Indigenous Missions

Matthew 28:19-20, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

When I first made my announcement that my family and I were coming to India, a challenge was made about missions in general. The comment was that there are a lot of needs here in the United States, and there are plenty of missionaries around the world already. We should be focusing more on our own country then always worrying about everyone else’s country.

In my response to the comment, I used the verse above that Jesus tells us to go and teach everyone, and that we are to “go.” I made the statement that it does not say “stay,” but “go.” My thinking in some ways has not changed, but at the same time my friend that made the statement is also correct. How can we both be correct at the same time? Does that not negate the absolute truth? No, as you will see in my try at an explanation.

I believe there is still a great need for missionaries in many parts of the world that are not necessarily from those countries. My main reason is so that they will train and equip indigenous leaders to reach those within their cultures and to actively take over the leadership of the ministry. Right now there is still a heavy lack of strong Christian leadership in many countries that without being trained and equipped could start to teach heresy, which we certainly want to avoid. This is by far I think is the dominant reason why we need missionaries from strong Biblical foundations going for short-term mission trips to other countries, and a few who stay the long term for now.

The more I study and talk to the leaders here in India, the more I am convinced that we are to be only short-timer’s (short-term missions is considered up to 5 years in length). It is just much more fruitful when someone from your own culture presents the Gospel to their own. You understand the family structures, the dialects (language), and all the other intricacies that come within a community. Once we have trained and equipped, we need to turn over the reigns to the indigenous leaders and get out of the way. Our biggest problem is thinking we have to stick around and control the reigns, which in reality is just a type of self-grandiose. Those from their own cultures are best equipped mentally, physically and from a worldview stand-point to reach their own. Much falls into these three points that I cannot go into in a blog of this nature, but it engulfs many issues.

Another reason for short-term mission trips is for our youth to be given an opportunity to be challenged outside their comfort zones. Many times in the West there is a sheltering of sorts, because even most of the poor in inner-cities are richer then many of the people in other nations. It helps to energize a love for others and to understand the world does not revolve around the United States. Not to say that they should not love their country, because we all should, as this is where God has us. I love America and have come to love it even after just being here a short time.

I completely agree with my friend that we should be focusing our long term vision and a lot of our energies within our own culture and country. We can take what we learn from our short stints in other countries and utilize them in our community. Learning from our brothers and sisters around the globe and letting them impact our Christianity, as we are impacting theirs.

In the best case, where we are all effectively, indigenously, witnessing in our own community, we should still make sure to get out of our comfort zones once in a while and go to visit and give some support to our brothers and sisters around the world. I for one will continue to return to Bangalore, India for a couple weeks a year to teach a course and visit my new friends in Christ. They have already impacted me by their faith, probably more then I have impacted them from my teaching. But in the end as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz has said, “There is no place like home.”

“We need to be humble in our judgments, but we must judge after we have tried to understand deeply other peoples and their cultures. . . . We must, therefore, test our understandings of Scripture with those of Christians from other cultures to correct our cultural biases, because others often see our biases more clearly than we do ourselves.” – Dr. Paul Hiebert.