Steve Saint, whose father was martyred with four other men trying to make contact with the Waodoni (Auca) people of Peru in 1956, had strong words to say against some of our most common missional mindsets. In a September 2011 article in the Journal for the U.S. Center for World Missions he said: 

“Our goal in planting Christ’s church where it doesn’t exist must be to produce churches that are self-propagating, self-governing and self-supporting; especially where the members come from a background of hopelessness, powerlessness and inadequate resources. The most important aspect of church planting is whatever that fledgling congregation needs most. In a growing number of cases, the greatest need new churches have is to become self-supporting.

Giving handouts creates more problems than it solves. It is like casting out demons with long leases. Break the lease or they will come back and bring more roommates (Lk 11:24–26). Where the Church is being established among people that perceive themselves as powerless, there is a great need for deep discipleship, wrestling with the roots of poverty at the community level rather than concentrating on the individual.

Financial help that does not develop sustainable, local, financial self-sufficiency is much more likely to create poverty than it is to meet real needs. Until we realize that we can’t overcome poverty with handouts, we will never be much help in completing Christ’s Great Commission.” (Click here to read the article)

It is time for a major breakthrough in how we think and thus act in terms of helping to establish and support the Church and impoverished communities in some of these difficult contexts. God has given us amazing hearts to help those in need, and this is so beautiful! In those cases of widespread catastrophe we must first stop the bleeding. But very quickly we must transfer the triage and care to the local community or they will become overly dependent on our solutions and we will become unnecessarily entrenched. In most cases, being part of the solution requires us to resist the knee jerk reaction to give benevolently when a more long-term approach of empowerment will bring much more independence and creative solutions to the local community. We must ask ourselves, “What is the potential long-term harm or benefit from our current missional approach?” “Who is in perceived leadership right now?” “How am I raising up indigenous leadership to be fully capable to do what I am now doing?” “How is my approach creating dependency?”

Please feel free to respond to these weekly Breakthroughs in Missional Thinking. We need your voice in this ongoing dialogue about how the Christian Church engages in missions in this rapidly changing world and culture.

Blessings,
Mark Mielbrecht
Director of Global Leadership Development

In the remote, impoverished and civil war-torn region of Ouelle, Ivory Coast, one of our indigenous partners gathered 870 women from twenty-one different villages and began a savings and credit association. They were able to help each other with micro-loans and many small businesses began to flourish.  Through Dominique’s leadership these women developed a business plan to purchase, use, and maintain a grain mill which cut their manual labor of grinding grain from five hours down to five minutes per day.  With this dramatic increase in available time, these women can now sell excess flour, provide for their children’s medical needs, and begin a literacy program where 600 illiterate women and their children are now learning to read and write using the Bible as their textbook.

The astounding fact is that only 2% of these women were Christians when they first gathered.  63% were animists, and 35% were Muslim.  They came together because they all shared the same real physical needs, and this new community gave them very tangible ways to not only survive, but to learn and grow, and to seek the peace and prosperity of those around them.  They are all now reading and hearing the Good News on a daily basis and have experienced Christ, incarnationally through Dominique and the other believers whom they are now in relationship with.

As you consider your own ministry context, what would it look like to enter your target community in an incarnational way?  How beautiful are your feet to the community in which you are ministering?   What is your “lead foot”, and how are you winning the right to be heard?  This is obviously a long-term approach, and doesn’t make for impressive evangelism statistics, in the beginning…  However, I believe wholeheartedly that the eventual results will be immeasurably more than we can possibly imagine and the Kingdom of God will advance in ways that are truly transforming the entire community!  

Please feel free to respond to these weekly Breakthroughs in Missional Thinking, we need your voice in this ongoing dialogue about how the Christian Church engages in missions in this rapidly changing world and culture.

Blessings,
Mark Mielbrecht
Director of Global Leadership Development

When people live in a state of despair and without hope, they often move to a state of despondence and fatalism where they don’t care about the consequences of their behavior.  In these kinds of desperate environments a missional approach of simply training, educating, giving money or establishing programs will not produce long term results.  Only through the establishment of trusting relationships and genuine friendship and love can these systemic issues of despair and hopelessness really be addressed resulting in measurable improvements over time.  When the local Church is empowered to really act as neighbors, and fathers and mothers to these vulnerable populations within a given community, it can stand alongside those in need as “oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor” (Isaiah 61:3b)

As you consider your missional approach to providing training, education, or in funding programs overseas, how are you empowering the local church to be in loving relationship with the beneficiaries?  How is your aid and relief approach connected to indigenous agencies who have established relational approaches for walking long-term with the recipients of your aid?  What changes in your approach might be needed at this point to ensure that trusting relationships and hope will be there long after you are gone?     

Please feel free to respond to these weekly Breakthroughs in Missional Thinking; we need your voice in this ongoing dialogue about how the Christian Church engages in missions in this rapidly changing world and culture.

Blessings,

Mark Mielbrecht
Director of Global Leadership Development

A friend of Breakthrough Partners told us this story about an aid and relief effort by four different churches in Minneapolis.  With compassionate hearts and a desire to help bring an end to the suffering in Haiti after the devastating earthquake of 2010, they mounted a campaign to ask everyone who bought peanut butter to buy two.  One jar for their own family and one they could donate to fill a shipping container to send to Haiti.  Everyone loves peanut butter, right?  There was just one unforeseen problem.  One of the only viable and widely grown crops for Haitian farmers in the aftermath of the destruction was peanuts.  By having thousands of jars of free peanut butter flood the Haitian distribution centers, the local market was swamped and the price of peanuts plummeted.  Unfortunately, these well-meaning churches began destroying a crucial piece to Haiti’s economic recovery without even knowing it!  

How are our well-intentioned efforts affecting those we wish to help?  How are we killing others with indiscriminate kindness?   How can we learn what is really needed in a given context?  As we know, a surgeon has diagnosed the risks and benefits of the medical procedure before he makes a single cut with the scalpel blade.  How can our approach be delicate, precise and knowledgeable in ways that will help and not hurt them?  Are we using a scalpel or a sword in our missional approach?  

Please feel free to respond to these weekly Breakthroughs in Missional Thinking, we need your voice in this ongoing dialogue about how the Christian Church engages in Missions in this rapidly changing world and culture.

Blessings,

Mark Mielbrecht
Director of Global Leadership Development ]]> http://www.breakthroughpartners.org/blog/2011/11/breakthroughs-in-missional-thinking%e2%80%a6/feed/ 0 http://www.breakthroughpartners.org/blog/2011/11/welcome-to-breakthroughs-in-missional-thinking/ http://www.breakthroughpartners.org/blog/2011/11/welcome-to-breakthroughs-in-missional-thinking/#comments Fri, 04 Nov 2011 16:57:15 +0000 buildingleaders http://www.breakthroughpartners.org/blog/?p=345 It is our hope that this collection of thoughts, ideas, rants, stories and models for doing missions will generate more innovative and necessary engagement to how we reach out and participate in Kingdom work for the sake of the nations.  The time has come to re-think how we engage, interact with, and resource those whom we are working with in a variety of contexts.  Leadership development that empowers those whom God has already raised up in their own cultures and contexts must be of paramount importance. 

Furthermore, sustainable spiritual, economic, and societal practices that are owned and adapted by indigenous missional leaders must be developed in ways that bring widespread life and vitality to a community, not dependence.  For far too long many missional paradigms can be illustrated by the robin and her nested young in the above photo.  Without the constant feeding and care by the mature robin, the blind and helpless young will simply perish.  They are absolutely dependent on her unabated procurement of more resources.  How does this picture represent some of the missional relationships that you are aware of?  How has your church or mission organization added to the dependency of the foreign mission field on Western aid and relief?  How have you begun to think of ways to empower local missional contexts to develop their own solutions to the needs of their own communities?

Please feel free to respond to these weekly Breakthroughs in Missional Thinking; we need your voice in this ongoing dialogue about how the Christian Church engages in missions in this rapidly changing world and culture.

Blessings,
Mark Mielbrecht
Director of Global Leadership Development

            Pastor Stephen Campbell of Redding, California, triggered my rainy, Seattle-weekend read of Hybels’ newest book, The Power of a Whisper [Zondervan, 2010], and I’m glad he did.  I finished the last of 260 pages and couldn’t help but compare the text to Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink.  Where Gladwell encourages readers to listen to their “gut,” Hybels encourages his audience to listen to the still small voice, uttered by a God who speaks in a language his followers can understand.

            Anecdotally rich, Hybels recalls fifty years of experiencing God who speaks through the written word, the preached word and through the faithful.  Career making and life changing, he says, of God’s whispers of which he hasn’t always been so fond.  His candor and struggle with abject obedience keeps Hybels within reach of ordinary servants who can easily identify with his stories and those of many who cite Willow [his abbreviated name for Willow Creek] as their church home.

            The perpetually youthful looking author writes like an aged veteran, prompting believers of all stripes to memorize Scripture, enhancing the venues through which God may speak in days to come.  He testifies to the dark night of the soul and confesses the help he received from Mother Theresa in navigating those silent times.

            With deep conviction, the mega-church founder tells how God led him to minister beyond the Willow campus and even the Willow Creek Association to take on extreme poverty in global areas, sanitation, impure water supplies, immigration issues, micro-enterprise, racial injustice and the need for racial reconciliation.  Out of the lime-light, God consistently challenges this multi-talented man to “do good” to those unable to fend for themselves, illustrated by a whisper to help an elderly woman carry groceries to her apartment.  In short, he champions God concern for the underdog and that’s especially telling given his birth to privilege.

            Be assured, this text isn’t a warm rehash of Hybels unquestionable success. Rather, it’s theme is one that may discourage Willow Wannabees from flocking to Barrington but if they do, they will more than likely be the better for it.

            Don’t read the book before bedtime.  It’s unsettling, moving and good fodder for preaching. 

Guest blogger – Randall Davey, Liberty Wealth Strategies, LLC

Please read the story here and think about ways that you might build trust with others and partner to help solve the big problems of your community through the creative love of Jesus.

 Gary Edmonds

There are many more stories I am sure I will share in the near future. For now, I just wanted to introduce you to my summer. I know you are praying and thinking about me and I am beyond grateful . . . Please pray I have the ability, energy and teachability to fulfill my role as intern here as I help with updating their website, taking photographs, participating in seminars and everything else that may come up.

Amahoro. Peace. 

Stephanie Muncie
Breakthrough Intern, June 2010

This last month, our leader and representative in Côte d’Ivoire, Koffi Tehua, was present in Washington D.C. with religious leaders representing Muslims, the Catholic Church and other major denominations. Koffi represented the Evangelical Protestants of the nation. The purpose of the meeting was to analyze the cause of the civil war that has kept the country divided for more than eight years. In hope, this group met to build relationships and create a plan to stop the killing and bring the people together to forge a democratically elected government. Read the document that emerged from this strategic meeting.

This past January, I asked Koffi what was the number one need of his nation. Immediately he wrote back, and in bold capital letters declared, “PEACE. Without peace we cannot raise families, educate our children, plant new churches, and develop our economy. Without peace we live in a constant state of tension, fear and conflict.” Koffi has asked me to thank all of you for the role that you play in seeking peace for the nation of Côte d’Ivoire.

To read more about Koffi and his work in Côte d’Ivoire, click here.

Gary Edmonds

Mothers making and selling necklaces.

They raise children, tend to household chores, heal wounds, provide stability for families, educate the next generation, listen to dreams, pray for the sick, work to provide daily sustenance, laugh with the joyful, love tirelessly… I am grateful for my mother. She gave and sacrificed much for the sake of our family.

The mothers that I meet in Africa matter, too. Their lives are difficult. Yet they give and sacrifice just like our mothers do. 

From my most recent trip to Cote d’Ivoire to train people for community transformation, I met Bertine. She is a dynamic mother caring for her children and grandchildren in one of the poverty infested neighborhoods of Abidjan. Two years ago she caught a vision for transformation to come to her community.  She prayed about what she could do to make life better for all. After some searching, she learned how to start a neighborhood savings and credit association. Her conviction was that if the people pulled together to save of their meager income, they could create an investment fund.  With the pooled resources, they would be able to work to make their community better. Today, 2,000 people participate in a community credit association run by Bertine and her team of 10 others. Jobs are being created. Children are being immunized. The schools now are filled with students. Unity and trust is being fostered among the citizens. Churches are becoming self-supporting. Crime is declining. Bertine matters.

This month thank mothers for the enormous role they play to make life better. And if you are able, contribute to an organization that strengthens mothers to impact impoverished communities in ways that will never be reported in our newspapers. Mothers matter!

 Gary Edmonds