Many Selves and Missions

In a world full of healthy local churches, what constitutes "healthy" and "local"? This is a question long obsessed over in the world of missions, and rightly so. The goal of missions is to make disciples who then group and can carry Gospel witness and disciple-making forward in their own contexts without outside reliance to do so. Disciples group and churches are born. The apostles + Paul planted churches because they were willing to witness in familiar and unfamiliar contexts, make disciples, and group them. Venn and Anderson were two missions directors in the U.S. and America, respectively. They came up with three characteristics that mark an "indigenous" church:

• self-governance
• self-supporting
• self-propagating

Over time, the "Three Selves" became synonymous with the term "indigenous" in missions circles. But the descriptors don't come without debate. First, the immediate association with indigeneity is problematic for many reasons. For example, one may be all three and be an ex-pat church. Second, some scholars have stated the terms are too limiting to the work and scope of missions. Third, some scholars have said they don't fully describe the aspiration of health, which should incorporate more "selves" (self-theologizing, for example). Those scholars in this latter camp add up to ten "selves" and some even higher. So how should we view "healthy, local" churches everywhere?

Before I provide another way to consider this challenge, let me first state that some have overanalyzed Venn and Anderson's intent. At some point, words fail and one must go with what the terms are intended to convey (which is "healthy, local church"). Venn emphasized self-supporting while Anderson emphasized self-propagating. There's another way of viewing the issue, which is to flip it from "self" to "selflessness."

Let's begin with an axiom: No mission, no church. 

This is to state that mission is how the church was established, a church exists to follow Jesus as Lord because He alone can save, Jesus is on mission to everyone everywhere, and mission is where the church ends up if they are faithful to following Jesus. Mission is the natural flow of discipleship and is the context in which spiritual maturity is developed. We go, and as we go, we grow. If we don't live to glorify God then Jesus is not Lord. If we associate "glorify" with "stand still" then we miss the heart, movement, and following of God. Jesus is still not Lord. In the Lord of the Rings, there are many rings of power, but one ring to rule them all. In Christianity, that rule is mission. "Follow me, and I'll make you fishers of men." And as they follow, Peter walks on water, people are fed with fish, lives are healed, etc. And Jesus is leading out, "Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out." Out (witness/testimony (tell)/disciple-making (teach) everywhere to everyone= mission) is the way to up.

If life with Jesus begins with giving up control of your life to Jesus (which is does), then the first act to experience a new reality, creation, and life in Christ begins with the act of giving up self. Here I would submit that in this light, Anderson's emphasis is correct, and must include Venn's emphasis to be understood. A healthy local church is one that selflessly carries the responsibility forward for bearing witness and making disciples in their context and abroad. "Jerusalem, Samaria, ends of the earth" begins from everyone's locality and moves outward. "Selfless" implies that if the "self" isn't funded, the mission goes forward. It also implies it's not about them, or their mandate, though it involves them. "Responsibility" has implications on local strategies, theological insights, and structures for carrying mission forward.

So a church that is dependent on outside resources to function may be a local church, but they aren't necessarily a healthy, local church. A church that employs strategies impersonal to their context, but effective in another is not a healthy, local church.

Moreover, a church that does not bear witness to the living God in their context is not a church. I'm not saying a church should be dumb to their context. Sometimes, the worship aspect happens in caves while the character and verbal witness happens with respect to persecution in society. We've seen that before. Even the "underground" church in Communist China or the former Soviet Bloc bore witness and made disciples (one might even argue more so because of the contrast with society). Persecuted churches are notoriously infectious in mission historically. Why? Because the main thing becomes the main thing. One ring to rule them all, not motivated by power, but God's love for everyone everywhere.

I think this is what Venn and Anderson were driving at, and so I'm not in the camp of critiquing the Three Selves too harshly. They remain a good baseline for understanding. Let's just be sure we know what we're understanding.