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American Christians used to do international outreach largely through denominational or other institutional structures. Why is the congregation-to-congregation pattern getting so much traction?

First, there's a history in some congregations of feeling a bit separated from the denomination, if they are part of a denomination. And a growing number of congregations are independent or are part of denominations that are only loosely coordinated.

But in our conversations with pastors, there was the feeling that they wanted a direct role in supervising, overseeing, and participating in relationship with another church or ministry overseas so that they didn't have to rely on some bureaucrat saying, "This is what you should do."

What factors have laid the groundwork for this?

First, there was mission work already. Second, these connections to other congregations were sometimes the inadvertent consequence of a pastor or church member being in another country on a work or study assignment or a vacation. They got inspired and sold the congregation on doing more.

But larger organizations, such as World Relief and World Vision, have facilitated those arrangements, understanding that if churches got involved in partnering, there might be a more long-term relationship.

Another factor is that as a society, we are host to a very large number of recent immigrants. My congregation in Princeton has an ongoing relationship with a church and a school in Guatemala. It started because some of our church people got acquainted with a Guatemalan family in town.

What have congregations learned from taking this approach?

First, they learn that there is no one-size-fits-all model. They're learning to tailor their programs to local needs by listening better—unlike the example that's in my book where somebody complained that we sent a team to plant corn in Africa just like they do in Iowa and expected it to work just as well.

Second, churches have learned that they are just one of many organizations, and so they have to carve out a niche. For example, a church sending a medical team to do health screening in a village may need to coordinate with the World Health Organization or the health ministry of that country. Some African countries, like Ghana or Rwanda or Kenya, are almost saturated with churches and ngos trying to help. So they have to decide, we'll take this village and you take that village, or we'll work with you to help the churches, and we know you're going to be working on water wells or economic development. World Vision helps churches plan a comprehensive strategy so that some of the short-term relief, evangelism, and church planting happen, but some long-term infrastructure development happens as well.

Churches are also learning that short-term mission trips are a mixed blessing. Do them, but you may want to say the reason we're doing them is that they help us more than they help the host congregation. Or, we're going to do it even though we know that it's expensive and not very efficient, because it is a spiritual uplift to the people who go.

Journalist Thomas Friedman is perhaps the most popular interpreter of globalization today. How do his insights relate to the concerns of churches?

I'm a fan of Freidman's books, and in my book, I refer quite a bit to The World Is Flat. But Friedman, as good of a journalist as he is, talks to a certain cut of the population—the business elites. He suggests that you can play golf in Bangalore as easily as near Boston. Well, yes, but not that many people in a lot of countries have the wherewithal to play golf. With Friedman, you miss what's happening at the bottom of a lot of societies. I know he's mindful of those issues, but I frankly would trust what a long-term missionary or somebody from World Vision might have to say, recognizing they may know the local situation better than the national or global situation. That's one of the reasons why the U.S. State Department brings in people from churches and mission organizations, people who have boots on the ground and know what's going on.

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June 2009, Vol. 53, No. 6, Page 38