I had a great conversation with one of our church leaders the other night about the possibility of bringing someone from overseas to do a short-term ministry in our church sometime in the future. In other words, reverse the traditional North American mission’s model – which would be interesting to say the least. In the midst our conversation, I began to realize how much our culture’s colonial roots still exist in my thinking. I talked about the appropriate concern of making sure that this person was ready for a ministry like this and then I thought: Why don’t we assume that when we send a team to a different country that they would have those questions of us? Do we just assume that they should be grateful to have a group of North Americans minister to them? I guess it has just made me think about some of the things we assume when we interact with other cultures – often without even realizing it. Maybe our ancestor’s colonial worldview still lingers closer than we think.
Hi Bryce,
Great post. That is something me and my wife have been pondering a lot, especially since reading the book, “Revolution in World Missions”. The author, K.P. Yohannan, talks about this phenomenon and calls it “neo-colonialism”.
Kelly
Hey Bryce…
Oh I don’t think there’s any question that the colonial mentality still exists. It exists in missionaries who’ve been on the field for years. I have to be careful sometimes myself to not fall into that trap.
International Teams worldwide is just at the tipping point where we’ll soon have more missionaries serving with us from outside of North America than from within. And while that’s being viewed as a positive thing, there’s no doubt that it’s still causing a certain amount of stress within the leadership. That’s my opinion anyhow…
It’s why I’m trying to look to churches here for volunteers for the home…even though our mission’s first instinct is to try and supply help for me from NA.
It’s an easy trap to fall into even as missionaries. Don’t get me started on the North American church…that’s a whole ‘nother post! =)
genius. genius. genius.
i think the north american church could benefit A LOT by stopping sending short term mission and recieving them instead. oh my. you are a genius.
colonialism is alive and well when we have “higher” standards for the short term missions people we’ll allow to come to us than for the ones we’ll send.
i heard a short term missions trip recently tell their stories upon return from their “ministry” and one of them expressed his surprise at the intelligence of the people he’d gone to work with. he came by this honestly, but it just shows the mindset he’d grown up in. also, while much of what was said was good, there was so much of an attitude of how much we have to offer them (because of our way of life, and not necessarily anything to do with the gospel), I was wanting to puke.
I hadn’t realized how ingrained the colonial midst is and agree that “neo-colonialism” is both alive and well in our actions and thinking. I think the “Western” church could benefit from a reverse “missions” experience and in so many ways, it would bring to light our hidden colonial mindsets. I also think we need to talk about this more and ask why and how we do the things we do and have the thoughts we have.