Reflections on Missionary Malaise

by Jim Raymo

Missionaries returning home for visits to North America find a changing landscape. During coffee breaks at church meetings and conferences many lament the declining interest in missions in North America.

Missionaries returning home for visits to North America find a changing landscape. During coffee breaks at church meetings and conferences many lament the declining interest in missions in North America.

The missions newsletter World Pulse noted several years ago, “For the first time in five decades, the reported number of people from the United States who are overseas missionaries has fallen, from 50,500 in 1988 to 41,142 in 1992.”¹

WHY?
Admittedly, certain factors could skew those numbers (short-termers, tentmakers, church-based missionaries), yet overall, “. . .the numerical growth rate of career missionaries over the last twenty-five years has failed to keep pace with the population growth rate in North America, let alone with the growth rates in regions of the globe least exposed to the Gospel.”²

Why? Should we simply accept that the Lord has moved the flame of his presence for missions to other areas of the world? Is our role simply to be that of check-writers, short-term workers, and church-growth and development experts? Is misinformation about life overseas and what opportunities exist for missionary work short-circuiting applicants? These concerns are the subject of my book Marching to a Different Drummer: Rediscovering Missions in an Age of Affluence and Self-Interest (CLC,1996). The following trends militate against the ministry involvement of North Americans in other parts of the world.

TRENDS
1. The triumph of a self-centered lifestyle. The present generation’s dreams of increasing personal fulfillment, and the ever-expanding access to comfort and entertainment, have resulted in the greatest sense of entitlement in American history. Personal peace and affluence are now seen as the goals to achieve. Having one’s needs fulfilled is essential in life. Daniel Yankelovich saw this trend developing and warned, “By concentrating day and night on your feelings, potentials, needs, wants and desires and by learning to assert them more freely, you do not become a freer, more spontaneous, more creative self: you become a narrower, more self-centered, more isolated one. You do not grow, you shrink.”³ There appears to be a strong correlation between the shrinking missionary force and the degree to which North American churchgoers have bought into the “me” approach to life.

2. Concern for protecting family life and children’s educational and social development. In a number of radio interviews I’ve done, the most emotional responses have been about family. Many Christians insist that family is the No. 1 priority in their lives, negating the possibility of moving overseas for ministry. Ruth Tucker, author of the mission history From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya, comments:

Today family concerns are paramount in the minds of potential missionaries and missionaries already on the field. And the plight of missionary kids (MKs), once a peripheral issue, has become a key factor in shaping the future of world evangelism.⁴

Obviously, many missionary families are extremely positive about serving overseas. Tim Stafford, a veteran writer, spent time in Kenya and later wanted to return to Africa for his family’s sake. He writes:

In Kenya . . . we had learned that life does not consist in an abundance of possessions, that God’s glory can be demonstrated without flawless managerial skill, that [Kenyan] people are splendid and brimful of personality under very awkward circumstances. We had found something surprising in the Kenyan air: a sense of humor. I wanted my children to know something about that liveliness and humor.⁵

By overreacting fearfully on behalf of our families, are we not only missing the opportunity to achieve something for God cross-culturally, but also potentially depriving our families of a wonderfully stretching and enriching experience?

3. Doctrinal uncertainty in a tolerant society. How essential is preaching the gospel? Empathetic concern for the human soul and emphasis on the loving nature of God make eternal punishment in hell an increasingly difficult concept for some in the evangelical church to embrace. Robertson McQuilkin, former president of Columbia Bible College and Seminary, says that one of the major factors for the decline in missions interest is uncertainty concerning the doctrine of eternal punishment. If the unsaved do not face judgment and unending agony—the historic Christian position—then why risk life, limb, and career to reach them?

Tolerant North American society has certainly impacted the church. Jewish writer Dennis Prager states:

Pluralism means everyone affirms his values and we all live with civic equality and tolerance. That’s my dream. But in public school, Jews don’t meet Christians. Christians don’t meet Hindus. Everybody meets nothing. That is, as I explain to Jews all the time, why their children so easily intermarry. Jews don’t marry Christians. Non-Jewish Jews marry non-Christian Christians. Jews for nothing marry Christians for nothing. They get along because they affirm nothing. They have everything in common—nothing.⁶

4. Money. With so many young people leaving college with significant debt, raising support for missionary work can be daunting. Further, many in the church are frightened by the increasing financial support required to place and maintain cross-cultural missionaries. Churches and pastors are pulled in many directions, experiencing “compassion depletion” for new ventures, including missions. Jonathan Bonk, in his book Missions and Money—Affluence as a Western Missionary Problem, writes, “Failure to counter wealth’s insidious effects upon missionary endeavors will ensure the continued ebb of the Western churches as a kingdom force.”⁷ Issues of fund raising, missionary affluence, and financial accountability and integrity require constant reconsideration.

5. Miscellaneous misinformation. One viewpoint urges that we let non-Westerners, perhaps financially supported from the West, get the job done, despite pleas from the field that this can easily create an unhealthy dependency on Western resources. It can also keep national churches from recognizing both their giving potential and responsibility. The Friends Missionary Prayer Band, in India, with more than 1,000 missionaries, receives support from some of the poorest people in the world. “The FMPB will not accept a single cent from abroad . . . Why? Because they value spiritual discipline more than money. They have prayerfully concluded that relying on foreign funds would spiritually damage their 30,000 prayer partners.”⁸

William Taylor, director of the Missions Commission of the World Evangelical Fellowship, says:

“Because I move among the non-Western missionary movement and try to be sensitive to its needs, I have struggled with these issues. But let me quote an Indian missions leader: ‘If Americans want to send funds to non-Western missionaries, that may be fine in some cases. But do not rob us of the joy and responsibility to support our own people. And I fear that if Americans send now only their dollars and not their sons and daughters, the next step will be to send neither their dollars nor their sons and daughters.’”⁹

6. Misuse of tentmakers and short-termers. Short-term experiences and tentmaking opportunities can be valuable. But short-term efforts without language and culture learning will not yield long-term results. Many unreached areas of the world cannot accommodate tentmakers, and tentmakers often have little time and energy to do evangelism and church planting anyway. These methods cannot substitute for long-term mission involvement. Short-term missions and tentmaking are not panaceas for the remaining unreached areas of the world.

Short-term trainers or experts can be helpful in some regions, but national church leaders comment that North Americans who consider themselves experts in church growth and training can bring another form of paternalism. Without recognizing the need for proper contextualization, language and culture, their training methods can fail.

In a Pulse article, Evelyn Hibbert, who works withher husband among theMillet people of Bulgaria, writes that there is a “dearth of workers (national or foreign) and resources to help. Since 1990 short-term workers have flocked to Bulgaria, many of them attracted by the opportunity to work with Muslims in a free environment. Some good has been done, and some harm. . . . The need, however, is for people who will stay for 10 to 20 years, learn Turkish well, and live among the Millet and Turks. Those who do, gain credibility in ministry and provide a model in lifestyle.”¹⁰

Undoubtedly these factors plus others, such as dependency on technology and the attrition of aging Baby Boomers, account for the missionary decline from the West.

Though missionary participation from North America appears to be on the decline, Scripture makes it clear that God is not wringing his hands in frustration and anxiety. The Lord of the universe is not bemoaning those who do not respond to the privilege of glorifying his name among the nations. He will complete what he has begun. But, “Precisely the vision of God’s triumph makes it impossible to look for sanctuary in quietism, neutrality, or withdrawal from the field of action.”¹¹

The Great Commission remains a binding charge to the entire church until the close of the age. Missions mobilization from the developing world encourages all those interested and involved in missions. With the present excitement generated by international coalitions and multichurch and agency partnerships comes hope that the North American church will again rise up and join the growing international missionary force to bring the gospel to the nations.

Endnotes
1. Stan Guthrie, “New Handbook Reveals Drop in U.S. Missionaries,” World Pulse, April 23, 1993, p.1. Meanwhile, the Mission Handbook 1998-2000 reports that the number of fully supported U.S. personnel serving overseas more than four years increased by a meager 1.3 percent between 1992 and 1996.
2. Robert Coote, “Good News, Bad News: North American Protestant Overseas Personnel Statistics in Twenty-Five Year Perspective,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research, January 1995, p. 6.
3. Daniel Yankelovich, New Rules: Searching for Self-Fulfillment in a World Turned Upside Down (New York: Random House, 1981), p. 33.
4. Ruth Tucker, “Growing Up a World Away,” Christianity Today, February 17, 1989, p. 17.
5. Tim Stafford, “Finding Hope in Africa,” Christianity Today, July 17, 1995, p. 24.
6. Dennis Prager, The Door, November-December, 1990.
7. Jonathan Bonk, Missions and Money—Affluence as a Western Missionary Problem (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1991), p.45.
8. Ralph Winter, “Money and Missions,” Mission Frontiers, September-October, 1994, p. 12.
9. William Taylor, “Lessons of Partnership,” Evangelical Missions Quarterly, October, 1995, p. 411.
10. Evelyn Hibbert, “Bulgaria: Miracle Among the Millet,” World Pulse, November 3, 1995, p. 4.
11. David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1991), p. 510.

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Jim Raymo and his wife Judy are WEEC International’s U.S.A. candidate directors. This article is adapted from Jim’s book, Marching to a Different Drummer: Rediscovering Missions in an Age of Affluence and Self-Interest (CLC, 1996).

Copyright © 1997 Evangelism and Missions Information Service (EMIS). All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from EMIS.

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