Should All Missionaries Be Elders?

Phil Remmers has recently published an article - Biblical Eldership and Global Missions A Vital and Necessary Union - on the 9Marks website, on the selection, training, and funding of missionaries, and especially on the relationship between missionaries and their sending church.

Remmers has had extensive experience of ministry in Asia and now is involved in publishing reformed literature in many Asian languages.

He writes many good things in the course of the article, for which I am thankful. The comments on funding are especially helpful, though hardly groundbreaking - people have been saying stuff like this for decades. But it is worth banging on about the broken system that has been developed and continues to be pursued. In fact, in my opinion he could have gone much further. Why, for instance, is a family needing $8000 a month for their salary? I can imagine some situations - ministry in Singapore or Tokyo, for instance, where this level of support is necessary. But if, as I have observed myself many times among certain mission organisations, the family is living in a posh compound with a brand new imported jeep, in a community in which even well off locals can only dream of that lifestyle, further questions need to be asked.

He says that at least half of the missionaries he encountered in his ministry location (unspecified for security reasons) should not have been there at all because they were unqualified for the ministry and in any case tended only to stay for 2-3 years and leave without bearing fruit. And that is not counting 'short-term missionaries'.

Although I can see how he can come to such a judgment, I am uneasy about this. He affirms, in a footnote, that God is sovereign in salvation. But he nevertheless is happy to sit in judgment on the fruitfulness of others in ministry. How can he have sufficient knowledge about the relationships these folk had developed in their short time? And even if he did have that sort of data, real spiritual fruit is often unseen. I hope he is not ashamed on the Last Day for having written that.

The main burden of the paper, though, is to argue that all missionaries should first of all be elders of the local church back home before they are appointed to their ministry overseas. I get the sentiment. After all, as the argument goes, why would we send out people for ministry in hard places overseas if we wouldn't have them be involved in ministry at home? Fair question. He has diagnosed a serious missionary malady.

But Remmers' remedy is unbiblical, naive, and worldly.

Unbiblical

In Acts 13 the Antioch church sent out two of their 'prophets and teachers' - Barnabas and Saul. There does seem to be something of a paradigmatic character to this story, situated as it is in the unfolding story of the expansion of the gospel to the ends of the earth. And yet Paul was happy to have all sorts on his apostolic team: Luke the doctor, for example; Timothy, who, we are told, was a 'disciple' when he was taken on by Paul as a travelling companion (Acts 16:1-3); Erastus, who along with Timothy is called Paul's 'helper' (Acts 19:22).

When Paul left Corinth he was accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila (Acts 18:18). Now I suspect (since this is on 9Marks) that Remmers would not be happy with female elders. So what does he do with Priscilla? Is she not a missionary?

Naive

This leads on to the training of missionaries. The best missionaries the author has encountered tended to have been trained at Master's Seminary, where the training is explicitly for elders. Now, as I have said, much that he says here is valuable. Better, he says, to have fewer, better trained, and proven missionaries, than the mess that he has seen.

But he overstates his case. And the reason he does that is this: he has not diagnosed the malady correctly. The disease is much more serious than he realises. It is not just the two- to three-year, untrained, unqualified missionaries who are caught up in the problem. It is a whole lot more, including, perhaps Remmers himself.

Worldly

Remmers is operating out of a paradigm for cross-cultural ministry that has been weighed in the balances and been found wanting.

It comes out in numerous ways and is exemplified in the uncritical use of the term 'missionary'. As I have explained here before, this term, and the notion it represents is seriously problematic. It is not a biblical word and continues to have much baggage that seriously compromises a healthy approach to cross-cultural ministry, including the financial aspect mentioned earlier.

Remmers observes that Master's Seminary has no missions professors but that their graduates are "both biblically qualified ​and​ are able to use their gifts in a foreign language and culture" - without any training in intercultural communication, or in understanding how other cultures operate, or in appreciating anything about how other workers have fared in previous generations, or in examining the state of churches in the nations to which they are sent. (This is an issue I have addressed frequently, such as here.)

Remmers' seems to have no appreciation of how culture-bound his view of cross-cultural ministry is. This lack of self-awareness is the chief weakness of the article and why I do not commend it.

Trouble at Gospel for Asia

This week news broke that the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability has terminated the membership of Gospel for Asia. The EFCA is a very important body in the USA that scrutinises the finances of member organizations to ensure they meet their strict code of practice, It is rare that an organization loses its membership. Gospel for Asia is an organization that raises very substantial amounts of funds, in the States especially, to support 'native missionaries' in Asia. The organization was founded by K. P. Yohannan from India and that is where most of the finances seem to be channelled. I have previously commented on Yohannan's philosophy here and here. Read more on the story here. I want to add a few more comments on the organization and its approach.

GFA is not all bad. There are organizations that are quite simply rotten to the core. Their leaders are charlatans, they lie through their teeth and cheat many generous donors out of their hard-earned cash. One such is K. A. Paul, also of India, who visited Nepal when I was there. He styled himself as Dr. K. A. Paul (USA) - he was based in America and clearly thought that was somehow relevant to his 'ministry' in the subcontinent; I have yet to discover from where he received his doctorate. I will spare you the details but it is a public fact that he made a wretched nuisance of himself in Kathmandu. Privately, members of the organizing committee confided some truly jaw-dropping allegations against him after he was literally chased out of the country by self-respecting Nepalis who wanted his blood.

GFA is not like that. But there is nevertheless an integrity issue. Some questions might help to focus the issue: 

1. How is it that it 'only takes $30 a month to help enable a national missionary to serve full-time to reach an unreached village' when they work in different countries, under different regimes, in different economies, and have variously sized families and needs? Do they each get $30 or is it adjusted? If so, why is this not stated on the web site? Perhaps it does take £30 a month but it would be good to see how this figure is arrived at.
2. Why is there nothing about 'Believers' Church' on the web site? I was told by the UK director six years back that all the churches that are planted constitute this denomination and that the metropolitan (archbishop if you like) is K. P. Yohannan. Should this not be public - something like 'your donations go to building up the Believers' Church denomination'? I think a lot of donors would like to know that.
3. How independent are those churches allowed to be? I was told that if the church wanted to dismiss its pastor they would not be free to do that but that it could only happen on the order of the bishop. I am not saying an episcopalian form of church government is wrong (though I don't favour it myself) but rather that donors might like to know about that.
4. Since the metropolitan lives in Dallas isn't this denomination under foreign control - something that the indigenous church movement (especially in India of all places) fought so hard against in colonial times?
5. Doesn't this event worsen the scandal of the evangelical dollar in Asia? It is hardly surprising, is it, that several states in India have enacted anti-conversion laws if money is coming from the US with the intention, it is thought, of 'converting people to a foreign religion'? Now this is a nuanced debate and sadly most people involved in it don't realize that. But there was a time when most Indian mission organizations eschewed foreign funds for this reason. It is a fact that many Asian people would rather die than give up what they consider their heritage. They regard the use of outside funds to pursue what they see as wholesale cultural and religious transmogrification in the image of the donor as reprehensible. And that means that for every person presented with the gospel a dozen may be inoculated against it. It is not the scandal of the cross.

My prayer for GFA, like other similar organizations, is that they put their house in order, come clean about their shortcomings and pursue the ministry of the gospel in Asia in ways that will not put any stumbling block in anyone's path except that of the crucified lord of history.

More Thoughts on 40 'Unreached' Places

Missions researcher Justin Long recently produced a list of the 40 global districts that are the most 'unreached'. I posted some thoughts on this list already. Here are some more.

4. Social Organization

Dense populations give rise to complex social organizations. This is so of necessity as so many people living in close proximity need to structure their relations tightly to make life liveable and enable society to function. The people in these 40 provinces, then, highly value the group as opposed to the individual. They are collectivist places, where few make a decision without looking sideways to see what their significant others think. Individuals are often not even in a position to make decisions for themselves anyway. A parent (even for an adult), a brother or a husband may be the decision-maker. There is no question of making up one's own mind for such people. Issues of ultimate allegiance can be perceived very strongly as constituting a threat to the very existence of the group, or even society as a whole, making the consideration of such a change a very serious thing indeed. Paul Hiebert and his daughter Eloise Hiebert Meneses consider social organization to be of such importance that they structured an entire book on church planting around social categories.

Serious study of social organization is absolutely essential to understanding the host communities among whom one is working. And it is important on a strategic level too. I have written an article ("Recasting Evangelization Ethnicity, Kinship, Religion and Territory: Identifying Communities in South Asia") which challenges the way the Joshua Project (and other such lists) handles the phenomenon of caste. The caste system (which is the social structure of South Asia and thereby of many of these provinces) is exceedingly complex and the sociological interpretation of caste highly contentious. Suffice it to say that in my article I argue that single castes groups such as Potters do not constitute a community and therefore should not be considered the strategically significant entity.

5. Cities

One might be forgiven for thinking that the great cities found in many of the 40 provinces, such as Delhi, Kolkata, Karachi, Dhaka and Beijing, are the product of recent modernization. But this would be far from the truth, although modernization and globalization have massively increased their size. These cities are the product of centuries of development that would not be possible were it not for the four phenomena I have outlined above. Cities are the cultural product of societies that have an excess of food to requirement, which can be traded and taxed and used to support large numbers of people who are not directly involved in food production. These are therefore free to innovate, organize others, create art, explore science, and develop systems of ideas, myths and rituals to make sense of it all.

Furthermore, the biggest migration in human history is going on right now in the massive move to the cities as the world's emerging economies like India and China increasingly become major players in the global market place. The cities in these provinces, then, have become places of enormous human suffering as well as amazing openness to the gospel. Sadly, however, missions have often been slow to adjust to this momentous shift. Today's gospel messengers must focus on the cities, and be serious to address the multiple needs of the urban poor who have flocked to form their great bastis and shanty towns. The quiet rural life, for most of this century's gospel messengers, is not an option.

6. Religion and Culture

These provinces are most significant, then, as the cradles of the great global systems we call the 'world religions'. Though Islam was birthed in the desert a very high percentage of the world's Muslims are found in these 40 places. Likewise for Hindus and Buddhists. These places, then, are the great bastions of the three great religious systems that have traditionally been perceived by Christian missions as massive obstacles for their message. Moreover, efforts to differentiate between culture and religion in these places, in the hope that one might accept the one while rejecting the other, prove exceedingly complex and ultimately unsatisfying as so often the one turns out to be the flip side of the other.

As in the need to learn the host community's history the importance of in-depth understanding of their religion and culture cannot be overstated. It is only as the religious and cultural context is understood that careful contextualization of the gospel can be possible. This will inevitably lead to conflict as many Christians are not interested in such knowledge, preferring what they call the 'simple gospel'. Although I rejoice that such people are serious about sharing the Good News of Christ, I cannot but be deeply concerned for the long term health of any movement to Christ that emerges from such ministry.

Some Thoughts on 40 'Unreached' Places

Missions researcher Justin Long recently produced a list of the 40 global districts with the most 'unreached' people. These 40 places - districts or provinces or states depending on what the relevant country calls them - have together 1.87 billion people among them who make no claim to being in Christ. Most of them are Hindu, Muslim or Buddhist. The proportion of those who identify with Christianity is under 5%, meaning that many of those people, probably the vast majority due to the social realities of communalism, have no personal interaction with followers of Christ.

Justin Long believes that 'engaging these places is incredibly important to the remaining task' of world evangelization. I agree and here are a few thoughts on this list for those who think strategically or are considering their role in bringing the Good News here.

1. Latitude

Nearly all of the places on the top 40 list are located within tropical or sub-tropical climate zones. Because they are in low latitudes more than one staple crop can be grown, enabling a relatively small area to support a large population, with major consequences for the rise of civilization (see below). These places are hot. Anyone seriously considering relocating to one of these places from more temperate climes must count the cost. Perhaps air-conditioning will be available if your budget can handle that. But how is the creation of artificial climates in our homes (with the doors and windows closed all the time) going to enable you to build relationships with you neighbours, especially those for whom such luxuries are unimaginable? Missionary lifestyle has always been a hot issue (excuse the pun): our rights as the Lord's servants are not to be held on to at all costs. Rather, we have the opportunity to give up our rights in order not to be a stumbling block to others.

2. Rivers and mountains

Nearly all of the top 40 are dependent on the Asian monsoons, the annual rainy season, during which nearly all of the year's precipitation is dropped, and around which the agricultural cycle revolves. Furthermore, the majority are located on or near a major river system, such as the Ganges/Brahmaputra complex (Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Dhaka, Haryana, Rajshahi, Delhi, Rangpur, Khulna, Uttarakhand), the Indus and its tributaries (Punjab - in both India and Pakistan, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Chhattisgarh, Jammu and Kashmir), the Yellow (Shandong, Gansu), and the Yangtze (Sichuan, Hunan, Hubei). The mighty Himalayan mountain range stores up much of the precipitation in the form of snow to be released slowly over the course of the year as it melts. All the above rivers (and several others that are nearly as important, such as the Irrawaddy, Mekong, Salween) flow from the Tibetan Plateau.

The Himalayas themselves do not constitute a watershed so major tributaries of the Ganges, for instance, arise on the north side of the mountains, swing south and cut through the range creating the deepest gorges on Earth. The significance of this is that, given the monsoon climate, crops have to be irrigated. Without these rivers agricultural production would be much lower than it is. Historically, then, these regions could not have supported such a dense population and would not have developed the rich civilizations that they have. What effect will climate change have on these places? It seems incontrovertible to me that anthropogenic global warming is already having drastic effects on these provinces. Photos of the Himalayas taken decades apart dramatically demonstrate that the waters flooding down off the 'roof of the world' are not just fed by last year's snow. Mission in these provinces must be forward looking and consider how to respond to possible great upheaval.

3. The Eurasian continent

All the provinces in the top 40 list are located in the great Eurasian landmass. (Only one is not wholly in Asia - Istanbul which is mostly located on the European side of the Bosphorus waterway - but I don't think this is significant. Eurasia is not usually seen as a single continent because the Ancient Greeks decided that Europe should be delimited by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas and the waterways connecting the Black and Aegean Seas, but in fact Europe is really the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia.) The great significance of this is that Eurasia is the only continent on the globe that enjoys a predominant east-west axis. That, as Jared Diamond points out in Guns, Germs and Steel: A Short History of Everybody for the Last 13,000 Years meant that innovations, such as the domestication of grains and livestock, could diffuse easily across the wide landmass, in spite of desert and mountains barriers. The people of Eurasia, then, were in the right place to develop complex civilizations.

I have been aghast on occasion at the wanton ignorance of some missionaries toward their host country's history. Anyone who seeks to engage the peoples of these top 40 provinces must place a high priority on learning the history of their host community. Only such people will deserve and receive a careful hearing as they share the message of Christ. I am reminded of the western missionary whom Narayan Vaman Tilak met on a train who was able to engage him deeply on his own turf and the tremendous impression it had on him. That ability doesn't come overnight but is the result of time-consuming and costly learning. Anything less than this is to short change our hosts. Not all are able to study in depth but those who can must make it a priority and all must do what they can. Ignorance does not adorn the gospel.

More thoughts here.

Revolution in World Missions (Part 2)

Part 1 of this review is here.

Yohannan’s shaky evidence leads him to take an exaggeratedly contrasting approach to bolster his case. “Americans have never known the fear of persecution,” he writes (51), forgetting that the country was founded in large part by men and women fleeing an authoritarian state. Yohannan, in contrast, knows what it is like to suffer as a persecuted minority in his own country: he tells the story of being beaten and having stones thrown at him on one of his visits to an Indian village while in OM. But he neglects to mention that the vast majority of Indian believers haven’t experienced persecution any more than their brothers and sisters in America have.

The American church, says Yohannan, is in “spiritual decline” (51). American Christians are “worldly” (96), living in “extravagance, self-indulgence and spiritual weakness” (51), whereas “native missionaries...suffer for their commitment” as they “serve Christ daily” (98). He fails to mention that great numbers of American disciples of Jesus serve Christ daily in the lives that the Lord has given them or that the majority of Indians who wear the label Christian are, as he well knows, also deeply affected by extravagance, self-indulgence and spiritual weakness.

Instead he tells the story of one who he calls Brother P. in Nepal. Brother P., we are told, was a native missionary who served time in 14 different prisons between 1960 and 1975, suffering torture and ridicule for preaching the gospel (49). He neglects to tell the rest of Brother P’s story. Some years ago, I pieced together the following few details from various accounts by people who knew him. When Brother P. was released from jail it seems he hoped to be more highly regarded by his fellow Nepali believers and not receiving the recognition he felt was his due withdrew from their fellowship. A US-based organization, which predates the founding of GFA, began funding him in order to support native missionaries in the country. Allegations of financial mismanagement were flagged up to the HQ but never acted upon for over 20 years until they finally sent a representative to investigate the work. A few weeks later I was informed that the organization was no longer supporting Brother P’s ministry. Over the years as much as $1 million may have been sent in the support of this man. But Yohannan holds him up as a model to emulate in stark contrast to the ‘worldliness’ of American believers! His argument rings hollow. (For another related story see “Grace and Greed: The Making and Marring of the Tamang Movement to Christ” by Mark Johnson, Voice of Bhakti 3 (1) February, 2004, http://www.bhaktivani.com/volume3/number1/grace_greed.html.)

Yohannan tells us that “Western missionaries are no longer able to do church planting” in many nations where it was formerly allowed (157). And yet agencies are sending men and women to such countries every year to do just that. He argues, rather, that “the most effective way now to win Asia for Christ is through prayer and financial support for the native missionary force” for five reasons. I will interact with each of these, one by one.

1. It is wise stewardship (158). I would agree here that it certainly makes sound economic sense to support workers who need less to live on. But the figures that Yohannan uses are extreme. The dearest, no expense spared, American missionary (with his family with all their needs) is contrasted with the cheapest Indian. Yohannan hardly mentions the many missionaries who are living on a lot less than the extreme upper limit. Neither does he mention the hardships imposed on native workers who are having to live in poverty or their leaders who need a higher level of support as their needs increase with longevity of service.
2. In many places the presence of Western missionaries perpetuates the myth that Christianity is the religion of the West (159). This is hogwash. The fact is that many people in Asia will continue to believe that for a long time to come whether Western missionaries continue to visit or not. Furthermore, native workers often have precisely the same effect when they do things like insist that new believers change their name to a ‘Christian’ one. The opinion that Jesus is not for Asians has deep historical and cultural causes and will not go away by simply telling Westerners not to come.
3. Western missionaries, and the money they bring, compromise the natural growth and independence of the national church (161). Indeed, this has often been the case and great problems have arisen from the abuse of money. But if the money flows from foreign funds the involvement or otherwise of Western missionaries may not be such a significant factor after all. Indeed is the difference that significant if a native rather than a Westerner controls the dollars? The story of Brother P., repeated in so many other cases, indicates otherwise.
4. Western missionaries cannot easily go to the countries where most so-called “hidden people” live (164). Indeed, it is a great challenge to enter into a restricted-access country, learn the language and become culturally competent. But this is one way that the Lord has continued to take to fulfil the Great Commission even in the twenty-first century. Difficult, but not impossible. With God, all things are possible.
5. Western missionaries seldom are effective today in reaching Asians and establishing local churches in the villages of Asia (164). Yohannan gives us another sad story of missionary failure and incompetence. But his evidence is purely anecdotal. I am tempted to ask for the facts but the work of the Spirit is usually quiet and unassuming, as is the work of those who are filled with the Spirit, whether brown-skinned or white. And furthermore, the people of Asia are flocking to the cities which are fast becoming cosmopolitan melting pots of hidden and not-so-hidden peoples. The need for outsiders as well as insiders to reach these peoples in their new places is as great as ever.

This is not a new book but with 1.5 million copies in print it is influential. My prayer is that this blog might moderate its message. The day of Westerners in intercultural ministry is not over. For sure they must repudiate all colonial attitudes, seek to live a life of spiritual vitality, and be willing to suffer as their native colleagues need to do. New approaches and structures may be needed to ensure that this can happen effectively. My prayer is that readers of this book will (1) thank God for native workers who live for the gospel rather than their stipend, (2) be wise in the way they use their money, and (3) continue to seek the Lord of the harvest to thrust out labourers from overseas to join those native workers.

Revolution in World Missions (Part 1)

Revolution in World Missions (Carollton, Tex.: GFA, 2004; www.gfa.org/resource/books/revolution/)

K. P. Yohannan tells the story of his upbringing and call to ministry in India as a young man, his life on OM teams in the late 60s and early 70s, his move to the USA to study in seminary, his marriage to Gisela from Germany, the development of his vision to support ‘native missionary movements’ across Asia, and the founding of his organization, Gospel for Asia (GFA). As he tells his story he sets out his theology and philosophy of mission.

Yohannan calls the ‘native missionary movement’ the third wave of missions in history, the first being that of the NT, and the second that of the modern missionary movement that began with Carey.

Using broad brush strokes, Yohannan criticises Western churches for abandoning the gospel for a somewhat Christianized form of social welfare. He argues that the emphasis of the Bible is on evangelism and church planting rather than on feeding the hungry and providing for the poor. He also affirms the Bible’s teaching on hell and judgment in a day when this is not trendy to do so.

The book for the most part is a polemic in favour of supporting ‘native missionaries’ for gospel work in Asia. He recognizes that there are many unreached nations in the world, the majority in Asia, and states that the “native missionary movement [is] the only hope for these unreached nations...” (143). The book has gone through several printings and has been revised (as he states in his acknowledgments, though not in the publisher’s page) to soften some of Yohannan’s most strident rhetoric and in answer to friendly critique by colleagues.

I think that Yohannan makes some very good points. However, I think equally that Yohannan’s case is full of holes. In short Revolution in World Missions is naive, overstated, and unbalanced.

Yohannan tells us that there are only two religions in the world:

Mature Christians realize the Bible teaches there are only two religions in this world. There is the worship of the one true God, and there is a false system invented in ancient Persia. From there, Persian armies and priests spread their faith to India, where it took root. Its missionaries in turn spread it throughout the rest of Asia. Animism and all other Asian religions have a common heritage in this one religious system. (138)

No references are given. No indication is given as to how the false system spread to Europe, Australia, Africa or the Americas. The Bible does in fact teach that there are only two religions, if one must talk in such terms, but the divide happened way further back than ancient Persia. Rather it was in the Garden of Eden when our first parents decided to go their own way rather than God’s. That fundamental divide is in the heart of every person and does not need to diffuse through the human race. Such a naive handling of history does not inspire confidence in Yohannan’s case.

“In Asia,” we are told, “baptism and the taking of a Christian name symbolize a complete break with the past” (143). But does it really? When Krishna becomes Chris or Radha becomes Rachel do they stop eating Indian food, wearing Indian dress, speaking their Indian language? Of course not, Yohannan would reply. Then it is not a complete break, is it? No, it is a selective break. And that selectivity is a sensitive process. Is it really necessary for Krishna to become Chris? After all, Hermes and Phoebe didn't change their names (Rom 16:14, cf. Acts 14:12; Rom 16:1). So no one makes a complete break. The question is, do the changes I make in my life reflect the work of the Spirit in me and communicate to my family that I still love them. Baptism, if done sensitively, does not have to lead to a disruption of family ties. But many unnecessary actions advocated by well-meaning, but muddle-headed Western and Indian Christians, and presumably (going by the above opinion) affirmed by Yohannan, cause dire hardship to new believers and untold confusion to their families. 

Here is the second and final part of this review.