Samuel F. Metcalf

 Honestly, when you first moved here, I expected you to leave after a few months.  We had seen two kinds of Western Christians--those who give money in order to "do" Russia during a short-term project, and those who say that they will pray but are never heard from again.  You have shown us there is a third kind of Western Christian:  the kind who moves here to live among us, to learn, to understand, and to serve with wisdom.  Of all those who have come to us, I'd say only five percent understand what is happening here.  You are one of the five percent.These are the exact words spoken to a missionary fluent in the language and committed to living in St. Petersburg, by a Russian pastor well acquainted with Western missionaries.

In light of the unprecedented missionary "glitz and blitz" that has invaded their country since the demise of the Soviet Union, it is perfectly understandable for the average Russian to ask "Are Western missionaries really necessary?  Aren't they doing more damage than good?  Couldn't the amount of money being spent be better used?"....Good questions!

But the basic answer to the generic question whether long-term, resident missionaries are needed is an unequivocal but qualified, Yes!  This answer is based on the following observations and convictions:

1. Any missionary being sent to this part of the world today who is serious about laying solid foundations for the church of the future should be competent in the language and have a thorough understanding of the culture.  A recent missionary letter from Russia illustrates the point:

The scene was a new Bible study for women.  Lynn, a missionary working in St. Petersburg, was asked to attend a gathering being led by a new missionary with another agency who had just arrived in the city and was already diving headlong into ministry.  At the end of the meeting the teacher asked Lynn, "So, what did you think?"  How does Lynn, who speaks excellent Russian, tell this person, who speaks no Russian, that at several junctures the Russian women made comments to the translator like, "Don't translate this....What  she's saying is nonsense."  And all the while, the teacher just smiles and moves on to new material in the study, oblivious to the conversation.  Such is the plight of many a missionary who doesn't know Russian.2. The urgency of the task in the former Soviet Union, and the assumption by some that the door may close again, unfortunately has given license to bad missiology.  One missionary in Russia committed to long-term ministry there wrote in March 1994:The attrition rate for missionaries is large and growing.  Most of the church plants started by ill-prepared Westerners the past several years are failing.  Many Westerners wanting to minister better go back to the drawing board, perhaps a Russian drawing board, and start all over again.3. Short-term evangelistic blitzes, with people who are untrained and culturally insensitive, have not produced the great numbers of converts so triumphantly trumpeted in Western churches and the religious media.  Rather, these efforts have initially produced masses of "seekers."  Today, that curiosity is rapidly being transformed into cynicism and skepticism as disillusioned nationals are sadly seeing behind the shallowness, materialism, and unreliability of so many short-termers.

4. The national church is weak, anemic, and rife with legalism and dissension.  Authoritarian leadership patterns are the norm.  It could take a generation or more for new, healthier models to evolve.

5. The extent of the communist legacy of social dysfunction is staggering.  Many outsiders wanting to minister in post-Soviet societies underestimate the depth of the social pathology, the damage and hurt these people have experienced, and how crippled the social fabric really is.

6. The equipping of Russian nationals for the task of planting new churches must include building relationships of trust, a task that is exponentially more difficult in societies where mistrust is endemic.

7. Leadership development will be a long-term, time-consuming process.  It will not be quick.  It will not be done in a seminar.  It can only be accomplished where there is shared language and a deep, profound understanding of the host culture by the one who has come to serve.  Simply providing information, no matter how good the quality, which we in the West falsely think  is training, is grossly insufficient.  Hands-on help that is based on relationships of trust is the need of the hour.  It is slow.  It is tedious.  It is behind the scenes.  It is not glamorous.  It does not produce flashy, numerically impressive or immediate results.  Anyone who reports anything different in this part of the world is either grossly misinformed, not adept at discerning the reality of the situation, or deliberately being misleading.

8. The type of ministry that is needed to multiply churches is not where Westerners come, plant, and then function as pastors.  The answer, rather, lies in skilled missionaries committed to developing indigenous leaders.

9. Some stress the value of funding indigenous missionaries and evangelists.  On the surface this can appear to be an attractive option for those in the West concerned about getting the best return on their financial investment.  "After all," this reasoning goes, "nationals already know the language and culture and supporting them is considerably cheaper than the high cost of sending missionaries."  However, such a view is often naive and short-sighted for several reasons:

a)

• It is a rare national who is able to handle being on the dole from the West.  Finances can be extremely corrupting and when they flow cross-culturally, more often than not, the results are tragic and disastrous.

b) The funding of nationals has the propensity to breed dependency and create structures that are impossible to support locally.  It stifles the necessary creation and evolution of indigenous means of support.

c) There are further complex issues:  How do we insure accountability?  What does this say to those who do not get funds?  How are choices made?  Are we certain we know what such funding communicates in the host culture?  Are we aware of what levels of funding are appropriate and when support steps over the line to the point of facilitating avarice?  Missionaries rarely know, unless they are competent in the language and thoroughly understand the environment, to whom money actually should be given.  Outsiders are often misled believing they are getting the straight story from certain nationals who speak English, a particularly deadly pitfall in the former Soviet Union where very few of the present missionary force know the language and culture.  All this is not to say that outside money should never underwrite nationals.  It can be done successfully.  But, potential pitfalls must be kept in mind.

In summary, any competent mission organization should be doing everything possible to appropriate the vast reservoir of missiological knowledge that has been accumulated over the past 200 years of the modern missions movement.  Unfortunately, good missiological thinking and practice have been largely ignored in much of the former Soviet Union.  Under the false labels of "new paradigms" and "new strategies" old mistakes simply are being repeated.

The bottom line is that no substitute exists for incarnational ministry.  This timeless biblical principle remains true regardless of the context or culture.  Ministering in a deep, profound manner where lives literally are transformed must be a priority.  If this is true, then a great demand does exist for missionaries to this newly freed part of the world who know the language and culture, and who are committed to being present long-term to assist in leadership development. 

Samuel F. Metcalf (M.A. and D.Min. from Fuller Theological Seminary) is president of Church Resource Ministries, Fullerton, CA.  The agency's 160 missionaries serve in a variety of urban cultures worldwide and have been ministering in East Central Europe since 1986.  CRM has career personnel in Romania, Hungary, Poland, and Russia.

Samuel F. Metcalf, "Topsy-Turvy Missiology," East-West Church & Ministry Report, 2 (Fall 1994), 6-8