Choice of missions to support
- We will support both foreign and domestic missions.
We think it’s important to do mission work both in the US and abroad. Church planting — in the modern sense of the term — is fairly new to the Churches of Christ. We’ve done plenty of planting in the past, but not the modern way — and we think it’s important that such efforts be encouraged.
The big change in church planting practice has been to treat church plants as missions and church planters as missionaries. This means they are free to present the gospel in terms that speak to the local culture without being tradition bound. The goal isn’t to create a waystation for traveling Church members or a convenient place for relocated Church members to attend services. It’s about evangelism — and converting the lost requires much more than creating a west Tennessee congregation in west Philadelphia.
- We will only support missionary works that use the best practices known to missiologists, unless the mission is already well established and known to be effective
- A supporting organization experienced and knowledgeable in missions, such as MRN or Kairos or Stadia
- Missionaries trained for missions
- Missionaries tested for psychological preparedness for missions
- Missionaries working as part of teams
- Each missionary has an experienced missionary as a coach to provide continuing support
Therefore, both our missionaries and planters must work with a supporting organization filled with experienced missionaries prepared to coach us and coach the missionary. He or she needs someone to hold him or her accountable, to answer questions, and to support the effort. Missions Resource Network is training our missions team on how to do this.
Research shows that teams that have been tested, trained, and that are well supported have much greater success than other models. And it only makes sense.
In the past, a missionary was chosen based on his willingness to go and whether someone knew him. Call it the “brother-in-law system.” The result was that many missionaries failed. Sometimes they failed for lack of training, and sometimes they failed for not being tempermentally suited for the work. Sometimes their marriages couldn’t hold up to the stress of mission work.
Therefore, we want missionaries and planters and their spouses (we actually think of both spouses as missionaries) to have gone through psychological testing and training. The experienced organizations know how to do this, and the result is stronger marriages and, often, for men and women wanting to do missions to find they need to serve God in a different way. Not everyone has the gift.
The trend is for missionaries to be sent out as teams. There may be 12 people working together to plant a church in Hong Kong. Studies show that teams do better. You see, they hold each other accountable. Their talents build on each other. And the creation of a team helps avoid the temptation of a missionary to become a pastor.
Experience shows that a single missionary will work hard for a couple of years, convert many, and then become the pastor of the new church. He’ll be so busy running the church that he stops doing mission. And he wasn’t sent across the ocean to be a pastor. Rather, he should have raised up indigenous leadership and kept on seeking and saving the lost — perhaps in the next town. And teams are better at continuing to be missionaries.
If a missionary in Romania is struggling with a problem, he needs the resources of a larger organization that is familiar with Eastern European missions and can put him or her in touch with misisonaries nearby who’ve had similar struggles. The days of the Lone Ranger missionary are over. This is a community based activity. We work together.
- We will emphasize long-term missions over short-term missions, because long-term missions are much more effective in spreading the kingdom of God
Long-term missions do much more good than short-term missions. It’s great for the church members to travel to Honduras and paint houses, but much, much more good can be done for the same money by supporting a missionary to live in Honduras and work with the natives. There is not substitute for the relationships created.
Moreover, studies show that the impact of short-term missions on our own members isn’t that great. They don’t really become that much more generous. Some do, of course, but short-term missions cannot be allowed to supplant the good done by long-term missions. The emphasis has to be long-term.
- We will work only with missional missionaries, that is, missionaries who understand that the gospel speaks to poverty, suffering, and other human needs in addition to salvation and who therefore see God’s mission holistically.
Now, just as is true in our home churches, we need to be teaching a holistic gospel — a gospel like the one Jesus taught: a gospel that both saves and serves. Yes, yes, yes, we need to teach Jesus to the Haitians, but we need to also show them that the love of Jesus shows them how to support one another in a loving community that helps defeat disease and hunger. We should love them so much that we help them live better lives — not through handouts but through better agricultural and community practices.
- We will try to support our members and students when they wish to enter the mission field, if the standards in 1 – 7 are met, but not all requirements of 5 will be required if we have enough confidence in the person we are sending and the program he or she will be a part of.
- Our commitment to programs that don’t meet all the terms of 5 will not exceed one year at a time.
You can see that my HTML coding skills are so poor that I’ve had to convert numbered points to bullets. Sorry. Bullet “5” is the one about using best practices. And that isn’t always essential.
We’ve had several members graduate college and request support to work in China or another mission field that doesn’t quite meet the theoretically ideal pattern — and yet have great success. So for people we know very well, we’ll vary the rules a bit.
One problem with the old model (and what is still done many times today) is that a mission effort is merely the missionary's effort, with churches supporting him in that effort. We need congregations to take on an effort and commit to seeing that effort staffed with appropriate workers. We need churches to commit to Xyzland, not just to Brother John.
Grace and peace,
Tim Archer
Tim,
You are right, but the vision needs to be larger than to establish a congregation in a city. We need teams who have a national (or cultural) vision where we seek to establish multiple churches in multiple cities throughout a region. This certainly seems to have been the normal practice of Paul. He and Barnabas traveled throughout the Island of Cyprus. On the 2nd journey, as he went through Galatia, he came back to the churches he had established on the 1st journey. Now some cities are large enough to qualify as a region. Unfortunately, in our traditional pattern of missions, when someone goes to such a city the work is often limited to a small part of it. There is too little wide region vision. This is changing – but not quickly enough.
Jerry
Can church plants convert animal rights groups, green peace radicals, medical marijuana crowd the right to die believers? It seems to me this is often the purpose of church planting . The results being that the traditional hand that feeds the plant is bitten by the radical agenda of planted. I don't know do we have any evidence that liberal church plants grow beyond the planted stage?
Since "liberal" church planting is a new approach we don't have much history on that. But Flavil Yeakley's research has shown that modern "conservative" churches struggle to survive beyond current generation, much less actually grow the way they did in the beginning of the previous millenium. West Philadelphia should be treated like a mission field today because it does not look or function like west Tennessee did in 1910.
"The big change in church planting practice has been to treat church plants as missions and church planters as missionaries. This means they are free to present the gospel in terms that speak to the local culture without being tradition bound."
i think the biggest change (one which your mrn is now teaching) occurring is actually a shift away from "church planting" — and towards disciple-making. the argument is that when we…
1) present the gospel to those who are being pulled by the Spirit towards Christ,
2) and we teach them how to read, interpret, be obedient to, and share with others the word of God in community (theirs, not ours),
a church will be present. but that church will likely look nothing like it's "mother" church, depending on its cultural context. the shift is away from teaching people "how to do church." for that matter, the shift is away from teaching altogether. and i'm quite happy with said shift.
Tim,
I entirely agree that the church needs to be committed to the planted church — the mission — not just the missionary. When the missionaries come home or retire, the supporting congregation should continue to support and encourage the church that missionary was working with.
If the supporting church sends people over regularly to visit and help in the work, they'll take ownership of the work — not just the missionary — because they'll have met the members of the church. Indeed, many members will have been converted because of the efforts of the people visiting from the US.
James,
I don't think we disagree, but I think it's important that we not run from a term such as "church" planting, because we'll have failed if there's no church planted.
The goal isn't to create a church that looks like my church, but it is to create a community of believers under spiritual leadership, accountable to each other, in mission with God and together.
Mark,
I have no idea what you're talking about. What on earth is a "liberal church plant"?
jay, i still use the term "church planting" myself. i have no problem with it, and i intend for there to be many churches "planted" by the time i leave tanzania many years from now. it's the strategy of things that i'm concerned with, not the wording. i like the fact that we're making disciples rather than teaching church and mentoring facilitators rather than leading bible studies.
and i know it's semantics, but if there are no churches when i leave, it will not be me (or our team or my sponsoring church) who has failed. i present the gospel and make it available. saving people and creating churches is not my responsibility; it's God's.
Jay,
Sorry for confusion modern church planting is more liberal. Now the apostle Paul did said to a Jew I become a Jew and Gentile he becomes a Gentile. And this is the mantra of modern church plant concept. I am not opposed. However this liberalism is not just a theology its a focus on certain types of people. And its agenda is restructure of organization based on demographics reflective of the community or not.
These people targeted are often in two categories: One is middle to upper class and have much in common with the coC philosophy ,the other is very needy and fraught with all sorts of challenges. Now you mentioned the big change in strategy is “missionary.”What I am questioning is, (particularly in the deeply divided lifestyles in America) is it possible to really abide with a community with lifestyles so diabolically opposed to a supporting church? That is unless are missionaries are genuinely diabolically opposed to there supporting churches. As I see the message of plant is not to be like the planters….
Now you wrote,
“The goal isn’t to create a waystation for traveling Church members or a convenient place for relocated Church members to attend services. It’s about evangelism — and converting the lost requires much more than creating a west Tennessee congregation in west Philadelphia.”
Now why is this important? Because naturally it would seem very supportive to have “traveling members” and convenient place to relocate. In fact the church could grow very rapidly and be in building in very short time with elders in deacons. But that's not the goal!
This means modern church planting has to explain what is wrong or how are you going to stop a west Tennessee congregation from developing in west Philadelphia.
Danny wrote, “West Philadelphia should be treated like a mission field today because it does not look or function like west Tennessee did in 1910”. Hmmm
Now I'm looking at the word “function” you mean we are going to set up chairs every week in gymnasium for the next 10 years and set up PA system and break it down because their members are different! You mean there are more Democrats than Republicans so we function differently. You mean we have mainly street kids and union members so we join unions and dress like street kids so traveling members and relocating members stay away.
Mark,
Democrats and union members and street kids need Jesus, too, and they don't have to have deacons and elders imported from Tennessee. They are just as capable of producing their own as we in the South are.
And they don't have to sing Stamps-Baxter to be saved. There is a great deal more flexibility and creativity allowed in the assembly than Churches of Christ have traditionally allowed.
My suggestion would be that visitors from West Tenn in west Philly adapt to their new surroundings and enjoy a Philadelphia take on the music and style of worship — just as we'd expect Christians from west Philly to adapt to the Southern style down South.
Jay
Jay wrote
"There is a great deal more flexibility and creativity allowed in the assembly than Churches of Christ have traditionally allowed"
I see you use the word "allowed." What I am saying is that church plants will eventual do something not "allowed" then what? Is this where the support ends?
Mark,
"Somthing not 'allowed'"? What do you have in mind? Is this a discussion about instrumental music?