Dependency versus sustainability in missions in the Russian and African contexts

Abstract

All too often in missions’ history the unfortunate pattern has been to establish dependent, rather than independent, seminaries and churches that have had to struggle mightily to arrive at a point of self-sufficiency. Given this tendency, how can missionaries best foster indigenous churches, schools, and ministries that will become self-sustaining? Best practices in overcoming dependency include instruction in stewardship, bi-vocational ministry, and micro-enterprise development. Russian and African case studies of dependency and steps toward self-sustaining church life are examined. The article concludes with the details of a demonstration greenhouse project at six sites in Russia and Ukraine.

Keywords

dependency sustainability Russia Africa missions Protestant Orthodox micro-enterprise

In the early 1990s a European Christian foundation proposed help for a new Protestant seminary in Eurasia to assist it in becoming self-supporting. This school, which had an apple orchard on its property, was offered bottling equipment for the preparation of apple juice for sale. The seminary declined the donation because the administration preferred that its students be devoted full time to their studies. As long as foreign donors were underwriting a majority of the budget there was no incentive to move toward an independent existence. In contrast, in 1993 I visited another new seminary near Tula, Russia, that was already operating a farm, a canning factory, and a printing plant to help fund its theological education.

Establishing indigenous churches and ministries independent of long-term missionary support has proven difficult throughout church history. Four nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Protestant missionary leaders wrestled with this issue at great length. Two of these, Englishman Henry Venn (1796–1873) and American Rufus Anderson (1796–1880), are considered “perhaps the most influential [Protestant] missiological thinkers of the nineteenth century” (Terry, Smith, and Anderson, 1998: 208–209; see also Verkuhl, 1978: 306–307). Venn, an Anglican, headed his denomination’s largest mission agency, the Church Missionary Society (CMS), from 1841 to 1872, while Anderson of the Congregational Church headed the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions (ABCFM) from 1832 to 1866.

The ideas espoused by Venn and Anderson later came to be known as the three-self formula, that is, the establishment of churches that are self-governing, self-supporting, and self-propagating, thereby taking the initiative in leadership, finance, and evangelism (Verkuhl, 1978: 184–187). Venn came to believe that Western missionaries serving long term as “supervisors” and “paymasters” of new believers in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean was not healthy. Furthermore, he concluded, “mother churches” and their missionary societies holding on to control could “immobilize the young churches” (Verkuhl, 1978: 185; see also Verkuhl, 1971).

As early as 1844, Venn referred to the need for missionaries to work themselves out of a job, using the term “euthanasia” of missions (Williams, 1990: 4–5). And by 1855 he was using three-self language (“self-support, self-government, and self-extension”) (Terry, Smith, and Anderson, 1998: 207). Anderson, for his part, came to identical conclusions on his own, and almost as early, in 1856. Thereafter, the two mission leaders reinforced their common views in transatlantic correspondence. They were in agreement that the development of “self-propagating Christianity,” as Anderson put it, involved not only conversion of the lost and the organizing of churches, but the rapid training of indigenous clergy (Verkuhl, 1978: 186; 1967).

American Presbyterian missionary John L. Nevius (1829–1893) expanded upon the missionary principles advocated by Venn and Anderson. Soon after arriving in China in 1853, he recognized that paying new converts as evangelists, Bible distributors, and administrators perpetuated dependency (Verkuhl, 1978: 307–308). As a radical alternative, what came to be known as the “Nevius Plan” proposed that “new converts should continue their occupations and provide witness where they live.” He also maintained only outreach generated and led by indigenous believers should be undertaken (Verkuhl, 1978: 256).

The Nevius Plan made little headway in China because of the long-standing practice of Western funding and missionary control. However, in 1890 Nevius was invited to Korea where he encouraged Presbyterian missionaries, just beginning their work there, to adopt his approach (Verkuhl, 1978: 308). Resulting Korean ownership of church life and growth from an early stage and the striking successes it engendered may be attributed at least in part to the mission strategy of John Nevius (Verkuhl, 1978: 256).

Another missionary to China, Anglican Roland Allen (1864–1947), extended the ideas of Venn, Anderson, and Nevius in important ways. After service in China from 1895 to 1904, illness required his return to England. Decades of parish ministry were then followed by 16 years (1931–1947) of missionary service in Kenya. His best-known work, Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours? (1912), recommended that missionaries should quickly transfer the leadership of new daughter churches to indigenous believers, as had St. Paul. Allen pointed out that the longest the Apostle Paul remained in one location was at Ephesus (two years), and in most cases his stay was much shorter (Verkuhl, 1978: 309–310; Allen, 1927).

While the counsel of these four mission strategists deserves serious study, two eminent twentieth-century observers, Anglican mission historian Bishop Stephen Neill and Dutch missiologist Johannes Verkuyl, have pointed out needed correctives. Neill contended that too abrupt a “withdrawal of missionaries from participation” in the life of new daughter churches could retard the development of global Christianity. Similarly, Verkuyl noted that the three-self stratagem was so strong in Venn and Anderson that it appeared the two equated it with the gospel itself, whereas the New Testament is insistent that prosperous churches support less fortunate ones. Verkuyl warned, “The danger is more than illusory that the three-self formula could be exploited to justify a dismantling and severing of existing relations between churches,” which is exactly what happened in China at the hands of a Communist government. “Obviously,” Verkuhl observed, “it was a misuse of the theory, but unfortunately it does lend itself to misuse” (Verkuhl, 1978: 260, 188).

Notwithstanding the criticism, the negative impact on churches heavily dependent upon outside support should still be clear. The equally negative effect of radically independent churches absent any accountability to higher ecclesial authority is also obvious. What is needed between crippling dependence and crippling independence is a biblically based mutual interdependence. A much-beloved hymn, “Blest Be the Tie That Binds,” says it well: “We share our mutual woes, our mutual burdens bear” (see also Terry, Smith, and Anderson, 1998: 270).

What are best practices in terms of fostering free-standing, indigenous churches?

First, it would appear a concerted emphasis needs to be placed upon church instruction in stewardship, what Nevius referred to as the “cultivated habit of systematic giving” (Nevius, 1886: 60).¹ Stress upon what the Bible teaches about tithing and sacrificial giving must also be lived out by missionaries—and those who support them (Bonk, 2007: 128).

Second, bi-vocational ministry, commonplace in churches of the non-Western world, rather than full-time ministry, the norm in more prosperous regions, should be encouraged. A new church fully supporting itself from indigenous sources is far more difficult to realize if it is responsible for a full-time ministerial salary. That is why John Nevius read 1 Corinthians 7:20 to mean bi-vocational ministry: “Let each man abide in that calling wherein he was called” (KJV). And, of course, St. Paul, the author of this stratagem, was a tentmaker.

Third, micro-enterprise development can contribute to sustainability for churches, Christian missions, and charities. Helping believers obtain job skills and start small businesses can be a means of supporting the Christian cause.² Examples abound.

A group of Latvian Protestants established a successful apartment renovation business which, through tithing, helps support their church.³

In the early 1990s, a Western Christian businessman helped an orphanage in Uglich, Russia, open a pizza parlor catering to river cruise tourists. This small business taught valuable skills to orphans who were able to use them to survive when most of them were on their own at age 16.

In combatting trafficking in women, the Salvation Army in Bangladesh runs a sewing and handicraft training program for former prostitutes. Sales from its Sally Ann Shops are giving rescued women a new chance at a life with dignity.

A Christian businessman near Briansk, Russia, started an array of successful businesses: a grocery, a meat-packing plant, a hardware store, a flower shop, and a taxi company. As well as supporting his local church, this entrepreneur assists a local orphanage and provides employment for several dozen workers (McIntosh, MiniCom).

More than a decade ago, MIRT, a successful Christian publishing house in St. Petersburg, Russia, received business training and loans from Integra Venture, a Christian NGO based in Bratislava, Slovakia.

Muslims in Central Asia respected a Christian cattleman and his work ethic so much they invited him to join a local council of elders (Tunehag and McGhee, 2005: 4).

A Kyrgyz Christian believer runs a printing business which, in turn, supports his church and an outreach to homeless people and addicts. He has also “printed and distributed a special edition of the book of Proverbs” (Opprecht, 2004: 14–15).

A businesswoman in Albania sells secondhand shoes as a street vendor. The Christian development ministry, World Vision, provided a loan of $65 to allow her to replenish her inventory. Just in the first decade of the twenty-first century, World Vision provided business advice and small loans to over 50,000 mostly female clients in Eastern Europe.

In 2018 in Kostroma, Russia, the Together Fund provided young people who had aged out of orphanages with loans and grants to open a daycare center, a hair salon, and a recycling business.

One of Christianity’s greatest gifts to its followers is a sense of self-worth and God-ordained dignity that derives from the belief that every person is created in the image of God, that every human is “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Ps. 139:14), just “a little lower than the angels” (Ps. 8:5). This great news, however, can be hard to fully appreciate without the sense of self-worth that comes from providing for oneself and one’s family through honest employment. So for the good of the church and its charities business can serve God’s purposes. Micro-enterprise is not the Kingdom of God, but God can use it in building His Kingdom.

An key issue in the Russian context is the relationship of dependency versus sustainability to Orthodox missions? In answer, I examine the thought and practice of five Orthodox figures: St. Sergius of Radonezh, Archimandrite Macarius of the Altai Mission, St. John of Kronstadt, Archbishop Anastasios of Albania, and Orthodox missionary to Kenya, Professor Joseph William Black.

From the days of the Byzantine Empire forward monks and monasteries have been a major factor in the spread of Eastern Orthodox Christianity (Ivanov, 2015: 187; Anastasios, 2010: 196). Many times monasteries on the frontier have been dependent upon wealthy donors and the material and military support of the state (Latourette, 1997: 223; Patriarch, 2013). But in many other instances, monasteries have survived and spread on the basis of their own resources and initiative through agriculture, beekeeping, craft and candle manufacture, trade, and so on. Illustrative of monastic striving for self-sufficiency is the humble example of St. Sergius who “even in the days of his greatest fame tended the monastic garden” (Latourette, 1997: 584).

Archimandrite Macarius (Gloukharev) was rector of Kostroma Orthodox Seminary (1821–1824) before his missionary service in Siberia. Widely acclaimed as one of the leading Russian Orthodox missionaries of the nineteenth century, Macarius was a gifted linguist who translated biblical, liturgical, and catechetical texts into the Altai language. He is also known for his careful tutoring of converts and their spiritual nurturing through the founding of churches, schools, orphanages, a hospital, and the establishment of self-contained Orthodox settlements (Kharlampovych, 2001: 90–92, 121; Pivovarov, 2016: 434–44; 2008: 43–49). In addition, Macarius advocated reform in missionary methods that were eventually taken to heart in later decades (Struve, 1963: 36). Most relevant for the present discussion, Macarius recognized the importance of providing converts with skills that could free them from material dependence upon the Altai Mission. To that end, this practically minded missionary instructed believing former nomads in gardening and collected agricultural books and seeds for plants he wanted to introduce in the Altai (Kharlampovych, 2001: 113–114; Smirnoff, 1903: 18–19).

Father John of Kronstadt (1829–1909), canonized in 1991, likewise sought ways for his impoverished followers to become self-supporting. His compassion for the poor on the island of Kronstadt near St. Petersburg became so well known that Russia’s destitute flocked from far and wide to his side for alms. Not content just to provide emergency rations, as early as 1868, Father John conceived of a workhouse that not only would provide the poor with food, clothing, and shelter, but training in a trade. Finally opened in 1882, his House of Industry (Dom Trudoliubiia), in addition to basic necessities, provided employment and training in carpentry, boot-making, sewing, hemp-breaking, and hat-trimming. Father John’s House of Industry became a model for other faith-based workhouses across Russia (Kizenko, 2000: 75–77; Lindenmeyr, 1986: 6–8; 1996: 170–174).

Moving to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, perhaps no figure looms larger in Orthodox missions than Archbishop Anastasios (Yannoulatos), “probably the foremost Orthodox missiologist in the world today” (Veronis, 1994: 127; see also Stamoolis, 1986: 46–47, 83–85, 99–100). His labor on behalf of the promotion of Orthodox missions has been prodigious: as a leader in Orthodox student missions, especially through Syndesmos, the World Fellowship of Orthodox Youth; as editor of Porefthendes-GoYe, a bilingual Greek–English missions periodical (Anastasios, 2010: 253, 288); as a promoter of mission studies while on the faculty of the University of Athens in the 1970s; as Archbishop of East Africa in the 1980s; and as Archbishop of Albania from 1992 to the present (Anastasios, 2010: 288–289).

Most germane to sustainability in missions is Archbishop Anastasios’ oversight of the Orthodox-funded construction of Albania’s Rapuni Hydro Power Station, completed in August 2016. This ambitious undertaking—miraculous would not be too strong a description—now generates not only electricity, but income for Albanian Orthodox church construction and repairs, and educational, health, and social work ministries (Staff, 2016). In this instance Lenin’s dictum, “Electrification equals Communism,” gives way to “Electrification equals Christian compassion.”⁴

Archbishop Anastasios has had phenomenal success in raising funds for missions in east Africa and Albania from generous Orthodox donors in Greece, Cyprus, Finland, and the United States, as well as from European governments and NGOs (Black, 2019: 17). I personally have seen the fruits of these efforts in Albania—in Tirana’s striking Resurrection Cathedral, in the beautifully restored Resurrection of Christ Theological Academy near Durres, and in an impressive church-sponsored medical clinic in Tirana. And while I have great personal respect for the Archbishop, the enormous foreign support for Orthodox missions in Albania and Kenya does raise questions in terms of any move toward self-sufficiency.

In 2019, Orthodox missionary educator Dr. Joseph William Black completed a 51-page case study of the consequences of dependency for the Kenyan Orthodox Church. A senior lecturer at Nairobi’s St. Paul’s University and the Makarios III Patriarchal Orthodox Seminary, Dr. Black is remarkably candid, even courageous, in diagnosing what he considers a missions’ malady. His study also goes further than any I have read in prescribing a cure for the illness.

First, the malady: According to Black, “Dependency is strangling the Christianity out of the Orthodox Churches of western Kenya.” A prevailing “sense of entitlement,” he argues, spells a church focused on receiving rather than giving (Black, 2019: 10, 36, 46). Everything, Black contends, comes from abroad: funds for construction of churches, orphanages, health centers, schools, scholarships for students, and salaries for workers for all of the above (Black, 2019: 10, 20, 25).

All of this support, “however well-intentioned, has come with some unintended consequences” (Black, 2019: 27). With considerable passion Black bemoans a church suffering from what he defines as an addiction to an “intravenous drug of foreign money,” “a money-fueled sugar high,” and “slavery” born of “depending on someone else’s money” (Black, 2019: 28, 31, 46).

By way of illustration, Black describes “an Orthodox theological college” in Kenya in which learners have all expenses paid: full tuition, housing, meals, supplies, plus a monthly stipend and travel money. These same students threaten a strike because “They aren’t being served enough meat.” Black is troubled by would-be strikers who are paying nothing for their education but “insist that they be served even more with other people’s money” (Black, 2019: 21, 23–24). Black continues:

As a wealthy donor trying to do the right thing with one’s resources, it is a wonderful feeling to visit the mission field and see firsthand the beautiful church one’s money built, or the bustling clinic one funded, or the seminary students whose tuition one’s donation paid. And it is useful to be able to report to parishes (future donors!) back home that the church is growing, that so many schools have been built, and that scores of people have been baptized, and that this many priests have been ordained. These are the sorts of stories that we donors and concerned parishes love to hear back home. And if we can post impressive pictures of this graduating class and that consecrated Church and these happy dancing ladies at the women’s conference, then all the better. But the reality is that we are looking at pictures of churches and events that missionaries and donors built and funded and facilitated, not ministries and infrastructure that Orthodox Christians in Kenya have established and owned. And it is in the gap between the two that dependency has taken root and grown. (Black, 2019: 38)

Hothouse Christianity that would wilt on the vine without continuing infusions of foreign funds is by no means a phenomenon unique to Orthodox missions. Professor Black is articulating identical arguments made earlier by Protestants Roger Venn, Rufus Anderson, John Nevius, and Roland Allen. The difference in Africa, he suggests, is that Protestant missionaries, and even indigenous leaders, recognized decades earlier than Orthodox the debilitating effects of “the send-money approach” (Black, 2019: 5). In Black’s opinion, African Orthodox to this day do not see dependency as a problem (Black, 2019: 2, 6, 9–10, 37). “As long as everyone is getting their share of foreign donated money, the Church gives the appearance of being a functional Orthodox Church. But remove the financial crutches from the picture and the true health of parishes and institutions begins to emerge” (Black, 2019: 10). Black agrees with Kenyan Methodist Bishop Zablon Nthamburi: “The African Church will not grow into maturity if it continues to be fed by western partners. It will ever remain an infant who has not learned to walk” (Black, 2019: 29, quoting McQuilkin, 1999: 58).

Fortunately, Black offers extensive, sage advice on how to achieve self-sufficiency.

First, African Orthodox—and Western donors—must recognize that a serious problem exists. “Unless one acknowledges the reality of what dependency has done . . . in the lives of Orthodox faithful, one will never be motivated to do the hard work” of overcoming it (Black, 2019: 39).

Second, Kenya’s version of “rice Christians” must be recognized as “our problem, not someone else’s,” if African Orthodoxy is “to begin to emerge free from dependency’s chokehold” (Black, 2019: 31, 39–40).

Third, priests and parish members must “commit to relearning what stewardship and discipleship mean in the Orthodox context” (Black, 2019: 40). Black even calls for a stewardship course “mandatory for clergy and all church leaders on pain of suspension from ministry” (Black, 2019: 41).

Fourth, African Orthodox should institute a three-year plan of reduction in the “foreign crutches” of outside funding. To compensate, Western donors should be encouraged to fund indigenous income-generating projects. Examples include apartment and mill construction with rents and fees supporting parish ministries and small-scale agriculture and poultry projects with portions of profits earmarked for church budgets. Donors helping implement micro-enterprise efforts would be promoting financial independence, which in turn would help instill in Kenyan Orthodox a deeper sense of God-ordained self-worth and dignity (Black, 2019: 41–42).

Fifth, Kenyan church hierarchs should promote bi-vocational ministry so that parishes can more readily underwrite local church budgets. Black would go so far as “to call a moratorium of sending anybody to seminary who cannot already support himself with an employable skill.” Similarly, “hierarchs should refuse to ordain anyone who cannot support himself and his family with a job alongside his ministry as priest” (Black, 2019: 42).

Sixth, Kenyan Orthodox should forego church conferences funded from abroad. Instead, participants should be charged what meetings actually cost. “Eventually those who think such fellowship and teaching are important will understand the value of owning the event as their own” (Black, 2019: 43–44).

Finally, outside donors should provide training in bookkeeping “as churches and diocesan departments take responsibility for their own funding.” What is needed is “financial accountability and transparency” and “zero tolerance for corruption.” Black notes, “Besides dependency, nothing depresses the generous giving of the faithful more than . . . leaders . . . embezzling the Church’s money” (Black, 2019: 43–44).

In conclusion, sustainability in missions has been a long-standing concern of mine, at least since the early 1990s. I have discussed the issue at length with missionaries and mission leaders; I gave a paper on sustainability in missions in Moscow as far back as 2006; and for many years I edited articles on overcoming dependency for the East–West Church and Ministry Report, for which I served as editor from 1993 to 2017 (Opprecht, 2004: 14–15; Vaxby, 2011: 1–3; Chervonenko, 2017; Chervonenko with Elliott, 2017; Moyle, Davey, and Milne, 1997: 1–3; Komendant, 1996: 2, 4; Law, 1996: 2, 4; Ott, 1996: 3, 5; Davis, 1996: 3, 5; Anonymous, 2012: 1–5). Most recently I raised funds in 2014–2015 for a 2016 greenhouse project in Russia and Ukraine to demonstrate the feasibility of one approach to reducing reliance upon ministry funding from afar.

The six sites selected for greenhouses included a church-based rehab center, a group home for orphans in foster care, a ministry center for orphan graduates, and the rural homes of three low-income, bi-vocational pastors. Requirements for each site included a one-month greenhouse gardening training course on a demonstration farm near Tula and detailed record keeping. A 2018 grant permitted the printing of a detailed study of the outcomes of the greenhouse project in Russian, Ukrainian, and English (Elliott, 2017: 6; 2018). (The text in the three languages may also be downloaded at www.eastwestreport.org.) The primary purpose of the greenhouse project was to demonstrate one approach to reducing ministry dependence upon external funding. A secondary benefit was to foster in greenhouse workers a sense of dignity and self-worth that comes from contributing to one’s own livelihood. The same holds true for churches: Those that are self-supporting and self-governing can best serve the purpose of building and spreading God’s Kingdom unto the ends of the earth.

Footnotes

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author biography

Mark R. Elliott is a retired professor of modern European and Russian history and founding editor of the East-West Church and Ministry Report (1993-; www.eastwestreport.org ). Editor emeritus since 2018, he now resides in Wilmore, KY, home of Asbury University, where he did his undergraduate degree and where he taught from 1974 to 1986.

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