Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Why Missionaries Fail

When I took a Missions course in college, they presented a "nut" theory as an alternative to what we believed. The "nut" theory held that:

1) Most missionaries don't know what they're doing.
2) Most mission boards don't know what they're doing.
3) Most churches that support missionaries don't know what they're doing.

After six years in Mexico, I'm convinced that all three are true. Successful pastors down here believe they are true. Most missionaries who come down here leave little or no success behind them, and most never come back.

I'll be posting two or three times a week on "Why Missionaries Fail," and I hope you'll join in with comments and suggestions.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I am Landa Gale Harmon. I am at this time teaching in South Korea at a Christian School. I went on a week on the Mission Field of Mexico in 2002. There was 16 of us from our church of about 60 people who went to Mexico City. Our trip started on Sunday after morning services. We flew to Mexico City with a stop in Texas. We landed very late on Sunday evening. We stayed at a place that at one time was a Bible College. It was like a dorm with 3 or 4 bunk beds in a room. We went sight seeing for 1/2 of the trip and did church work the other half. We had 5 or 6 teens (several of them bus kids) and I was the oldest person. (at the time I was 45) It was a wonderful trip. We passed out over 10,000 John and Roman books. It was very interesting how we saw people sitting and reading. Unlike America these people seemed turely wanting to know what the Bible says. One was even in one of the large Catholic churches in Mexico City. We went to Wednesday service at the church. Tuesday and Thursday nights were Bible studies in Mexican homes. It was a great trip. We have many happy memories and believe the Word of God will not return void. As a teen I went on a trip with our church to FL. It was there I won my first soul. I know some people have real problems on some mission trips, but I have had good memories of them. The trip to FL did have a couple of adults that got into a fight or two, but the teens were good. :) I know several missionaries that went on mission trips as teens. I think most of these trips should be several years apart because of the $ and age of the teenagers. LGH