led by the ministry context

At some point in Hudson Taylor’s journey of doing mission work in China and establishing the China Inland Mission in England, he made a critical decision. The ministry strategies and plans would not be dictated by the leaders in London, but by the missionaries in China. The hope was to eliminate some cross-cultural misunderstandings and create the freedom to act quickly as needs and opportunities arose.

To this day, OMF continues such an approach. The way we phrase it now is we are “led by the ministry context.” It’s not my job as a mobilizer in the U.S. to tell the cross-cultural field workers in Asia how to evangelize and plant churches.

Instead, I get to encourage a sense of humility and servant-mindedness in prospective missionaries. Most of the short-term trip applicants I encounter have little to no overseas experience. They don’t know what they don’t know. They have ideas and visions of how ministry works in Asia which often don’t match reality. Many struggle with mismatched expectations once they arrive in a new country.

To be fair, I also have ideas and visions of how ministry works in Asia which don’t match reality! I have had to humble myself quite a bit after I waxed eloquent about how ministry works in Asia … only to find out later I was completely wrong.

Most of the time this context-driven approach is healthy and good. Like any cross-cultural endeavor, sometimes it comes with challenges.

A few years ago, I was trying hard to find short-term placements for a particular church. This church’s mission team had gone through months of prayer and ultimately decided to “adopt” an unreached people group. They invested money and time and prayer with the hope they could have a strong and strategic partnership. They were able to send a few people on vision trips and financially sponsor some children’s education. Really good stuff. I even traveled to the site myself to see if I could create new bridges and pathways for involvement. Eventually it became clear that short-term trips were more or less incompatible as part of the partnership strategy. Since then the church has continued it’s financial support, but has not been able to raise up any new long-term workers.

It made me wonder, is there a time when the “ministry context” is actually in the sending church? Or, put another way … if God is moving in a particular sending church to raise up more workers for a specific community, at what point do the leaders of the “ministry” take notice and adapt their strategy? It’s a hard question and one that’s almost purely theoretical for me. I’ve never been on the receiving end of short-term trips or lived overseas. But I have been a mobilizer for churches and individuals who desire to be involved in what God is doing overseas. I see how God is raising awareness and how believers are taking steps of faith to obey him. God is at work in both the sending and the ministry contexts.

So while I love our value of being led by the ministry context, ultimately we are all led by the Holy Spirit. He is the one who raises up workers and changes hearts to worship him. Together as senders and ministers we have the privilege of serving the same God who brings hope to the world.

…If anyone has insights from your experiences in the “ministry context” please comment below!