The following is an email from Bob Lupton of FCS Ministries (article published with permission). While not specific to house churches, it is a convicting word about taking an honest look at the current western approach to missions in poor countries.

After reading this, leave a comment with your thoughts. How can house church partner with locally-led economic development?

“They’re turning my people into beggars!”  It was a painful accusation for Juan Ulloa to make.  He was a churchman, after all.  An elder.  With loyalty to the household of faith.   But when asked the question directly, he could not lie.  I had pressed him on the relationship of his micro-lending organization to the churches of Nicaragua.  Juan was the executive director of a Christian micro-finance ministry that made many thousands of small loans to Nicaraguan peasants.  It seemed to me a reasonable inquiry to understand how they worked together with local churches.  Hesitantly at first, Juan explained that there were entire sections of the country where his loan officers could not make any loans at all.  These were the regions where a concentration of churches from the U.S. conducted their mission trips.  “People say ‘Why should we borrow money when the churches give it to us?’”   
The people were right, of course.  What peasant scratching out a bare existence could refuse suitcases bulging with new clothing for his family?  What struggling pastor could resist the temptation to accept a steady salary and generous church income in exchange for hosting visitors, organizing volunteer work, and staffing funded programs?  What village would borrow money to dig a well or buy books for their school library or save money to build a church if these things were provided for them free of charge?  If all they had to do was make their wish lists, show up for the schedule arranged by the donors, and smile graciously until their benefactors head back home, who would blame them for accepting this easy charity?

No, Juan was not blaming his people for becoming beggars.  He was faulting the affluent, well-meaning U.S. church for its unexamined generosity.  His accusations, now pouring forth with considerable force, were directed at naïve “vacationaries” who spend millions of dollars traveling to his country, perform work that locals could better do for themselves, and create a welfare economy that deprives a people of the pride of their own accomplishments – all in the name of Christian service.  The unintended consequences of such mission work was undoing the very vision Juan had given his life to – helping his people emerge from poverty through training, entrepreneurship, saving and hard work.

For some reason U.S. churches, filled with results-oriented members, seem oblivious to the abysmal outcomes of many if not most mission trips.  Perhaps because it feels so good to be giving to those so much worse off, or because unconditional serving seems so Christ-like, the Western church embraces with great pride an unexamined form of charity that our nation as a whole rejected with the passage of the Welfare Reform Act of 1996.  We know that welfare creates unhealthy dependency, that it erodes a work ethic, that it does not elevate people out of poverty.  Yet, in the name of Christ, we perpetuate this very welfare principle in the way we do missions.  And the trend is growing!

A Princeton University study found that in one year (2005) 1.6 million church members took mission trips – an average of eight days – at a cost of $2.4 billion.  And the number has grown every year since.  “Religious tourism” as some call it has become a growth industry.  The web is full of agencies (denominational and para-church) ready to connect churches to a “meaningful mission experience” in an exotic location rife with human need.  The Bahamas, for example, receives one short-term missionary for every fifteen residents.

More scornful critics point to the make-work nature of many missions trips.  Like the wall built on an orphanage soccer field in Brazil that had to be torn down after the visitors left.  And the church in Mexico that was painted six times during one summer by six different missions groups.  And the church in Ecuador built by volunteers that was never used because the community said it was not needed.

But in fairness to our U.S. churches, many of our motives are noble.  We want to excite our members about missions.  We want to expose youth and adults to the needs of a hurting world.  We want to engage our people in life-changing experiences.  We desire deeply to obey the teachings of Christ to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, show compassion to the oppressed and spread the Good News.  But because we view missions through the lens of our church – that is, what will benefit our people the most, what will be most rewarding for us, what will appeal the most to our members – we neglect to consider what is in the best interests of those we would serve.

How we serve is equally important to who we serve.  Take the well that my church dug for a rural Honduran village.  The remote peasant community needed water.  The obvious solution: dig them a well.  There was great celebration when the first water was pumped to the surface and villagers filled their jugs with cold, pure water.  But when our missioners returned the following year the pump was idle and locals were again carry water from a distant supply.  We repaired the pump.  But by the time we returned the following year it had broken down again.  This happened repeatedly year after year.  The village simply waited until their benefactors returned.

Compare this experience to the remote mountain village in Nicaragua where a different strategy was employed.  A community developer, recruited from the U.S. and supported by Juan’s micro-lending organization, assisted the residents in creating a plan for a much needed well.  She arranged financing conditional upon villagers investing their own money from their meager savings.  She then connected them with a reliable Nicaraguan engineer, and helped them organize a water commission to set fees, collect water bills, manage finances and maintain their new utility.  Village men provided all the labor, digging trenches, laying water lines and setting 250 meters.  When the pump was switched on and water surged to the homes, the village erupted with pride.  Their water supply, they soon learned, was abundant – sufficient to allow them to sell water to the adjacent village.  They now owned and managed a wealth-producing asset.  The lesson: never deprive people of the satisfaction of doing for themselves.
“Above all, do no harm.”  It’s the bottom line of the Hippocratic Oath that has guided the conduct of physicians for centuries.  It is time for the Western church to apply the same principle.

PS:  Some believe that short-term missions trips whet the appetite for long-term mission involvement.  Research does not support this claim however. In spite of all the moving testimonies of “life-changing experiences” by returning short-termers and the occasional example of full-time missionaries who point to a mission trip as the catalyst for their calling, there is no evidence that missions as a whole has benefitted.  As a matter of fact, while short-term mission trips have increased dramatically over the past two decades, support of long-term missionaries has declined.  Strangely, the correlation seems to be inverse.  Perhaps because we have spent so lavishly on “religious tourism” we feel that our financial responsibility to missions has been discharged. Or is it that long-term missionaries do not serve the immediate self-interest of our church?

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does. James 1:22-25

Except for perhaps Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, looking in the mirror can be a bit unpleasant. Too many gray hairs or not enough hair, too many pounds or not enough muscles…a mirror is unbiased and unyielding.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have had the…well…privilege of having my simple church be an excellent mirror for the condition of my soul. I cannot say it has been entirely pleasant, as it revealed to me some beliefs and behaviors. However, knowing is…as they say…half the battle. I already feel God’s hand at work within me to heal and redeem these rogue areas of my life.

I do not believe these particular areas would have been so precisely revealed in what 21st century Americans consider “church.” I would venture to say that you are in good standing in most American churches if you are able to hold it together for an hour every Sunday morning and the occasional youth car wash or nursing home visit. This is a far cry from the controversial life alteration Jesus called each of His followers to.

In the past two weeks, our church network has been spending time together in our glorious mountains. People from our different house churches have met up for a picnic, hiking, camping, and just plain being together. It is this extended time together when the defenses come down and we are revealed for who we truly are.

I am blessed to have a community, an ekklesia, a church who helps serve as an incarnation of God’s word. They are God’s mirror to my soul.

This is a tremendous conference and an excellent resource opportunity. I have attended this conference, and would highly recommend it to all Colorado House Churches. With speakers like Wolfgang Simpson, Frank Viola, and Paul Young (author of The Shack), you know you will get a lot to chew on.

Below is an email from Tony Dale about the conference, click here for the House2House 2008 Conference Flyer.

I am dropping you this note to enlist your help in getting word out about the H2H National conference, and to bring you up to date information on what we believe will be accomplished by the conference. Through your mailing/emailing lists, if you are open to helping us in this way, many who are likely to be interested in what this conference is about will be able to hear and possibly decide to come because they value your perspective and endorsement.

This year, we are hosting a very special conference in Dallas, Texas. I’ve attached a flyer that explains the details of this conference. The conference is over the Labor Day weekend, which this year is the last weekend in August.

Specifically, I’m asking if you would kindly send a special one-time email blast to the people on your mailing list with your encouragement to people to seriously consider going, with the attached flyer. The subject line of the email could say something along the lines of: “The 2008 National House Church Conference.” We would like to extend our “early bird” registration rate to your contact as our thank you for you doing this email blast for us.

Registrations are already at the highest level we have ever seen for one of these National conferences. In fact they are running more than 2 X’s higher than we have ever seen for this early in the summer. The Holy Spirit is obviously drawing people. The mix of those speaking and the four “tracks” that will make up the bulk of the conference experience are also a factor in drawing people. These four tracks, of which people will be able to choose one primary track to be a part of are:

• House2Harvest-Reaching the unreached through world missions
• House2Harvest-Maximizing our workplace involvement and impact
• House2Harvest-Understanding the basics of House Church life
• House2Harvest-Relationship Christianity: Deepening our walk with God and with each other

Those speaking at the main sessions, will also each be involved, but under the facilitating leadership of others within the four tracks that will define the conference experience. We are very blessed to have the following coming as our main speakers within the plenary sessions:

• Dennis Balcombe – Missionary extraordinaire to the Chinese House Church movement.
• Wolfgang Simson – Author of “Houses That Change The World” and “The Starfish Manifesto”.
• Frank Viola – Author (with George Barna) of “Pagan Christianity” and many other books.
• Paul Young – Author of “The Shack”, which has taken the Christian world by storm over the past year.
• Felicity and I will also be involved in the plenary sessions

Although our official “early bird” registration date is already over, if you contact Paul Byerly at paul@house2house.com he will give you a “Registration Code” which when used by your contact list by June 20th will give them the same early bird registration rate as those who heard about the conference and registered early through the H2H lists. This rate will need to be limited to those who register by June 20th to help our planning processes. Please also note that the pre-conference day for network leaders and others in Christian leadership positions is already 70% full, and so if you have contacts that you think need to be a part of that pre-conference day, please urge them to register now, as we have to limit numbers there to around 100 because of limited space available at the hotel on that day.

Thank you very much for your consideration. If you have any questions, please feel very free to contact me directly.

Tony Dale on behalf of the H2H conference planning team.

People of every age, race, and class. Leaders from Virginia, Denver, Chicago, Oregon, Boston, Colorado Springs, Ottowa, L.A., Maryland, San Francisco, and… Southeast India.

“I don’t want to plant churches. Jesus said ‘I will build my church’ and he’s a lot better at it. I would rather build families, because we know the church is not somewhere we go, something we do…it is who we are.”
That is my quote/paraphrase of the opening remarks of the facilitator.

I have long desired one family under our Father, yet have seen divisions along racial, theological, denominational, and class lines.

Father, thank you for work in simple churches, small communities of faith…families which are laying aside the old divisions under the headship of Jesus Christ.

Brian

For me it all started with Neil Cole and CMA. I encourage you, yea verily exhort you…if you can make this you will go away equipped and refreshed. In my opinion the CMA Greenhouses may be the finest training available in growing healthy simple churches.

Silverthorne, CO >> Greenhouse Intensive Trainings: Story 1 & Story 2
May 16-18, 2008

Location:
LaQuinta Inn & Suites
560 Silverthorne Lane
Silverthorne, CO 80498
Schedule:
Friday Registration begins at 6:00 pm
Friday session: 6:30 pm  to 10:00 pm
Saturday session: 8:30 am  to 5:30 pm
Sunday session:   8:30 am  to Noon
Trainers:
Scott Wilson, Ed Waken, Bill Levin & Mike Lyons
Local Coordinator:
Steve VanDiest
steve.vandiest@gmail.com or 970-402-6770
Lodging:
We’ve negotiated a special rate of $60 per night at the LaQuinta Inn where the training will be held.  Call 970-468-6200 and use booking code “CMA Resources” for the special rate.

For flyers about this Greenhouse click here

Special Note: This training has been significantly underwritten by a generous gift, and we will be able to offer this special, one-time training for a low flat rate of $55.