Happy Hallothanksmas

Walking to an EMI Construction site in Phnom Penh, Cambodia
during my recent trip in September (more on that trip in the next blog!)

It’s that time of year again…the tinsel and lights on the trees have already overpowered the scant remaining turkeys in the shopping malls, and in our mailboxes, ‘secret’ deals granting early access to Black Friday sales have been trickling in for days (I give it 3 years before we’re just calling it ‘Black November’), and are only kept from completely monopolizing our mailboxes by the also steadily increasing number of year-end-appeals from mission and non-profit groups. Yep, it’s the Hallo-Thanks-Mas holiday season!

The world that missions groups operate it is changing fast, maybe faster than ever before, so if we in missions don’t see the changes coming and adapt our approach and messaging style, then we too may find ourselves in a similar place as the turkeys in the mall - smack dab in the middle of the purgatory of irrelevance. Why do I say that? There are a few important cultural shifts going on, and each has its own resulting consequences for missions groups like EMI:

1)     The new generations (Millennials and Gen Z) value meaning and freedom in their work over a paycheck…and that is rubbing off on the older generations too (Gen X, Y, and even the Boomers)

Resulting consequences: The “amazing” stories from the mission field fall flat if they aren’t backed up with realistic statistics of actual, practical impact, because most of the audience is now engaged in their own personal efforts towards making a difference around them and our stuff better add meaningful value to the overall effort. Missionaries who leave behind the lucrative lifestyle of the business world ‘to follow the call of God’ for a greater purpose are now telling their stories to people who feel like they themselves are following the call of God to make a similar difference in their own extended communities. So why do we still have a compelling part to play?

2)     The internet can fact check anything you say/write in a matter of seconds.

Resulting consequences: Once again, it’s the “amazing” stories from the mission field that may no longer be so compelling if they rely too heavily on the missionary’s personal experience and feelings and not enough on the actual, factual statistics and impact of what took or is taking place. There needs to be a balance – facts and feelings. The common funny saying about this is that the continent of Africa has been ‘saved’ 3 times over if you add up the numbers from all the missionary reports. And yes, that is funny, but the subtle undercurrent of doubt that raises in the minds of the reader can now be verified or discredited by Google…and that incongruence will undermine the credibility of what might otherwise be a legitimate mission effort.

3)     The narrative of Westerners going to another country to do stuff for people is at best becoming tired, and at worst, seen as no longer helpful or even hurtful. And, you especially lose points if the stuff you’re doing is offered for free. And while making a spiritual impact was once a mitigating factor for the unintentional disempowerment of the people being served, spiritual impact alone has lost its ‘get out of jail free card’ status amongst the Christian constituency back home, who more and more want to see spiritual impact in tandem with intentional, appropriate, and practical impact on the physical lives of people.

Resulting consequences: Missionaries who are seeking money to fund their ministry no longer have as compelling of a case to share if they only talk about the things they’ve done for the people they’re serving or the spiritual impact they’re having. The average Christian supporter of mission work wants to know that the mission work they’re supporting has maximized opportunities to help empower people physically while the spiritual impact was happening. My point is really that missionaries no longer receive a free pass on the old adage, “Give a man a fish, feed him for a day; Teach a man how to fish, feed him for a lifetime” just because they report stories of high conversion numbers. Based on the conversations I’ve had with people in recent years, groups like EMI need to value both spiritual and physical restoration, and we need to be smart about how we’re engaging in both of these realms to try to avoid causing more problems than we’re helping try to solve.

We went to Chicago for the first time in October to attend the
annual EMI Network Conference.

Took our picture in 'the bean' - had never heard of it before!

Speaking at the conference

Honestly, I think these are positive changes in our sphere, and I think many of the missionaries I know would agree too. However, I don’t believe the overall mission community and approach to funding and communication is keeping up…and unfortunately, that is probably going to mean a lot of missionaries leaving the field and mission groups eventually closing up shop.

And who knows, maybe that’s a good, natural part of the lifecycle of missions. But for those of us who believe that God is by no means done with us or our organizations, what should our reaction be? Here are some ideas I’ve thought of (I’m old enough now to know that “nothing is new under the sun”, so I’m sure other (smarter) people have come up with these ideas already somewhere else:

1)     Start valuing modesty in our mission reporting. I think we need to stop over-using (or using at all) the word ‘amazing’ in our reports, and that probably goes for amazing’s first cousin, ‘incredible’ too. No doubt the God we believe in and serve is both amazing and incredible, but when we write about something using those words, we’re unwittingly suggesting that the reader should find what we’re saying to be ‘amazing’ and ‘incredible’ too. Maybe we should just report what happened, and let the readers decide if it’s amazing. Another pitfall of trying to convey the big emotions we feel about something that’s happened is what I call the ‘Facebook effect’, which is, the subtle implication that the things we’ve done are so much more awesome or important that what the reader’s life might look like by comparison. Surely that’s not how the vast majority of missionaries actually feel, but that’s certainly the impression I fear we sometimes leave our readers with.

What if instead we missionaries redoubled our efforts to focus on being accurate and factual – even at the expense of being less spectacular – and giving our readers a little more freedom to decide what they think of what’s transpired. When in doubt, might we try to understate things instead of risking overstating them? e.g. When we experience a time where a number of people seem to have accepted the gospel message for the first time, let’s perhaps consider a more modest approach that considers the full picture of what’s going to avoid over-reporting. In the case of our example, the situation that’s often transpired to generate those conversion numbers should bring some logical doubt to our minds: a group of westerners (or even trusted local community leaders/pastors) have come into a new community and stand before the crowd with an historical pattern of eventually handing out a bunch of free stuff (bibles, candy, clothes, water purification systems, etc.) or some other positive, practical impact on their lives like a new community well, and then they’re asked to sign up for what’s being offered by raising their hand to accept whatever it is they’re talking about. Who among us wouldn’t raise their hand in that situation, particularly if we were living in an impoverished community? Instead of reporting back to our constituency that 300 people raised their hand at such an event, what if our mission update afterwards merely reported on some of the individual conversations we had with a few of the people in the crowd. Are we ok with only telling that part of story, which doesn’t necessarily have a tidy ending for a support letter, but does probably have a much higher chance of making a lasting difference? Not to say that people can’t come to faith in all sorts of ways, but especially in cross-cultural settings, true life changing transformation typically happens over an extended period of time through ongoing one on one relationships.

2)     In our mission contexts, how can we start focusing more on ‘teaching people how to fish’ in conjunction with spiritual interaction/discipleship? This is about creating actual physical opportunities for people who have little or even none, and about building capacity and investing in people loved by God. And, how about looking for opportunities to give them a turn to be the teacher by being willing to learn from them? In shifting our approach in these ways, we allow the people we’re serving the opportunity to see that they have just as much value as the ‘rich’ westerner standing before them. People who feel like they have value are much more likely to investigate where that value comes from, and as Christians and missionaries, that’s the exact posture we hope to help people achieve as we walk alongside them in their journey.

3)     The longer I’m in missions, the more appreciation I have for George Mueller and his methods of raising financial support for his mission work. If you haven’t heard of George Mueller, Google him and his story. Basically, his method of support raising was to trust God. No ‘amazing’ monthly reports from the field. No hyperbole-laced mission report numbers. Just the conviction that he was doing what God wanted him to do, and the complete trust that God would provide for his needs to do that work.

On the other hand, I don’t want to say that God can only work in one way, and maybe some feel compelled by God to ask more directly for support sometimes. Honestly, we’ve done both in our funding efforts to work with EMI. But are there ways to improve how we in missions do this?

I think an important piece in fundraising is to communicate the financial needs that we and our organizations have in a manner that esteems the role of the giver as an equal partner in the ministry work and outcomes. Sometimes I feel like missionaries get too much of the good press, while their donors don’t get any of the good press – unless they give enough to get something like a school or hospital named after them. I get that most of our family’s donors wouldn’t really appreciate being called out for their generosity…but at the same time, I think we missionaries could do a better job of talking about their accomplishments as a team effort. After a sporting event, if the star player is interviewed, we generally don’t think highly of those athletes who spend the interview recounting all the ‘amazing’ and ‘incredible’ things they just did (with an occasional/obligatory nod to the ‘coach’), but we do think well of them if they make a point of highlighting their teammates’ efforts, especially the unsung heroes who helped make it all possible. As missionaries, we could improve our post-game interviews.

Murphy - best pet ever

Jonah's a Junior now...and caught up with mom height-wise

Fall soccer has just finished and all 3 boys made
a lot of money refereeing!

Our dear friend Laurel took Brodie's senior pictures for us!

Brodie went to the Homecoming dance with his friends.

I’ll close by saying that these are some things I’ve been thinking about in recent months. Over the past few years, EMI has undergone some major transitions – yes, in how we operate, but more importantly, in who we are and what we’re aiming to do. And that’s in no way to disparage the EMI of yesteryear, but it is important to me that anyone involved in our ministry at EMI know that we have changed, and I believe changed for the better. And in case you’re worried, these changes have come about through deep prayer and seeking of God’s leading for our ministry, and I’m very excited about them.

Right at the front of our new Mission Statement is the idea of developing people. We no longer think about ‘going and doing’, and instead think about ‘every tribe, tongue, and nation’ carrying out the restoration work we feel God’s given all of us to do. We recognize that the team of people God has brought together for this work – the staff, volunteers, and yes, donors, – are also midstream in His great restoration plan in their own lives as well. We don’t have all the answers, and we make a lot of mistakes and misjudgments along the way, but somehow, God still sees fit to use us fragile jars of clay to impact the world according to His plans.

So whether you are a ‘give-er’, a ‘go-er’, or a ‘pray-er’ with EMI, may we all carry out our assignments in such a manner that one day earns us the right to hear, “Well done, my good and faithful servant!”

There’s an old African proverb inscribed on the wall in the airport in Johannesburg, South Africa, that says, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” We are very thankful for some of you who make up the team of people who have ‘gone together’ with our family by being a part of our financial support team with EMI. Many of you have been with us from the very beginning in 2007, and some have joined along the way and remained faithful ever since. If that’s not you and you ever want to join the group and be a part of our team’s ministry work, let us know.