(This is the first post in a 2-part series. This one is focused on missions, and the second post is more focused on personal lessons and realizations that have come with my time on the field)
A couple weeks ago marked the 5th anniversary of my arrival in Taiwan for long-term service. I was so busy I almost forgot about it altogether, and didn't do anything special to celebrate the occasion, but it's still a noteworthy date for me. Each of the 5 years here has been quite different, and come with its share of surprises, disappointments, and small successes. In this entry I'd like to share some things I've learned as a missionary over those years.
1. People in other metacultures think differently from you (in different ways than you think they do)
I spent a lot of time reading and researching the culture of Taiwan before I came to do full-time ministry here. I also had lots of short-term experience, probably quite a bit more than the average missionary coming into a culture long term. All that was only very partial preparation for understanding the different worldviews and ways of thinking that are prevalent in Taiwan, however.What I found was that understanding a metacultural (metacultures like "Western" "Islamic" "East Asian" overly greatly diverse individual cultures to be sure, yet there are also meta-level commonalities and core values, and deeper differences from each other) level difference in thought is much more complicated than simply taking the way you would think about something and substituting a different cultural priority or core value. That's because the differences are not always parallel. People don't think as you think, just with different habits and priorities; you may run into people of greatly different cultures that you "click" with very naturally due to similarities in the way you think, and you may encounter people whose entire way of thinking seems to be a mystifying black box, with what comes out not seeming to be connected to what goes in.
My girlfriend and I have coined a useful term (useful for us, at least) in Mandarin for this idea, 想法法. (The way of your way of thinking) This differs between different personality types too, which is an added layer of complication beyond cultural differences. Using the Myers-Briggs types, for example, there are scenarios where a German or Korean ISTJ would react in very similar ways and "get" each other's way of thinking, where befriending the Korean ISTJ or a Korean ENFP early on in one's move to Korea might result in wildly different ideas about "how Korean people think."
So it's not as simple as saying "In this situation, I would be prioritizing clear communication to solve the problem but a Chinese businessman might be prioritizing indirect communication to save face." That's not wrong, but it doesn't go deep enough, because you are thinking of it as prioritizing clear communication to solve the problem, but the Chinese businessman, while probably aware of his own desire to save face, does not necessarily think of it as prioritizing indirect communication, just talking as one does in these situations. Furthermore he has his own personality, and in the complicated interaction of cultural worldviews and communication styles with individual personality and past experiences, it's hard to say which is the "head" and which is the "neck."
All that is to say, it's wise to understand cultural core values, and also wise to understand they're just one important piece of the puzzle. You want a fuller picture to navigate by, when at all possible.
2. Sometimes what we call culture fatigue is really environmental fatigue (and sometimes it's just fatigue)
More or less all long-term missionaries go through a stage called culture fatigue, which isn't the "shock" of early arrival but when those troublesome bits of the culture that are especially tiring or problematic for you or in your particular ministry context start to wear you down over time.
I've noticed, though, that the parts of "life here" that I find especially tiring are generally only partially related to the culture. For example, as I write this, New Year's Eve (Dec 31) was last night. There were some scattered fireworks and firecrackers, but the rain mostly kept things down. But if Chinese New Year's Eve this February falls on a good clear night, it will be firecracker armageddon. That one night of noise is cultural, and sleep is more or less impossible before 2 or 3AM.
But that's only the one night. Getting to sleep any night at my old apartment could be tough, because of the cars or motorcycles accelerating over the bridge near my apartment. In the U.S. there might be some rules about mufflers and things which would make a slight difference in noise levels, but not much. Essentially it's not a cultural problem at all, it's because my ministry area is near the edge of a metropolis of 7 million people. Living near a main road in a major U.S. city wouldn't be that different.
Many things we put down to culture shock are like that. It's not the culture, it's that as missionaries we have mostly chosen to live in a different environment than the ones we grew up in, or would choose to live in as adults. There are aspects of that environment that are rewarding and fascinating, and some that are inconvenient or exhausting.
Beyond that, I've noticed that when I'm exhausted, I'm in good company here. It's not as if everyone here has things good and I'm the outsider forced to struggle. Life is hard for many people, and Taipei is full of people working long hours for never-rising wages. The rampant insomnia, seasonal pollution, sometimes overcrowded metro stations, and capriciously steamy hot or clammy cold weather are all things we face together. It is true that I gave up a comparatively comfortable and less exhausting life in the States to live here and do what I do, but I knew that would be the case, and my life here is full of conveniences and comfort unknown to missionaries here decades ago, or in many other parts of the world.
So now when I'm exhausted, I don't think "I need a break from Taiwan," because it's not really about what's different about life here, and everyone else is tired too. What I really enjoy is a break in Taiwan, to do those things that made me fall in love with the place to begin with.
3. The Church may be part of the problem, but it's also the point (and the only lasting progress)
The Church is an easy target sometimes. With 2000 years of history and immeasurable impact on the world, the power and influence that accumulates in the earthly shadow cast by the kingdom of God has attracted many sinful people who did terrible things in the name of Christ, let alone the fact that believers with careers that place them in the public eye often come under heavy spiritual attack and commit grievous sins.
All this is fodder for those who want to commit the genetic fallacy and tar the Church with the sins of her individual saints (plus pretenders and wolves in sheep's clothing), as if middle-schoolers failing or cheating on their math tests should cast some kind of doubt on the legitimacy of number theory.
That being said, the Church in any locale has her problems and dysfunctions, and local churches can abound with them. Taiwanese churches have their share as well, both systemic problems sometimes accidentally introduced by missionaries doing the best they knew to do years ago, and problems in individual churches where people ought to do better, but have other priorities, just like sinful but redeemed people in any part of the world. (If I can name two examples of problems I see in churches here, one is a reliance on materials or programs from outside of Taiwan; plenty of both are available from Korean and Western churches, and little to none of it was developed in Taiwan for the needs of Taiwan. Simply translating it to Chinese doesn't make it locally effective. Another problem is that there are too many very small churches with a pastor or minister who can barely keep things going, and a congregation--often grandparents plus a few dutiful children or grandchildren--that expects all spiritual work to be done by the pastor, while most young people flock to a few large churches with better resources and an effective student ministry. Neither of these problems are anyone's "fault," but they both contribute to gridlock in effective church growth here)
When attempting to make any plan work smoothly, it's typically best to involve as few people as possible. When attempting to make any plan work smoothly when working cross-culturally with churches and church leadership, well, just don't expect that. If it didn't develop organically in the churches themselves, it probably means trying to change church culture and habits. It's not impossible, and there are wonderful success stories, but it can be tough and messy at the best of times. I've even see cultural insiders with good reputations trying to pitch ideas and completely failing because they didn't understand the culture and leadership attitude of that particular group of churches.
Due to all this, there are times when missions organizations find it easiest to work outside the domain of the local church, doing their own thing and answering to their own leadership, and interacting with churches when it's part of the strategy, or when conditions are favorable. Sometimes this happens automatically with apostolic-type church planting, in new areas where there are few or no churches to cooperate with. Perhaps too frequently, church planting is done apostolic-style because of the churches nearby.
While it's true that some churches simply aren't ready, willing, or able to cooperate effectively, we must never lose sight of the fact that the local church is the Body of Christ, incarnated in a particular area. When missionaries leave, whether to another field, retirement, or to permanently cast off the perishable, the local church, however it is, remains. One of our top priorities should be figuring out the best way to leave it healthier than we found it, yet not in ways that introduce dependency on outside resources.
4. Church planting is less about the plan (and more about the planters)
As we've tried different outreaches and activities for evangelism and to grow this little neighborhood church, two things that have become apparent is that 1) there wasn't a strong plan at the outset on how to plant the church, but also 2) that it wouldn't have mattered much because in our context, so much is based on factors we can't control. What rapidly also became apparent is that church planting is a holistic spiritual challenge that requires experience and discipline in a variety of areas. Neither my local coworker nor I had participated in a church plant before, and the past few years have been... highly instructive.
What became glaringly obvious in hindsight, after some experience, was that our team wasn't diverse enough to tackle evangelizing our neighborhood ad hoc. If you're planning an outreach aimed at families (recognizing that that mainly means moms and kids here, with the occasional dad making an appearance), you need female coworkers who can follow up with the moms that show up, and who have at least some spiritual gifting and preferably a little experience in doing so. As a youngish unmarried man, but also a foreigner here, the people I'm able to follow up with are a more selective group, and not one that typically showed up for the kinds of events and outreach strategies we used.
Temporary additions of short term workers have filled in some of the gaps in our "potential discipleship coverage", but their return home generally saw the people they attracted disperse. With a good impression of our ministry and Christians in general, to be sure, but still absent. As my Taiwanese coworker once sagely remarked, "guanxi doesn't transfer": the relationships you build with people over time can't be transferred to a coworker when it's time to leave just because you were working for a common goal.
Some basic lessons for any new community-based evangelistic ministry emerge:
1. The team should look roughly like who you're trying to reach
(Compatibility for follow-up and future discipleship should be built in, not a happy accident that requires special acts of grace to see)
2. The team should be stable, or have a stable supply of shorter term help
(And have a plan for how their period of service fits into the long term ministry goals)
3. There should be ties to the local church, however local that needs to be
(If your church is the local church, it's still a good idea to reach out to others when applicable)
4. The team should determine which things can be experimented with, and which can't be redone
(Example: Your first outreach event in a neighborhood will leave a lasting impression. People who meet you will talk to other people. Those times and events need more planning to make sure they are in line with important ministry goals, or you'll be making things tougher for yourselves at the start.)
5. We can do this (better)
When I went to seminary, I had the sort of idea that after 2000 years of perusing the same scriptures from every possible angle, what theology could be humanly known had been pretty much worked out (with, of course, various schools of thought on certain doctrines and the meaning of certain scripture passages) and we were going to learn it. What I learned instead was that while the dogmas and central doctrines of the faith have been established since the councils, there is in fact much work to be done. For example, efforts are ongoing to find period manuscripts to help decipher the hapax legomena, the words only mentioned once, to bolster our interpretations of them. The internet has provided a way for people to easily access exegetical tools and communicate biblical knowledge (enabling the promulgation of weird and apocryphal ideas to be sure, but also exposing isolated church communities to basic sound doctrine), and furthermore the task of rightly dividing the Word of God is always a new adventure, since new generations with fresh worldviews and priorities are always being born to learn of and experience God and His unchanging truth for the first time.
I had wondered if missions was not similar; if over hundreds of years of taking the gospel into different cultures, and often over a hundred years of experience in different mission boards and sending agencies, some basic effective gospel strategies and organizational wisdom had been accumulated, and the main difficulty would be the doing of it, the on-the-ground work of learning the language, building the relationships, etc.
Not so. What I found instead is that each wave/generation of missionaries comes with their own backgrounds and preconceptions, and the cultures they go to reach are sometimes changing faster even than their home cultures. (Taiwan is one example. The societal change over 3 generations here has been more like the change over 5 generations in the U.S.) What "worked so well" (I don't use quotation marks to question the truth of the statement) when some missionaries arrived seems bafflingly unfruitful when new missionaries arrive decades later, because it's a new generation witnessing to a new generation. The wine needs to be transferred to new wineskins, at times and frequencies and in ways that only wisdom, experience, and careful observation can determine well, and those things don't often line up in the joyful and stressful confusion of cross-cultural life and work. Sometimes highly motivated missionaries do great work for the kingdom, then retire, leaving a hole which cannot really be filled (and too often there was no plan or attempt to do so).
These things can't really be changed, not to mention that much kingdom fruit can only be seen when the Spirit begins to do the work we can't; so many "successful strategies" are merely a case of a mighty wind filling all sails faithfully raised, not that that particular design of sail is the one that should be used everywhere. There is a very frustrating lack of reproducibility for anyone with a business or technical background. It seems common to revert to that mentality, and seek shelter in those kinds of strategies and ministries where results can be reliably obtained through human effort.
But on the other hand, many changes in the world and society are not detrimental to the missionary task, yet missionaries have not yet, or only just, begun to make use of them. To keep up our theme of this post, here are 5 examples:
A. Use the powerful language learning tools that exist
The days of landing in a new country daunted by the prospect of a new language and enduring a stressful and possibly tearful ordeal acquiring the new language, "like drinking from a fire hose" as many vividly describe the process, in many cases can and ought to be over.
I met many exchange students from China while in seminary in Dallas (many of whom found Christ and joined churches while there, praise God). I was surprised at how good some of their English was; it wasn't just a large memorized vocabulary, but they had a strong and natural command of conversational English. I asked them how their English had gotten so good before they came to the U.S., and a few replied matter-of-factly that they'd done video chat classes with teachers in the U.S. for a while before leaving China.
So many tools are now available for widely-spoken languages that once missionaries are officially in the preparation phase for their mission, there's not really any reason not to start learning the languages then. In a new environment and culture, there are so many other challenges to face and lessons to learn that letting the full brunt of new language acquisition hit at that time is best avoided if possible. These days it can be possible.
I recognize there are two major exceptions to this: 1) When you are transferring from one field to another. Learning a language at the outset when highly motivated is one thing; adding another language on top of that one while transitioning from one busy ministry field to a less familiar one is another. 2) When you need to learn a local language, not a global one. That still doesn't stop you from video chatting with locals months before you leave, but it means fewer materials are available, and preparation for distance learning needs to be set up ahead of time.
However what I'm arguing for is more a change in attitude. Build language learning into the process of Going, and decrease its status as a barrier to people wanting to serve. I have been told that, being at least somewhat gifted with languages, I'm underestimating the stress and challenge it is for others. I understand that it's not the same for everyone, since for example as a naturally reserved introvert making new friends cross-culturally is fairly challenging for me, where it's easy for some others. But that just underlines my point; if learning languages doesn't come naturally for many people, why not make full use of the wide range of tools modern technology places at our disposal?
B. A Culture of "discipling Your replacements"
One way to reduce the impact of experienced missionaries leaving big gaps in their wake, would be if a Timothy or a bunch of them were already there when it was time for Paul to go. This is certainly no easy task, and would require a massive time and energy investment. I also know that some missionaries serve in capacities that would make this difficult. However we see both Jesus and Paul using a strategy not of "taking time away from their own ministry to disciple others", but of taking people with them to do what they do.
If a culture of discipling and mentoring (a loaded word, there's probably a better one) as an essential component of ministry was built into our missions mentality, we wouldn't view it as "taking time away from our primary ministry responsibilities" to disciple, but would always be seeking friends to minister alongside us, and discipleship would happen through that, not in spite of or apart from it.
I believe 5 years in is not too early to be thinking about this, and it's something I want to work on in 2019. If I had to leave in 5 more years, who would step in to continue the work? Or would I simply leave, taking not only the accumulated knowledge and experience of those years with me, but leaving an empty hole in the midst of the relationships I'd invested in during those years?
What if instead I had already been inviting both newer missionaries and younger people to work alongside me for years already, who can build those relationships as I do (and perhaps faster than I do), and step in to lead those ministries when I'm not available? (And be ready to lead their own) It seems worthwhile to make this a priority to a far greater degree than I've personally seen on the field, both in and out of church.
C. Millennials are natural missionaries, but need leadership
My generation, especially its younger cohort, is continually decried as fragile and unmotivated. They have left the Church in droves, and seem to have an inexplicable lack of interest in avidly pursuing the American dream. What does motivate them, to a large degree, are causes they perceive to be worth investing one's time and energy in. It grieves me that the Church missed this. At a time when an idealistic generation was growing up with the connectivity of the internet ingrained in their psyche and a peak of post-WWII resources behind them, the Church said something along the lines of: "Sit tight, we've pretty much got this Church thing figured out smoothly. Just keep showing up for the sake of showing up and some day (very far in the future), all this can be yours."
Meanwhile the World said: "Hey, young, inexperienced idealists who want to make your mark on the world. Have you noticed how unfair the world is? Let's fight injustice together!" Secular ideology provided a cause that seemed worth fighting for. The Church at first reflexively avoided this thrown-down gauntlet, and nowadays seems to be belatedly trying to gain credibility by jumping on the social justice bandwagon. (It's like much of the Church lives in a bubble 5-10 years thick. But I digress.) But it nearly lost a generation in the process, at least for now. (Only time will tell what older millennials will decide to do)
What many Millennials seem quite willing to do at any time, is reject American dream-style materialism in favor of joining causes that seem more important, on becoming the change they want to see. That's one component of a missionary spirit, but so much of it got wasted on whatever internet cause de jour or social marxist movement took the place of the soul-transforming calling that Christ has laid upon every believer. There is no power that can make the world a better place than regenerated souls on their way to another world while focused on His kingdom. Why were we not led by mature believers into that perilously joyful adventure? Is it too late to start now? (I don't think so)
D. Try more field-based recruitment
Missionaries tend to have some pretty good stories. We can also explain exactly what we're up to and how we need help, in ways that are tough for sending organizations or churches to do secondhand. Why leave most of the work of recruiting up to them? I know different organizations have different structures and procedures, but it seems natural for those who have Gone to invite others to join them in the good work that's going on.
A culture of fields or ministry focus areas keeping in better touch with their supporting churches and reaching out to others not merely to meet support requirements, but with the faithful expectation that God will lead some people who hear to come get involved with the work, might change the picture of shrinking numbers of missionaries in many fields.
Some fields in my organization have done this with success, but it took a concentrated effort and it also takes a certain number of missionaries involved to become "self-sustaining" in that sense. I believe in the Church of the 2020's, this will be an increasingly effective strategy, as it's likely that the culture in the West will continue changing in ways that make sending agency's work (and perhaps survival) harder, not easier.
E. Make it less... dramatic (?) at the outset
I am definitely speaking as a computer engineer-turned-missionary at this point, but I feel it's important to point out that the nature of long-work missionary work has a pragmatic quality to it. Yes, we seek to be all things to all people to win some, in cultures very different from our birth cultures, and it's a work only the Spirit can do in the hearts of those we seek to reach. Yes, I was "called" to Taiwan in that traditional sense that I wouldn't say is necessary to come serve God cross-culturally but definitely makes it easier in certain ways. (On the spectrum of "anxiously figuring out if you're heading in the right direction" vs. "gritting your teeth and enduring when it's tough" it pushes things much further toward the latter)
However, while a calling from God or deep conviction that inspires us to service can both push people out of the comfortable ruts of their normal lives and provide motivation when times are tough, emphasizing it so strongly and hyping up (for lack of a more respectful term) that decision to forsake everything and go to the ends of the earth, also throws up a huge barrier, one that may have been more appropriate for ages when missions agencies were focused on weeding out the unqualified from among their many applicants, not trying hard to connect with enough willing hearts and get them on the field to keep whole mission field areas from having to close up shop from lack of missionaries to continue the good work.
My own journey to the mission field certainly involved those moments of deep conviction to make the tough decisions to get here, but it was also partly inspired by visiting Taiwan and hearing missionaries share about very accomplishable tasks and needs, getting a more concrete idea of what actually needed to be done. My thinking before visiting any missionaries abroad was that I wasn't spiritual enough (or extroverted enough) to be a missionary. After visiting Taiwan and learning more, it became more a question of "Oh, there's a lot of good work for God's kingdom that needs to be done over there. It sounds like something I could learn to do... if I dare." The daring part is where some dramatic stories of God's leading and providence come in.
The World we live in provides a variety of well-defined life path options. Maximizing the comfort of your life, achieving noteworthy success, becoming the head of a happy and prosperous family, etc. As with so many things in the Church, it would be much more effective if instead of merely pointing at what the world offers/promotes and saying "missions means sacrificing all that," we actually cast a positive vision too, of what is gained and how deeply meaningful missionary life can be.
Missionary life is almost impossibly difficult at times, but life is like that anyway, even sometimes for people who spend most of their lives trying to avoid those kinds of difficulties. What better way to spend one's transient mortal life than in full-time service to your Creator, taking light into dark places, and sharing the beautiful truths of His word and watching lives be transformed by it?
The only things you can take with you to heaven are the friends God reached through you. If that's not a rational reason to jump in and get started in kingdom work, I don't know what is.
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