Dear Missions Pastor/Church
Leader/Generous Supporter,
You know that thing we talked about the other day? Where sometimes missionaries use misleading language in
their newsletters and updates to sound more productive then, perhaps,
they actually are? Remember that?
Ok. Well. Sometimes, you're
the problem.
xoxo,
~jamie
In 2006, U2 frontman, Bono, (literally
wearing rose-colored
glasses) called the Church to action in Africa during an
interview for the Willow Creek Leadership Summit. I was there. It was
kinda awesome. It was a bold and honest interview and it created a
fervor for justice and aid for Africa's poor and marginalized
nations. It lit a fire. And that fire launched Africa Missions to the
top of the missionary food chain.
Africa became a rockstar. Everybody
wanted in.
Six months later, El Chupacabra and I
found ourselves sitting across the table from a pastor as he
explained that he wouldn't support our effort to get to Costa Rica
because, “You guys are great. You're good communicators, you've got
vision, and I really believe in what you're doing... but... I just
can't sell Costa Rica... Are you sure you're not called to
Africa? Our people want Africa.”
As we left, reality sunk in; Our
mission wasn't sexy enough.
Honestly, we could totally understand
why. I mean, really, sending a family to a largely Christian,
tropical, vacation destination to do missions should be a
tough sell. But, we were going to help launch Latino missionaries
into the world, and “the world” includes Africa
- so we hitched our wagon
to the “Save Africa” train and had all of our support raised in 7
months. The end.
Just kidding. That wasn't the end.
Sometimes, the message from church
leaders and individual supporters is that a paycheck is directly
linked to a missionary's ability to come up with a good story. That's
how the
“Missionary Code” is unwittingly pushed on hard-working
missionaries with boring but important jobs... like, I dunno...
maintenance. (It's hard to write home about plunging the same
toilet twenty six times in three days for
Jesus. It's not sexy, but I know missionaries who do it.)
Everybody knows that “building
relationships” is a Sunday bulletin snooze-fest, but the people in
the pews go wild over Wham-Bam-Raise-Your-Hand evangelism. (Oh, sexy
street-evangelism, you sly dog.) So “building relationships”
morphs into something more palatable, like “planting seeds of
Faith” (nobody ever argues with “planting seeds”- it's, like,
Holy Spirit approved). Then, five hours of office filing becomes
“praying over every detail of our ministry”, and having a beer
with another missionary to engage in the messy but necessary
act of commiseration, makes the newsletter cut as “fellowship,
planning, and development”.
The point is that, while, yes, there
are crappy missionaries who take advantage of this creative language
to get by doing little or nothing – and we cannot ignore that
problem – there are others, invested, engaged, hard-working
men and women in the field, who sometimes feel roped in to this word
play because the Church insists on overly spiritualized reports from
missionaries whose work they don't entirely understand.
A good missionary needs more than your
money. They need your sincere interest in what they are doing and how
they are doing it. They need you to cheer them on through the rare
exciting moments in missions, and also, the dragging, boring,
everyday, “why the hell am I here?!” times. They need your f-r-i-e-n-d-ship. They need your prayers to stave off the very drama that so
many crave hearing about.
Sadly, when sex sells, crime and
illness become a missionary's bread and butter. When your house is
burglarized, or your car is stolen, or you blow out your knee, or you
give your kid a concussion by accidentally hitting him in the brain
with a surfboard... *ahem* I mean, like,
for example... that's when supporters perk up. They want to
know more, they connect with your 'suffering', they feel bad and they
want to help – and all of that is sweet, and kind, and caring (and,
truly, missionaries need extra $$ during those times!) - but,
ironically, when a missionary is dealing with junk like that, they
are the least engaged in their work. Drama steals a missionary away
from the good and important things they ought to be doing. But drama
is sexy, and the sexiest missionary wins the prize.
Sexy missions doesn't equal healthy
missions. We are remiss when we simply assume that, because a
missionary's reports are filled with spiritual fireworks, they must
be thriving. Every missionary's well-being depends on a trustworthy
relationship with their supporters, and the ability to express their
struggles, defeats, and failures without fear of losing their
resources. (Oh, and here's a tip: A missionary who never seems to have
struggles, defeats, or failures should raise some red-flags.)
Healthy, real, legit missional
work begins with a heavily invested church and a fully understood
missionary. Pastors, leaders, and supporters need to make the time to
connect with and be available to the missionaries they're in bed
with. Only through loads of regular two-way communication will a
missionary be able to share the true ways God is working in and
through them. In the same way, by taking a keen interest in what our
missionaries are really up to, the Church will be able to
wisely discern the truth about a missionary's effectiveness and/or
appropriate fit in the field.
We'll have to take off our rose-colored
glasses and bring our expectations of missionaries down to Earth, but
when we finally throw off that trendy neglige, we'll be left with the
actual body of Christ, doing good work in the world.
And that is
just...um... titillating?
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