Ah, Missions!
Tonight Lena and I sort of “fell into” taking two guys who had been on a campaign in eastern Ukraine out to eat, or at least helping them in finding a place to eat, interpreting, etc. One guy, Dan, is a preacher in Arkansas and has been coming to Ukraine every year for nine years. They sponsor a Ukrainian preacher in a small town, the hometown of Sergiy Lyakh, the UEC manager. As we talked over my sausage, baked mushrooms, and “Irish” potatoes as they are called here, a disturbing insight was shared.
According to Dan, and from what we are noticing a little ourselves, many Churches of Christ in America that started churches in Ukraine between 1991-1996 through a series of short-term campaigns followed by choosing one of the converts to be a paid preacher are now dropping that support or tailoring it back with little or no notice. Oftentimes, no missionary or well-established national leader was a part of the mentoring of the minister. He was simply chosen and began to receive a monthly salary for being the preacher. Dan told us of one Ukrainian minister who received a letter recently that at the end of the year, his support would be dropped.
Where to begin in explaining what horrible missiology this is, let alone a bad witness for Christ? Most of the Ukrainians who were hired had little or no training. If they were trained, it was in an American-style Bible school taught mostly by Americans who had little or no experience in Ukrainian ministry. Maybe some had lived in Ukraine but most had never actually, really done the work of ministry in Ukraine. There is now a guy at one such institute teaching classes in church planting though he himself has never planted a church in Ukraine and barely speaks five words of Russian! (That’s at a Southern Baptist seminary which normally has much higher standards than in our fellowship.)
The lack of phase-out expectations on the part of the American churches is also another major problem. Since it should be the goal that national leaders become self-supporting, there should be a plan at the beginning of how American support and funds can be phased out over the period of several years. There must be nurturing of relationships, spiritual support, visits, communication. You don’t just simply cut the cord and hope they will swim!
If we want these young churches to grow and mature, we have to be thoughtful and careful about how we use money and how we treat our brothers and sisters. All of this belies a disturbing aspect of American culture which has had too much influence on the American church. The prevailing notion in so many circles, concerning missions and other ministries, is that if we have enough money, we can buy the results we want. But churches can’t be bought with money. Hearts won’t be converted and lives transformed because there is a flow of money from the west. It can help the process but it can also damage, neuter, or frustrate the very thing it’s supposed to be enabling.
Often, when the money does flow and there is no plan for phase out, the supported national becomes dependent on western support and the church never matures because of this dysfunction in the relationship.
It’s not enough to throw money at missions. If we take our Lord’s words seriously—that he wants his life-transforming presence to be made known to all people groups—then we have to take more seriously that delicate, complicated process of this thing we call “missions.”
According to Dan, and from what we are noticing a little ourselves, many Churches of Christ in America that started churches in Ukraine between 1991-1996 through a series of short-term campaigns followed by choosing one of the converts to be a paid preacher are now dropping that support or tailoring it back with little or no notice. Oftentimes, no missionary or well-established national leader was a part of the mentoring of the minister. He was simply chosen and began to receive a monthly salary for being the preacher. Dan told us of one Ukrainian minister who received a letter recently that at the end of the year, his support would be dropped.
Where to begin in explaining what horrible missiology this is, let alone a bad witness for Christ? Most of the Ukrainians who were hired had little or no training. If they were trained, it was in an American-style Bible school taught mostly by Americans who had little or no experience in Ukrainian ministry. Maybe some had lived in Ukraine but most had never actually, really done the work of ministry in Ukraine. There is now a guy at one such institute teaching classes in church planting though he himself has never planted a church in Ukraine and barely speaks five words of Russian! (That’s at a Southern Baptist seminary which normally has much higher standards than in our fellowship.)
The lack of phase-out expectations on the part of the American churches is also another major problem. Since it should be the goal that national leaders become self-supporting, there should be a plan at the beginning of how American support and funds can be phased out over the period of several years. There must be nurturing of relationships, spiritual support, visits, communication. You don’t just simply cut the cord and hope they will swim!
If we want these young churches to grow and mature, we have to be thoughtful and careful about how we use money and how we treat our brothers and sisters. All of this belies a disturbing aspect of American culture which has had too much influence on the American church. The prevailing notion in so many circles, concerning missions and other ministries, is that if we have enough money, we can buy the results we want. But churches can’t be bought with money. Hearts won’t be converted and lives transformed because there is a flow of money from the west. It can help the process but it can also damage, neuter, or frustrate the very thing it’s supposed to be enabling.
Often, when the money does flow and there is no plan for phase out, the supported national becomes dependent on western support and the church never matures because of this dysfunction in the relationship.
It’s not enough to throw money at missions. If we take our Lord’s words seriously—that he wants his life-transforming presence to be made known to all people groups—then we have to take more seriously that delicate, complicated process of this thing we call “missions.”
posted by Kyivmission at 1:17 AM
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