EMQ » April–June 2021 » Volume 57 Issue 2
By Kim Zovak [1]
Consider two seasoned cross-cultural workers: Jeff and Jen. Jeff was fully supported by donors in his home country to equip pastors in Southeast Asia at no cost to them. After all, he didn’t need the income and wanted to ensure as many leaders as possible could be trained since none of them had any formal training. Jen also had a call to train pastors outside her home country. Even though the need was great, she realized that it was more strategic to start by developing a team of local trainers. They charged a nominal fee so that the local bi-vocational trainers could gain some income from their work and move toward greater sustainability as an indigenous Christian training team.
Local pastors appreciated Jen’s team’s training because it was in their native language and more customized to their context but didn’t understand why they had to pay for it, when training like Jeff offered was free. Local pastors appreciated Jeff’s training and asked for other kinds of training, so Jeff eagerly found colleagues from his home country to come help cater to those needs. Jeff’s ministry partners loved the number of leaders being trained and the exciting stories in Jeff’s newsletters. But when Jeff, and his team members, needed to return to their home country, the training ministry abruptly ended. The local leaders hoped and prayed God would send other foreigners to help them.
Jen, on the other hand, steadily developed a team of local trainers to partner together in equipping local pastors. Each training event was also a trainer-the-trainer experience. Thus, as more leaders learned to design and facilitate training events, they were able to expand their ministry to other cities. When Jen eventually left the field, this flourishing ministry continued to expand their influence throughout the region.
Both of these cross-cultural workers had expertise, a call from God and a desire to contribute to make disciples in their place of calling. Both had been in their locations for years and had established good relationships with local leaders. However, their different postures, strategy, and ways of working with the locals led to a dramatic difference in what they left behind.
Consider some of the key differences between these two cross-cultural workers in table 10.1 (not all of these are identified in the previous narrative).
| Jeff’s team | Jen’s team | |
| Posture | Ministry to and for. Foreigner-led. “You need me” / “I can help.” | Ministry with, in response. Partnering with locals. “How can I participate?” |
| Strategy | Using my expertise to “do.” Delivering content, designed in a Western context, and often shared in English. | Joining what God and locals are already doing. Equipping local leaders to design content to train others in their own language. |
| Finances/Resources | Externally funded. Self-supporting cross-cultural worker retains the training resources. | Primarily self-supporting. Resource development is owned and retained by locals. |
| Language | Our / my ministry in X location to locals. | God’s work in X location through locals. |
| Long term impact | Moderate – in the individual lives ministered to. | Enormous – through the leaders and structures multiplied. |
Our Approach is Shaped by Our Culture and Assumptions
You are likely reading this article because you embrace The Great Commission and Jesus’ command to “go make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19–20). You don’t need to be convinced of the importance of cross-cultural work as you are already giving your time, talent and/or treasure to God’s global work. At the same time, most cross-cultural workers from the West have inherited a flawed missiological approach, with limited recognition of how our own cultural assumptions and ethnocentric theology have shaped and too often hindered our methodology. Like Jeff in the previous story, most of us are likely doing things that undermine our desired impact over the long haul.
Good Intent Isn’t Enough
If we are eager to serve those in less reached and less resourced parts of the world, and God is ultimately in control of the results (e.g., “[we] plant the seed, [others] water it, but God … makes things grow” [1 Corinthians 3:6–7]), are not good intentions all we need? No. Not at all. Unfortunately, intent and impact are not the same. Ever had a boss, friend, or spouse eager to support your growth by giving helpful unsolicited feedback? They want to express care by helping you improve. But to you, it is delivered as criticism, judgment, or rejection. Good intent doesn’t necessarily ensure a positive impact. Unless we can see the difference, and stop justifying our efforts through our positive intent, we will continue to miss the opportunity to learn, grow, and increase long-term positive impact. We will keep reporting success stories to donors as we unwittingly continue to disempower local leadership.
Remember the stories about the European missionaries in the fifteenth through eighteenth centuries, eager to share the “Good News” with those in colonized countries, but were stuck in their own worldview and posture of superiority? They went to colonized lands (e.g., India, Uganda, Hong Kong, Brazil), often operating from a version of this narrative: “The local people (who are not as smart, civilized, or godly as we are) need to be saved from hell and baptized into Christianity (as we the foreigners understand it).”
Many of these missionaries felt it was their God-given call to make the indigenous people more like them; and thus, were intentional in their efforts to civilize the local people’s behavior to save their souls – even when it was against their will. The missionaries went with good intentions but in their desire to educate, convert, and civilize, they regularly missed the kind of impact they could have had with a different posture and strategy. Many were so focused on their plan to bring positive benefits in accord with their worldview, that they couldn’t see the negative impact of their assumptions, the unequal power dynamic, and the ways their approach actually stripped people of agency and dignity.
Our Posture is Still a Problem
These types of cultural blind spots certainly aren’t limited to missionaries from other parts of the world and from other eras! Currently, many of us in the West are hearing our BIPOC (aka, black, indigenous, and people of color) friends tell us once again that they have been hurt, oppressed, dismissed, and unheard. Many of us, and our white evangelical churches, are confused. Certainly, we have not meant harm. Yet rather than listen to the impact we’ve had or receiving the constructive feedback, we defend ourselves and try to show we are allies. Ironically, our defensive, self-righteous posture of superiority actually illustrates the very dynamic our friends are seeking to point out! Don’t believe me? Ask a friend-of-color or go find an article, video or podcast by a BIPOC trying to help us see things from a non-white perspective.
Consider how some of our beloved American-made movies – like The Help, The Last Samurai, Remember the Titans, Dangerous Minds, The Blind Side, Avatar, and Dances with Wolves – reinforce the myth that BIPOC need to be rescued by someone white (and from outside their culture). While white characters have depth and complexity, the BIPOC characters are often simplified by racial tropes. Most of us feel inspired by these movies. Yet, the dynamics also reinforce the white-centric perspective, power, and superiority, and highlight the narrative of rescuing.
Like the early European missionaries working in colonized countries, we too are blind to our own cultural lens and fail to see the power we have or how it is having unintended negative consequences for others. We mean well and want to do good; however, our posture, habits, and approaches are not necessarily aligned with long-term sustainability and impact.
Stop Offering Solutions that Disempower
As we enter cross-cultural environments, we often encounter people with less education, less complex structures, and fewer economic resources. With great ignorance, we start to fix, educate or offer solutions. The sense of vulnerability that naturally comes from being an outsider in a new place, quickly gets replaced by know-it-all-ism, which can stem from the power of having resources. With this superficial confidence, we eagerly offer solutions rather than listen, disempower rather than empower, and seek to rescue rather than ask how we can best support local leadership. Our apparent confidence confuses those who could be our teachers, and our many words can intimidate potential partners from sharing the very information we most need. We inadvertently disempower the very people we want to see more fully thrive.
As an example, consider the team of Americans who moved to Germany to establish a contemporary style of church, hoping it would inspire Germans and serve as a model for innovative church planting. The implicit message seemed to be: “Since you aren’t doing church very creatively or effectively, we are here to help.” Some Germans were intrigued, but many local pastors saw the foreigners as arrogant. The church developed a strong ministry to recent refugees, with many coming to Christ. As the church grew, the American planter-pastors looked for more Americans, who could raise support as missionaries, to join their leadership team. While that addressed the immediately church needs, it continued to perpetuate a model that wasn’t sustainable or reproducible for the local people (or the refugees). The Americans were missing opportunities to partner with Germans in a vision for refugee ministry and to involve the refugees, who made up the majority of the church, in leadership and decision-making as part of equipping them for when they could return to their home countries and plant churches.
These Americans meant well, but they were oblivious to the potential toxicity of their paternalistic approach. Most of us know that the basic rule of mission is “don’t do for others what they can do for themselves” but in our eagerness to help and get results quickly, we often keep the power and control with ourselves, which undermines the development of local leaders.
Foreign sending organizations, like these American planters, who can raise money are eager to provide financial solutions and material resources. Yet, that is often a short-sighted assessment to the real needs. Unless there is an immediate need for relief, it is much better for the local community to get help generating and stewarding their own resources. We Western workers do the same thing with knowledge and spirituality when we enter the new culture thinking that we know best, we have more spiritual depth, and our systems are the answer the locals need. But when we take on this posture of power and control, we take away choices, dignity/esteem, ownership and work that actually helps build the discipleship and leadership of the local people.
Of course, this isn’t just an American phenomenon. I know Australians who sent a large team into Japan along with their music, leadership, and church structures to create worship experiences. I have seen Koreans, whose methods work so well in their home country, earnestly try to set up the same structures in India and SE Asia to bless and serve locals there.
Doing Better
Once we recognize that our posture, and some of our assumptions and habits, may not actually serve our longer-term goals, we can adjust how we approach cross-cultural work, and how our organizations equip, support and direct cross-cultural workers. Consider these next steps:
Take an Honest Look in the Mirror
We need to repent of how we as individuals and organizations have embraced and perpetuated a western-centric colonial paternalistic approach to our cross-cultural work. Sometimes it is really tough to see since it is so interwoven with our kingdom values and strong theology. Yet this subconscious system has amplified our blind spots and kept us from listening, learning and partnering well. While we have often had good intentions, we have failed to recognize the hurt we have caused and damage we have done. We have missed opportunities to build sustainable local leadership, and to develop partnerships of mutual respect.
Increase Our Tolerance for Ambiguity and Not Knowing
We need to be more comfortable being uncomfortable, and able to stay in a place long enough for ways forward to emerge as relationships are built and local leaders shape the conversations. It is not our intelligences or quick solutions that are most important but our curiosity and willingness to learn from the locals. They will be in that environment much longer than we as foreigners, and their ownership, ideas, confidence and learning are critical for long-term impact.
Shift Our Posture
We need to shift from an approach of doing to and for locals, to one of doing with or in response to them so that ultimately locals are leading the way. The locals we work with are not problems to be fixed or projects to manage. We can allow them to set the agenda and seek to actively use our resources to mobilize the skills and resources they already have. It is essential, unless relief work is the priority, to ensure solutions and resources come from the locals rather than from the ex-pat’s or foreign organizations. Bringing in external help (e.g., leadership, resources) can quickly undermine local initiative, ownership, and motivation. Our posture is one of partnership in joining God’s work that builds locals confidence and resourcefulness in and of themselves.
Consider the approaches to relationships in table 10.2 (modified from When Helping Hurts[2]).
| Mode of Participation | Type of Involvement of Local People | Relationship of Outsiders to Local People |
| Coercion | Local people submit to predetermined plans developed by outsiders. No real input or involvement in decision-making from locals. | Doing to |
| Compliance | Local people are assigned to tasks by outsiders; the outsiders decide the agenda and direct the process. | Doing for |
| Consultation | Local people are asked for their opinions; but outsiders make plans and determine the course of action. | Doing for |
| Cooperation | Local people work together with outsiders to determine priorities; responsibility remains with outsiders for directing the process. | Doing with |
| Co-leading Co-learning | Local people and outsiders share their knowledge to co-create goals and plans, to execute those plans, and to evaluate the results. | Doing with |
| Community Initiated | Local people set their own agenda and carry it out without outside initiators and facilitators. Outsiders respond or participate as requested, with a sensitivity to not be doing for the community what they can do for themselves. | Doing by responding to |
Change How We Define and Measure Success
Most of us need good stories and pictures of success for our donors to justify the money they are investing. Yet, good stories for donors can’t be our definition or measurement of success. Similarly, I have seen many organizations reward behaviour (e.g., longevity for ineffective workers) that are incongruent with their desired organizational outcomes.
Since what we count and measure is usually where our attention is directed, we need to ensure that our goals, priorities, and measures of success align with our long-term strategy. Thus, instead of churches we’ve planted, what about churches or ministries launched by our local partners? Rather than focusing on our front-line efforts that too often reflect a poor missiological posture/approach, we need to ensure that we are measuring the outcomes of the better approach with what we are seeking to align our work. In fact, ultimately, it is better to partner with the local leaders to define success and set priorities instead of coming from the frameworks of foreigners!
Inevitably, if we change what we measure and count, we will change the direction of our attention. Of course, we will likely need to consider how to educate donors, and recruit and equip new staff.
Be More Intentional about Diversity and Inclusion within Our Organizations
Most American mission organizations I have worked with have boards and exec teams that are all, or predominantly, white (and male). Their homogenous voices often reinforce similar perspectives, including their blind spots. Lack of diversity isn’t merely just a bad visual as an executive colleague once mentioned to my team, but it often represents that we haven’t necessarily learned to share power, esteem others, embrace a growth mindset, or actively seek out other perspectives (recognizing that ours are not necessarily the best).
My Asian friend-mentor used to nudge me during regional team meetings, saying “Do you notice that I am the only person of color in the room?” I’m embarrassed to say that I didn’t until she brought it up. And yet, once she helped me see the room from her perspective, I now notice the gender and ethnic make-up of every meeting/event I am in; knowing that is often one of the first things those who are less represented experience, so it is important for me to notice also.
In the name of getting things done or making decisions quickly, boards and leadership teams have often held to their homogeneous make-up and yet missed important information, learning and insight. It also makes such teams more complacent and resistant to change in other areas as they haven’t had to strengthen muscles to listen, to wrestle with complexity, or to embrace vulnerability that comes from not always being in control. Until organizations can see how we perpetuate the unequal power dynamics in our organizations, we will be less able to see how we take such expectations of whiteness / Western-centeredness into our cross-cultural work.
My hunch is that if Western mission organizations did a better job of diversity and inclusion within their own leadership systems (that are generally made up of people from the same home culture) this would have a profound impact on their missiology and long-term global impact.
Our Approach Directly Impacts Our Global Impact
Like the workers contrasted in the introduction of this article, we too have choices to make with our approach to cross-cultural work, and the impact we leave behind when we eventually depart. Why settle for exciting newsletter stories but with the limited long-term impact, when God is inviting us to a much deeper, longer-lasting impact? This is important for the sake of the disciples we are making, and integral in our own discipleship! By shifting our approach, tolerance for ambiguity, posture, definition / measures of success, and how we embody these values internally, we can experience big change – in ourselves, in our organizations and in our long-term global impact.
Rev. Dr. Kim Zovak is a seasoned cross-cultural worker, having lived fourteen years in Australia and China. She has served as a leadership coach, trainer, and consultant with Novo for more than nineteen years, championing leadership development systems with a variety of other not-for-profit organizations. She is an avid runner, loves travel and takes improv class as a source of spiritual formation and leader development.
NOTES
[1] This article is written by a white Western cross-cultural worker to other white Western workers. While the insights may be relevant to others, it is particularly imperative that we who have traditionally had more power and status, recognize the impact that has had, then discover the opportunities we have to change for better impact. Names of individuals and locations have often been changed to protect the workers and agencies.
[2] Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert, When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor . . . and Yourself (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2012), 148.
EMQ, Volume 57, Issue 2. Copyright © 2021 by Missio Nexus. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from Missio Nexus. Email: EMQ@MissioNexus.org.
