EMQ » July–September 2023 » Volume 59 Issue 4
Subversive Mission: Serving as Outsiders in a World of Need
By Craig Greenfield
IVP, 2022
220 pages
US$18.00
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Reviewed by Harry Harm, who has served cross-culturally for 38 years in North America, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Europe and is now a consultant for innovation and strategic planning for the SIL Global Sign Languages Team in Dallas, Texas.
This is the book I didn’t know I was looking for. This book is for all people who work outside of their own cultures. Most cross-cultural workers have the goal of turning over the work begun by those from outside a culture to those who are members of the culture. However, often this does not happen, or it does not happen successfully, that is, the work is turned over but then fails. Greenfield’s book describes reasons why this happens and provides a solution.
Greenfield talks about outsiders and insiders. Outsiders are people working from one culture working in another. Insiders are people working in their own cultures. (I will use his terms in the rest of the review.)
A second challenge we face in cross-cultural work is determining what roles are suitable for outsiders. Many cross-cultural workers recognize the dangers of outsiders taking roles better suited for insiders. That leaves the question as to what roles are open to outsiders.
Greenfield uses Ephesians 4:11–13 as a guide to describe the roles suitable to outsiders and how these roles differ from those suitable to insiders. Instead of being an apostle, an outsider can serve as a catalyst, a prophet as an ally, an evangelist as a seeker, a pastor as a midwife, and a teacher as a guide. Greenfield redefines these as missional roles.
For all of those who may be frozen by the fear of becoming a “white savior,” he offers positive roles suitable for outsiders. Greenfield reminds the reader that the Ephesians 4 responsibility for both insiders and outsiders is to equip believers for ministry (diakonia), which is often directed to the poor and needy (cf. Acts 6).
Interspersed with chapters describing the missional gifts, Greenfield has five chapters on the dangers we often face when coming as outsiders from a position of strength and prestige. The dangers are power, complicity, secularism, money, and individualism. Throughout the book, Greenfield makes himself vulnerable by sharing examples from his life of how he often failed to follow the principles in the book when was tempted to use his own privilege and power to solve a problem.
This is the book I didn’t know I was looking for. Why? In my 38 years of cross-cultural service, I have tried to follow what Greenfield has written. However, what was missing was a structure and a way to teach the concepts to others. This book provides that missing structure and framework.
EMQ, Volume 59, Issue 4. Copyright © 2023 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.
