We all love the idea of being a hero. We’re obsessed with hero stories, whether they be quasi-realistic characters like John Wayne, Jason Bourne, and James Bond, or the purely fantastic comic book characters of Superman, Wonder Woman, or Iron Man. On Halloween, hero costumes compete with scary characters. Every culture has its hero narratives.

The Bible is filled with heroes from Abraham, Moses, and David to Jesus, Peter, and Paul. However, in scripture, there is really only one hero: God himself. The human characters through whom he works have more weaknesses than kryptonite. But because of our deep love for heroes, we tend to gloss over the failings of the true Bible characters and turn them into demigods instead of people like ourselves through who God did great things.

We just love heroes and love to pretend to be heroes. Most of the time, this is harmless enough, but hero narratives become a huge problem when it comes to global missions. The need of many Americans to be seen as the heroes who come in from the outside has caused endless issues in international missions. For more on that, I’d recommend you check out Jean Johnson’s book, We Are Not the Hero: A Missionary’s Guide for Sharing Christ Not a Culture of Dependency.

But rather than talk about the wrong reason to be involved in global missions, I want to make a case for the right reasons. I’ll limit this discussion to two reasons. One you can anticipate, but the other may surprise you.

The first and most obvious reason Americans should be involved in global missions is that we have been disproportionately blessed and have an obligation to share our blessings with others. America only has 4% of the world’s population, but we have 25% of the world’s wealth. While that is not speaking about the church in America directly, it only confirms what we know. Here is a more startling set of numbers. The majority world church has 70% of the world’s Christians, but they only have 17% of the churches’ money. The Kingdom workforce is mainly outside the western nations such as the United States, but they don’t have the finances to take the gospel to the world. We need to be involved in respectful partnerships where we help the global church live into its calling and equip it with resources and mentoring as requested based on a long history of cross-cultural work.

But that is not the most important reason Americans need to be involved in global missions. Yes, we have money, training/mobilizing institutions, and experience in cross-cultural work, which are helpful. However, the most important reason is TO LEARN. That’s right. We don’t have all the answers. Churches in the west are struggling. The American church is largely stuck in an aging plateau or in significant decline. The models and methods we have used for years and are developing now are not working well. Our reading of scripture is often stuck in thought categories that are limited to western mindsets, which are foreign to scripture and cause us to miss much of the wisdom to be found there. Our view of God tends to be small and mechanistic. In short, we need to be connected to the part of the Kingdom of God where the greatest growth and most dynamic impact is taking place and where fresh eyes are discovering old truths for a new day.

The majority world church is the “Research and Development” department of the Kingdom of God. American churches need to be connected to the global church for what we can learn from them. We need new eyes, expanded imaginations, fresh models, enhanced theology, and greater faith. The best way to get all those things is to humble ourselves and learn from those God is using to advance the borders of the Kingdom. By coming alongside the global church as servants with resources, we can earn the right to learn by partnering with humility in ways that are transformative for our churches and us. Instead of presuming to evaluate our global partners’ performance, we should ask them to assess us and coach us. Instead of exporting our models, which are not working well, we need to learn from their models.

Do we have things to teach and wisdom to share? Of course. But do we have much to learn? Even more so. So, when you ask, “Why should we be involved in missions?” instead of focusing on how we can come in as heroes to save the day, let’s start with what we can learn from the most dynamic part of the church by sharing what we have in global partnerships where all the partners benefit.