Of all the committees in our churches, mission committees have an extremely demanding task, yet have the least preparation for managing the complicated nature of cross-cultural ministry.  I offer this essay for mission committees that are trying to be faithful to God in meeting a great challenge—aiding the local church in sharing Christ across cultural divides.  My observations are limited and based on nine years of personal experiences from mission involvement in Eastern Europe, conversations with other missionaries, and readings.  At the end of this article, I have listed suggested reading—both print and web materials-- for mission committees. 

DISCIPLING THE NATIONS THROUGH PLANTING CHURCHES:

Since I am here on the other end, let me share with you several key areas I believe mission committees need to concern themselves with.  God through Jesus Christ calls every believer to have some role in discipling the nations, and Jesus' plan to accomplish this goal involves sending out believers to plant new communities of faith who will then nurture those communities until those same communities are able to begin other faith communities.  This cycle is to continue until the whole world has a chance to hear.

Paul indicates the church got very close to helping the whole world hear the gospel in the first century by following this pattern. The Jerusalem church grew exponentially because Jesus worked for three years to prepare the groundwork.  Jesus' work in Palestine was the reason Rome was conquered.  It wasn't Paul.  It was because Jesus modeled and trained, the Holy Spirit convicted, and multiple groups of early believers were scattered across the empire.  These groups then replicated themselves wherever they went. 

It began in Jerusalem.  Jerusalem then started Antioch and Antioch sent out missionary-evangelists to plant seeds that gave life to communities all across the Mediterranean Sea coast.  The scattering of believers during the Jerusalem persecution also launched early Christians into church planting as these followers of the Way returned to their homelands and began serving the Lord in community.  Paul stayed in Ephesus for three years building the community there.  Others, like Titus and Timothy, were sent to nurture and mature churches with a vision for beginning other communities.  A strict pattern was not adhered to but a general pattern can be easily detected.  It was this mushrooming of Christian communities all across the empire that led to the tremendous expansion of Christianity in the second and third centuries despite waves of official persecution.   It was not the spiritual heroism of a few apostles that our western individualism often heralds as the cause of the spread of first-century Christianity.  Along with the apostles, there were the scores of unnamed believers who spread Christian community from Jerusalem to Athens to Rome and beyond.  And as the small communities grew and multiplied, since they were the body of Christ, they became Christ to their communities: the poor were fed, money was sent to Jerusalem for famine relief, doctrinal issues were debated, faith was shared with the lost.  Humanitarian causes were a concern but they were the outgrowth of Christ alive in these faith communities, not a separate independent activity (a loss of focus that plagues many parachurch organizations).

Hesselgrave calls this the Pauline cycle, and I think he is right.  He sees this as the priority in international missions: for churches to send out missionaries or teams of missionaries who will follow this cycle in birthing a new church and maturing it until that church will have the vision, desire, and capacity to plant other churches.

I would do everything in my power to convince a mission committee that this should be the primary emphasis of the mission effort of the local church.  As a matter fact, I believe it should be the primary mission of the local church as well.  This rubric of planting churches to disciple the nations can then be supplemented by short-term trips, specialized parachurch work, humanitarian efforts, and advanced theological education.  But all those efforts must be shaped under the auspices of planting and growing a faith community.  We can't heal all the world's diseases, but we can work to build Christian communities that will for generations work to heal the broken.  Our Western efforts come and go, but Christ-centered faith communities multiply efforts.  Jesus thought about the kingdom in terms of multiplication—seeds that are planted grow, mustard seeds explode in growth, kernels that die multiply, the talents of those who use them wisely are multiplied.  We should think in the same way.

Instead of this emphasis on proclaiming the kingdom of God, our cultural milieu—an odd mix of modernity and postmodernity—has so choked the body of Christ that churches must beware of its subtle influence when planning for missions.  It is much more comfortable to talk about humanitarian work or non-church related parachurch ministry than to talk of planting churches.  "Doing good" and "helping people" is in--planting churches and trying to convert people is simply not fashionable these days.  I believe that planting churches and converting people is helping.  Christ and the salvation he brings to every area of life are the best help possible.  As we preach the kingdom, we must learn to balance our efforts with healing and proclaiming Jubilee.  But the advancement of the kingdom must never be neglected because of our desire to care for physical needs.  Biblically, the latter grows out of the former. 

I pray for all our mission committees that they will realize the biblical primacy of planting churches.  And that appropriate steps will be taken to plant churches to disciple the nations.

FACTORS THAT AFFECT SENDING CHURCHES AND CHURCH PLANTING:

When a church commits to planting a church cross-culturally, it can be a large and complex undertaking especially if the church is as committed as it should be. 

1.  Today other factors come into play that were not of concern in the New Testament world.  Today, when one enters a nation, there are most often already Christian communities there.  Now, many mission leaders are calling for partnerships and alliances between local churches, parachurch organizations, sending churches, and seminaries/mission agencies (which don't exist in our fellowship) in order to plant new churches.  The task of growing a healthy church is beyond the scope of a single family or even a small team.  Strategic alliances are almost a necessity to facilitate the spread of the kingdom.

Point for mission committees: Don't go at this on your own.  Use the resources in our fellowship to shape your vision.  Call in a missions expert for a seminar.  You don’t have to do whatever they say, but they have a lot of experience and can help.  And when you do shape a vision, don't ignore local churches unless you are going to a place where there are absolutely no Churches of Christ.  For example, maybe you will send a missionary to plant a church in a city in Poland where there is no Church of Christ.  But the best strategy may be to send the missionary to train and learn the language for 8 months where there is a healthy Polish church but the missionary will not be directly responsible for ministry during this time.  Southern Baptists follow such a strategy very successfully.  Also, consider how you can cooperate with parachurch ministries that can either help the missionary or can involve local members.  Missionary-in-residence Scott Owings at Lipscomb helps the Ukrainian Education Center screen intern applicants.   AIM at Sunset sends out missionary apprentices.  Abilene Christian and Let’s Start Talking are also developing internships.  If the mission accommodates such programs, it will be important for the sending church and mission team/missionary to cultivate relationships with appropriate organizations that can assist in church planting.  

2.  Of vital importance is the task of selecting and screening missionary candidates.  Usually in Churches of Christ there is little screening.  Most churches agree to sponsor someone based on a prior relationship or a connection the missionary has with someone in the church.  There is much debate about screening.  Some advocate a battery of psychological tests combined with extensive missions training.  I am somewhat concerned that this hyper-professionalization may not be the panacea some believe it is.  But certainly a committee must develop the ways that candidates will be evaluated.  There are a number of experts who can help and possibly one of the best means of screening is to require the candidate to work for the US church after an initial round of interviews if he or she does not come from within your ranks.  While there, they should do some manual labor for the church.  I have had my hand up two toilets serving Jesus in Ukraine.  If missionaries won’t do work, they won’t do the work. 

Point for mission committees: Don’t let personal relationships or connections be the sole guiding force in selecting missionaries.  Require a regimen of pre-determined training for all candidates no matter who they are.

3.  Also, there is the question of the role of Western money.  This is probably one of the most difficult questions to solve and is very much field dependent, but is something that should be considered carefully, especially when entering a field that is struggling economically. Will the missionary-evangelists work so that their work can be replicated and is not dependent on large financial resources?  If a missionary finds TV ministry attractive, can the local church continue that work after he or she is gone?  Or are there permanent sources of income to maintain the ministry—sources that will not dictate to the local church what/how the ministry should be conducted?  Missionaries should work so that Western funding is only needed at the beginning of the work, and that ultimately the church should be able to stand on its own no matter what the economy.  Also, whether or not local Christians will be hired by the mission team or sponsoring church should be discussed beforehand.  The practice of quickly hiring local Christians to serve as ministers for church plants can do much more harm than good even though, unfortunately, it is practiced widely among Churches of Christ.

Point for mission committees: You should be concerned with the strategy of the missionary/mission team.  That strategy should be of God and have a solid biblical base.  It should promote reaching an initial core, equipping leaders, and finally releasing them for ministry and leadership.  Exactly how the missionaries reach the lost and exactly how they equip leaders is cultural and will change with the situation. Some teach English classes, others work with universities, others are involved in humanitarian relief.  But there must be some basic plan/strategy for building the church, equipping leaders, and reaching lost people. And the basic plan should be in place before leaving for the field.

4.  Related to the role of Western money is the fact that in the last 50 years or so an important change has taken place in Western missions.  Local churches are no longer happy to send the missionary and leave them to their own devices.  There is the belief that local church members must be able to be involved on some level in the mission effort.  Since the US economic boom, the number of people actually going to mission sites has skyrocketed along with the proliferation of parachurch organizations that promote such trips. Unfortunately, these short trips are often burdens to the local church or missionary who wants to keep people interested and knows that when people see what is happening, their money, prayers, and support will continue to come.  And often these short-term trips have certain serendipitous blessings. 

My sponsoring church—Acklen Avenue Church of Christ-- committed a certain amount of money to send church members for 10 days to "visit" me one year after I arrived on the field.   They came and did whatever I wanted them to do.  They cleaned and cooked and visited with church members.   They went to the opera and hung out with the college kids.  It was relatively painless.  They gave some money to the church building fund.  I thought "Well, that was nice."  Dr. Prill, the elder who came on the trip, apparently was overwhelmed by the experience and has begun a small group following our model (to some degree) for university students at his university in America.  One church member said they should send him to Kyiv every year because it helped his preaching so much.  One of the university students who came decided to apply for the internship and Acklen has promised to support her.  Now I have an advocate in Acklen’s pulpit who feels a part of what we do.  (He's coming back in May with his wife and one other member for another visit.)  Thanks to the visit, I now have a true ally.  And I also have a co-worker who will be joining us for a year.  All that came from one well-planned visit. 

Point for mission committees: Mission committees should have commitments from the staff, elders, and church leadership to be personally involved in the mission effort on some level and money should be set aside for this.  The trips should be limited in number and shaped with the advice of the resident missionary/team. Other church members should also be encouraged to support the mission site with short-term trips. However, these trips should be planned with great care and everyone who goes should receive some kind of training.  Here is where partnerships with parachurch organizations can help.  I have seen so many completely incompetent people come to Ukraine on mission trips.  It sickens me.  It sickens me that American ethnocentric thinking causes people to believe that there is no need to prepare for cross-cultural ministry.   Ukrainians see this wastefulness—the wastefulness of sending unprepared and incompetent believers--and wonder why Americans spend money like they do. Mission committees need to know that local Christians are aware of how the sending church spends their money and plans their strategy—probably more than the sending church is aware of the mission church.  How the sending church spends money can have a direct impact on the perceptions of locals about Christianity as a whole.  The sending church should strictly limit the number of “visitors” that are sent to the mission site.  One or two week trips often are difficult for the missionary and the local church.  These short-term visits should be from mission committee members, elders, or church staff who come to evaluate and encourage.  They should be developed in conjunction with the local missionary.  Coordinated projects of longer length that do not require the daily assistance of the missionary should be encouraged but only with the counsel of the missionary. 

For this reason and others, I recommend churches consider Let's Start Talking if the site accommodates LST ministry; for some places it may not work.  LST trains and prepares people to go where they are wanted and welcome. They demand a lot of the people they send.  Because they organize so well the mission trip actually does some work besides just making the people who go on the trip feel good.  LST has blessed almost all the Kyiv churches and I recommend them highly.  Because of the increasing demand for church members to go to the mission site, I would encourage any mission committee to consider how they might use LST with their mission, which could possibly help shape some of their mission strategy.  LST is doing something I believe no one else is doing in Churches of Christ or even in most of the evangelical world—equipping a broad spectrum of people to do a wide array of work in a variety of locations, but training them to effectively carry one message. This approval comes from a former opponent of their work—experience taught me I was wrong.

I have also learned that not all parachurch organizations are the same.  Simply because a ministry exists and sends people out on mission trips, it does not mean they do it well or that they should be considered for the church’s support.  Critically evaluate what the organization does, how they train people, what the mission will do, and how it actually works in concert with the mission church.  If the parachurch does not require extensive training and does not work in concert with the local church, don’t support them.

5.  Selecting the actual site is tricky.  Sometimes, churches have a place they want to send to but no one wants to go there. Sometimes, people who want to go have no one to send them.  Some churches just choose to wait around for that person to come along.  The mission committee should think about what interests are already in the church and what the committee is interested in because the committee must be devoted to the place they support.  Of course, elders and staff can't be overlooked—many people within the congregation simply won’t have an opinion one way or the other. 

I also think the church should focus on two sites--not just one.  If one goes sour, it can be very disheartening.  On the other hand, focusing on more than two can cause the church to accomplish little.  Choose two sites in different parts of the world and keep in mind the need to involve church members in meaningful ways. One may be a place where medical help is needed but another may be a place where other kinds of work (like teaching English, etc.) can be done.  When I say two sites, I don't mean a sending church has to fully support two mission teams.  The church should consider making a long-term (at least ten year) commitment to two places and develop an alliance with a local church (or plant a new church), parachurches that can involve members and support the church plant or missionary's work, and the missionary or mission team.  A sending church might fully sponsor one couple in South America and possibly provide partial but substantial support to a missionary part of a larger mission team in Croatia.  In South America, there could be a relationship formed between the sending church, the local church, missionary, and a single parachurch that would serve them (if such could be found).  In Croatia, an alliance could be formed between the sending church, the newly planted church, and LST. 

Missionaries and mission churches need the long-term commitment.  Too many of our mission efforts have simply died because the lack of long-term support.  For example, Acklen Avenue made a ten-year commitment to me.  Now they have church members involved in our work and the church is very committed to me (as far as I can tell).  Some churches decline to make long-term commitments even though they provide regular financial support.  These mission committees often support too many organizations and missionaries and the church remains unaware of what is really happening in missions.  Mission involvement is usually minimal in churches like this. But consider not only the negative effect such planning has on the sending church.  It also harms the missionary.  It’s impossible for most people to imagine the financial uncertainties and nightmares many missionaries face.  Every month their “paycheck” is a different amount.  Sometimes churches drop financial support with little or no warning.  Individual supporters sometimes can no longer help or forget to send their gifts in.  Please don’t help perpetuate this very un-Christian system that has emerged as the way of supporting many missionaries among Churches of Christ.

An Example:

Let me offer a concrete example of what this might look like for a sending church: 

Greenland Hills Church of Christ (fictional) could choose to make a long-term commitment to a missionary who would come to Nivki Church of Christ in Kyiv and live for 8 months studying Russian or Ukrainian and learning how we do ministry, especially the strategy of our small group ministry.  In partnership with Nivki church members and the existing missionary presence, we would plan to plant a church in one of the outlying areas of Kyiv near Nivki.  There are huge neighborhoods of thousands and thousands with no Church of Christ anywhere near.  While being with (not working with) Nivki, the missionary would live in that area and learn the area: make connections, figure out the pace of life,  do some anthropology—but mostly focus on language acquisition.

Then an LST team or other kind of campaign from Greenland Hills would help plant the church.  Nivki members would support the plant with the whole church supporting the work--at least the Sunday assembly.  Two or three Nivki members might join the initial plant as founding members.  An experienced Nivki small group leader could be hired to work with the plant for a year, knowing from the beginning that financial support would only last for one year.  Evangelistic outreach groups would be formed for follow-up and the Nivki church and local missionaries would provide advice.  These groups could then lead into Christian community groups that are designed to mature young believers, raise up new leaders, reach the lost, and multiply into new groups. 

The mission team could use the leadership training we have developed at Nivki and make adjustments for their unique situation.  At first, the leaders could be trained together until the church plant has enough potential leaders to merit separate training.

A temporary church center apartment in that area could be rented to host English classes, serve the local community and be a place to meet people in ways besides the English classes. The missionary might teach in a local school or in an area university or institute—both to maintain his or her visa and to make contact with the lost. The following year another LST team could come along with a visit from church and mission committee leaders for a special teaching seminar, etc.  After two or two-and-a-half years, the missionary should have some kind of longer leave to allow the church to learn to be on its own--even if just for a couple of months. 

The UEC could help place Greenland Hills academics in teaching opportunities in Kyiv. Greenland Hills members could help build our library and we would make all our services available to the new church plant and the new missionaries.

There are two places in the Kyiv area God is beginning to give me a heart to plant churches.  We are moving into an exciting place, and how great it would be if we could partner with sending churches to plant more churches in the Kyiv area.

How would such a paradigm work in Central America or South America? Maybe you could envision this.  My lack of experience there prevents that.

Suggested Reading

I do recommend Hesselgrave's Planting Churches Cross-Culturally.  Though this work is designed for missionaries, it is vital reading for anyone interested in the task of global mission.  Reading Acts from a missions perspective also serves as an excellent starting point for thinking missiologically.

An excellent web site which supports much of what I advocate in this essay is www.missiology.org .  A professor at Abilene Christian maintains the site and offers excellent bibliographies and on-line essays to help mission committees and missionaries as they prepare for this tremendous task of planting churches. 

Information about Let’s Start Talking can be obtained at www.lst.org.

The Missions Resource Network, a ministry of Churches of Christ, also maintains some useful information for missionaries and mission committees at www.MRNet.org.  They are also advocates of strategic church planting.