Creativity and Centrality
In the world of missions strategy, I've noticed a couple of significant trends over the last 40 years. First, a tendency to assume church planting and therefore a tendency to focus on form over function. Second, a view towards execution of centralized strategy rather than the creative exploration of localized solutions and catalytic conditions. Let's take these one at a time.
I
Most church planting strategies begin with how churches multiply or how to organize a local gathering of believers. Those aren't bad conversations. But they presume a reorganization of existing Christians. Therefore, the focus isn't on how to bridge towards conversational points that help others both cross the threshold of faith (i.e., giving up control of one's life to Jesus as Lord because He alone saves), and also maturing that belief (i.e., a process or perspective on spiritual maturity as character development rather than role play in church organization or spiritual gift utilization). Therefore, the focus of most mission strategies revolve around which people groups to engage and how to manage an assumed explosive growth. Less focus is given to the discipleship of the church. In musical terms, it's a classical approach to music. One assumes that someone is motivated to play the trombone, then the task becomes about learning to read the sheet music. Stick to the notes and one becomes a musician. It's not necessarily helpful for a changing world and the nature of dynamic relationships with regard to Christian mission and witness.
II
If missions is contextual and local, then each context must creatively determine how to engage their locale. This is more difficult than it sounds because: a) people still have individual personalities and strengths, b) just like many American Christians simply want to be told what to do, so too do other Christians globally, c) there is often a unique giftedness and skillset that accompanies overarching strategic engagement, d) there are universalities to the Christian church (worship, preaching, etc.). Just like every American football team needs a quarterback or a coach, so too, missions requires someone making decisions. This need not imply any exclusion of Holy Spirit direction. One of the U.S. men's soccer team players mantras is, "Pressure is a privilege." There is a pressure that comes with directing local missions efforts, but that pressure is a privilege. More interestingly, however, is where the emphasis lies on local missions efforts. If the emphasis is on skeletal components, there's enough flexibility in the frame for different body types. If the emphasis is on the form and on replication of form (example: all churches must be house churches), then the form becomes a limiter.
It may be helpful to think of missions strategy more like learning jazz, with missionaries or missionary catalysts as jazz musicians. The art of jazz is musical expression. The discipline of jazz is having the tools (scales, chord changes, structure) and melodic lines to distinguish jazz as music from a cacophony of random musical notes. Missions strategy better works as jazz rather than classical; as creative rather than mechanistic. Creativity becomes a part of the centrality of missions strategies. In the jazz metaphor, missions strategy becomes more about defining the skills and melodic lines rather than playing note-by-note, even with beautiful phrasing. It makes missions less about efforts to spread the Word and more about efforts to develop disciples, thereby spreading the Word. This makes the process difficult, but ultimately rewarding both for the local context and the kingdom of God.
