1 million.

Every 20 minutes, a species of animal or plant life disappears from the planet, with more than 26,000 species lost every year.

All information for this blog came from Powerful Times: rising to the challenge of our uncertain world, Eamonn Kelly. 2006, Pearson Education, Inc. ISBN 0-13-185520-4. The book is well worth the read.