Christian young adults see missions as something important. But they want to change the way it is done. You may be surprised to see what they say yes and no to.
Aged in their mid 30s the young entrepreneurial couple from Europe sensed God’s calling to Asia. Thus, they decided to sell their businesses, and bring their money, skills, and faith with them into the unknown. Fundraising was not an option. Instead, they wanted to make a living through their work. In many ways they experienced that God had prepared the ground. Now they have served the Lord and the society they live in for close to ten years. Their jobs have provided for all their financial needs.
The future of missions
This couple is pioneering what the future of missions most likely will look like if today’s young adults will be allowed to decide. 31 percent of young adults asked in a survey conducted by Barna Research last year, say that they consider going as entrepreneurs if they are to serve God and do missions in another nation. A similar share (32 percent) says that they would consider going as business leaders. In the survey young adults are defined as people aged 18-34. Their interest for using entrepreneurship and business in missions is twice as high as in the group aged 35 years and above. Asked whether missionaries should run businesses, seven of ten young adults answer either “always” or “sometimes”.
Mission ointment
The survey is conducted among what Barna Research labels as “engaged, churchgoing Christians.” These are people who amongst others attend a protestant church at least once a month, are engaged in the church outside of the services and have made a commitment to Jesus that is important in their lives. The survey results serve as ointment on open wounds for everyone who has feared that new generations of believers will see missions as less important. Seventy-one percent of the teenagers asked answers that missionary work is very valuable. Seventy-two percent of the young adults say the same. Fifty percent of the young adults are open to going. They do however desire to find new ways of doing missions, and they are very skeptical towards the fundraising model of supporting those who are sent.
“27 percent of the young adults state that missionaries never should use fundraising as a way of financing their work,” says the Barna report that is named “The future of missions”. It quotes one representative of the younger generation who has been on a short-term missionary trip:
“I have fundraised but will never do it again. It is not right to ask others to pay for my dreams, in my opinion. It cheapens the work.”
Tent-faking
The Barna report shares several stories about entrepreneurs and professionals who have used their skills to serve God and people. Allan is one of them. He was a church planter for more than 12 years. Over time he felt called to the financial sector to do business as mission. Now he goes “wherever jobs and Jesus are needed”. He also trains missionaries to become good businesspeople.
“When business as mission first started, we just dressed missionaries up in business attire. They were not tentmakers, they were tent-fakers,” he shares. Now he works to change this. He also helps professionals onto the mission field.
“People who have spent their lives getting MBAs and running great companies are no longer second-class Christians, but can have an immediate Kingdom impact,” he shares.
The Barna Research report urges mission leaders to help young people to use their imagination when it comes to how they can serve as missionaries. “We must ask what kind of conversations we can lead to help people broaden their understanding of “missionary”, states the report.
By Steinar Opheim
I follow Tentmaking today since many years now. I support the vision and encourage others to do the same while I am working in the Middle East in behalf of the Kingdom.
Most of the time, I find the articles very positive and accurate so I share them wit my network. However, this time I find this article inaccurate and using wrong approaches that need to be address.
For my perspective, using survey results isn´t the right approach to argue about the topic. Particularly when is quoted a statement like this: “I have fundraised but will never do it again. It is not right to ask others to pay for my dreams, in my opinion. It cheapens the work.”
The statement has problems and is missiology incorrect. Firstly, a calling to a mission is not a person’s dream but instead is God’s movement through his church to accomplish part of his plan to nations. So, when a person thinks that a deep desire to serve God is “his or her dream”, is the beginning of several problems. This though leads the person to be a “lone ranger” rather to be a part of a larger body. Moreover, when a person thinks this way, usually the ministry towards the “sender church” is forgotten.
Again, the right way to approach mission through work and businesses is the same than always: God calls someone from a local church. This person has a calling to the nations but at the same time is accountable to his local body who send him. Regarding finances, God can provide as he wants: through a paid job (strict definition of tentmakers) or through a cash flow coming from previous finances belongings to the one is called, could be partially or fully supported by the local body. Or, the best in my opinion, in a combination of all of them.
Please, don’t send a message where individuals consider that mission is a personal dream and never forget that whoever is called within a local church is accountable to them for the mission ministry. How to finances and the reach out strategy is secondary.
Many blessings
Dear Nico,
Thanks a lot for your thorough comments to our article referring to Barna Research’s report named “The future of missions”. As you may know, Tentmaking Today has several editors and we take turns in editing the monthly issues. My name is Steinar Opheim, and I was responsible for the May issue. I am heading Tent International and am currently also a catalyst for tentmaking in the Lausanne movement. Being an educated journalist, I try to cover interesting reports within TMT’s focus area as accurately as possible. We should have referred to the Barna Research report as soon as it got published last year, but for several reasons we did not. Thus, I made an article about it now.
You write that the article is “inaccurate and using wrong approaches”. To address this, I need to know in which parts of the article you think we are referring inaccurately to Barna Research’s report. In your posting you refer to statements in the report that you conclude are not correct. This is of course fine. We who write for TMT, may also disagree with some of the content in reports we mention. We still try to refer to them as accurately as possible.
Personally, I often find very valuable material in Barna Research’s reports. “The future of missions” focuses on how the younger generation thinks about missions. These are views that we may agree or disagree with, and we can point out conclusions that we find to be theologically or historically wrong. This still does not change the findings in the survey. Through our article we wanted to point out how the younger generation’s way of thinking can be of help for people who work to recruit, train and send tentmakers. Non-tentmaking entities may choose different approaches to engage the younger generation or change their view of things. Hopefully, getting information about how people in this generation think, is still of value.