Diminishing Returns

This month’s whakataukī (proverb) is: “Hōhonu kaki, pāpaku nana.” (A deep neck, but a shallow outcome). The picture here is of a person who has an appetite to consume much but gives little in return. In short, the lazy glutton. But it is also a metaphor for the proverbial ‘money-pit’ that keeps consuming resources with very little result or productive outcome. For some reason, human beings insist on ‘doubling-down’ and trying harder even in the face of diminishing returns. Another related English proverb would be Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity: “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.

In the lead-up to the end of a previous leadership responsibility, the board of my organisation was becoming increasingly concerned about the lack of return on financial investment. For a decade we saw good growth, but around the last global financial crisis (2008-2011) proposed budgets were getting much harder to defend. In the grip of a wave of permanent returnees, we were seeing diminishing returns.

The theology of missions was shifting away from expatriate service to indigenous (or near culture) witness and church growth, amplified by increasingly anti-colonial sensitivities.

We liked to think of ourselves as an innovative organisation and tried different ways to recruit (and retain) more Kiwis for overseas service, but around 2010 something seriously shifted, and it wasn’t just an economic shift, although that didn’t help. It wasn’t just us either, my fellow missions directors were sharing similar concerns. At this point in history, twenty and thirty-somethings were shifting from GenX to GenY/Millennial with different ideas for, and expectations of, overseas service, and the theology of missions was shifting away from an expatriate service focus to indigenous (or near culture) witness and church growth, amplified by increasingly anti-colonial sensitivities.

No prizes for guessing that I’m a bit of a futurist. I was starting to see the writing on the wall. We were in the midst of a sea change and I believed a thorough re-think of our missiological assumptions was called for—I’m working on that still. I had more questions than answers. Understandably, my board at the time didn’t want questions, they wanted solutions. With international priorities of the organisation at the time limiting what we were able to do, I had no solutions to offer. I resigned in March 2015 after 15 years in the role. Leaving was a tough process, because I was very invested in the fellowship.

“Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.”

American social and tech commentator, Clay Shirky, created in 2010 what has become known as the Shirky Principle: “Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.” (h/t Justin Long for the quote) I fear this type of attitude is hindering many missions organisations from remaining fit for purpose for God’s mission today. I fundamentally believe God does not change, but our circumstances do, and our global context and the global Church is very different than it was even at the turn of the century. The problems have changed.

When I was new to missions, the problem was the lack of workers willing to serve “unreached” peoples. There are two problems with that problem now: 1) the workers are available and willing, they’re just not necessarily expatriates who fit our agency requirements, and 2) the objectifying of groups of people as ‘less-than’. If we switch perspectives and view God’s purpose from the perspective of World Christianity we suddenly see billions of ‘workers’ already in the harvest, in every geopolitical nation in the world, alongside pockets where the gospel is not yet germinating. I say germinating rather than planted because the seed may well already be available, through mass media or hearsay, but just not contextually comprehensible in the minds of the people.

If we were to invest deeply in co-creative relationships with believers in places where the gospel is ready to sprout indigenously in the hearts and minds of people, we will see deep outcomes.

By holding on to traditional perspectives of missions (which are, in actuality, less than 230 years old), I think we are at serious risk of missing the marvel that the Spirit of God is doing in our lifetime. World Christianity is larger and more culturally/ethnically diverse than it ever has been in the history of the Church and that changes things. Expatriate roles (whether from the West or new sending nations) are changing. The way we collaborate with local believers needs to change. What we communicate about our faith needs to be even more sensitive to contextual influences. From conversations in my current role with missions leaders in Aotearoa New Zealand, I think we understand these things a little better than most in the global missions community. Our bi-cultural context provides a bit more clarity. Kiwis are sensitive to these things and have a collaborative mindset.

I think the problem, as I am starting to see it, is not so much that we need more believers to go cross-culturally, but that we need to be willing to co-create more effectively with those already there. The problem is a lack of true unity within the global Church. If we were to invest deeply in co-creative relationships with believers in places where the gospel is ready to sprout indigenously in the hearts and minds of people, we will see deep outcomes. But if we keep consuming to defend our outsider positions of dominance or control or culturally-informed sense of ‘rightness’, we will continue to see even more shallow outcomes—diminishing returns.

The solution to a lack of gospel emergence is working alongside fellow disciples already there, or nearby. Deeper outcomes for God’s purposes await if we will humbly commit to co-creating together. In this way, we will #stayonmission.

Arohanui ki a koutou e haere ana ki te ao (love to you all as you go into the world),

Jay