Reflection on Short-Term Missions and the Local Church

As a Project Management Professional, it's my job to find out a project's scope, requirement, and expectation from stakeholders. Project could be long-term or short-term, as long as the mission goal, objective, and scope are well defined, we will have a better chance to complete the project with the stated goals. I believe short-term missions are similar. If we have a clear objective for each short-term mission and make sure the objective is aligned with the long-term goals, then we will have a good chance to achieve our overall mission goals and be able to make impacts on the stakeholders (sending organizations, local churches, participants, and local recipients).    

Reflection on Historical Accounts

In the early days after Jesus' ascension, Luke recorded a couple of "short-term" mission trips in Acts 8 and 9. One of them is Peter's mission trip to Samaria to help Philip's ministry among Samaritans. This mission trip has a specific purpose (to lay hands on baptized Samaritans to receive the Holy Spirit) and it's based on an existing ministry (Philip's Samaria ministry). God also used Peter to confront the magician Simon during the visitation to Samaria. I call this Peter's short-term mission trip a success since the stated purpose has been reached. 

If we continue to read in Acts chapter 9 and 10, Luke also recorded Peter's ministry in "Judea, Galilee and Samaria". While he was travelling to Lydda, he healed Aeneas (Acts 9:32-35), then Peter received a request to make a short-term trip to Joppa (a few miles down toward the ocean) to heal Dorcas, where Dorcas was raised from the dead (Acts 9:36-43). And while Peter was still in Joppa, Cornelius had a vision and he sent his guards to fetch Peter to Caesarea (Acts 10:1-8). Peter then made a short-term trip to Caesarea where Cornelius and his household were saved (Acts 10:27-48). I call Peter's short-term missions to Joppa and Caesarea a project failure (scope creeps) but a mission success since he obeyed the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Both short trips to Joppa and Caesarea were unplanned, but they were still very missional -  people got saved, the sick got healed, the dead got raised and most importantly, God's name was glorified.  

My Reflection

From Peter's accounts, I don't think it matters if a mission trip is planned or not, as long as it is strongly directed by the Holy Spirit before, during, and after the trips. We don't want to limit what the Spirit can do or will do. However, internal and external confirmations are recommended before we "plan" these short-term mission trips.  

My own conviction is that all short-term missions are good as long as the Holy Spirit is strongly guiding the whole process either in advance or during the trip. God knows our intention and motives. If any of the mission trips is coming out of personal interests such as touring, sightseeing, personal pride (trying to prove usefulness), or simply just following along with the group, then it will be difficult for the Holy Spirit to work with the trip to achieve His purpose. I believe that, before and during a mission trip, a committed daily prayer and devotional time from both sending churches and receiving churches/groups will keep everyone staying close to God and to the Holy Spirit.

Conclusion

To make a short-term mission trip effective and relevant, we will need a dedicated prayer support team to back it up. This prayer support team will be served as a "mission center" which will fuel the mission trip on prayers, give necessary material provision, and keep everyone in check mentally and spiritually. When the mission team is returned, a trip report from each of the participants should be mandated. 

The last thing we want to see is a group of people going out on a "vacation-style" mission trip, which not only hinders God's mission works, but also hurts the locals in wasting their precious time and resource in hosting the visiting team.

Book Review on "Introducing World Missions"

This review covers Part 2 of Moreau's book (Ch.6, 7, and 8), which documents the historical accounts of the church missions to the world from A.D. 30 to 1500 (Chapter 6), 1500 to 1900 (Chapter 7), and then 1900 to year 2000 (Chapter 8). Moreau describes the expansion of Christianity is due to "the results from the dedicated labors of uncounted missionaries and laypersons determined to carry the gospel into all the world for the redemption of humankind."[1] 

From A.D. 30 to 1500

After witnessing Christ's death, bury, and resurrection, the early Apostles and disciples responded to Jesus' calling in which they found their new identity and purpose. Fueled by the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, these new believers started to travel to all Judea, Samaritan, and to the rest of known world. Besides Paul's journeys to Minor Asia and Europe, Moreau points out that Gospel had spread to Egypt and Ethiopia because of Philip. In addition, Mark was preaching in Alexandria, John went to Ephesus, Thomas and Andrew traveled east to Mesopotamia, Thaddeus and Bartholomew might have reached Armenia, and Pantaenus was reported visiting India. Despite the severe persecution, Christians can be found in all the provinces of the empire by the year of 180. By year 313, Christian population has grown to several million by many accounts (Moreau, 96-97). 

As the number of believers grew exponentially, theological views also grew differently. The Council of Nicea in 325 provided the first ecumenical doctrines which helped churches prepared to face the next wave of challenge - millions of people started to flood the local churches after the emperor Theodosius made Christianity the official religion of the empire in A.D. 380. Despite of the split of the Roman empire, Christianity has expanded to entire Europe and Russia. Moreau indicates that the work of monks and nuns supported by monastic organizations may have proved to be the major forces in this vast expansion. Monks in Irish, Scotland, and British helped to evangelizing the entire Europe (5th - 8th century), while monks in Byzantine empire helped spread the Gospel to East Europe, Russia, and as far as China (4th - 7th Century). The rise of Muslim and the collapse of Mongol empire contributed to the decline of Christianity in Middle East, Central Asia, and East Asia, including China (7th - 16th Century). 

From A.D. 1500 to 1900

As the European nations started to explore and colonize the new found lands, Christianity also followed. By the end of 1800, Christian faith had spread to the New World, Africa, and East Asia. This vast expansion of churches was not without problems. The Catholic Spanish and Portuguese were granted the "Right of Royal Patronage", so that the churches were state-sponsored, clergies are salaried, and thus political, social, cultural, and religious joined force, which produced a vulnerable situation for the general population. Although indigenous Indians were evangelized, their human rights were constantly deprived. African slaves were considered sub-human and were not offered the right for God's salvation. Since the churches were planted by the clergy of Spanish or Portuguese origins, believers were forced to adopt the Western cultures and customs. Local contextualization was not encouraged. In most places, Catholic faith was forced, many believers' faith were still very superficial. For example, pagan gods or folk religion practices might still exist under the camouflage of Christian names.

Compared to Catholic churches, Protestant Reformers' works of world mission may be dwarfed in size (geographically and in numbers) but their contributions cannot be under-minded, especially in North America Colonies, Far East, and in Bible translations. Other developments were also thriving, such as Woman's work for Woman, China Inland Mission (1865), and Orthodox missionaries in Japan and Siberia. Several revivals in 19th century also contributed to the world missions, including Moody's ministry, Student Volunteer Movement (Cambridge Seven), and the revivals in Jamaica, where signs and miracles were seen in large numbers, some contributed to the works of the Holy Spirit.

From A.D. 1900 to 2000

World Missionary Conference at Edinburgh in 1910 served as a milestone for world's missions in the beginning of 20th century. Six significant developments can be found - (1) the growth of Christianity outside North Atlantic countries, (2) mainline Protestant missions, (3) the ascendancy of conservative evangelical missions, (4) Pentecostalism, (5) Vatican Council II and liberation theology, and (6) the unparalleled global mission advance at the century's end (Moreau, 137). 

In the early 20th century, many indigenous leaders in China, Nigeria, India, Japan, Africa started taking leadership in their own countries, which inevitably shifted the tide from the Western controlled churches to indigenous churches. While churches became localized and contextualized, one of the challenges was to stay evangelical. Some church leaders gradually shifted their attentions to social and humanitarian issues, some even involved in political revolts. 

International mission organizations were also thriving in this period. IFMA[2] and EFMA[3] demonstrated their capability to integrate the evangelicals in global missions. Other organizations such as Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Campus Crusade for Christ, The Navigators, World Vision also involved in evangelical missions on a global scale. One of the noticeable trends is probably the blooming of "Radical Evangelicals" or "Pentecostalism", where we observed a new wave of phenomenon manifestation of the faith in supernatural signs, healing miracles, speaking in tongues. This Pentecostal movement arose among all mainline Protestant, Roman Catholics, and to a lesser extent, Eastern Orthodox Christians. Two other notable developments happened within Vatican is the reformation which led to a reconciliation with Eastern Orthodox churches in mid-20th century and the renewed discussion on Liberation Theology.

What's Next?

Looking forward, in the opening of 21st century, Moreau observed a shift of gravity from Jewish world to Greco-Roman culture (1st wave), to Euroamerican culture (2nd wave), and to a third massive cultural change: southward and eastward (3rd wave). Moreau gave us six specific trends he concluded regarding the world missions trends in 21st century and beyond - (1) from everywhere to everywhere: Europe and North American became mission fields themselves, (2) the development of the 4th self's - self-theologized[4] (3) Pentecostal Movement, (4) Local Contextualization.

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[1] A. Scott Moreau, Introducing World Missions : A Biblical, Historical, and Practical Survey (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), 155.

[2] Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association.

[3] Evangelical Fellowship of Mission Agencies.

[4] The first three selves are self-governance, self-support, self-propagation"

Book Review on the "Forgotten Ways Handbook"

After studied the growth pattern of early Apostolic church and the contemporary Chinese church, Hirsch observed an Apostolic Genius that drove the "Jesus Movement" from merely 25,000 Christians in A.D. 100 to approximately 20 million Christians in A.D. 310.[1]  Hirsch introduced six essential elements (or mDNA, missional DNA) that make out the Apostolic Genius, which all starts with the simple confession that "Jesus is Lord", a conviction that requires to surrender every aspect of every life to Jesus and demands everyone of His followers to respond to this conviction. Hirsch's mDNA framework is reflected in the following sections.  

mDNA and Apostolic Genius

Hirsch's mDNA comprises the following elements: Disciple Making, Missional-Incarnational Impulse, Apostolic Environment, Organic Systems, and Communitas (not Communities), all centered on "Jesus is Lord". He argues that the traditional church structure in America didn't have the mentality and structure to support a virus-like growth, which would require a strategic shift from a consumerism "attractive model" to a "movement ethos", and moving away from being a "religious institution" to a more organic missional network. To support an explosive growth, Hirsch suggests that "all the elements of mDNA must be present and are in dynamic relationship with other elements, and an adaptive challenge acts as a catalyst, then Apostolic Genius is activated."[2] mDNA starts with disciple making in Hirsch's model.

Disciple Making

Hirsch points out that many churches in the West has largely lost the art of disciple making and has reduced it to an "intellectual assimilation of theological ideas", which produces a rather anemic cultural Christianity highly susceptible to the lures of consumerism[3]. My own word for this problem is that we produce a lot of "part-time Christians" who live a double life and shop around for better church programs to feed their own interests. To return back to the true disciple making, Hirsch suggests we replace the "Greek Concept of Knowledge" (right thinking leads to right acting) to the "Hebrew Concept of Knowledge" (right acting leads to right thinking) by three habits: raise the bar on discipleship, develop a set of discipleship practices, and activate the priesthood of all believers. With the equipped disciples, we then need to send them out.  

The Missional-Incarnational Impulse

Hirsch emphasizes that a missional church should be a church moving outward to the world and going deeper into the culture and context. In order to achieve this missional impulse, Hirsch lists several practices for "Going Out", such as proximity (locate locals), frequencies (become locals), and spontaneity (allow time for the unexpected). For "going deep", he suggests having meaningful engagement and be ready to share Gospel. Hirsch argues that without an Apostolic environment, this impulse of going-out and going-deep cannot be sustained.

Apostolic Environment

In order to foster the development of mDNA in every disciple and in every church missions, Hirsch suggests that we need to create an Apostolic Environment where we help apostolic leaders embody, symbolize, and represent the church's mission to the missional community, and in turn, these apostolic leaders will call forth and develop the gifts and callings of all of God's people. Hirsch claims that one of the major reasons for mainstream denominational decline is the suppression of these "apostolic" people because they "disturb the equilibrium of a system in stasis."[4] Hirsch argues that churches should remove the hierarchical huddles and create an Apostolic environment that allows visionary leaders to pioneer and multiply. These apostolic leaders will need a dynamic network to thrive, which Hirsch calls it "organic systems".

Organic Systems

In order to sustain a flu-like growth, Hirsch suggests we avoid the artificial religious institution (rigid, high-conformity) and create a networked structure to support an organic missional movement, which is easier to re-produce, contextualize, and communicate. Habits and practices are recommended including steps to stir up movement (behave like a movement), structure organically (decentralize and embed mDNA into each cell), Network and communicate extensively (collaborate and dream together), and sneeze the gospel (aim for simplexity, release early and often). Last, Hirsch wants to create a community that built upon the comradeship.

Communitas, not Community

The last element in a mDNA for a dynamic movement is to develop a community that shares the same danger, ordeals and challenges which forms the bound among its members (comradeship). Hirsch claims that sometimes the danger and risk can be good, even necessary for us.[5] Without this comradeship, a church may lose its fighting power and gradually settle in an artificially formulated "safe-guarded" environment without any real engagement with the outside world. Hirsch suggests we develop a transformative vision (create a daring vision and out of comfort zone), position the church within the hub of life (build church around people, not people around church), engage in shared endeavors (joint community projects), and put adventure back into the venture (expect adventure, risk, and experiment).

Summary

In a nutshell, I agree that a missional church needs to awake to the feel of a movement, structure itself as a network of living mDNAs, and spread gospels like viruses. The artificially created church systems may provide a stable safe environment for lay worshippers, but it may not good to foster an Apostolic Genius movement, which requires every believer to become a Jesus-like mDNA and duplicate gospels like seeds in the air.

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[1] Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Way Handbook (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2009), 28.

[2] Ibid., 34

[3] Ibid., 64

[4] Ibid., 114

[5] Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Way Handbook (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2009), 173.

Book Review on Cross-Cultural Servanthood: Serving the World in Christ-like Humility

Duane Elmer opens the book with a quote stating that, "We are not called to help people. We are called to follow Jesus, in whose service we learn who we are and how we are to help and be helped"[1], which set the tone and created a strong reminder that we are not called to help people in a way that presents us as superior or role models. The truth is that superiority and paternalism are two of the most common mistakes (mostly unintentionally) we can make when serving people. In his book, Elmer gave us the burden and challenge of "Towel" servanthood to prevent our pride from getting in the way when entering into a cross-cultural ministry. He used the "Monkey Serves the Fish" story to illustrate a potential harm to the people we want to serve when we don't put ourselves under the local context and instead force our understanding upon others. Elmer suggests we use a six-step process to improve our awareness of cultural difference in order to witness Jesus through serving others in a different culture.     

Servanthood: The Process

The six steps are Openness, Acceptance, Trust, Learning, Understanding, and Serving. Elmer argues that we can't serve someone we do not understand; at best, we will serve like the monkey. We can't understand others until we have learned about, from, and with them. We can't learn important information from someone until there is trust in the relationship. And to build trust, others must know that you accept and value them as people. Before we can communicate acceptance, people must experience your openness - your ability to welcome them into your presence. The challenge of openness with people different from ourselves is to step out of our comfort zone to initiate and sustain relationships in a world of cultural differences.

Step 1. Openness: Welcoming Others into Your Presence

Elmer points out that to achieve our openness, we must intentionally and purposely deal with our tendency to judge people and things in the area of "like me" (good) or "unlike me" (bad) - dichotomizing. The quick judgment and stereotyping work hand-in-hand which sometimes leads to so called "Negative Attribution"[2] that whenever we hear, see, or experience someone or something that confuses me, I will assign him, her, or it a negative characteristic. Elmer gave us several practical suggestions toward openness, including suspending judgment (keep an open mind), tolerating for ambiguity (lesson of patience and trusting God), thinking gray (wait to judge), and positive attribution (assume the best).  

Step 2. Acceptance: Communicating Respect for Others

Elmer uses Romans 15:7 to illustrate how God accepted us first and demands us to accept one another, in order to bring praise to God, which means Christians need to "put down their false feeling of superiority and restore love and unity to the body of Christ."[3] While Elmer gives acceptance a definition of "proactively communicating respect and dignity to each human being based on the fact that each is an image-bearer of God", my understanding of acceptance is to comfortably sit and eat with sinners and tax collectors without casting judgment just as Jesus did. Elmer also points out several obstacles of accepting others, including refusing to learn local languages, impatience in a different culture, ethnocentrism, narrow category width (quick to put things in the "wrong" category), dogmatism (fixed flexible principle), and an evaluative attitude (evaluate as right or wrong).  

Step 3. Trust: Building Confidence in Relationship

Once we become accepted by others because of our openness and respect for others, the next step is to build a mutual trust so that a deeper learning experience can be possible. According to Elmer, trust is the "ability to build confidence in a relationship so that both parties believe the other will not intentionally hurt them but will act in their best interest."[4] Although building trust is so important, it may be hard to build and maintain the trust relationship because it is fragile, and it may take a long time. We learned the trusting relationship from modeling how God loves us and we trust God in return through His unending love and His covenants over our long human history. Elmer also points out that trust is culturally defined, what it takes to build, to break, and to restore a relationship is difference from one culture to the other.    

Step 4. Learning: Seeking Information That Changes You and the Biblical Foundation

Once we built the confidence in a relationship, we can then start learning about other people's culture by collecting information about others, learning new languages, gathering the facts from public resources. Elmer warns that learning about a culture from the superficial facts is just to prepare us for further deeper understanding. If we develop the "right answer virus"[5], then we may stop learning and feel that we already know everything. Elmer suggests that we need to move on to the "learning from" and "learning with" modes. "Learning from" is the attitude to humble ourselves and take the role of a child and listen to what others say about their cultures. "Learning with" is the interdependent learning relationship which the "We-they" category is replaced by "us" category. Once we developed this "us" category, we will then be able to learn from others and start to appreciate the wisdom existed in other cultures. Once we have learned about, from and with others, then we will know why people do what they do.  

Step 5. Understanding: Seeing Through the Other's Eyes

Elmer defines "understanding" as "the ability to see patterns of behavior and values that reveal the integrity of a people,"[6] which means we can see as others see. Elmer uses tapestry as an analogy to point out that we may have learned all about the cords but we still cannot see the whole picture, because we are looking at the back of the tapestry. We will need someone expert in the local culture to help us see the picture from the right perspective which is from the front. Elmer summarized two problems that hinder us from seeing the whole picture - Egocentrism and Ethnocentrism. If we want to fully understand a culture, Elmer suggests that we need to stop comparing, look for God's common grace in local culture, see things through other's eyes, and check our motives. Now we are ready to move on to the final step - serving others.

Step 6. Serving: Becoming Like Christ to Others

Serving without understanding can create confusion or even causing damages just like what the monkey did to the fish. Elmer says that serving is "the ability to relate to people in such a way that their dignity as human being is affirmed and they are more empowered to live God-glorifying lives."[7] This definition helps me understand the helping is not about an one-time merciful giving, not a "I am here to help you" mentality, it's a holistic relationship building process to restore a person's dignity so that he or she can live a life that will glorify God.

Summary

Jesus said, " The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly."[8] Indeed, if we let our pride take leads in helping other people, we are depriving their dignity like a thief. Corbett also warns about this "sense of superiority" because once the other person develops "the feelings of inferiority", it will bring "harm to both materially poor and non-poor."[9] Corbett wants us to be part of "helping others to recover their sense of dignity, even as we recover from our sense of pride."[10] which nicely sums up what servanthood is about.

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[1] Duane Elmer, Cross-Cultural Servanthood: Serving the World in Chirstlike Humility (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 1.

[2] Duane Elmer, Cross-Cultural Servanthood: Serving the World in Chirstlike Humility (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 49.

[3] Ibid., 60.

[4] Ibid., 77.

[5] Duane Elmer, Cross-Cultural Servanthood: Serving the World in Chirstlike Humility (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 91.

[6] Ibid., 125.

[7] Ibid., 146.

[8] John 10:10.

[9] Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert, when Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty without Hurting the Poor...and Yourself (Chicago, Illinois: Moody Publisher, 2012), 64.

[10] Ibid., 64.