Programmed for Failure — Mission Candidates at Risk

by David Cummings

The missionary candidates who come to us reflect the society in which they have been nurtured. Unless we understand that society as it is today, we cannot understand those young people.

The missionary candidates who come to us reflect the society in which they have been nurtured. Unless we understand that society as it is today, we cannot understand those young people.

It has been my joy to work alongside my American brothers and sisters for 29 years. For four years, I had the privilege of working within the U.S. culture while living in Dallas, Texas. It was a wonderful experience. While this does not qualify me as an Australian expert on American society, it has given me, as an outsider, the unique opportunity to observe a culture so similar to my own, but with some very important differences.

One of these differences is generosity. The U.S. is one of the most generous societies in all history. As a people and as a nation, generosity is the hallmark. The third-largest business in the country is giving. Billions of dollars each year are given for charitable purposes.

By contrast, we Australians are not a really generous people. We are a nation of knockers. We’re great at keeping people cut down to size. We may give a compliment, but we make sure there’s a little hook in there-just in case the other person’s ego begins to get a bit inflated. We know how to confront and lay it on the line to one another.

Australians are more relational than Americans. When we belong to a union, a fraternal society, or other organization, we’re committed to our buddies in the group.

But while generosity is a generally positive virtue, a people who are generous to others, tend to be generous with themselves as well. They are generous in excusing their own shortcomings. Because they are generous with others, they find it hard to confront another person. When it is difficult to be confrontive, and to deal with things in an open manner, it is sometimes easier just to have a lawyer handle things.

In fact, the American court system is under constant overload because of the proliferation of law suits. Liability insurance rates are out of sight, and wonderful school and community programs are curtailed because of the fear of litigation. Problems which on their face were minor irritants when they began, become cases for the courts to settle.

Without even realizing it, today’s young people bring with them the potential of litigation to resolve their problems. Only recently, a missionary team returning from Papua New Guinea sued their mission board for $80,000 because they had picked up roundworm on their assignment at a remote mission station. While that is an extreme case, today’s society is missing the strong sense of relationship, of commitment to the organization, of teamwork and group success so essential to a fruitful mission enterprise.

Young people should have learned differently long before they became missionaries. But, if they don’t learn it at home, where disharmony is leading to break-up, where will they learn it? Even churches and their pastors are being sued by their parishioners, and pastors are suing churches to right supposed wrongs.

Are mission boards prepared to make up this lack of training, to invest the time and energy to model, teach, and disciple these keen young people with all their potential? Can they be integrated into the team without crushing and stifling their creativity.

THE INDEPENDENT OUTLOOK
Another important consideration as we look at today’s candidate is the strong emphasis on independence. Society is so committed to it that even pornographers are free to exercise their independence to pollute the morals of the nation. One of the goals of parents is to make their children independent. This can backfire when the parents are old and could use some help from their children. The kids don’t know how to relate to these old people who have been independent all their lives and taught their children the same.

Writing in Christianity Today, Fred Smith makes the staggering statement, quoting medical experts, that the greatest killer in Texas is not drugs, suicide nor highway deaths. Although it is never written on the death certificate, doctors agree that it is loneliness. Parents taught their children to be independent. When the parents needed them, the kids weren’t there, and they died of loneliness and neglect. Independence is the root, but the bitter fruit is loneliness.

The Word of God does not teach independence. It teaches self-control. It teaches commitment-commitment to God, and to one another. One cannot be committed to another person, or to a group, and maintain his independence. We are commanded to make disciples. But independence cuts at the very jugular vein of disciple-making.

Disciple-making means giving of oneself; sharing at the deepest level. It means listening and understanding the other person, and building upon the things that God has already put into his life. This takes time. It may mean even giving up one’s dreams and aspirations in order to disciple the person God has put in our charge. An independent-minded person can’t do that.

It is becoming difficult now to pair up single people on the field. The emphasis on independence is making it impossible for them to function in a relational way. Yet, most of the world is made up of relational societies that share with one another and look out for one another. We talk about God’s people being a body, but we really don’t function as a body. We can quote the verse, that if one part of the body suffers we all suffer, but we don’t know what that means. We say we ought to hurt because someone over there is hurting, but we don’t experience it. In the society from which we’re drawing our missionary candidates today, independence has become so important that we need now to specifically teach interdependence and what it means to function in the body.

AN EFFICIENT SOCIETY
Another strong influence in our society is efficiency. We’re told that successful people set goals. We have become a goal-oriented society. Missionaries are expected to set goals and fulfill them. The churches back home have been led to believe that by applying basic management principles, by "planning our work and working our plan," we’ll get results and have them quickly and predictably. Because of our technology, we’re always in a hurry. It is no longer acceptable to measure time in seconds. We measure it in nanoseconds or even smaller units. We don’t stop to think that perhaps God has a timetable not tied into our goal-setting and demand for instant results.

In 1956, the Auca Indians of Ecuador killed five missionaries who were attempting to reach them. Today, hundreds of young people are on the field because of the impact of their martyrdom. Now 30 years later, the New Testament in the Auca language has finally been finished. There’s a church among the Aucas because the Word of God has come to them. But it took 30 years-not because we didn’t have the technology to do it sooner, but because there were so many things of which the Aucas knew nothing.

They have no concept of buying and selling, of money or trade. Yet a sixth of the verses in the New Testament have to do in one way or another with commerce. It takes time to understand the language and culture of a people. It takes time to help the people understand those things in the Scriptures that are foreign to them. They knew nothing about villages. So Mary and Joseph going from the town of Nazareth to Bethlehem is something they simply couldn’t understand in the early years. They had to be taught about governments and ownership of property. It takes time to translate such abstract nouns as hope, peace and grace. If the translators had been driven by efficiency, the Bible would have remained an irrelevant, misunderstood book.

The Apostle Paul is a biblical illustration of God’s view of efficiency. At the Damascus road experience, he probably had the equivalent of a couple of doctorates. As a "pharisee of the pharisees," he had been well-trained in the Scriptures, and having sat at the feet of Gamaliel, he no doubt had a law degree as well. Yet, it took God three years in the desert to teach this brilliant man. He needed to integrate his Old Testament knowledge with what the Holy Spirit had to say about grace, the new covenant and what God had done through the death of his son on the cross. Even after that, it was several years before Barnabas came along and tapped him for a pastorate at Antioch. Bible scholars estimate it was 15 years between the experience on the Damascus Road and the first missionary journey. After that, Paul’s entire missionary career spanned only about 14 years.

Today’s missionary candidates, if they reflect the society that has nurtured them, will be in a hurry, expecting quick results, with short-term commitment to a specific task. But this may not be the most effective way to work with the people in a part of the world different from our own. Nor can we expect the sovereign God to be subject to our timetable.

FASCINATION WITH SUCCESS
Today’s society is fascinated with success. Secular bookstores are jammed with "how to" books, and Christian writers have climbed on the bandwagon. The implication is that if we just follow this or that formula, we will be successful. Our candidates mirror the society from which they come; they bring with them society’s idea of success. Much of it has to do with material things.

We sometimes judge missionaries on their success in raising support, writing exciting prayer letters, or on the basis of how many churches they plant. Never mind that they are weak and unfruitful. There are home churches that base their continued support of a missionary on the number of converts in a two-year period. If it doesn’t happen, they’ve sent out the wrong person.

This built-in need for success may create unrealistic expectations on the part of missionary candidates. They will be critical of the veteran who has worked with a people group for five, seven or 10 years before seeing even one solid convert. Then when their own programs don’t produce results within the time frame allotted, they may fold their tents and go home.

Our success-oriented society simply may not fit into the relational world out there. The Scriptures talk about patience and endurance. But, we want to do everything in a hurry; we want to do it now; and we want to be successful. Unfortunately, what we think is success, ultimately may be complete failure, bearing bitter fruit in the work we thought we had so successfully planted.

One of the many encouraging signs in our society is the seriousness with which students are committing themselves to the cross-cultural communication of the gospel. The great Urbana conferences sponsored every three years by Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship are perhaps the most visible sign of this interest. However, equally important are the student organized, student run, mini-conferences taking place across the land. They fly a variety of banners, calling themselves Global Outreach ’86 and Global Awareness Project ’86 in the Southeast, Mandate ’86 in the Chicago area, and Proclaim ’86 in Portland, Oregon.

These are student-initiated movements. While there is some cross-pollenization and sharing of ideas, there is only a loose relationship among them. It appears that a new "Student Volunteer Movement" of even greater dimensions than that of a century ago is shaping up. At no time in recent history has there been such ferment among students to fulfill the great commission and take the gospel to the ends of the earth. Their impact on missions is bound to be great.

IGNORANCE OF THE CHRISTIAN HOME
Even as we see the stirring among students and rejoice in their vitality and commitment to the Lord, we discover that an increasing proportion of candidates come to us from broken homes. They have never experienced what used to be considered a "normal" home with two parents. Many came to know Christ during their college years, and they know nothing about establishing a home with Christ as the center. They may have heard a sermon, read a book, or attended a seminar, but have no first-hand knowledge of what it’s all about. We lived at our center in Dallas for four years, and we had many students in for a meal. Later, in letters many thanked us for giving them a glimpse of a Christian home. For some, it was the first time they had ever had a meal in a home with a Christian family.

A generation ago, hospitality was centered in the home. Guests could observe how the family conducted itself; how father and mother interacted with each other, and how the children responded to their parents. Today, the restaurant is often the place where hospitality is offered. Even then, it may be only the parents, with the children left at home with a sitter. So, the young people lose an opportunity to see how a Christian family operates in its own environment.

Many of the values we used to take for granted are no longer being built into the young people who will eventually come to us as candidates. They are either completely missing, or no longer held in as high a regard. Unless we understand that, and are prepared to restore those elements we consider essential, we will surely lose much of the candidate’s potential contribution.

THE CHALLENGE TO MISSION AGENCIES TODAY
But are mission boards ready to take the time to train, disciple and channel these who are the products of our society? Our society’s emphasis on independence, goal setting, and success will certainly be counterproductive and destructive in the relational societies to which most of our candidates go.

Can we accept large numbers of today’s young people and integrate them into our mission organization? There is no doubt that we can, but not by doing business as usual. We cannot ignore the dramatic changes in our society just since Vietnam. We’re seeing keen, well-educated and committed young people as serious about the Lord as ever. We can provide fruitful channels of service for them if we’re willing to invest the time and understanding to help them grow beyond the stamp of the culture from which they come. With the help of sensitive, prepared mission agencies, they can become ready messengers of the good news.

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