by Maxine Talbert; reviewed by Prince Ngongo

In August, Bethany folks had an opportunity to listen in on the continuation of a conversation that began a month earlier, in the kitchen of Prince and Carrie Mitchell Ngongo, in Nairobi, Kenya. Prince shared with us three core issues concerning Western missions to Africa…

What are the expectations of missionaries, sending churches and the host community? Are they aligned with God’s idea of mission?

In his home church, Prince is a lay leader who trains disciple-makers. He asks three questions: 

(1) When you think of “mission,” what comes to mind?

The most common answer is “giving”, which usually means “meeting physical needs.” But he challenges us to think in terms of give-and-take, receiving as well as giving, in short, relationship that leads to transformed spiritual lives.

(2) What is the timeframe of mission?

Most people, he finds, think of mission as a short-term undertaking. “I will go for a year or two, and then come home.” Prince challenges us to ask what Jesus meant when he said “Go and make disciples of all nations.” Only with long-term commitment can the missionary gain the cultural understanding and the trust of the host community needed for effective mission.

(3) How is success measured?

Too often, the sending church puts pressure on missionaries to demonstrate “success” by reporting outputs (church attendance, for instance) rather than outcomes (evidence of transformed lives). Real change takes time and cannot be measured by statistics alone.

When these three expectations are not aligned with God’s mandate to disciple the nations, missions can go far afield… Knowing that the missionary expects to minister for a relatively short time (limiting prospects for deep relationship), the host community responds by doing or saying whatever is necessary to give the reportable results they know the sending church expects, in order to receive the material aid that the host community expects of the missionary.

Mission centered on incorrect expectations produces a distortion of God’s ideal. How different might the outcome look if the missionary, sending church, and host community all expected the missionary to remain long, build relationships, and mentor spiritual transformation? Which model is more aligned with the charge to “go and make disciples”?

Balancing physical and spiritual ministry

Discipleship, then, is God’s ideal. Yet the focus of most Christian missions is on ministering to physical needs. Unfortunately, many Africans have learned “compassion management”, what Prince describes as putting forward the saddest stories to elicit sympathy that engenders material aid.

Compounding this problem, NGO’s and missions tend to focus aid in urban slum areas, where population density is highest and need most visible. The concentration of material aid in urban slums actually draws the rural needy away from their homes and into the cities, where they are cut off from their support systems and customary means of production.

Prince encourages missionaries to concentrate on spiritual ministry (sprinkled with appropriate dignity-promoting material assistance, especially job opportunities), and focus in the rural areas to reverse the distorted “aid migration” to urban slums.

Partnering with African churches

Clearly, Africans are the most effective ministers to Africans, with their superior knowledge of customs, beliefs, family systems, etc. Western missionaries can partner with those African churches that are focused on spiritual transformation. Leadership training is an important component of that partnership, and, as described above, is more effective in the form of long-term mentorship than one-time teaching that is unlikely to be implemented.

(For a full transcript of Prince’s talk, please contact maxcovin@yahoo.com.)