Over Christmas, 2008, I went to The Dominican Republic in the Caribbean to visit some friends who are independent, self-appointed missionaries. They have been there two years and spent the first year traveling the country with their 2 year old boy looking for the right place to begin their mission. During that year they lived with several missionaries and were very disturbed by what they saw and heard.
They said all the missionaries live in huge houses and drive new cars, or trucks and live lives far above the level of the Dominican people. This led to a deep discussion about how to do missions.
We began with Yahshuah command, "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations." (Matthew 28:19). That is the mission and it seems pretty straight forward. Missionaries are to teach. They are teachers. But what are they to teach? Math, science, political science, urban planning, Kung-Fu?
Yahshuah said, "Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." (Matthew 28:20)
Did he say teach them all things that Paul taught? No. Did he say teach the book of the Revelation? No. Did he say teach the whole Bible? No. He said teach the things that he taught while he preached in the highways and byways and streets of Israel.
Did he say the focus of missions is to build schools? No, but that's what missionaries do. Did he say to build clinics? No, but that's what missionaries do? Did he say to build roads? No, but that's what missionaries do. Did he say to buy land and erect meeting halls and have church services and take tithes and offerings from the people and raise funds? No, but that's what missionaries are best at. Did he say to teach people to fish, develop coops, start businesses, get micro loans, improve their agricultural techniques, purify their drinking water, improve sanitation practices, form Republics and choose democracy, or socialism etc. etc. No.
The reason that missionaries get involved in all of the above things that they shouldn't be involved in, is because they do not understand the basic gospel of Yahshuah. In Greece, in the third century, the Greek Christians decided the man Yahshuah was God. That led them to move away from the Gospel as found in the 4 books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and to misconceive that every word in the whole Bible came from Yahshuah's mouth. That meant they were required to go forth and teach everything in the Bible. That meant Christianity became wedded to the old Judaism that Yahshuah had come to terminate. Christianity became hobbled with Jewish ideas of prosperity and social welfare and Justice programs and Zoroastrian ideas of eternal torments in hell.. That also meant that Christianity became hobbled with the communal ideas found in the book of Acts and the bizarre millenialism found in the book of the Revelation. It was further mishaped by the substitutionary bloody atonement theory put forth by Paul which tied in with the cult of Milthraism as found among the Roman soldiers . In other words Christianity became a freakish cult of guilt ridden, fear mongering, welfare working, police-loving and soldier-loving community developers, politicians, and doomsday whackos.
The second mistake I see is the word go. Yahshuah said go and teach all nations. There is everything nomadic in the word go. The teachers should always be on the move, not sinking roots, not building houses, or meeting halls, not organizing hierarchies.
The modern model of missions is this; a Christian from a rich country raises support and moves to a poor country where he is immediately seen as a wealthy foreigner. He has cargo, lots of it. He buys a large plot of land, begins inviting the desparately poor to meetings. They come because they reason that if they accept this rich foreigner's relgion they too will have cargo.
Meanwhle the rich foreigner builds a mansion of sorts, has new cars and begins to prosper mightily. Meanwhile the cargo hungry convert gets little of the cargo, grows disillusioned and become an enemy of the rich missionary. The missionary experiences persecution and is firmly convinced it's because he is doing God's will.
I think Yahshuah chose poor fisherman to be his missionaries for a reason. He wanted them to travel light and fast teaching where ever they found a teachable moment in the street, at a farm, one on one, or as the need for more space became necessary it would be provided. They were not to come as wealthy foreigners. They were not to meddle with the social fabric, they were not trained medical doctors, they were bearers of the greatest gift of all the teachings of Yahshuah.
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