Dynamics of mission and money

Editor’s note: The following post arises from small group reflections from The Rise of Global Christianity, 1910–2010, taught by Dr. Todd Johnson at Boston University in the Fall of 2010. Led by doctoral students, the small groups discussed lectures given by Christian scholars in various disciplines, including significant changes that have occurred in global Christianity over the past 100 years.


This past week in Global Christianity, Dr. Jonathan Bonk from the Overseas Ministry Study Center at Yale University gave the lecture on Christian mission and finance. Instead of elaborating on his article from The Atlas of Global Christianity, which discusses the concentration of Christian wealth in the ‘global north’ despite the demographic shift of Christianity to the ‘global south,’ he took a narrative approach. Dr. Bonk started by looking at the large amounts of money pumped into mission in the global north, particularly mission approached from the impulse of economic and social development and contrasted this with extraordinary stories of successful evangelizing missions done by communities on limited economic resources, such as the Mizoram in northeast India, and the Kachin Baptist churches in Myanmar (Burma).

Through mission the good news of the gospel has an important impact on culture. However, as Dr. Bonk pointed out, the Christian message may necessitate a shift in culture but not necessarily a change towards western consumerism. This we thought was an important insight when considering finance and mission. We discussed the case of Korea, where during the post civil war era the country was in financial crisis. The infusion of money from missions allowed missionaries to build structures such as schools and hospitals. Two Korean students in our discussion suggested this may have forged a path for some to come to the church, as a first step of evangelism in the Korean church. At the same time, we discussed how accepting financial help has complex affects. It can create a one-sided influence from the providers, and perhaps create a dependency relationship. While educational and healthcare institutions might be a positive, the missionaries also westernized Korea and pushed aside many cultural practices considered unchristian. As a result there was some lose of cultural identity. Our discussion came to a consensus that relationship building is an important way of doing mission that is incarnational. Such a holistic, incarnational approach to mission ensures that missionaries retain a sensitivity to local culture and avoid, to some extent, the political pitfalls associated with social issues.

Eva Pascal, discussion moderator
http://theredconnection.blogspot.com/

Money and foreign missions

Editor’s note: The following post arises from small group reflections from The Rise of Global Christianity, 1910–2010, taught by Dr. Todd Johnson at Boston University in the Fall of 2010. Led by doctoral students, the small groups discussed lectures given by Christian scholars in various disciplines, including significant changes that have occurred in global Christianity over the past 100 years.

Dr. Jonathan Bonk from the Overseas Ministry Study Center in New Haven, Connecticut gave the lecture on Christian/Mission Finance. He reminded us that missions does not require huge financial resources and large institutional structures but rather passion on the part of Christians who feel profoundly that they need to share what they have seen and heard. You don’t need a lot of money to evangelize the world. Bonk’s presentation included examples of this from around the world.

Once again we had a diverse group, men and women as well as Koreans, Indians and Americans, in which to reflect on our speaker’s contribution. As Dr. Bonk had referred to examples of mission in the church of Mizoram, one of our group shared about a visit he had made to that church. He noted the large percentage of the population that is Christian and how prevalent the church is in society, the Presbyterians being the largest Christian tradition in the region. It has invested significant time, energy and financial support in social programs. Government officials are active members and the state supports church activities in many ways.

As two of our number are from Korea, we reflected on the situation there. Dr. Bonk had noted that the number of Korean missionaries is increasing while the number of church members is actually decreasing. We were surprised since this seemed counter-intuitive to us. One of our group shared the perspective of his father who is a pastor in Korea. Since as a pastor he has seen that involvement in missions revitalizes his church, he encourages his congregation’s participation in the sending and financing of foreign mission initiatives. Hence mission is understood to be good for the sending church and is a measure of its vitality. That is certainly one of the principal themes in Robert Wuthnow’s book Boundless Faith that we have been reading for this class. Engagement in foreign mission activities then can, in some cases, be an attempt by Christian leaders to recapture forward momentum and energy in their churches.

Bruce Yoder, discussion moderator