Q: Are national missionaries better than Americans going?

Q: Are national missionaries better than Americans going? Doesn’t it make more sense to for me to raise funds for national missionaries, rather than raise funds for me to go?

This idea of national missionaries is one that I have seen floating around a lot in my life as a missionary, and let me just say, “No, it is not better”. Let me explain some reasons why this is just wrong, and then make some personal observations as a veteran missionary as to what we should be doing as Christ’s representatives.

Missionary or National Pastor

Firstly, let me explain that there is a great difference between a missionary and a national pastor. A missionary goes to someplace other than their own country of birth to spread the gospel when it is not named. We have to insist that “FOREIGN MISSIONS” is ALWAYS biblical missions.

Matthew 28:19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Matthew 28:20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

On one hand, we have “home missions” which is what? Many of these home missions are people who start ministries that cannot sustain themselves from that particular ministry. Instead of being like a typical church, which should take up offerings, and from their own people, they support themselves, they want to be considered as a “missions work” which is funded by a lot of church’s (US stateside) that pay their bills. This is unbiblical. Why? Because we have a commission to evangelize and start local churches. We do not have a commission to do social work. This is not missions.

In my 40+ years as a missionary in Mexico City, I have even seen occasionally Mexican nationals trying to raise funds from Mexican churches for these social work type ministries, Christian camps, schools, etc. They have even worse fortune among Mexican churches that the same thing in the US.

Legitimate Social Work is under a Local Church

There is a legitimate place for these social work ministries directly under the direction of a local church where that local church gets free volunteers (their own church people) to help to work this, and they pay for a reasonable set of expenses in said ministry. To send money to a set of unknown people working without a clear methodology and doctrine, without a definite biblical goal in view, that is constantly being watched for needs and abuses, is extremely dangerous. It is valid to do these social-type works as long as they are under the authority of a local church, and that church pays and supplies workers.

But missions should be kept free of social ministries. Better worded and focused, a social type ministry like a Christian summer camp, a Summer Bible School, a food kitchen for the poor, or whatever other type of similar ministry SHOULD BE OF A MINOR PRIORITY compared with the main goals of the local church.

They are valid in a lesser degree than missions, but what is missions should never be confused with what is the church’s social outreach. Likewise, a biblical church spends many times more money and energy on getting the gospel out and churches planted than on social programs.

What is the Main Work of the Ministry?

Churches are “visually lost in the wilderness” when they misunderstand the primary goals that God has set for the local church, and for Christians in general. Our first priority is to evangelize the lost. Our second goal is to congregate (gather the results of evangelism into local churches) where they are taught the Bible, spiritually edified and trained to do both of these goals.

In the evangelization of the lost, EVERY MEMBER OF THE CHURCH, EVERY CHRISTIAN SHOULD BE ACTIVE IN EVANGELISM. There is never a whole class of evangelists, or ministers dedicated to evangelism such that every normal church member can not be bothered with it. There are spiritually gifted individuals who are evangelists, but these are the leaders, and the bulk of the evangelists are just every Christians. This is because an evangelist will never have access to all the people the church members have access to in their daily lives. An evangelist is a person who testifies to Christ to others, but at the same time, the spiritual gift is something he does well and a lot, and probably has the idea of teaching the rest of the church to do this work among themselves.

Ephesians 4:11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; Ephesians 4:12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:

God’s spiritual gifts are for making the saints perfect or mature so that the saints can do the work of the ministry. The burden is squarely on the church as a whole, and all individuals within that church.

It has been very frustrating and depressing to me to see how many supposedly “professional” ministers have no time nor desire to actually explain the gospel to another person. A large portion of them cannot even do that, or if they can, they are very clumsy at it. When you witness to a Jehovah’s Witness or a Mormon, it is clumsy to get bogged down in arguments that go nowhere, and they just waste your time, and they are unreasonable because they never concede to you any point that they believe. I have wasted many an hour in talking to these people, and within the first few minutes, I know whether the person is truly seeking the truth in his heart or is just arguing for arguments’ sake.

What is a National Pastor?

A national pastor is a pastor that is a native of that country where he ministers. Nowhere in the Bible is the concept that one country should pay the salaries of the ministers of the rest of the world, and that is the concept in many areas, that the rich US should pay high salaries (in comparison to normal national wages) to national pastors.

This concept that the United States and American missionaries have unlimited financial resources is such a serious problem that even unsaved, unchurched nationals simply ask me why we don’t have a big church building? “Can’t you just make a phone call, and they send you a million dollars to buy or build something?” It is hard to explain to them, but that is not how things work. Yet some US missionaries have come to Mexico, and that is how they appear to be able to do things.

The Local Church Pays their Minister’s Salaries

We need to understand that biblical missions is always people in a local church paying the salaries of their own ministers. We need to insist that national churches be established with this principle of paying a fair salary to their own national pastors, and that besides that, they should also support foreign missions, which is nationals from this country going to other countries to evangelize and establish new churches. Likewise, national Mexican churches should be sending and funding other Mexican ministers to start new missions until they are self-supporting, which is a high goal in missions work.

There is a place for evangelists (which focus on presenting the gospel message, not preaching conferences among churches). But likewise these men should be supported by the churches that they preach in.

What is the Difference between a National Minister and a Foreign Missionary?

In theory, there should not be much difference between them. In Scripture, it would appear that Paul and his close group were indistinguishable from Titus or Timothy. But in reality, there is a big difference.

The problems I see are in calling and preparation. While we can legitimately say that as “missionaries” there is little difference between Paul and Timothy, in reality, there was a lot of difference. Without depreciating the value of Timothy, nobody of that day stood as Paul stood. His background, his preparation, and his calling were unique. We can see the same of Moses. While that doesn’t make either a king over God’s people, it is a consideration.

Practically, I have pretty much given up on Mexican nationals really having the understanding that I have in the ministry. Not that I am all that great, but I did go through 7 years of Bible training in a Christian college, getting two Master’s degrees. My major was Christian Missions. My preparation included a year and a half of Hebrew, and a minor in Biblical Greek. I have taught Greek classes here in Mexico. My problem with my students is that when they have a very poor understanding of Spanish, it is hard to do much in the biblical languages.

In Greek and Hebrew, the debate is about shades of meaning, and how that affects our understanding of the text. Often the same word can be understood as different parts of speech, and that makes a difference. But when you are debating the genitive use (there are many kinds of use for a genitive) of a Greek passage with somebody who has a hard time knowing what a verb or a substantive is, it becomes frustrating. Basically, they do not have the background or understanding for that level of things.

But the point is not to “bringing them up” to this level of things, but to understand that God’s Word can be understood and used to do God’s work and will without entering into the finer things like the profound arguments of grammar in biblical languages. Common sense is better than brute knowledge. A lot of the problems in American Christianity probably could be solved if the majority of “our biblical scholars” would just read the Bible, understand it, and obey it. The scholars miss the common sense application of the Word of God, and that is where the problem really is.

This is another topic, the Americanization of foreign nationals instead of teaching them the Bible. This is also highly leveled at American missionaries, and in part, it is a valid criticism. Others want to justify the sinful customs of other cultures as “you have to do things our way.” For example, in Mexico, bribes for everything. (I won’t talk about Americans funding and grants here, but it is the same in the US really.)

What should be our Focus?

There is no magical key to missions in sending US money to fund nationals. I have seen this severely abused. When there is no close verification of the minister and what he believes and does, teaches and preaches, then there is abuse. There is no structure to do this effective from the United States standpoint. God has made the structure, and that structure is to have good sound Christians that sit under that minister’s ministry, see his daily life and family life, and they are the ones who financially support him. That is what works. If he is abusive in sin, those people need to cut their support of him and leave for another church. This works well, but only in the level of a local church as God has ordained us to follow.

So the key here that works is when God raises up godly people, they are able to finance what God orders. Help is one thing, but doing the hard work when the national church is lazy, unprepared, or unwilling to shoulder their part of the burden, is another. A building can be set up with little problem, but gifted to a group, while it sounds wonderful, is bad in general. You protect what you fight to get. I have heard of missionaries paying for a church property and nice building in a country town, and in a few years, the church has nobody, not even a pastor, and the sanctuary was being used to house cows. I am sure that God would not be pleased to see His house used this way.

The Focus: Build the Church, the People are the Church

But this reveals the real problem. So many Christians “want God’s work to grow” that they think the building is the only problem. They think if natives in Africa can just get US clothes, then they will be Christians. If they have a nice building with soft benches, that they would “be like American churches in the United States.” That is just naive. They will be like they were before they were saved. Unfortunately, a host of unsaved people will now claim to be Christians, and enter the church community because the community is receiving “presents” like food, clothing, money, etc. from the United States. These people will not sacrifice for their church, because they are not even saved.

We return to what we said above. The work of the Lord is to see people truly saved, built up spiritually (edified), and they themselves serving the Lord. The process is not a matter of money. It is a matter of conversion and obedience.

As a pastor of a missionary church for 40+ years, I worry constantly that some of our people just never really have understood salvation. Oh yes, they answer the questions about being saved “correctly.” But there is no real spiritual fruit in their lives. Money seems to be their god, because they have a real hard time sacrificing, except when it is spent on themselves. This is greed, and ignorant, naive American missionaries are playing into their greed god hands. This is not missions work.

Opposition by Being Your Friend

In my brief life, it has been a constant stinging problem when people come to me, “offering to help me.” But they have alterior motives. A graphic artist will design my prayer card, for a price. After a bad experience, I realize I could have gone to a secular graphic artist, got a better design for half the cost, and the Christian guy never fulfilled his promises. I never got the finished prayer cards I paid for. He came highly recommended by the way.

But Satan has strategies that we need to understand. One of these, is not to stop a good minister outright, but to fill the field with false prophet missionaries that do little spiritually, but brag about the great multitudes he wins to Christ. These guys get money “hand over fist” from churches, and it is irksome that pastors ask me to help them get these guys contact information so that they can send them monthly donations and big one time gifts.

At first, it makes me want to pack my bags and go home and do something else. (That is the point where your calling from God has to take over and direct your life, not these kinds of factors.)

But at the same time, I meditate on these things. Is it logical that a Mexican church with 6,000 members run by an American missionary as pastor and as a little Baptist pope, needs 100,000s of dollars each month to run this? I mean, in Mexico, an average church member should be making enough to make his tithe $50 to $100 US dollars each month. 6,000 members would represent probably 2,000 working men or women, and 2000x$50 is around $100,000 income for the month. I do not understand how an American missionary as pastor would not be able to recieve $10,000 a month salary. If he isn’t, why aren’t his people responsible for his salary? Is that biblical? Is that what we are supposed to be teaching? The whole counsel of God.

The reality is that of that 6,000 members boast, only about 500 are in any way committed to the church, and the rest are getting monthly food gifts from the church. Of those 500, probably the majority are making more money than the average, and everything is on a “praise me in front of everybody, and I´ll donate big.” That is what I understand happens.

So God’s house becomes a profit making venture for the false prophet. That is all. But the false prophet works his grift for money both in the United States and in Mexico. He is just not the example that Christ wants us to follow. He is not Christlike. From there, you just need to reject whatever lies he tells you, get out from his influence, and definitely stop paying him.

I have seen national “missions” set up on the same basis as this, and they have miraculous numbers that they brag about. Yet in one case here in Mexico near us, I ask myself, is this success? In Bible terms, this is what is success? That ministry brags that it has 6,000 members. I doubt that many come on a Sunday when they are not gifting food pantry items. But just taking them at their own word, they brag that they have 20,000 people saved a year (this was 10 years ago I heard that claim). For 40 years, they have claimed that thousands each year have been saved. But their retention rate is very poor if say an average of 5000/year were saved for 40 years is 200,000 people, and they only have a doubtful 6,000.

If a political party in Mexico can muster half a million people in the town square promising the attendees a free subway and T-shirt, then getting physical bodies is no problem. For free stuff, people turn out. But this does not mean those people are truly saved, nor that they are spiritually mature to sacrifice their time, energy, and financial resources. As a missionary, this is the goal that I think is biblical. Make real Christians out of them, and not “prop them up financially.” In my experience, I have seen nationals supported by American missions funds. When those funds end, very few of them actually do the work of the ministry anymore. They get some secular job, and invariably it seems, they work that secular job on Sundays. A very few have continued under financial problems, but with a small group of people in a meager church situation.

The solution is very simple. Obey God.

God instructs us on the New Testament church. All Christians have an obligation to congregate (not just assist, but personally participate), and these churches should pay their own ministers. Work God’s plan, and the problems will begin to disappear.

While this is the plan and goal of missions, foreigners leaving their own country to evangelize and organize local churches is part of this plan.