Yesterday, I saw a claim made by an American pastor-missionary-trainer that he was heading to a nearby country to do some training with leaders from our region. Among other things, he said that one of the ‘streams’ this network of leaders represents has 100 churches in one of our sister unreached people groups. This is a group that shares the same ethnic name as our focus people group, but speaks a different related language.
100 churches! Amazing, right? The Spirit must really be on the move in this part of the world!
Here’s the problem. The long-term workers on the ground who have actually learned the language to an advanced level only know of one church among that language group, and that a very unhealthy one. Some of our dear friends have labored for years in this unreached language and are finally on the cusp of planting a church – the first healthy church in that language group. And it’s not like some political border means we can’t easily go and verify either. The entirety of this language group’s homeland is right here in the country where we and these other missionaries live, only a short drive from where we live in Caravan City.
So, who’s right? The international trainer with the exciting claims or the missionaries on the ground who can speak the locals’ mother tongue and are neck-deep in direct discipleship relationships?
Sadly, this is not an uncommon occurrence in global missions. While it usually takes place in other regions of the world, with South Asia in particular being notorious for its wild claims of movements to Christ, every once in a while, I’ll hear of some organization making similar claims for our people group or those related to it. I cannot say much about South Asia or the fantastical claims made about what is happening there. But when it comes to our corner of Central Asia, I can testify that these claims are almost always smoke and mirrors.
“I’m immediately skeptical of whoever this is.”
This was my response when I heard this week about this leader and his trainings and his claims of 100 churches among our sister people group. This is because the different factors in this sort of claim combine to make a particular sort of smell, the smell of someone taking advantage of the people of God. The odor of someone doing the kind of work that soon disappears into the wind like so much chaff, while they then move on to some other work with an even better ROI.
Here’s a formula of sorts that tends to hold up pretty well here in Central Asia, and likely across the broader missions world:
A foreigner, more often than not non-residential, who doesn’t learn the language
+ short-term translated “trainings,” often in third countries or online
+ reports of amazing numbers of disciples and churches planted
+ ministry done solely and indirectly through paid local partners
+ claims that simple New Testament methods are being rediscovered and used
+ assurances that “God is moving in an unprecedented way among ______ !”
+ lots of appeals for money
_______________________
= someone is getting played
There are variations of the above formula, of course, but the fact that someone is getting played tends to stay constant across the board when you have a combination of the above ingredients. And by someone, I primarily mean generous believers back in the West who give to the trainer’s organization because they genuinely care about the advance of the gospel. These believers back in the homeland are deceived both into giving and into thinking that God is working in ways he is not actually working. Both are terrible ways to deceive people. But I would argue the second is probably more evil than the first. Tricking people out of their money is bad, of course, but relatively mainstream as far as sin goes. But Jesus said some terrifying things about those who attribute the work of the Holy Spirit to Beelzebul (Matthew 12:31-32). What might that mean about those who deceive others into thinking something is a work of the Spirit when it’s actually a work of Mammon?
Not only that, but the effect on believers on either side of the world when they find they’ve been duped is awful. I have seen this effect firsthand among locals. For those who were unfortunate enough to first be exposed to Christianity in one of these evangelical missions money hustles, if they’re not successfully seduced into the hustle, there is a terrible moment when they realize that the leaders in this Jesus thing are just like those in Islam – hypocrites out for selfish gain. The light seems to fade from their face, and their whole demeanor sinks back into a guarded skepticism. After this, they are often unwilling to gather with believers again for years to come, if ever. Again, Jesus says terrifying things about those who cause little ones, such as new believers, to stumble (Luke 17:2). Some who are lauded as inspirational missionaries in this world will be wearing millstones in the next.
If you look again at the above formula, you’ll notice that each of the parts on its own, except for the end result, is not necessarily bad. In fact, each part can be done faithfully. For example, there are some countries where missionaries can’t get visas. It’s not always necessary or possible for someone to learn the local language in order to do solid training. Genuine movements of God have happened in church history, such as the first Great Awakening or the Korean Pentecost. Sometimes ministry needs to be done primarily through local partners, and sometimes those local partners should be paid. There are times to return to simpler NT methods when good extra-biblical traditions have become too cumbersome. And appeals for money are good when made by faithful workers, as even Paul himself modeled. Yet there’s something about combining all of these ingredients together in our current era of evangelical missions that tends to be evidence that something poisonous is taking place. Bleach is a good household tool. So is vinegar. Put them together, and you get a deadly chlorine gas.
There are three ways I’ve observed in which the foreign-trainer figure is complicit or not in the overall deception. First, there are situations where the foreign leader is himself fully deceived by the local partners, though the foreigner is a faithful Christian trying to do good work. I once knew of a solid Reformed pastor who would visit our region every year in order to partner with a local leader up in the mountains. Sadly, I would later learn this local brother he was partnering with was a textbook wolf. Like all wolves in sheep’s clothing, he was very good at deception, so he managed to secure lots of funding and visits from this faithful pastor through things like strategic photos, compelling stories, and crowded house church services full of mobilized ‘believers’ that would suddenly appear whenever this pastor happened to be in town. But this local man was the same one who was making sure that all of the residential missionaries got reported to the secret police and run out of town. This faithful pastor unfortunately died before we had the chance to expose how he was being deceived.
For non-residential leaders who want to avoid this first kind of situation, the best thing to do is to befriend trustworthy long-term missionaries or local pastors on the ground who can help you vet potential partners. These need to be missionaries or pastors who know the language and who can verify, in-person whenever possible, that your local partners are really who they say they are. For those living on the field, the best course of action to avoid this is to go ahead and learn the language and culture yourself, or to make sure that some on your team do. It’s shocking how much can be missed when partnership is happening through translation.
The second category is when the foreigner-trainer is aware that the reality of things is not exactly the same as what is being presented when they send out their newsletters. But because they feel that so much good is being done through this ministry or movement, or because they just don’t want conflict, they choose to turn a blind eye to the billows of black smoke filling the sky that seem to suggest that there is a fire somewhere around here. Those who choose this path are guilty of deceiving themselves, of people-pleasing, of foolishness, and maybe even of cowardice. Rather than continuing to listen to the voice of naivete or fear, leaders or trainers in this category need to get clarity on what is really happening in the ministry they are partnering with. Again, those in this category have no better allies than those long-termers on the ground. Then, they need to take courage, repent of their part, confront those doing the deception, and make a clean break. Yes, even if that means they are the Western guy telling the indigenous pastors that they are in sin.
The third category belongs to the actual hustlers. These are the missionary-trainer types who are fully complicit in the deception. They have learned how to tell stories, share stats, and manipulate well-meaning believers so that the money flows for the projects themselves, for their local partners, for their own dopamine hits, and for their own pockets. I hate that this is actually happening on the mission field, but it is. It’s happening even in our own corner of Central Asia. These hustler types tend to be great communicators, amazing fundraisers, skillful project managers – and wickedly good at all kinds of gaslighting and deception. Their amazing level of travel, projects, and output shields them from criticism. As does the radical-seeming nature of their work, usually being connected to some country or region that is known as militantly anti-Christian. Who wants to question the work of someone who claims to be facilitating church-planting movements in regions that have been devastated by ISIS, for example?
Those in this category are playing a very dangerous game. At best, if they are believers, then they risk making it into the kingdom by the skin of their teeth, while all their work is exposed as chaff and burned up (1 Cor 3:13-15). At worst, they are false believers whose entire lives and ministries are built around using the Great Commission for the sake of personal gain. Based on God’s wrath against those like Simon the sorcerer, Ananias and Sapphira, and Judas, I’m confident there is a special part of hell for people like this.
No particular kind of methodology is fully immune to these sorts of predatory missionaries. But some methodologies are, by their very philosophy and structure, much more compatible with deception. I’ve not often come out in my writing directly against DMM (disciple making movements) and movement methodology practitioners. I know that there are some out there who are careful believers who are trying to use these methodologies in ways that are faithful to scripture. I respect these workers’ motives, even as I disagree with them about their work. But after a couple of decades now, the evidence is mounting that the results of these methodologies are often highly questionable and concerning. At the very least, a DMM-type approach provides the perfect cover for someone who wants deceive God’s people for the sake of financial gain, whether that be a local who is deceiving his foreign partner, or locals and foreigners who are in on it together.
Every part of the above formula for someone getting played is compatible with the way DMM is often carried out on the field. Missionary ‘facilitators’ or ‘trainers’ are encouraged to be non-residential, or to not invest costly years in direct language and culture learning, but instead to increase their ROI by leaning fully on locals, who are, as is often pointed out, much cheaper to fund. Instead of long decades of direct evangelism, discipleship, and modeling by example, DMM tends to advocate short trainings where the trainees are then responsible to go out and implement what they’ve learned without any direct involvement of the missionary. DMM practitioners make all kinds of claims about astounding numbers of disciples made and churches planted, often in the parts of the world that are most resistant to the gospel. And these claims go hand in hand with claims of recovering New Testament methodology where ‘everyone is a disciple maker’ and where there are ‘no experts,’ emphases that tend to gut any real spiritual authority for the good guys, while creating all kinds of space for little tyrants to take over.
And then there’s money. Perhaps DMM practitioners in other parts of the world don’t do it this way. But here in our corner of Central Asia, DMM and lots of money changing hands absolutely go together. Of course they do. Amazing reports of gospel breakthrough in hard places inspire God’s people to give generously. And money, at least temporarily, is a wonderful lubricant to make sure a large network of locals falls in line with your particular silver-bullet methods.
Tangentially, many DMM emphases, such as its ‘no experts’ approach and dislike of formal organization and preaching, are terrible contextualization for our Central Asian culture. This means that locals will, temporarily, do what they need to in order to secure their monthly funding – or at least take enough pictures and videos to make it appear so. But once the money dries up, the locals don’t continue with their ‘disciple making.’ After all, these methods have been cooked up among Western missiologists who are stuck in their own post-institutional, egalitarian, results-driven cultural moment. Even if we don’t talk about their biblical merits or lack thereof, these approaches don’t make any sense to our Central Asian neighbors. Once the money is gone, one of my favorite old adages comes out again,
“Welcome to Central Asia, where all the methodologies come to die.”
Friends, watch out for the above formula. It is often the case that these ingredients together are a recipe for deception in missions, or at least for poor work that won’t stand the test of time. The advocates of this sort of work often sound so good. But just like grandma said, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. And as is the case when I heard about these 100 churches in our area (that don’t exist), when these ingredients are combined, someone is getting played.
Note: I followed up and did some research on the leader making these claims. Sadly, all indications are that he’s a category 3 hustler type. “Borderline criminal” is how one faithful long-time worker among that people group put it. Lord, have mercy. May God grow his church here and protect the local believers as well as those back in the West from those who would use them for selfish gain.
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Entrusted to the Dirt 
I agree wholeheartedly with your post, and it is a very sad situation, especially when it is intentional deception.
Your opening paragraphs did also make me think of the other side of the coin which I have witnessed reported in various countries.
That is, I remember on one occasion hearing/reading/watching three reports in one month, on the same country in South Asia. Each of these was from a long term worker in the country, yet from three different denominational backgrounds (all pretty sound). They each made the claim, “There are only X amount of Bible-believing churches in this area.”
Each had a different number, and each was surely not in contact with the other groups of churches. Sometimes even long term workers don’t realise how much the gospel has gone out in certain groups because they aren’t aware of other denominations’ work. Especially in countries where that work is by nature more hidden from the public eye.
I have seen this same phenomenon in multiple countries and I always chuckle when someone says, “There’s only X amount of churches in our city” etc., because, praise the Lord, it usually means there’s more than that!
Yes, our scepticism is very warranted of gigantic claims, that would be very obvious if true, and unfortunately you are correct that here in South Asia it is super common for people to be gathered together for a program with pictures, in no way indicating the presence of healthy churches. But also, we can thank the Lord that there is much going on that we don’t even know!
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A dear friend recently sent me this article, and I truly appreciate the author’s courage in calling the Christian community to attention with a plea for caution and repentance. This kind of vigilance is essential for the Body of Christ, both for those sent out and for those laboring so their countrymen may know the hope found in the Son.
Personally, I was a bit disappointed that the article concludes by placing most of the responsibility on one particular methodology. I see that as a misstep. In my own experience, I encountered the very same issues long before this specific approach was ever known within any of the networks we served. Sin and the flesh are always eager to twist motives, distort truth, and spread deception. No methodology is immune to corruption as long as human hearts are involved. Over nearly three decades in this work, I’ve seen examples across the full spectrum of approaches that have fallen into the same errors the author describes.
My hope is that we each read such reflections with humility and discernment—first examining our own hearts and temptations, then prayerfully considering how these warnings might apply in our specific contexts and partnerships. Finally, may we be willing to lovingly contend for and with those in our circles who may have fallen into these patterns, calling them not to trust in human strategies or cunning, but to renew their faith in the One who alone saves.
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