One of the most common expressions you will hear in global missions is: “It is time for Americans to pass the baton to national leaders.” This is a well-intended sentiment that recognizes that the leadership for kingdom expansion and development needs to be in the hands of national leaders as quickly as possible. That is good and true. But the “pass the baton” expression contains some serious problems that need to be examined and corrected.
Read MoreIs missions a parasite or bone marrow for your church? Does it drain the life blood from your church or generate life blood for the church? I’ve seen it do both.
Read MoreDuring the 22 years I was a preacher in a local church, the most difficult question I was asked routinely was, “How is the church doing?” I never knew what to say. How do you measure this? Should we count how many people show up for Sunday worship? How many baptisms we’ve had this year? Whether or not we’re meeting our budget? How many people are truly on a discipleship track? How well are we impacting our city with tangible expressions of hope, justice, and righteousness? How enjoyable or challenging it is to be part of the congregation?
Read MoreIn my previous blog post I talked about how we cut ourselves off from much blessing when we cannot embrace wisdom both old and new because “we” trap ourselves in anxious echo chambers reacting to “them.” I believe we can and should create more non-anxious spaces for productive dialogue. By non-anxious spaces, I mean conversations among Christians where diverse points of view can be expressed without defensiveness, reactivity, labelling and dismissing each other. In order to accomplish this, we will need a clearer understanding of the gospel so that we can better differentiate the message of scripture from the cultural captivity in which we typically trap it.
Read MoreBy this point, it is cliché to say that the global church and the American church are in times of transition. That was true before COVID-19. The pandemic only accelerated the pace of change.
On both sides of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, the church is asking hard questions and sorting through the implications of the shift in the center of gravity of the Christian faith.
“So exactly what does a gift to MRN produce? What is the cost in dollars per soul?” asked the potential donor. I was stumped and wanted to check my ears. How would we calculate this? I wondered what he would consider an acceptable ratio. In his defense, he is a good man who was just trying to be a good steward, but the way he framed the question was stunning to me. It made us wonder, what is the value of a soul? How do you calculate the ROI (return on investment) for missions? We are fooling ourselves if we think people don’t ask such questions.
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