Local churches in mission: what's behind the impatience with traditional mission agencies?

Pierson, Paul E.

We hear a great deal today in North America about local churches that want to be fully involved in world mission but have grown impatient with established mission agencies as the vehicles for their involvement. Some of these churches are large enough to initiate, sustain, and direct their own mission efforts, bypassing traditional mission agencies altogether. I am persuaded that a widespread distrust of institutions across North America - secular and religious - provides the background for this impatience.

My observations and reflections on this subject come out of a background that includes seventeen years as a missionary in Brazil and Portugal under the Presbyterian Church, USA. I subsequently served as pastor of two congregations with strong missions programs - First Presbyterian Church, Fresno, California, and the Bel Air Presbyterian Church, Los Angeles. Since 1980 I have taught in the School of World Mission at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California, serving as dean for twelve years. In addition, I serve on the boards of several evangelical mission agencies, including Latin America Mission and OC International. I thus have had experience from various perspectives on the issues involved in the interaction between local churches and mission agencies.

Underlying Factors

Let me begin by suggesting several factors in contemporary American society that lead many to look with suspicion at traditional agencies and even at the whole missionary effort. These observations come from interviews with missions pastors and chairpersons in a number of Presbyterian churches that have strong mission involvement.

I characterize our era as post-Western, post-denominational, post-ideological, and post-Christendom. It is post-Western in that the world Christian mission no longer is primarily a movement from Western Europe and North America to Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Today the missionary movement - along with the church itself - is international and intercultural. Our era is post-denominational in that the older issues around which churches were formed in sixteenth-century Europe and later in America are no longer very relevant to most Christians. With the exception of the Southern Baptists, the older denominational missions bear a small and decreasing part of the missionary effort today. At the same time, dating from the International Congress on World Evangelization in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1974, we have seen the development of what we might call the new evangelical ecumenism, with a growing concern for greater cooperation. An additional aspect of the change can be seen in the characteristics of the most rapidly growing churches in many parts of the world today. They are really post-denominational, whether or not they still carry denominational labels. Many are totally independent of older structures. Others may carry traditional labels, but they tend to be more like each other than like those of their parent denominations.

Our period is post-ideological as a result of the events of 1989, which resulted in large areas of the world, previously off-limits to overt Christian missions, becoming open. Finally, it is post-Christendom, even in the United States, in the sense that our public culture, which once at least gave lip service to the Christian faith and values, now appears to be quite hostile to it. And while there may be growing interest in religion, it is less focused and less institutionally connected, even among Christians.

But there are other factors, some positive. One is the wide recognition, in the more evangelical churches, that we are all called to mission. Lest we take this for granted, we need to recognize that a focus on world mission probably exists across a broader spectrum of the church than ever before, at least since the days of the Student Volunteer Movement before World War I. The establishment of schools of world mission in a number of institutions, the U.S. Center for World Mission, and recent conferences on world evangelism are among the factors. Along with the growing missionary interest in much of the church, there have been quantum leaps in ease of transportation and communication during the last quarter century.

But it is the anti-institutionalism in contemporary American culture that undoubtedly plays into the dynamics of our "post" era and helps to account for the current disaffection of some of our more influential evangelical churches with traditional mission agencies. In 1995 Robert Putnam published an article in the Journal of Democracy entitled "Bowling Alone."(1) He begins with the observation of Alexis de Tocqueville in the 1830s that Americans of all ages and social classes formed associations of various kinds, civic, religious, moral, and so forth. (He does not note a factor important for our purposes, that many of these voluntary societies were the result of evangelical revivals, with missionary societies being among the most prominent and long-lasting.) Putnam observes that such organizations and networks build social trust and facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit. "Networks of civic engagement foster norms of generalized reciprocity and encourage the emergence of social trust, facilitate communication, and coordination." Studies show that citizens who are members of associations are much more likely to participate in politics and express social trust than those who are not members.

As Putnam demonstrates, however, membership in such organizations has declined sharply since the 1950s, with a serious effect on the trust of Americans in government and, indeed, in most institutions in society, including church structures. Membership in labor unions, the PTA, women's clubs, veterans' groups, the Red Cross, the Boy Scouts, and service clubs has declined sharply. Referring to the title of his article, Putnam notes that while more people are bowling than ever before, membership in bowling leagues fell by 40 percent from 1980 to 1993. Those who say they trust the government in Washington "only some of the time" or "almost never" rose from 30 percent in 1966 to 75 percent in 1992.

Putnam notes that church attendance fell from 48 percent in the 1950s to 41 percent in the early 1970s. (It would be helpful to know how much of the decline has been among the more liberal mainline churches over against the newer, more evangelical groups, which normally show more mission interest.) He also points out that while Americans have more houses of worship per capita than any other nation, religious sentiment in the nation is less and less tied to institutions and is more self-defined. The loss of a sense of connectedness and a lack of trust in institutions probably affects all of Western society, including the attitudes of church members toward mission agencies.

Another factor rooted in contemporary American culture is the expectation of quick results. If a business is to attract investment, the reports from Wall Street must show a profit every quarter. The word "impatience" (in our title) suggests the desire to finish the task of world evangelization quickly. Movements that offer promising goals, like "a church for every people group by the year 2000," are more likely to attract the support of local churches than older mission agencies that are seen as not moving rapidly enough.

Still another factor is postmodern theological relativism and universalism, which leads to a degree of schizophrenia for many Christians who live with one foot in the church and one in a world that is relativistic regarding truth and strongly antimissionary. A pastor friend from a Presbyterian church with a strong missions tradition took a group to India to visit an effective work that has seen 100,000 dalits (untouchables) converted, gathered into churches, and elevated socially and economically. But one member questioned why Hindus should be converted to Christianity.

Two recent articles in the Los Angeles Times religion page, though largely favorable to Wycliffe Bible Translators missionaries, included paragraphs stating that at times missionaries had allegedly resorted to forced conversions and had kidnapped children, and it quoted anthropologists who accused the Wycliffe missionaries of "cultural imperialism." A student of mine at Fuller Seminary, who came from a Presbyterian church with a strong missions program, told me she came to seminary with a bias against traditional missions. Only as she came to know missionaries and mission history did her perceptions change.

The post-World War II evangelical generation knew that involvement in mission was an integral part of the Christian life. We were loyal to the concept of missions, we trusted institutions, including mission organizations, and of course we were interested in specific missionaries. The younger generation today wants to know and experience everything almost immediately and is generally more impatient and distrustful of institutions of all kinds. An additional factor is a general suspicion and fear of long-term commitments, which affects attitudes toward traditional institutions, including mission agencies.

Individualistic Ecclesiology

Pastors have spoken to me of a more individualistic ecclesiology they are encountering. For most evangelical Christians the focus is on the individual Christian life and the local church. If he or she is more mature and better informed, that focus may include the worldwide body of Christ, but the structures in between - presbyteries, associations, general assemblies, councils of bishops, and so forth - are not seen as relevant. This is partly the result of the fact that many if not most new members in the more evangelical churches were not raised in the particular church tradition they have joined. They become part of a particular church because they find it attractive to them and their families; denominational history and traditions are a secondary consideration at best. Recently while teaching a group of sixty adults in a Presbyterian church, I asked how many were in that particular church because it was Presbyterian. Only two raised their hands. Unfortunately, for church members like these, traditional mission agencies are just as likely to be judged as irrelevant.

In discussing the impatience of local churches with such mission agencies, it is important to distinguish between mainline denominational agencies, older multidenominational agencies that sometimes appear bureaucratic and unresponsive, and the plethora of new, innovative, flexible agencies.

One oft-repeated source of frustration is the cumbersome, slow-moving nature of some mission bureaucracies, especially denominational boards. When I was a pastor in Fresno, a young woman in the church, a daughter of Presbyterian missionaries to Korea, wanted to return to that country for a short term to teach English as a way of exploring her future ministry, but the denominational board was unresponsive. Finally she went to Korea under a smaller, more flexible agency. The irony is that she is a direct descendent of Horace Underwood, the first ordained Presbyterian missionary to Korea. In another case, a highly qualified couple in the church - he a pediatrician, she a physical therapist - applied to go out under the same denominational board. They were told there was no funding, and even when the board was told there were three churches ready to fund them, there was still no response. Sometime later, the head of that agency told me they could not get enough physicians. When I told him the frustrating story of our medical volunteers, he could offer no response.

Two additional factors affecting attitudes toward the older denominational boards have to do with theological credibility and the way funds are distributed. There is the perception of a great and growing theological gap between the denominational hierarchies and the more evangelical, mission-oriented churches. The WCC-sponsored women's conference in 1993, with its focus on Sophia, created a crisis in the Presbyterian Church, USA, and raised questions about the theological integrity of those in leadership. I was then at Bel Air Presbyterian Church, and some elders wanted to cut off all giving to the denomination. Instead we designated funds to the Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship, an innovative, evangelical, alternative mission structure within the denomination. One mission chairman expressed frustration with the way funds are distributed in the denomination, with only a tiny fraction of undesignated funds actually going to mission.

A fourth source of frustration is the fuzziness of the stated missionary mandate and message of some mainline denominations. Some mainline publications have suggested that because of the growth of the church around the world, missions are no longer needed or desirable. One missionary working in Pakistan was asked to explain to a women's group in the United States why there was no longer any need for missionaries.

Still another source of frustration are policies that tie mission so closely to the life of national churches that it makes some creative missionary initiatives impossible. Two couples, feeling a strong call to work with the Kurds, were told by our Presbyterian board that they could be appointed only if there was a request from a national church there, ignoring the fact that there is no church among the Kurds! These couples went out under the Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship and had an effective ministry until forced to leave by political developments in the area.

This case reflects ignorance of the history of the missionary movement. Mission initiatives have almost always arisen on the periphery of the institutional church, and in many cases the missionaries have been called by God and gone to their field before there was a board to support them, with the mission agency either organizing or recognizing their work later. Examples include the early Christian Reformed women in Nigeria, Judson in Burma, and Zwemer in Arabia. Thus a key issue is the proper balance between structures of administration and accountability, which are essential, and the recognition of the call of God to individual missionaries, which respects their creativity and response to the Holy Spirit. (I have often wondered what the answer of the Jerusalem church would have been if Barnabas and Paul had asked for permission to initiate the mission to the Gentiles before they set out.)

One person I interviewed expressed frustration over the way in which a certain agency (no longer in existence) cared for the missionary the church supported. He felt that both the church and the missionary were largely ignored. As a result, they found another agency under which the person could serve. A former business executive, now a pastor, said that many in his local church feel that some mission agencies are not accountable to anyone and that the local congregation has no opportunity to develop a relationship with the agency under which its missionaries serve. A common complaint is the lack of personal contact. The mission chairperson of a local church dropped a missionary because over a two-year period she did not communicate with the church. Her agency told the church she was too busy. While that is probably an unusual case, I have heard other expressions of frustration over the perception that some agencies are interested only in funding, while local churches want some kind of relationship.

Desire for Personal Involvement

There is clearly a strong desire for some kind of hands-on involvement. The story of the missions pastor of one large and growing church is worth telling. He was "turned on" to missions when he and others took the Discover the World course created by Doug and Jackie Millham, close friends from seminary. He began to take short-term teams to Latin America and then to Africa, working with several traditional agencies. Mission interest, personal involvement, and giving have grown. But when he visited the headquarters of one of those agencies in the States, he felt that no one was interested in talking to him and got a very negative impression, even though his church was heavily involved with that mission. Worse, when he and laypersons from the church visited the office of another of the agencies in a major African city, they felt they were treated like aliens. This was despite the fact that his church supported two missionaries of that mission and were planning to become involved in a major project. This brother may be typical of a newer generation of missions pastors. He stated, "If we cannot have a personal relationship with a mission, we won't support it." Some of us who are older may not agree with that attitude, but it seems to be a reality. When I suggested to the same pastor that his church might want to make a major investment in helping build facilities for an innovative and rapidly growing seminary in Brazil, he expressed interest and then asked, "Could we take a team down there to help in some way?" Thus the desire for "hands on" involvement is very strong.

I am not suggesting that it is easy to fulfill this desire, but it is clearly there. People want to see and experience mission, and if a significant group from a church can do so, it will probably build loyalty and giving, both to individual missionaries and to the sending agencies.

One pastor in Anchorage, Alaska, told how some years ago, through personal contact with a person involved in the program, the church sent a few youth to Mexicali during spring break. The experience was so positive that now about fifty highschoolers raise funds and go each year from that church. The worship service in which the youth report on their experience has become one of the highlights of the year, and the spiritual growth in those who go seems to have attracted new families to the church as well as stimulated further mission interest. This is a good example of mutual benefit between a mission project and a local church.

I realize that mission agencies cannot spend too much of their time leading such projects; however, perhaps more can be done along this line to build loyalty. Several women from one church, led by one of their pastors, also a woman, visited a women's group in Ethiopia. This was the result of a relationship with an Ethiopian church planter the church had known when he studied in the States and whom it supports through a mission agency. The American women had a marvelous experience, felt they had learned much, and had encouraged the ministry of the Ethiopian women. Consequently the relationship with the missionary and the Ethiopian church was strengthened, and funding for some special projects will no doubt follow. The agency was able to facilitate this project without undue commitment of time and personnel, and the U.S. church's support and loyalty are now clearly directed to the missionary and to the Ethiopian church.

Factors That Make Agencies Attractive

This brings us to a consideration of other features that local churches find attractive in mission agencies. Many of these are clear reflections of some of the changing characteristics in American life and impatience with older structures and institutions.

Mission agency flexibility and the ability to respond rapidly are attractive features to local churches. Recently I was in Brazil and spoke with the director of a growing multidenominational agency called AVANTE. It is an independent daughter mission of SEPAL, the mission of OC International in that country. The Brazilian director is a Presbyterian, but even though his denomination has its own mission agency, he has chosen to work with AVANTE. The reasons are greater flexibility, much less denominational bureaucracy, and less denominational emphasis - in short, greater freedom to follow what the Holy Spirit seems to be doing in the world church today. Another illustration of both flexibility and the new "evangelical ecumenism" is found in a couple I met on the same trip. She is a Brazilian Baptist, he a Pentecostal from the Cape Verde Islands. They work among Muslims in Senegal under YWAM and are supported by Presbyterians in Brazil!

One pastor, formerly in a high-paying job in the advertising industry before his conversion a few years ago, said he wanted to have his people involved in projects directly concerned with evangelism, rather than ministries that deal only with social concerns. Ministries, he said, need to be holistic, concerned with bringing people to Christ while meeting their social needs. He, along with many others, added that he wanted to work with organizations that offer the possibility of partnerships, short-term missions, missionaries in residence, or other kinds of involvement that go beyond writing a check. He also mentioned the strong pressure in local churches to use mission funds to meet local needs instead of spending so much overseas.

Churches express frustration with agencies that seem to be narrowly focused on their own work and institutional maintenance instead of demonstrating awareness of the bigger picture. Agencies that show they are interested and involved in broader partnerships beyond their own historical ties are more attractive. Even Microsoft and Apple decided to cooperate! The creative new partnerships that many agencies are forming with national churches and Two-Thirds World missions need to receive more attention.

A Sense of Strategy

Another attractive characteristic I hear mentioned is a clear sense of missionary strategy, especially in the light of our changing world and era in mission. Earlier in the century, John R. Mott raised large sums of money from wealthy persons for the Student Volunteer Movement, the Student Christian Movement, the YMCA, and the International Missionary Council. Beyond the dynamism of his own personality, there were two reasons for his success. First, he enjoyed the advantage of a "Christendom" culture, which is no longer with us. Second, there was the strong sense that he and the movements he represented were on the cutting edge of the Christian faith and indeed of history, especially in the era of pre-World War I optimism. We must ask where laypersons see a comparable sense of strategy today. While most of the institutional descendents of Mott's work no longer exist, many of the newer agencies and partnerships are increasingly involved in cutting-edge strategies that include both evangelism and social ministries, along with partnerships between Western and non-Western agencies and churches. Perhaps we can communicate that more clearly.

I know churches with significant numbers of Silicon Valley executives, who are among the most entrepreneurial persons in our society. They and others are increasingly involved in businesses and professions that involve international travel and contacts, in which they must make rapid decisions about where to invest their time and resources in opportunities in the United States and overseas. They must constantly think strategically and long range. It should not be surprising that they will look for mission agencies that seem to be doing the same. Some local churches are forming their own mission strategies for different parts of the world - for example, for western Europe, sub-Sahara Africa, and Muslim areas. They want to know that the mission agencies they support are doing the same.

In conclusion, we all recognize that we are in a new period of mission history. The growth of the church in Asia, Africa, and Latin America; the internationalization of the missionary movement; the ease of communication and transportation; the suspicion of institutional structures; the desire for personal contact and experience; the plethora of new churches, mission agencies, and methodologies - these all call for serious consideration.

There are two basic questions we must ask. How is the Holy Spirit carrying out mission today? And what is the role of mission agencies in that process? Perhaps agency leaders can ponder those questions openly and honestly with a group of key leaders from local churches. Such a process might help draw more churches into growing partnerships with mission agencies.

Let me give a few other modest suggestions. First, we need a deeper understanding of how mission movements, including those of which we may be a part, have arisen in the past. This may help deliver us from excessive institutionalization and remind us to remain flexible. We remember that virtually all mission agencies began on the periphery of the larger churchly structures, whether they began in Antioch, Herrnhut, Moulton, Brighton, or Hollywood, and they were led by visionaries often rejected by the broader church. If we remember this history, it may help us to avoid becoming too bureaucratic, to encourage new initiatives in our own organizations, and to communicate a sense of creativity and excitement to our constituency.

Second, for those who suffer from theological schizophrenia-the affirmation of the historic belief in the absolute necessity of faith in Jesus Christ for salvation, versus the relativism so common in Western culture about any truth - let me make another suggestion. At the very least, we can make a greater attempt to show how the spread of the Gospel and the work of our agencies addresses some of the critical social problems of our time, such as street children in Latin America, where Christians are doing most of the significant ministries, or the problems of untouchables in India, still treated as subhuman by their society, to whom the Gospel comes as a word of liberation and hope. At the end of the last century, as the social gospel movement grew, James Dennis published an important apology for missions, Christian Missions and Social Progress, in which he demonstrated the strong connection between the two.

Third, we need to study our constituencies to discover the kinds of churches and people who are drawn to support the missionary effort, the factors that lead them to such support, and what kinds of agencies and methodologies attract them. There is danger here of being faddish, but useful information could be discovered from such a study. I suspect that a number of common factors would be found among churches of different traditions that could become the basis for better communication.

Finally, I recognize that every mission agency suffers from limitations of time, money, and personnel, plus they are focused primarily on the ministries of their own missionaries. Perhaps some of the new technologies can be used to communicate quickly and succinctly to key missions pastors and chairpersons when there is special blessing, crisis, or need.

It is clear that most of my suggestions come down to more effective communication, which is, humanly speaking, the most important key. At the same time, I am very optimistic about the future of the Christian missionary movement; first because of the biblical promise, but also because of what I see happening in so much of the world today. I long for that to be communicated effectively to the churches.

Note

1. Robert Putnam, "Bowling Alone," Journal of Democracy 6, no. 1 (1995): 65-78.

Paul E. Pierson graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, and Princeton Theological Seminary (B.D, Ph.D.). He served as a Presbyterian missionary in Brazil from 1956 to 1970, first as a church planter on the Brazilian-Bolivian border, then in theological education in Recife. He served in theological education in Portugal from 1971 to 1973, as Presbyterian pastor in California from 1973 to 1980, and has been at the School of World Mission, Fuller Theological Seminary since 1980, as dean 1980 to 1992, and as Professor of History of Mission and Latin American Studies until the present.