Journey to a Better Way: A Wesleyan Perspective on Doing Mission Better

By John Bailey and Dr. Darrell Whiteman

Every day we witness the impact of poverty, injustice, disaster, and disease. Our desire as followers of Christ is to respond with compassion, love, and grace. In recent years, the church has responded in an unprecedented way to the needs in the world. Still, we see little in the way of true progress and transformation. In addition, despite our good intentions, we may be doing more harm than good.

Speaking from his experience as a mission mobilizer, John Bailey shares real-life stories from the journey. Stories of success and failure reveal that a better way is not only possible, but it is within reach. Journey to a Better Way seeks to investigate some of the core reasons why we do not have the impact we hope to have when we face these social, physical, and spiritual ills. Looking through the lens of the Wesleyan mission heritage, Journey to a Better Way explores correct motives, healthy mission models, and unity in the body of Christ as critical areas to consider if we hope to perform better missions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Mar 12, 2015
• ISBN: 9781490869964

John Bailey

John Bailey is an internationally renowned author, photographer, and presenter of television programs on fishing and natural history. One of Britain's best-known anglers, he has also written numerous books, including John Bailey's Fishing Bible, also available from IMM Lifestyle Books. As a pioneering fishing trip tour leader, he has led anglers to some of the most remote corners of the world.

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Copyright © 2015 John Bailey.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission. NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® and NIV® are registered trademarks of Biblica, Inc. Use of either trademark for the offering of goods or services requires the prior written consent of Biblica US, Inc.

ISBN: 978-1-4908-6995-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-6997-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-6996-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015902537

WestBow Press rev. date: 3/11/2015

Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Section One: Models Matter

Chapter 1 Everyone Has a Model

Chapter 2 Weakness or Power?

Chapter 3 Capacity Building

Section Two: Motivation Matters

Chapter 4 Gone to Meddlin’

Chapter 5 A No-Brainer?

Chapter 6 The Inherent Dignity of All

Chapter 7 Working Ourselves Out of a Job

Chapter 8 An Eternal Perspective

Section Three: Unity Matters

Chapter 9 The Beauty of Diversity

Chapter 10 Unity Is Hard Work

Chapter 11 Just Go and Do!

Chapter 12 The Power of Partnership

Post Script – February 26, 2015

About the Author

Sources

Endnotes

DEDICATION

To my dad who taught me that God is a Mighty Fortress.

To my mom who taught me God’s Wisdom.

To my wife who teaches me God’s Love.

To my children who reveal God’s Heart to me.

FOREWORD

Short-term mission activity today is a multi-million dollar business. Two million short-term mission volunteers annually sally forth to change the world. Churches are confident that they are very involved in world mission because they send six teams a year to all parts of the globe. At first blush this may appear to be a good sign and an index of the health of Christian mission commitment and involvement. However, one does not have to look too far below the surface to discover that all is not well. Critical questions are beginning to be asked and some are calling for more accountability and questioning if short-term mission trips are a good stewardship of our resources.

Do young people on short-term mission trips frequently have a life-changing experience when they discover God’s mission in cultures different from their own? Or do 10 days in the tropics, painting a church for the fourth time, actually inoculate them against understanding and appreciating cultural differences, so they return home and report to their church, I’m so grateful to live in America, and I was so surprised to see how happy the children can be when they have so little.

Books like When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty without Hurting the Poor and Yourself, by Corbett and Fikkert (2009), or Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charities Hurt those They Help by Robert Lupton (2011) are raising our awareness of the unintended consequences of doing both short-term mission and vocational mission poorly. When our mission efforts are not informed by biblical models and missiological principles, instead of our ministry advancing the Kingdom of God we often erect barriers preventing people coming to faith. Instead of enabling people to follow Jesus within their own cultural context, we unintentionally signal that Christianity is a Western religion, and that cultural conversion to our way of life and worldview is part and parcel of following Jesus. Instead of empowering people to build capacity within their own society, we breed unhealthy dependence. Instead of going in the posture of a learner and discerning where God’s prevenient grace is already present, we go forth with all the answers to their problems and wear bright yellow T-shirts emboldened with the slogan, Taking Jesus from Texas to Costa Rica. We talk and preach more than we listen. Why is it so difficult for us to realize that we often engage in mission from a posture of power, position and privilege instead of one of weakness, making our efforts less effective, and less Christlike?

We may wish that the short-term mission phenomenon would decline or even disappear, but it is here to stay. Cheap airline tickets make it affordable, churches wanting to have more global engagement find an outlet for their involvement through short-term mission trips, and the idea of combing a holiday with doing good for others and for God, is very enticing. Fortunately, today there is a growing minority of voices calling for nothing less than a reformation in the North American missionary enterprise. For some this is a welcomed sign and it is causing us to rethink our methods, to uncover our motives, and to discover the Kingdom of God in places we never thought it existed. Is there a better way? Yes, there is.

John Bailey has drawn from his many years of experience as a mission pastor to point us to a better way. He does it not with cynicism or from a jaded view, but with passion to enable local churches to become more missional, in ways that are cross-culturally relevant, and that empower our hosts rather than create dependence on us. He recommends that we go as listeners and learners instead of going with all the answers when we haven’t even taken the time to ask what are the questions people are asking in this community. He helps us understand the importance of our role as a cultural broker. His insights and recommendations are informed by solid Wesleyan theology and practice and our integrated seamlessly into his proposals to find a better way.

With the stampede of people going on short-term mission trips, or what often seems like mission tourism it is rare for a church mission pastor to step back and ask the hard questions of our motives and to evaluate the effectiveness and the appropriateness of our mission efforts. John Bailey has had the courage and conviction to do just that. Painted with memorable stories and examples that illustrate the biblical models and missiological principles that inform his insights, Journey to a Better Way is a book that could revolutionize the way churches participate in short-term mission activity. It is timely, if not overdue.

Dr. Darrell Whiteman

Dr. Darrell Whiteman served in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands with the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries and served for 13 years as editor of the journal Missiology for the American Society of Missiology. Dr. Whiteman was professor of cultural anthropology and later dean of the School of World Mission and Evangelism for 21 years at Asbury Theological Seminary. From 2005 to 2014, he served as Vice President for training and international mission mobilization and Resident Missiologist at The Mission Society in Norcross, Georgia. Currently, Dr. Whiteman writes, speaks and teaches on cross-cultural mission issues around the world.

INTRODUCTION

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.¹

Matthew 5:48

Mission is in my blood; it is part of who I am. I am a sixth-generation Christ follower; my sixth great-grandfather was a pioneer settler in LaGrange, Georgia. One of the first things he and his fellow settlers did was to establish a house of worship there in LaGrange. My family’s faith in Christ has been handed down through many generations to my own father, who also believes deeply in supporting mission efforts. My childhood congregation was established in order to be more faithful to the great commission. I was baptized on a Mission Emphasis Sunday. My parents gave generously to mission efforts, and we had missionaries stay in our home once a year or more. During the 1970s, we hosted Cambodian refugees in our home. They stayed with us while trying to locate relatives who had also escaped the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge. My brothers spent their summers serving on mission trips in high school. We read books, watched movies, and took classes to help us better understand world mission. I graduated from Gordon College, which was founded as the Boston Missionary Training School. Members of my family are very involved in short-term medical mission work. It was on a short-term mission trip that I heard the call to ordained ministry and subsequently dedicated my life to mobilizing and equipping the body of Christ to join God on God’s mission. I literally eat, breathe, and live mission. So it is with great joy that I see an increase in awareness and participation in mission and outreach among Christ followers. I get excited every time I hear of a congregation either seeking to become more intentional in mission efforts or being established with mission as central to their reason to exist. At the same time, we have been hearing a great deal of criticism about how we go about engaging on mission in recent years. I understand the fact that this criticism is upsetting, especially to those of us who are dedicated to mobilizing the body to be on mission. Nevertheless, we need to consider what we do with the information that is out there. It is my belief that we have three choices: we can ignore the criticism, we can seek to discredit it, or we can attempt to learn from it. I have seen all three options at work, and I choose to be a part of the third approach. My desire is to learn all that we can from whomever we can in order to move on to excellence in our calling to mobilize the body of Christ.

Whether we call it mission, outreach, relief, benevolence ministry, or community development, we are being challenged in our day to improve our efforts. In recent years, we have been hearing a clear message coming from many different places that we need to rethink our approach to mission. Whether we work to feed the poor, heal the sick, or expose and end injustice, we are hearing voices calling us to evaluate our methods, improve our models, and take a hard look at what we do and how we go about it. The first time I personally heard a hard critique of our methods was at a seminar in 2007 on Business as Mission that I hosted in the congregation where I was serving. In this seminar, the speaker challenged us to consider how some of our established mission efforts may actually do more harm than good. He said, The short term mission trip as we know it today is over; it is time to rethink our models. I was surprised and even a little shocked at the anger from many who attended the conference. Most of the attendees were deeply offended to the point that I even took some personal hits for inviting the speaker. It is understandably painful when someone criticizes your life’s calling. Nevertheless, we have come to a place where to ignore the correction may be to ignore the Spirit at work. Now, just a few short years later, book studies, conferences, and seminars are popping up in churches and among mission organizations critiquing old ways and offering new ways to go about mission.²

However you measure it, engagement in mission has increased significantly in recent years. For example, the number of people participating in short-term mission trips has exploded over the last few decades. As recently as the 1960s, the short-term mission trip was nearly an unheard of phenomenon. By 2005, it was estimated that nearly 1.6 million adult Church members from the United States participated in a short-term (average eight-day) mission trip.³ What is even more alarming is the data out there that seems to indicate that short-term mission trips have little to no impact and perhaps even negative impact on the participants. One evaluation of several studies on short-term mission concluded that STM (short-term mission), as currently practiced, does not result in lasting change in the participants.⁴ Something is not working in the way we go about our mission effort, and we are faced with a decision. Do we stay on the path we are on, or do we seek a better way?

John Wesley believed deeply in improvement in the Divine life.⁵ Wesley believed the Spirit of Christ will give us a right judgment in all things and fill us with all the fullness of God so that we may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.⁶ As I consider the clear call to engage in mission more effectively, I am encouraged by Wesley’s words to move on to perfection in all things, especially on mission. It is clear that God’s mission is changing lives, and we are invited to participate in God’s work. The questions we need to ask are: Are we going about our work in the best way? Are we stuck in old models and methods? Are we willing to move on to a better way of participating on mission?

I pray that we will embrace the Spirit’s call in our day to look closely at these matters regarding mission: our models, our motivation, and the need for unity among Christ followers. Will you join us in the journey to seek a better way?

SECTION ONE:

MODELS MATTER

When I was a child, I talked like a child,

I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.

When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.⁷

CHAPTER 1

EVERYONE HAS A MODEL

■ Models Everywhere

It seems that in recent years, we have become more socially conscious as a society. Philanthropy has become the thing to do and not just among the wealthy. Almost everywhere we turn we are provided opportunities to do a good deed. For example, I was watching a commercial the other day, and Subaru was promoting a Share the Love⁸ campaign, giving purchasers the option to give to a charity when they buy a new car. My experiences of purchasing cars have involved strategy, haggling, and tough negotiations. It is incredible to me to think that this exercise now may include doing a good deed for the hungry or for the environment. I found a website the other day called www.looktothestars.org. This website allows people to learn about particular causes that are endorsed by celebrities. If you are not sure what organization you should support, you can find out what your favorite movie star is supporting, and you too can join in the cause with them. Purchasing shoes has become a way for someone to do a good deed. Lately, I have seen a lot of people wearing TOMS shoes. The TOMS shoe website promises that When you buy a pair of TOMS Shoes, you’re also helping improve the health, education and well-being of a child.⁹ Even in our consumer culture, we have found a way to make consuming a good thing. Recently, Starbucks gave a thirty million dollar gift to help United States war veterans. Following a visit to Walter Reid Hospital, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz was moved by what he witnessed. Schultz commented on the plight of wounded veterans, You just can’t be an innocent bystander; you have to do everything you can to tell their story and help them …¹⁰ Some time ago, this sort of urging