10 Trends in Global Missions that Are Impacting the Local Church
Our question is “What has changed in global missions that affects the local church today?” In the next hour, I’m going to present 10 talking points. Some are opportunities, some are challenges, and some are neutral. Several of these points could be turned into books due to their complexity, and I’ll address a few of these in greater depth in future episodes of the network’s podcast.
Finally, I probably need to warn you that some of these points seem somewhat contradictory and controversial, but that’s the nature of life and ministry. Also, I hope that today’s session won’t simply be a monologue, so if you have questions or comments, please don’t be shy. With that said, let’s get started with our list of “Ten global missions trends impacting the local church.”
1. Increasing accessibility to missionaries
—The interconnectivity of our world today gives churches and missionaries the ability to see what’s happening with their missional partners at a superficial level through various forms of social media. Missionaries can now communicate with their partners through FB, IG, email, digital and paper newsletters, video message apps, and even content platforms like YouTube. All of this is good, but it also presents a few challenges. First, with so many communication opportunities, missionaries must set limits for themselves. If they aren’t careful, they can stay so connected to family and friends back home that they never deeply engage in their place of service. We all have limited relational energy, so if we spend it staying deeply connected with family, friends, and supporters, we won’t have what we need to engage with our host community. As someone who has an adult child living overseas, I’m grateful for the ability to communicate with ease via technology. I’m not suggesting a total disconnect—just a responsible use of technology so this blessing doesn’t become a curse.
Secondly, churches can ask for so much communication that the missionary has little time left over to do what they’re called to do. It’s not an either/or supposition. We must do both in a way that serves everyone’s realistic expectations. So, a good conversation with your current and future missionaries concerning expectations is a healthy place to start. Also, be sure to find out what communication channels are being used by the missionary and monitored by the church. Missionaries often think they are communicating well because they are active on various forms of social media only to discover that no one at the church is monitoring these channels. Here again, it’s all about setting good expectations.
2. Accessibility to national ministries
—Just as you have greater access to your missionaries and they to you, so do individuals and ministries from overseas. Have you ever received a friend request from a pastor in Pakistan or a ministry leader in Nigeria? Many of you have. Some of these are doing good work, but most of these connections flow from a desire for financial support. Some represent valid ministries. Some of these requests are scams. The challenge is that almost none of them have the accountability systems required by law here in the U.S.. So, you probably want to limit your engagement to prayer. Otherwise, you might actually hurt the maturation process of a local church in our desire to help.
As an aside on this topic, if you want to grow in your understanding of indigenous ministries and a proper view of financial engagement, I would recommend that you pick up a copy of When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert. Also, if you are interested in supporting indigenous ministries, please reach out to me (mrenfroe@worldchallenge.org) to learn how World Challenge partners with this type of ministry in a way that provides appropriate screening, accountability, and ongoing mentorship.
3. People working in teams vs. as individuals place a greater emphasis on who one works with as opposed to where he or she works
—You’ve probably already noticed this one, but with the advent of church and ministry planting initiatives like Live Dead overseas and Chi Alpha here in the States, young missionaries are more likely to focus on who they work with rather than where they work. I don’t see this as necessarily positive or negative. It just is. While earlier generations might have entered the “house of missional service” through the door of need, today’s younger global workers enter through the relational door. Neither of these has greater value than the other. The important part is that the spiritual wrestling has been done so that those going out understand that they have a God-given calling on their lives.
4. Churches are no longer gatekeepers (think stakeholders instead of gatekeepers)
—This trend tends to aggravate pastors, and I truly apologize for this. I don’t like being provocative. But, just as church leaders no longer look to the denomination as their sole point of missional engagement, neither do those wonderful people sitting in your weekly gatherings. They have friends who are serving with other ministries, and they want to support them. It’s never been easier to bypass the local church when giving than it is today. Add to that the reality that denominational loyalty is at an all-time low. So, is it a lost cause? Absolutely not, but we can no long assume that people need us as it relates to their external giving. We need to “earn” the engagement of the flock. I know this can feel like an unpleasant shift from the past, but it doesn’t have to be one. It just means that we’ll have to work harder as we communicate God’s vision for the world, the church’s part in that vision, and how and why each person should sacrificially participate. After all, what we really want is to see those people we’re discipling grow in their generosity as it relates to what God is doing in the world. We can do this when we properly seek to influence rather than control.
5. Everything is called missions
—This one could definitely be a book, and admittedly, it could sound a bit elitist, but it’s not. Around 100 years ago, Anglican Bishop, Stephen Neill, wrote these words. “If everything is mission—nothing is mission.” Well-meaning pastors often tell their church members they’re missionaries to their city. Youth pastors tell their students that they’re missionaries on their campuses. Trust me. I get what they mean, and I agree 100 percent with the idea behind it. I’ve communicated in your churches for over 30 years that just as God has sent me to the Middle East to reach Muslims, he has placed you where you are to reach your neighbors. However, they aren’t the same thing. Neither one is better than the other. There’s no A Team or B Team in the kingdom. Can I say that again? There’s no A Team or B Team in the kingdom. But…they are different. We’re all mandated to be gospel witnesses, but we aren’t all evangelists. We’re all called to demonstrate care for the body of Christ, but not everyone is a pastor. The primary purpose of missions is to take the gospel to places and people where it isn’t. It isn’t about lostness—it’s about access. That requires sending (our part) and going (the part of those we send to reach the nations). It also requires training, a certain skill set, and a unique calling. Let me close this point with a rather “in-your-face” analogy. Please bear with me. I’ve put out several campfires in my lifetime, but that doesn’t make me a fireman. I don’t give up the comfort of my bedroom to sleep in a room with a bunch of snoring men and women. I don’t get roused from my sleep in the middle of the night by a screeching alarm so that I can climb into uncomfortable clothes to go help people I don’t know. I don’t train every day so I can carry heavy equipment. I haven’t studied the best approaches to extinguishing fires. And, most importantly, I have never, not one time, run into a blazing building to save someone’s life or property. This one’s personal for me. While I used to be a missionary, I no longer am. Honestly, it hurts me to even say this, but it’s the truth. Even though I travel a lot in my current role, I’m a supporter. Missionaries are those who go—and stay. The rest of us get the privilege of sending them.
6. There has been a growing trend to move away from long-term missions
—This one is certainly a challenge. Why is this such a big deal? The big deal relates to our desired outcome—the disciplining of the nations. This takes deep cultural engagement, which takes a long time to obtain. It takes years to learn a local language and culture. Some estimate that it takes up to seven years to become a productive missionary. While the total number of Assemblies of God World Missions missionaries is holding firm at just under 3,000, that number can be a bit deceiving as it includes both career missionaries and missionary associates. Over the past couple of decades, sending organizations like AGWM have seen a drop in career missionaries and an increase in short-term workers. While I am a proponent of these shorter-term assignments, they are generally only productive if they turn into some form of long-term engagement. Unfortunately, most don’t.
There is also the issue of short-term teams. Here’s a simple approach you might want to use as you think through where and how to send teams.
- Give priority to places where the church does not exist or is very weak. The first would require visiting a missionary or missionary team. The second option requires feedback from someone familiar enough with the work on the field to make sure that in your efforts to help, you aren’t taking away the right, responsibility, and privilege of the local church to trust God rather than you for the meeting of their needs.
- If you send a team to a place where the church is strong, limit your engagement to one that seeks to partner with the local church to reach an unreached people near their context.
- Understandably, most mission trips focus on places that are close as that lowers the financial costs and limits travel time; however, most of those places have strong national churches. As mentioned above, we must be careful that in our desire to help, we don’t end up hurting the maturation process of the local church. If you lead trips to one of these places where the church is strong, you might consider an approach that uses the trip as an example of what God has done in one place and might want to do in another. After all, that place with a strong national church was once a mission field, and God wants to turn today’s mission field into a mission force.
- Finally, be sure to not only prepare your people before the trip but process with them what God wants from them after they return. Otherwise, the potential value of the trip is lost.
7. A move toward wholistic missions
—I think this is a great trend, and we’ll definitely focus more on this one in a future episode, For now, let me provide you with a very brief overview of what is meant by holistic missions. Missions organizations and missionaries have wrestled with the word vs. deed dilemma for generations. Biblical holism acknowledges that while God wants us to preach the gospel, He also wants to see the gathered redeemed bring about life and community transformation wherever they are. To quote one missional spokesperson, “God cares about all human suffering—especially eternal, spiritual suffering.” So, while we prioritize the spiritual, we acknowledge that when God’s reign shows up in a community, it should bring change to every part of life.
Here’s a brief understanding of holistic ministry. The Bible identifies four specific relations that were damaged in the Fall. They are man’s relationship with God, man’s relationship with himself, man’s relationship with his neighbor, and man’s relationship with his environment. Colossians 1:20 and 2 Corinthians 5:18-20 point out that God is currently (“in Christ”) reconciling all things back to himself. There are two important things to notice here. First, God is reconciling “all things” to himself—not just people. While the restoration of people back to their Father through Christ’s redeeming work on the cross is paramount, it is not exclusive. God is actively involved through His people in restoring all areas of brokenness. Finally, not that God “is” involved in this reconciliation. His activity is current—not simply future. So, while God will complete this restoration when He sets up His kingdom on earth, he is currently engaged in this restoration work through His people as we live in the “already but not yet” of the kingdom.
8. A return to pioneering
—Our movement started as a pioneering movement. We planted churches at home and abroad with an intense Holy Spirit-enabled zeal. Returning to the second General Council at Stone Church in Chicago, that somewhat rag-tag group of spiritual vagabonds made the bold declaration. They said, “We commit ourselves and the Movement to Him for the greatest evangelism that the world has ever seen. We pledge our hearty cooperation, prayers, and help to this end.” What boldness! They elaborated on this the following year making it clear that they planned to use N.T. methods which would prioritize those places where the gospel had yet to be preached. So, the advent of new initiatives focusing on church planting among the unreached is really a return to our roots.
9. Cause-driven vs. cross-driven?
-We live in a cause-driven world. Some causes are good. Some even have eternal significance. Clean water, eliminating the sex trade, illiteracy, and poverty alleviation are all great causes. Many of these even have strong biblical support. So, what could possibly be wrong with that? In short…nothing. However, they all have something in common. None of them require gospel engagement. The United Nations and hundreds of secular groups are engaged in these causes. And, I want to give credit where credit is due. Many of these organizations do a good job, but none of them address the heart of the problem—the sin that’s bound up in the human heart. Likewise, causes come and go in a social media-driven world. So, while these causes may be good, they won’t be great if we don’t keep them tethered to the cross.
Finally…
10. The rise in a global view of missions
–There is a rise in what many call “developing world missions.” This may be the greatest development to hit the missions world since….well, ever! This is the understanding that the Great Commission belongs to the believers of every country, people, and language. The global church is growing in its understanding that from day one, they are called to missions. And, God is helping many of these churches to boldly embrace the concept that they are no longer simply a mission field. They have the potential to be a missions force.