I’ll never forget the moment on my first trip to Thailand when a woman working in a store where I was shopping patted my belly and told me “Waou! You’re FAT!”  At that moment, I had a decision to make. Was I going to get offended or get curious? Was I going to interpret what she said from my cultural background or try to understand it from hers? I’ll come back to this story later. 

Missions is fraught with challenges because it is based on partnerships between people who are separated across vast distances of space, culture, training, experience, expertise, and roles. The daily reality of field workers is beyond the understanding of their overseeing churches and supporters. No amount of storytelling, videography, still pictures, or even short visits can make it possible for people in the country of origin to understand the realities of the workers on the ground. That is typically understood by most supporters of missions. Those of us in the U.S. know that we don’t really know what it is like for those who live day to day in a different reality. 

What is not as well understood is the gap in understanding between field workers and many of their donors. Because the workers typically grew up in the same country as their supporters, and share their culture and language, we assume missionaries understand their financial partners. This is not always true.

Just as supporters should seek to educate themselves about the reality of the cross-cultural workers they support, missionaries need to do some work to understand their financial partners. American donors, especially those who work in the American business world, often use language and mental concepts that come from a very different world than missionaries. That can lead to misunderstanding and unnecessary offense. Lack of understanding can cause missionaries to view their support base with fear, if not judgment. But I believe missionaries need to be as willing to understand the culture and language of their supporters as they do the people they are seeking to reach with the gospel.

Let me illustrate with a story. A decade or so ago, when I was still new at raising funds for missions, I was visiting with a corporate executive I hoped would support MRN. He had a heart for missions and was known as a spiritual man and mentor of other church leaders. However, in our conversation, I was offended when he asked me about the efficiency of MRN’s model of missions. He used the language of ROI (return on investment). He actually asked me what the average cost was in “dollars per soul” in MRN’s missions. 

I was stunned and didn’t know how to answer. Because the missionaries we train and coach don’t work for MRN, but for churches who oversee them, that question did not fit our metrics. But what really hit me was the seemingly cold calculation and inhumanity of that question. How can you put a price on a soul? What is the acceptable level of efficiency?  I wanted to lecture him on the implications of that kind of crass reductionistic question. No one would ever take the gospel to distant and challenging unreached people groups if we only pursued the most efficient ROI opportunities. I could have easily gone on a powerful rant that justified my feelings. And, if my interpretation of his question had been accurate, my reactions might have been justified. It is an ugly thing to reduce people to numbers and simplistic ROI equations. I left there bewildered and distressed. My judgment was triggered. 

However, after getting to know that man better and doing more fundraising with donors who operate in a similar business world, I now see that conversation differently. The man who asked me that question did not mean to minimize the value of people, he was merely using the language of the world he inhabited to ask a legitimate question in a clumsy way. His concern was with proper stewardship. He knew too many ministries that come in with great stories but deliver little, even over long periods of time. Other ministries he knows have turned out to be downright corrupt. He wanted to be assured that we were not one of those kinds of ministries. 

What I came to understand later was that he was not trying to decide if he was going to give to missions, he was trying to decide where he would give. He wanted to know if MRN merited his trust. He had been blessed with wealth and he wanted to give it to things that matter most. But, like most people who love Jesus and have significant resources, he was overwhelmed with opportunities to give. He had read the parable of the talents and understood that the Master expects a return on the gifts he entrusts to us. If he didn’t want to give money to missions, I would never have gotten a meeting with him. People like him know how to avoid meeting with people like me. He was going to give and give generously. The only question was to whom he would give.  

By the way, at the end of that meeting that I didn’t think went well, and where I was so offended, that man handed me a check for $3,000 he had signed before I showed up. He had legitimate questions, but he wanted to give to us.

As a person who operates in the missions world, I must remind myself often to listen to donors’ heart concerns and not get triggered by their vocabulary.  I need to learn to interpret their language in gracious ways as well as learn how to communicate what we do in language they use. I have the responsibility to seek to understand the concerns of donors and find out what moves them as God has wired them. It is part of my job to find ways to describe what we do in concepts and language they use in their world or, if that is not possible, help them understand why we use different metrics while still caring about impact. 

This brings be back to my experience in Thailand. In Southeast Asia, it is a complement to call someone “fat” because it means you are a high-status person who can afford to eat well. I was being honored, but it felt like an insult because of a culture gap. To respond appropriately, I had to consider what the speaker meant, not what I felt. The same is true when dealing with American businesspeople. 

In a subsequent meeting with that same donor whose question was so off-putting to me, I asked him what kinds of ministries really touched his heart. He quickly said, “Bibles and children.” He wanted everyone to have the Bible and his heart broke over children in great need. I instantly realized that MRN was not the best ministry to serve the way God had shaped his heart. I recommended some sister ministries that do Bible translation and Bible distribution, as well as child poverty relief and development. Because I directed him to other ministries, he trusted me and continued to be a smaller but meaningful donor to MRN for many years. I always had to find a project that made sense to him, but he gave to us even though I couldn’t give him the kind of ROI data he initially asked for. But that wasn’t what he really cared about. What he wanted to know is, “Can I trust you?” He just used business language to articulate it. 

One more story: a few years later, a donor who gave us $60,000 a year for a big project told me that he wanted us to report differently on our work to him because what we provided him was not very helpful. He wanted to know about the impact of our ministry, not merely the activity of our staff. I told him we were reluctant to report impact because that required that we report on the work of missionaries and national leaders with whom we worked but that was not really our staff’s work product. We didn’t want to claim credit for other people’s work, especially if the funding that we would be getting didn’t go directly to those people. This is a common problem in the missions world that we want to avoid. His reply struck me hard. He said, “We are not so naïve as to think that all the impact of your ministry is the product of your staff. God is the one who makes the kingdom grow. What we need to know is whether the concept which you have pitched to us is proving to be effective. We like the fact that you are innovative, and we like what we hear about your ministry approach, but if you don’t give us the data that demonstrate the stages of development and impact over time, how can we know if we should continue to support an innovative model?” 

He had a good point and there is a way to give information of what we do with expat and national workers on the ground without claiming things we don’t do directly.  There is a way to share the impact of our involvement that honors all those we work beside and gives God the glory. It is not easy, but it is possible. 

If any people ought to understand that ministry is built on trust, it is people who work in missions. We also should be able to understand that the trust question is often indirect and couched in language and concepts that are unique to each culture, including western business culture. I wish I had understood sooner that American donors from the business world (as well as elders and missions committee members) who seek information from us about our work are not necessarily being reductionistic or unspiritual just because they speak the language of business to ask their questions. 

When those of us who work in the missions world are tempted to be offended by questions of our work, it is more helpful to respond with curiosity than offense. We need to remember our cross-cultural skills and probe behind the questions and the language to the actual concerns, and not just get defensive. Some supporters have wrong mentalities and metrics that come from unhealthy western impatience and pragmatism. If that is the case, this means we have an opportunity to disciple them in kingdom-healthy mission metrics. However, often we just need to use cross-cultural communications skills and listen differently. Let’s reject the fear of being misunderstood or unappreciated, or the temptation to react in judgment of the American business culture, and instead seek to understand the heart language of those who want to use the money they have for God’s mission.