Avoiding the Missions Black Hole
Nearly a decade ago, a former MRN trustee and longtime supporter of our ministry, with a history of respect among his networks of successful businesspeople, shared some shocking perspective with me. He said, “I can’t get many people in my world interested in global missions. It seems to many of them that missions is a black hole that consumes vast resources and produces little impact.”
That was hard to hear, but it helped me understand something I would never had known otherwise. My first reaction was to get defensive. But I’ve learned over the years that getting angry is not nearly as helpful as getting curious. Why would businesspeople have this impression? What are they hearing and seeing that forms such an impression? To what degree is that impression justified? To what degree is it a false narrative? To what degree is it a justification for ignoring the needs and opportunities to transform a world with the good news of Jesus? How much of this perspective comes from American pragmatism? How much of it is a product of mission efforts that failed for lack of preparation, training, or from poor execution? It’s a big subject with little hard data.
The irony of the black hole perception is that the church in the global community has been wildly successful in the past 50-100 years, in large measure because of the efforts American and other Western churches have supported. See my first entry in this blog series for more about this. Yet too often the impact of our global efforts have not been understood. While we certainly need to be engaged in evaluation and improvement in all our effort to serve God’s mission, I believe that much of the problem is self-inflicted. I fear churches and missions ministries have unwittingly fostered the black hole perception by mistakes we have made in how we have communicated our global ministries. Here are some ways to avoid feeding a false narrative of the missions black hole:
Focus on the people being reached, not just on missionaries or organizations who serve them. Too often we have promoted missions by showing pictures of American missionaries and talking about them and their lives or by talking about parachurch ministries we support. The focus is on the workers but not on the work. The purpose is not clear and the impact is buried in the effort to explain who we are supporting. We certainly don’t want our missionaries to be forgotten and neglected. That has happened too often. But ultimately the mission is about the people who are being reached and transformed. As soon as we have impact stories, we need to tell them. Those doing the work should be in the picture, but not in the center. That should be occupied by the transformed lives of people who have been reached and empowered to experience real life in Jesus. If the church knows the impact, they’ll never question or resent the cost.
Makes sure all three legs of the missions’ stool are solidly in place. Stable missions ministries in churches require three legs to support them: people, partners, and process.
A Calling to the people (place) the mission is designed to reach.
Commitment to the partners reaching the lost. Missionaries are not just means to an end. They are people to be loved, encouraged, and supported. They are not the focus, but they are essential to the work, and we need to be committed to them as well as the mission.
Confidence in the process. If the method or strategy doesn’t make sense to the church, it will undermine the effort. It is not enough to lavish praise on missionaries willing to move overseas to do God only knows what to people we can’t imagine or understand. That will feel like the church is funding a black hole.
Share success stories, not just crisis and tragedy. We live in a world of information glut. We all hear endless stories of horrors, tragedies, and need every day in the news. Tomorrow there will be a new set and another the day after that. No matter what we do, it never changes. Gone are the days when we can motivate people with graphic pictures of poverty and tragedy alone. The phrase “poverty porn,” though offensive, captures how many people feel. It just seems gratuitous, manipulative, and hopeless if all we do is promote need. What people need to hear is that progress is possible. They need to see results. They need to know of victories. Of course, we have to talk about needs, but if we don’t see the opportunities in the needs and demonstrate the impact of our interventions—if we don’t show what hope exists and blessing comes from our missions efforts—people shut out the message.
Make missions the bone marrow of the church instead of treating it like a parasite. I’ve written about this in another blog so I won’t’ go into detail here. But suffice it to say that if we treat missions as a side hustle that is separate from the mission of the local church that competes for scarce resources, it will not turn out well. If we demonstrate the synchronistic impact of well aligned global and local ministries in God’s economy of abundance, everyone wins.