Craig Ott
In light of the skyrocketing costs of sending missionaries, more and more churches and individuals are supporting national pastors and evangelists, who generally require a fraction of the support of Western missionaries. These native workers not only cost less but know the language and culture of their people, and they often have access to countries closed to traditional Western missionaries. A careful study of the history and theology of missions will, however, reveal that financial support of national pastors and evangelists is fraught with dangers. In fact, such well-intended subsidies often weaken receiving churches and undermine world evangelization in the longer term. Think twice before you start supporting nationals in your missions giving, and consider the following dangers.
Nine Reservations
1. Western support of native workers is a model that national churches cannot reproduce. To be effective, any missionary strategy must be reproducible. Missionaries normally try to model ministry that national believers and churches can both carry on after the foreigners leave and reproduce in further evangelism. In this way the missionary multiplies his or her efforts, and the gospel's spread does not depend on foreign presence or assistance. Western funding of native workers is a model nationals can never reproduce themselves because it, by definition, depends on outside funding. As a result, churches will tend to assume that seeking support from mission agencies or partnerships with wealthy Western churches is the normal way to support pastors and send missionaries. Success in ministry becomes tied to Western purse strings. To reproduce themselves, native churches much discover creative ways to spread the gospel and plant churches without outside support.
2. Such a strategy is based on the assumption that the spread of the gospel depends on money. Making the fulfillment of the Great Commission dependent on the church's ability to raise money is a fallacy Western Christians have uncritically, unconsciously accepted. It reflects our Western materialism and commitment to a professionalized ministry.
3. It can create dependency and stunt giving in national churches. Teaching churches to depend on Western resources can blind them to recognizing their own giving potential or seeking creative ways to overcome obstacles by trusting God. The history of missions is replete with sad stories of resentments created when developing churches became dependent on Western funding. Any giving to mission churches or native workers must answer two questions: "Will this stimulate or discourage local giving?" "Will it create unhealthy dependency and foreign dominance, or help the church mature and become self-sustaining?"
4. Heavy dependence on Western funds can reinforce feelings of inferiority. Western support of native pastors and evangelists and the resulting dependency strengthens the belief that only Western Christians have the resources to evangelize and maintain their churches. Such support can result in a new form of the old paternalism. Giving that creates dependency is dehumanizing and oppressive.
5. Western support can create a mercenary spirit among nationals. While the motives of most national pastors and evangelists are above reproach, even motives for Christian service can become easily mixed when a secure and steady income is offered to those willing to become pastors or evangelists. Competition and jealousy can arise among believers vying to secure coveted, paid positions in a land of hunger. Westerners are rarely in a position to discern such motives, and they all too often tap leaders the nationals would not have chosen. Churches can become resentful or jealous of other churches receiving extravagant subsidies due to personal connections.
Eastern European churches, which have learned to survive, and, in many cases, carry on significant ministries under great hardship, are now facing the challenges of new freedoms and adjustment to Westernization and materialism. If not done with the greatest care, the outpouring of well-intended financial gifts from Western churches could do much to further confuse and pollute churches that have been purified by 45 years of Communist oppression.
All too often native pastors and churches have become preoccupied with ministries that attract Western dollars, while neglecting more basic pastoral care and evangelism. A great missionary statesman of the last century, John L. Nevius, observed how employing native evangelists in China tended to stop the work of volunteer lay evangelists, who resented not being paid, thus hindering the natural spread of the gospel.
6. Foreign-paid workers are not always more effective, and sometimes are even less effective and credible, than lay workers. National evangelists are sometimes rejected by their peers when the latter discover that Westerners pay them. In China they are called "the white man's running dog." Nationals may judge foreign-paid evangelists as mercenaries, or even subversives, who have become Christians and preach the gospel only for the financial benefits. The Communist Chinese saw subsidies of Chinese churches and workers as evidence that Christianity was not only a foreign religion, but an instrument of Western imperialism. The heavy Western subsidizing of national evangelists and pastors could reproduce these kinds of suspicions in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Eastern Europe today.
When national believers fail to support their own workers, the impression is reinforced that Christianity is in fact a foreign religion that has neither taken root nor inspired the deep commitment of its followers. Furthermore, church members can resent a pastor who is not accountable to them because his salary is paid by a foreign mission or church. This danger is especially great today, as some North American churches have started directly supporting pastors of poorer Eastern European churches, bypassing the local congregations those pastors serve.
7. It can rob the national church of the joy of being a truly missionary church. When the Evangelical Free Churches of Venezuela caught a vision to send their first missionary to do tribal work, they sought assistance from the North American mother mission. The mission leaders responded, "If you are to be a truly missionary church, you must send them and support them yourselves." At first the Venezuelans didn't understand. However, they raised the necessary support and there was tremendous joy because the Venezuelans saw how God provided and knew that they had become a truly multiplying, missionary church.
8. Employing national missionaries may not be the bargain it appears. To avoid the mistakes of the past and to increase their effectiveness, missionaries must have careful preparation and training. Specialized ministries such as Bible translation and medical work demand extensive training, which normally does not come cheap. Larry Poston, in Evangelical Missions Quarterly 28 (January 1992), 60, questions whether native missionaries really can live as cheaply as some claim, especially in the cities, where the cost of living can be staggering. Given the fact that the world is rapidly urbanizing, any long-range strategy must include reaching the urban masses.
9. Sending money instead of missionaries comes dangerously close to compromising the very essence of the Great Commission. The Great Commission calls us not only to send dollars, but ourselves. This will not always be the most economical solution, but it will be the greatest demonstration of love: We cared enough to surrender our comfort and way of life to share God's love with others.
Conclusion
I do not mean to underestimate the importance of sacrificial giving. There is a place for certain types of financial assistance to developing churches. This article, rather, is a call for discernment in how those funds are spent. Pragmatism cannot be allowed to overrule spiritual principles and blind us to the lessons of history. Short-term gains can sometimes mean long-term disaster. 
Craig Ott is a missionary with the Evangelical Free Church of America and the Federation of Free Evangelical Churches in Germany.
Edited excerpt reprinted with permission from Evangelical Missions Quarterly 29 (July 1993): 286-91; Box 794, Wheaton, IL 60189.
Craig Ott, "Let the Buyer Beware," East-West Church & Ministry Report, 4 (Winter 1996), 3,5.
