Lou Wagenveld

When the piece on Honduras started off with what to me were figures on religion that were so far off and out of date, I wondered what else of facts and perceptions might be skewed as well.  But then, I'm an inveterate doubter about the "effectiveness" of STMs. On balance, it sounds to me as though Honduras - at least as relates to CRC folk - is well above average on that score.  And I don't doubt that Kurt and company have a lot to do with that, with awareness raising on both ends of the exchange.  Lets keep the dialogue going, and the debriefings Stateside for many months afterward.                       PS I'm wondering how many of the participants to Honduras of the last several years are aware of the serious situation presented to the leaders and staff of the Association for a More Just Society .... look them up.

Maybe because it was published at 5 AM over two years ago, I missed this gem of a reflection.  My friend who wrote it should really go to work for a PR firm that specializes in glossing over things and putting on the best face, even while underneath the body suffers.

For us veterans of the - yes, fights - between these "sisters," this article just describes the present because the past has been so sad.  And the lack of real collaboration/coordination/cooperation on so many "fields" (following the lead of the home offices in spite of some very good attempts otherwise) has led to a paucity of results in too many places.  There are not many places where we can point to a thriving church with a holistic ministry where Word and Deed are a natural integral expression of what our theory is.  Why?  Dual agencies/administrations by nature replicate dual structures.  

In a couple of Central American countries the national Christian Reformed churches have practically no working relationship with the new model of going with NGOs as the preferred expression of the CRCNA there.  Please give a critical re-read of the paragraph "Do CRWM and World Renew work together?"  We are not surprisingly replicating our grand mistake of  allowing the divorce of 50 years ago to go on and on.  And my sense of things is that the boomerang of ecclesiastical history has come home to debilitate our whole bi-national denomination, as evidenced by the malaise and decline so lamented by many of us who did what we could to do it differently. 

Thanks, Steve, for re-visiting this perennial topic in missions/development work.  You write:

"...the challenge is to look for transformation in the lives of people."  My experience is that people necessarily continue in their culture and mileu, and that to think that two years is going to work a significant change is, yes "hope" but not at all that certain. I'd like you to put this piece and the Cambodian project in your 2014 agenda to revisit to see how it is progressing by then.

    I can't say that I have a good notion of what that Field School consists of, which would be a big factor in evaluating the likelihood of your hopes being realized.    One other observation I make: I have not seen many places where "missionary and development worker" are juxtaposed in the way you use those terms; interesting.  To me it betrays in just one more way the separation of Word and deed that has hamstrung our ministry efforts for the last two generations. 

    So at this season  of hope, lets hope and work for the outcome of the re?structure and culture change that is underway.

Mark, very stretching and helpful piece.  Now I'd like to see you or someone who knows the Batman mistique do an analysis of where those - and especially this latest "Dark Knight" - movies are on the "morally ill/healthy" scale.  The "media" doesn't like to talk much about that either; they label - and dismiss - as "conservatives" those who might want to attribute some of the problem to the "dark" stuff in today's (well, last 25 years) movies.

Thanks, Kris, for making this important perspective piece available.  And my your California trainings be blessed as well as the W. Michigan ones next week

Kelly, it was great to take the Church between Borders training with you just last week; reading this story of your experiences adds even so much more.  Thanks.

I'm glad to see this topic - much discussed but not by the right people, and never resolved - picked up again on this page. I found chapter 7 in B Fikkart's book When Helping Hurts quite helpful in outlining pros and cons.  I'll be glad to join the conversation; with a couple of stories I've picked up along the way.

Lou

I'm happy to add a testamonial to what Seve writes, from the perspective of colleagues in Latin America.  Both Stott's writing and his support in little and larger ways of of pastors and institutuions is widely appreciated there.

Yes, Joel, that is a very good question.  This comment just adds annecdotally to the issue, at least as I see it in El Salvador.  My hosts on my trips are my former landlords; they are quite typical Christians, having been converted in one of the traditional evangelical missions, gone through two more types of congregations, and now are in one of the pentecostal mega churches.  They are self-made business upper middle class folk; the architect daughter works with her civil engineer father as associate.  When there, we talk a lot about the type of questions you raise.  On my trip last year, I cited the statistics that the local jesuit university survey had recently come up with: 38% of Salvadorans consider themselves "evangelicos."

In the light of that, I asked this lifetime 35 year old Christian: "Lets just say that over the next couple of decades that percentage of evangelicals rises to 85%, ''What changes in El Salvador"?  Without hesitation she replied "nada" (nothing)!  My increasingly radicalized interpretation of that is that the reducionist "gospel" that has been exported to Central America is so "heavenly minded that it is of little earthly good."  How to get beyond that?!  Some of us are listening... please amplify the "table talks" as analysis and patterns take shape.

Thanks, Joyce.  Just fyi and by way of response, I'll mention that now for three years an ad hoc committee in Holland Michigan has been sponsoring celebrations.  This year our committee included CRC, RCA, PCUSA, and ELCA pastors.  We held a vesper type service with an attendance of nearly 200 (not nearly enough for a town with 50 CRCs RCAs!, but we were pleased after several years with no such services at all).

We share your sentiments about not wanting to be exclusive and triumphalistic. We want to build on the best of our heritage and seek to find themes that will speak out of the past to the present challenges we face.  For example, two years ago our panel discussion just four days prior to the general elections was on "Reformational Principles for Politics." 

Carry on with your celebratory efforts!

Snowbird travel and transition got me behind on reading this link.  On 11/11 Steve wrote:

"And there is a qualitative difference, it seems to be, between the short term missionary who travels to a place where she doesn't speak the language or understand the culture, and the person who has invested deeply and over decades in understanding the uniqueness of the people with whom she is sharing the Gospel. "

"Qualitative difference" - we can't afford an inferior witness.  And the Holy Spirit notwithstanding, even in God's economy to a large extent "you get what you pay for."  STMs are misspending a lot of our mission resources.

For me - and I belive for the American churches - this is a foundational question that still needs a lot of clarifying debate and resolution.  After reading Fikkert's When Helping Hurts, I pretty much came down again on my original side of the fence I've tried to straddle out of convenience (if you can't fight them, join them), but now I'm 90% in favor of not sending STMs abroad, for both missiological (as per the discussion) and economic reasons. 

Who is carrying on the best discussion of that?   Are we close to resolution?

Lou

There is so very much to say on this topic; that is why Steve hit on something that is getting this much repsonse.  Just a couple of comments and questions: Allen and Ken write:. "...working side by side....two way blessings..."  When will the Zambian pastor be making a visit to your church to help you in the work there?  Correct, its far from only about $$; but read the literature and ask how many short-termers ever keep up the relationships, even corresponding, let alone mutual re-visits?  And NO, don't EVER just "send them the money."  Unless there is a well-structured and supervised organization and plan in place, most money will do very liitle good.  On the "blessing" front, I am so very tired of the cliche of hearing young people say "we thought we were going to help them, but WE were the ones to be blessed."  My understanding of Christian stewardship is that we expect NOTHING - not even that ephimeral blessing - in return. But yes, invest it the most wisely.  In a world where mission dollars are scarce, I can't justify a California reformed group going to Uganda for two weeks to "set up a library, build something, and help start a church" at a cost of $83,000 ($4,300 each person).      If you haven't yet read Fikkert's  When Helping Hurts, go to Chapter 7 "Doing Short-Term Missions without doing Long-Term Harm" and when you can tell me that you are meeting 90% of the critieria that he sets forth, I'll give you my "blessing."! Lou