Is The World Flat For Missions?
Despite what you might have heard in school, the world, apparently, is flat. So says a book I have been reading (actually listening to on CD in my car). It is a bestseller called “The World Is Flat” by Thomas Friedman.The author’s premise is that globalization is creating a world that is flat, primarily economically. It addresses some of the issues facing people across the country, like outsourcing, jobs moving overseas, etc. He then goes on to talk about how some of those issues affect legislation, government, and more.
While all of that is interesting to me, for us as Christians there is much more to think about. It obviously affects us in terms of the livelihood of church members in America, but it also has implications for us in terms of missions.
In terms of outsourcing jobs, businesses here in the USA move work that had been done in America to other countries where they can do the same work for a lower cost. For example, many businesses have moved their customer service call centers to countries like India where they can substantially lower their cost of doing business. Thomas Friedman goes on to say that the jobs that will be more secure and create the new middle class are those that cannot be easily replicated and / or are tied directly to the communities where they are located. Does that apply to missions as well?
In one area we have already been doing this. We have businesses we know here in America that do web site design, yet we chose to go with a Cambodian company to do our site. Why? Well, the US based companies would have charged us somewhere around $1000, but the Cambodian company we used cost us only $300. The savings was clearly worth it (and they did a great job as well). We even did most of our printing in Cambodia prior to coming back to the USA for the same reason.
But what about with regular missions work on the field? In Cambodia we have missionaries working with us from the Assemblies of God of Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, France, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia. And then there are the Cambodian pastors we work with. And don’t forget missionaries from other organizations. Do we just hand things off to them because a plane ticket from Singapore to Cambodia is cheaper than a plane ticket from the USA to Cambodia? What is our place in fulfilling the Great Commission in a world that is becoming “flat”?
I actually think that the answer is the same as it is with the business world. There are certain things that missionaries from those other countries (not to mention Cambodian pastors) do better, but there are other areas where we are still needed. It’s not about needing to do everything ourselves; we have always wanted to empower the national church and “work our way out of a job”. But we are still needed. In media ministries for example, we have been on the same page as the “Flat Earth” for a number of years.
Asia Pacific Media Ministries (the Asia Pacific wide umbrella ministry that we work with) has a philosophy of empowering the national church. Other media ministries groups try to create one centralized location / ministry center that tries to meet everybody’s needs in every country across the region. Asia Pacific Media Ministries (APMM) tries to de-centralize and empower local churches to do their own media production.
But it is still a learning / growing process. Learning to partner internationally with different groups who have different policies and priorities can be difficult.
Anyway, that’s what I’ve been trying to think through lately…
posted by Troy In Cambodia @ 1:37 AM
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