To pick up with the question I posed at the end of Part 1, how do we “measure success” in missions? My reflections last year already broached the subject, and indeed, I wouldn’t say anything differently at this juncture. The point of that post, however, is that our evaluation of strategy and measurements of success must be controlled by our theology. Aside from the parting shot in the final paragraph, I did not take any steps to develop a theological framework for that purpose. Thus, I’ll embark on that task here.
It was renowned Peruvian (Arequipeño, in fact!) missiologist Samuel Escobar who pioneered the critique of what he calls “managerial missiology,” which “fails to appreciate those aspects of missionary work that cannot be measured or reduced to figures.”[1] More recently Escobar has written:
The sense of urgency about evangelization in places where the gospel has not been preached yet and an effort to formulate a long-range vision for mission are distinctive notes in the missiological school I describe as “managerial missiology.” Its basic tenet is that Christian mission can be reduced to a “manageable enterprise” thanks to the use of information technology, marketing techniques and managerial leadership. Their efforts to visualize the missionary task with “scientific” precision has led to the formulation of concepts such as “unreached peoples,” “homogeneous units,” the “10-40 window” or “adopt-a-people.” These concepts and techniques need the correction that comes from a biblical view of people. What I am seeing in the application of these concepts in the mission field is that missionaries “depersonalize” people into “unreached targets,” making them objects of hit-and-run efforts to get decisions that may be reported. Missionaries from a large American mission board that has adopted managerial missiology are now running up and down Latin American countries with their portable computers and programs to find the “unreached,” with not time or energy left to relate with their denominational brothers and sisters about partnership in missionary service. The difficult task of discipleship and building the body of Christ are bypassed in the name of managerial goals that seem designed to give their missionary center in the United States an aura of success.[2]
What makes this problematic is not the motivations and hearts of those who feel a sense of urgency about evangelization and therefore respond in culturally logical ways (i.e., as Westerners)–we should all feel a sense of urgency. Nor is it merely that the means (including the objectification and depersonalization of human beings) to a laudable end is flawed or just needs to be “balanced.” It is that the end itself actually needs theological revisioning.
For communication reasons, our team has usually spoken about the “two facets” of our mission work as “church planting” and “holistic development.” Though holistic development is actually a new concept for many of our supporters, “church planting” at least is familiar. Moreover, it is established missiological jargon. Yet, when it comes to evaluating our work (and accountability is a must!), we do not in practice or theory make the distinction between the two.
Before this post gets too long, I’ll cut to the chase. Rather than attempting to measure “church planting” (which is countable) or “holistic development” (which consists of non-profit “business practices” that are very much a part of the Western goal-and-measurement value world), we conceive of God’s mission in Arequipa in terms of kingdom sowing.
He also said, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.” (Mark 4:26-29)
The fact is that the NT nowhere speaks of “church planting,” but Jesus is very keen on comparing the kingdom with the organic dynamics of planting seed. Of course, for the distinction to be of any value, the reader must grasp the difference between kingdom and church, which have been unfortunately muddled together at times. For brevity’s sake, I’ll assume the distinction is clear and move on to the fruit of the parable.
Undoubtedly, we might approach farming from a managerial perspective: carefully controlling irrigation and fertilization, monitoring seed quality and soil acidity, and generally applying the most advanced techniques in order to produce the most bountiful harvest–and then, of course, doing cost analysis. The parable can be stretched in that direction. But doing so misses its essential theological claim: We do not produce the harvest; we merely sow. The effect of sowing the kingdom is not something we can manage. We sow the kingdom–and sow we must–but we will never be in the position to say what the outcome should be.
The parable of the sower is about the kingdom–the way that it grows. It’s unmanageableness is inherent. On a secondary level, though, the parable is also about roles. It challenges the desire to control and quantify the outcome of kingdom sowing with a different criterion: faithfulness in fulfilling our role coupled with hope and joy in witnessing God’s faithfulness in fulfilling his role.
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[1] Samuel Escobar, “A Movement Divided: Three Approaches to World Evangelization Stand in Tension with One Another” Transformation 8 no. 4 (1991): 7.
[2] Samuel Escobar, The New Global Mission: The Gospel from Everywhere to Everyone (Downers Grove: IVP, 2003), 167.
