It seems to me the biggest challenge we face today in missions is this: the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. We have an estimated half-million strong cross-cultural workforce (both Western and non-Western, as well as all traditions). Here are some of my thoughts:
1. There is the obvious imbalance of deployment. 90% of our workforce is among at least nominally Christian peoples. The remainder are deployed among non-Christian peoples, with a skew toward the more open areas. To redress this imbalance requires either (a) redeployment (very sticky subject) or (b) additional recruitment.
2. There is an incredible amount of work that needs to be done. Either the efficiency of the individual worker must be increased (thus the emphasis on church planting movements in conversations today) or the number of workers must be increased (thus the emphasis on recruitment).
3. All sorts of issues (not the least of which is stress on the individual worker) means that the average worker on the field is going with less of a time commitment (e.g. everything from the short-termer checking the trip off his bucket list to the younger worker going on a 2-year commitment tops), and those workers with longer commitments (or the thought of a longer commitment) get burnt out. Worker attrition is a big problem.
4. Getting in to places and inculturating is getting more difficult. The world is globalizing (thus we have the permeation of secularization) but also reacting to this globalization (thus the increase in fundamentalism of all religions). Some areas are closing off and others are opening up. Understanding these trends and how they impact missions is imperative. At the very least they are making visas harder.
5. Some tools are viewed as the be-all-end-all solutions. Technology is increasing our connectedness but also making us feel like tech tools are the answer–when they are not.
6. There is an increasing awareness that we need to make disciples who make disciples who make disciples. Evangelistic strategies must scale to handle population growth, or they will achieve little lasting fruit. Our processes have to focus less on decisions-for-Christ and more on reproducing-disciples-of-Christ. Thus we have to move away from less spectacular stories and to more long-term process stories.
7. There are many other very significant issues (e.g. translation, dependency, financial recession, time management, member care, etc.) all of which impact our workers and lead to stress, information overload, etc.
What do you think of these issues? How are you handling them?
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