Travel, Proximity, and Missions Strategy
There's no way to overestimate the impact a shorter travel times have had on global missions. At one point, going to the mission field meant hopping on board a ship and spending weeks or months enroute. Today, it's exciting, but not innovative, for a church to send volunteers to hop into a metal tube and spend only a few hours to arrive in a different country to help advance missions efforts. The future will continue to shorten proximity. Consider the coming proliferation of air taxis and people-moving/cargo-moving drones:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YUv0AMq0x8
https://www.ft.com/content/b91706c6-7728-11e9-be7d-6d846537acab
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58895259
https://www.axios.com/2022/08/18/evtols-flying-taxis-supersonic-military
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/us-agency-will-review-faa-efforts-flying-taxi-rules-2022-03-07/
The FAA already has "flying taxi" regulations. And note that in the links above, the effort is global. Western Europe should have services up and moving within the next three years.
Just a few decades ago, we viewed proximity with a compass and pencil. A DOM (Director of Mission, or Superintendent, or whomever) would draw a 5-mile circle from a geographical spot, look at the churches within it, and determine if a new church plant was needed. The church planter would then move to within that radius and begin.
Then, church planters faced the realities of being "priced out" of their area. So the question shifted, "How much of a commute is "normal" for the context and how far away can the planter live while also serving the church?" Is a 30 minute commute bad if you live in L.A.? How about an hour?
Okay, let's start to extrapolate. In the future, travel times will shorten: significantly. Cars will become automated (for one cool example, check out Audi's car of 2030: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SaqSIvon_U). If a drone can, inside of a 30 minute commute, move you across States...what would you do? What is the impact on multisite churches with campus pastors? In other words, if you lengthen the distance, and keep the current commute the same, what are the implications on missions? Do global missionaries live in the U.S. and work in Europe if the commute costs the same and the distance is the same (figure 90 minutes)? Many churches, steeped in missions cost-efficiencies, will choose lower costs (especially considering currency conversion rates) with physical presence over increased costs with physical presence.
It's efficient and exciting. But is it effective? Missions Strategy needs (at least) four things to meet this coming challenge.
1. A theology of proximity. Missions needs to know what their view of geographical proximity is and why. It's going to matter for the future, and it will be challenged pragmatically in the future. Multisite churches (there are already 100+ global multisite churches I've identified right now) of all shapes and sizes will lead the way in that challenge. Missions agencies and seminaries can and should shape the conversation. Proximity matters for incarnational ministry. But it's not just visiting there. It's living there. We should know why sleeping in the mission field you work in matters to the mission.
2. Increasing frequencies of short-term mission groups. With frequency, mission options open up significantly for generating momentum in the early stages of mission work. There is a danger of robbing the locale of self-responsibility if that frequency accompanies leading or shouldering the strategic direction (especially our time) for those one is attempting to reach. But imagine short-term teams throwing weekly parties on Friday nights in an unreached area without having to stay for an entire week. Game changer.
3. Pioneer missions wild west. The good news is that futurists are projecting travel from anywhere to anywhere within 2 hours. Sound like science fiction? It does until you look at SpaceX and the privatization of space travel. The bad news is that local churches will utilize that travel to go anywhere. Pioneer missions is the heart of the romantic view of missions work. It's most generally the idea of the "civilized" to the "uncivilized" (an archaic view, but you get the drift: suburb to tribe). Now consider ANY local church with the ability to travel to ANY place in the world quickly to get to those tribes. There are missiological articles galore on the destructive nature of good intentions meeting bad execution meeting high fervor. In fact, one thing that rarely gets mentioned in the Christian common sphere is how many missionaries had to first figure out how to manage the damage wrought by previous missions efforts, before they could gain traction.
4. Stuck in the middle with you. If there's a current frustration in many churches, it's that there's a willingness to witness "over there" but a reticence to witness "right here." Just because travel time is shortened does not mean people will come together. In fact, it often has the opposite effect, which is why there are ethnic and cultural burrows in cities with dense proximities. It's not "New York" but "the Bronx vs. Queens." Many suburbians have no idea who their next door neighbor is, and neither they nor their neighbor particularly cares because they've found their own "niche." Density brings with it a longing for distinctiveness. There is no getting around the awkwardness of moving across a cultural or relational divide to enter into another relational or cultural sphere. But that is the Great Commission. Missional strategies will need to shift their influence so that "across the street" is as engaging as "around the world."
