If you’ve been in church leadership for any length of time, you know certain tensions come with the territory. Which local ministries do you partner with, and how? Should your small groups prioritize discipleship, or is outreach a greater need at this time? And if you grow, should you expand your building or plant another church?
Church leaders often deal with a variety of conflicting goals and desires, both their own and those of others. Of course, this isn’t unique to domestic ministry. The task of global missions comes with its own set of tensions. Here are five that missionaries will likely encounter and that sending churches should be ready to help them navigate.
1. Urgency and Longevity
Whenever people talk about missions, two words you’ll often hear are “need” and “urgency.” The world’s plight is great, and the time is short. As preachers like David Platt often remind us, unless more gospel workers go to the nations—and get there soon—more souls will enter eternity apart from Christ. But in missions, getting there is only half the battle; staying there is often more difficult. So as much as we need to encourage urgency, we must also prioritize longevity.
In missions, getting there is only half the battle; staying there is often more difficult.
Humanly speaking, the remaining unreached of the world are that way for two reasons: they’re hard to reach and they’re hard to remain among. To stay in a location long-term, missionaries often need strategies for obtaining residency and operating businesses. More importantly, they need to be prepared to suffer hardship for the long haul. This is particularly challenging for Westerners coming from a culture that prizes comfort. Remaining in a difficult place will be costly. This means churches should send those willing to go and willing to stay.
2. Partner-Driven and Sender-Driven
With the precipitous decline of Christendom in the West and the ascendance of Christianity in the Global South, Western missionaries sense the need to partner well with local believers and churches around the world. This isn’t an entirely new trend. Missiologists have long encouraged such partnerships. But indigenous Christians are no longer simply partners; they’re now missions leaders. Thus, Western missionaries need to learn to work alongside—and sometimes under—other believers from the Majority World.
This reality presents unique challenges. How do missionaries honor locals while also fulfilling their responsibilities to those who send and support them? What happens when the values and goals of a sending church or organization don’t align with those of the national church or partner? Who sets the agenda, and how is authority shared?
To navigate these complex relationships, missionaries need humility and grace, as well as communication skills. They need help employing theological triage, knowing which hills to die on and deciding ahead of time on appropriate parameters for collaboration. In the end, though, the sending church should be able to expect the missionary to carry out the task for which he or she was sent.
3. People Group–Focus and Healthy Church–Focus
Ever since Lausanne ’74, missionaries and missions agencies have prioritized work among unreached people groups (UPGs). The impulse for such efforts comes from the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18–20) and our Lord’s command to make disciples of “all nations” (panta ta ethne). Following the lead of Ralph Winter, many understand the ethne to be discreet ethnolinguistic groups. When paired with a certain reading of Matthew 24:14, the assumption for many is that “finishing the task” of missions involves isolating, locating, and reaching each and every people group with the gospel.
In recent years, questions have arisen about people group–focused missions. In response, some have advocated for prioritizing missions efforts to both peoples and places of need. Others have pivoted to target identifiable language groups, those without access to the gospel or a Bible in their language.
On a more macro level, focus is shifting from the who to the what of missions. Instead of defining the missionary task based on the “lostness” of sociological groupings, those with a healthy church-focus are more concerned with maturity and faithfulness. In the end, ministries should seek to establish healthy churches everywhere, churches with strong biblical roots that produce widespread gospel fruit.
4. Indigenous Theology and Historical Theology
Ever since William Carey, Western missionaries have recognized the challenge of overcoming cultural differences in their ministries. One way Carey’s team sought to do so was by developing local leaders who could reach their own peoples. Subsequent missiologists further encouraged indigeneity by promoting self-supporting, self-governing, and self-propagating churches. More recently, others have added the goal of “self-theologizing.” Contextualized theology—developed by indigenous leaders—is now seen as a crucial outcome of faithful missiology.
However, this raises multiple questions. What happens if or when indigenous theologies run contrary to confessional standards? Do the ancient church’s creeds have anything to say to the faith of contemporary congregations? Is there such a thing as transcultural theology?
While missionaries can and should aim to equip local leaders and entrust them with the task of theologizing, they cannot ignore the historical confessions and the saints’ communion. Those confessions model what it looks like to apply Scripture’s answers to our contextual questions. As the global church grows outward in space, it shouldn’t outgrow what we’ve learned over time.
5. Movementism and Incrementalism
In recent decades, the remaining global need—and the urgency of the hour—has led many missionary strategists to develop methodologies that foster “movements.” The most common of these are church-planting movements (CPM) and disciple-making movements (DMM). The methodologies of each, despite their differences, essentially share the same aim: the rapid reproduction of believers.
As the global church grows outward in space, it shouldn’t outgrow what we’ve learned over time.
While seeing the gospel spread and disciples multiplied is certainly a biblical goal, one concern with movement methodologies is their attempt to reverse-engineer ministry results. As others have noted, the approach looks more like revivalism than revival. Movementism can also ignore the otherwise ordinary and incremental way disciples typically grow in the context of a local church. Disciple-making is a painstaking process that requires time and patience.
Nevertheless, advocates of a more incremental approach must be careful they don’t become complacent with slow (or no) growth. While our methods need not be revivalistic, missionaries should pray for genuine revival and strive for real results in ministry.
Navigating Tensions
This list only scratches the surface of tensions in cross-cultural ministry. Missionaries will also need to think through a host of other issues, such as when or how to employ locals, the benefits and drawbacks of using various technologies, and even something as simple as deciding how much time to spend studying language versus engaging in direct ministry.
Sending churches and pastors would do well to be aware of these tensions. As the missionaries they’ve sent face these and other questions, they’ll be served by church leaders back home who are conversant on the issues. Those leaders can then speak into various topics with insight, as those who’ve learned how to steward gifts and navigate conflicts in their own contexts.
The Gospel Coalition