Western Funding for National Workers: It's a

Mistake
East-West Church and Ministry Report, Jan 01, 1996.

Dave Davis

The Evangelical Alliance Mission (TEAM) began ministry in the former

Soviet Union (FSU) under agreement with Peter Deyneka Russian
Ministries for two years to assist with the training of national leaders
for evangelism and church-planting. Evangelical Christian-Baptist
leadership said what Russia needed was not more Western
evangelists, but more practical training for its pastors and lay leaders.
We agreed with that agenda, known as Project 250.

From the outset we employed a seminar/lecture method to instruct

Christian workers, with an initial total of 250 trained within 12 months.
Various indigenous mission and church agencies in the FSU came to
Russian Ministries and requested instruction for an additional 1,000-
1,200 candidates. How could this vast task be accomplished,
recognizing that effective training does not take place in large group
settings? TEAM's discipleship model, the individual impact concept of
"life on life," is best communicated in small group settings. As the
curriculum continued to evolve it became clear that the large seminars
of 150-250 individuals were not successful in several key areas;
namely, motivation for starting churches, exposure to new ideas and
methods, and a desire to try some of the ideas learned.

Seminars at an average cost of $5-10 per participant per day, while

inexpensive by Western standards, still are not affordable for the
average Christian in the former Soviet Union. To accomplish the task
Western ministries must model training that Slavic Christians can
emulate after outside assistance disappears. The multiplying of
indigenous churches should not and cannot depend long term on
outside personnel or money. If training costs $6 per day, it will stop
when the $6 stops. This was the right way to start, but it is not the
right way to continue. TEAM has learned from its 105 years of service
worldwide that to pay the bill early will create dependency later. TEAM
just does not accept the argument that Russia and Ukraine are worse
off financially than many other countries. Let me give some examples.
Gross national product per capita income in Russia in 1993 was

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$2,350; in Ukraine, $1,950; in Pakistan, $430; and in Chad, $200. See
"World Population Data Sheet" (Washington: Population Reference
Bureau, 1995). (Editors' note: GNP per capita figures have
comparative value but do not accurately reflect average personal
income.)

In Chad TEAM has been very cautious with funding. We do not help
with the building of churches. We do give money to the national
church association and it decides on a priority basis where the money
goes. That association of churches has over 900 congregations, 50,000
members, and over 150,000 attenders. The president of this church
has said that as long as the West gives, the people in Chad won't.

Pakistan proves this point. TEAM helped with buildings, paid for the
theological training of students, and subsidized pastors' salaries. But
today the mission has only eight congregations and about 800
members to show for 45 years of ministry. The missiology applied in
Chad, Africa, could have helped our churches sink native roots more
quickly in Pakistan. The principle TEAM tries to operate on now is: only
begin and do what the national church can carry on. We have to devise
a way to be cost-effective and indigenous to accomplish the long-term
task of training men and women in ministry skills.

TEAM now is committed to developing satellite training centers in

Moscow and in Daghestan in the Caucasus. These will be places where
churches are started and individuals are trained in the process.
Candidates will not get the training in order to be able to start a
church; rather, they will learn by doing. In particular we are
committed to creating a model that is self-sustaining and transferable.
We do not want our method to be dependent long term on foreign
expertise or finances.

TEAM also is committed to urban centers as the best way to reach a

region. We want to start churches that will be in reasonable proximity
to each other and can help one another during the initial growth years.
We want to work alongside the existing church where possible. Instead
of our Western workers becoming pastors, our goal is to assist
indigenous Christians assume pastoral responsibilities.

TEAM wants to look for areas in the FSU that have no viable churches.
We do not want to go "where Christ was already named," nor "build
upon another man's foundation," as St. Paul declared (Romans 15:20).
We are trusting God to help us reach the unreached and
underreached. We would especially like to see an indigenous church

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among the many ethnic minority groups in southern Russia and in the
Central Asian republics.

TEAM also is committed to passing on skills and assisting the people of

the former Soviet Union in a variety of ways, including medical,
linguistic, ESL, and development projects that will enable us to field
personnel widely. These professionals will open doors and at the same
time provide a basis for broad witness. By God's grace satellite training
centers and new churches will be hubs for practical help and church-
planting laboratories that can be multiplied across many republics.

Dave Davis is area director for Eurasia for The Evangelical Alliance
Mission (TEAM), Wheaton, IL

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