Mark's Blog

In Part One of this blog, I reviewed briefly our history of foreign missions in churches of Christ and then listed characteristics of our efforts, which were

• We only have the stamina for harvesting, not for planting and nurturing.
• We believe we should be able to work everywhere else in the world cheaper than in the U.S. 
• Our mission work is dependent on how many self-motivated missionaries surface in our fellowship as opposed to a strategic global vision.
• We are not by nature collaborative.
• Our missionaries tend to be “lone rangers!”  
• We have been and are still too often negligent in caring for missionaries on the field, but especially when they return.

Click here, if you would like to review the comments that went with these points.

I suggested at the end of the last post that these particular characteristics would not serve us well going into the near future of foreign missions, so in order to become more effective in carrying the Gospel to the whole world, we are going to have to work differently.  In this and the next post, we will explore these two ideas.

Churches of Christ are represented in a little over 90 of the 196 independent countries of the world with probably around 1000 American workers outside of the United States. We have a lot of work to do—and the challenge of world evangelism is growing. Let me outline why I say that:

• Americans are less well-liked in the world. After WWII, Americans were welcomed as defenders of liberty. Even into the 60s (our second big wave of mission efforts), Americans were relatively popular because we had defended the world against Communism. That glow was slightly tarnished by Vietnam, but re-polished in most parts of the world through the Reagan era and the collapse of the Soviet Union (another big Mission Wave).  Most of that global popularity has been lost.  Look at this map, charting those who have a favorable view toward the U.S.

What you see in dark blue are those countries who like us. Even the other bluish countries have fewer than 50% positive responses.

My point is not about U.S. politics and its participation in the global community, rather that being an American abroad is, at best, no great advantage and, at worst, can be outright dangerous—none of which is really good for the future of foreign missions from the U.S..

• The world is now urban and becoming increasingly more so!  In 1900 there were only 12 cities of 1 million population or more, but these 12 became 400 by the year 2000. You probably aren’t surprised that Singapore is 89% urban, but Congo is 41%–that’s surprising!  Forty cities in the world boast populations of 5 million plus—and 80% of those are in poor countries, so it is not just the industrialized world where the flight to cities is dramatically changing the landscape.

We Americans have had good rural churches, and now we have good suburban churches, but urban churches are a challenge we have not yet figured out at home, much        less abroad.  Global urbanization is making missions more challenging for us.

• Poorer countries are getting wealthier. (“The Whole World Is Getting Richer, and That’s Good News,” Charles Kenny, Bloomberg Businessweek, July 29, 2013).  Just ask Google if poor countries are getting richer and look at all the evidence.   If we accept this as true, then here are my conclusions for foreign missions:

o   There are no cheap places in the world to go!! The most expensive city for expatriates in the world is Luanda, Angola—did you expect that? Number four is N’Djamena in Chad. New York City is #32 and the only U.S. city in the top 50!

o   If poorer countries (like African countries) are getting more urban and wealthier, then they are going to be less and less impressed by our humanitarian approach to foreign missions.

To summarize, globally speaking, the people that US–sent missionaries would want to approach view Americans less favorably, they are typically living in very large cities with costs that Americans can hardly afford to live in, and even the poorer places are climbing out of poverty and need our benevolence and services less and less.

These are the challenges in foreign missions for churches of Christ in the near future.