“Send” the Indigenous, Part 1

The church in which I grew up has become one of the largest missionary sending organizations the world has ever known. It was conceived and birthed in the heat of passion for going and sending based on the aforementioned Great Commission. But if there is one thing we have learned, it is that why and how one is sent is as critical as being sent in the first place.

What we have learned is that sometimes the worst thing that can happen to a country, a culture, or a people group is the invasion of what I’ll call fanatical Christian salvation guerillas. Because, the one and only message they have is salvation. So they storm the country with medical teams, food supplies, or relief efforts, in an attempt to gain an attentive ear for their message by providing for needs. Now, providing for needs isn’t a bad thing. That is very much a Kingdom value taught by Jesus. But not when the real purpose is bait and switch.

When physical needs are met for the sole purpose of creating a captive audience for a quick presentation of the Gospel, that is bait and switch. And, it doesn’t just happen in foreign countries either. It also happens in churches every week right here in the good old US of A.

Youth are baited with pizza, extreme games, celebrity guests, and fancy hangouts. Adults are baited with promises of wealth, beauty, and success, not to mention a break from their children for at least an hour. Add on top of that promises of discipleship training for every age group (as though that was supposed to be the job of the church and not the disciple).

Worse than that, the needy in our cities are promised food in exchange for a church service which they have to attend. “Free clothing” comes with a secret price tag—the cost of which is measured in enduring bad music and a reductionist salvation message. In either situation—the fancy church or the skid row mission—the problem is the same. Here it is: What you win them with, you win them to—whether it’s pizza, prosperity, or free clothes.

Now, I know that many churches and Christian organizations do wonderful things for people with no strings attached. Those groups have my compliments. But there are just as many, if not more, who use this as a “strategy.”

Last Sunday afternoon, I went to a downtown park where some friends of mine were doing a cook out for our homeless friends. There were at least 60 of us in the park that day. And although this was a first (the cookout), it was not the first time these men, women, and children had fed, loved on, and talked to many of these people. They called each other by name, and were so genuinely glad to see one another. And the food and the hugs and the football and the croquet were all paid for and given away unconditionally.

Unfortunately, some there that day who didn’t know my friends were waiting for the other shoe to drop. So when two guys got out their guitars to play some jazz and folk music, one man was overheard to say, “Uh-oh! They’re gettin’ out the guitars. Here comes the Jesus message…”

Bait and switch.

Now my friends and I had no intentions of doing anything more than feeding, hugging, and spending some time with them. But they were so conditioned to the schemes and methods they had seen so many times before that they were certain we were getting ready to “lay some Jesus on them.”

Some of my other friends who are missionaries in Asia have a name for people who convert in one of these bait and switch situations. They call them “rice Christians.” Rice Christians (whether in Asia or South Tulsa) aren’t won to Jesus, they are won to: fill-in-the-bait.

Now, so far you’re wondering how this applies to our subject of “Sending the Indigenous.” I guess what I’m wondering in my head and wandering through with the above is if we are ready to entrust the Holy Spirit with the next step. If we can trust Him to draw or to persuade the indigenous to follow him without our coercion or manipulation, are we ready to allow Him to help them to contextualize the truths of scripture for their own culture without our messing it up for them?

Before we can talk about sending the indigenous to reach their own, we have to answer the question: Are we ready to let them build their own versions of ecclesiology (church) and maybe even soteriology (salvation) that may or may not resemble our versions?

Culture

It is my experience that the culture of a group of people is far greater than the sum of its parts. Now by culture I don’t mean the group’s level of sophistication. I’m not talking about its art, its combined knowledge, or its cultural anthropology. What I am referring to is the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterize a community. Thus, a group’s culture is more than the combination of individual personalities in the crowd. It involves their interactions with each other—their relationships. One may have a bond with another, but how is that relationship affected by the introduction of a third, a fourth, and/or a fifth person.
Interestingly, I’ve found that the larger the group, the more likely it becomes that a certain hierarchy will naturally begin to appear. And such a perceived pecking order may be determined by the simplest or the most complex of means. Things as diverse as money, beauty, position, power, and personality may affect one’s place in such an unsanctioned caste system. It is an extraordinary sociological pattern. But it is so much a part of who we are that we seldom notice or acknowledge its occurrence. However, when it is pointed out, we recognize it immediately.
For example, the wealthy get listened to. The beautiful hang together. Smart people get together to talk about smart stuff. While the shy, the plain, and the average give mental and sociological assent to the perceived worth of the perky, the beautiful, and the exceptional. And the higher up the ladder one goes, the more influence he or she wields in the shaping of the future attitudes, values, and practices of the larger group. In other words, the people at the top of the heap have the most influence on the culture.
But what if a culture could be established that would do away with the natural order of things? What if it were possible to begin with everyone in the group at the same level of influence and worth? What if money, beauty, position, power, and personality were no longer forms of measurement? And what if the poor, the plain, the lowly, the weak, and the introvert were valued as equals with them? And what if it were possible to maintain that kind of altruism? What would that look like?
I think it might look like the church that Jesus intended for us to be—without hierarchy, rank, or privilege. It might look like a people who are united despite ethnicity, socio-economic status, or gender. (Galatians 3:28) And that might lend itself to producing a citizenship which embraces everyone, regardless of their status, influence, or behavior.
What would a church be if everyone looked like priests, all with equal access to God? And what if everyone in the community were equal partners in leadership and had an identical empowerment for service? And what if the community’s meeting spaces looked more like real life places than specialty buildings constructed exclusively for the use of “Christians?” But that’s getting away from culture…sort of.
This is the premise upon which Agora was started. It was and is intended to be a foundation of love, mutual respect, and understanding.
We have found that everyone has a story. And that we have no right to judge someone if we don’t know their story. And then once we know their story, we have no need or desire to judge them. This is the power of authentic relationships. True relationship not only brings judgmentalism to an end, it also takes away the power of gossip. Because we are all invested in one another.
When a community shares attitudes, values, goals, and practices, a culture is formed. But if that culture is to be perpetuated, it must faithfully carry out its values and practices, embrace new members, and thoroughly train its progeny. That also sounds like church.
Thus, for the above reasons and some others we will enumerate, I have found that an effective ecclesiology begins with a culture, more than a doctrine.