The Mission Phoenix
Looking ahead to the resurrection of Lutheran global mission
Tino's Blog
Why I am no longer a missionary
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As I mentioned in the "Who I Am" page, I served as an evangelistic missionary to Venezuela from 1988 - 2001. It was my intention to continue serving as a missionary until God called me home. In 2000, I accepted the call to serve as LCMS WM Area Director for Venezuela and the Caribbean. At that time, Dr. Glenn OShoney was the executive director of LCMS WM, and he spearheaded a reorganizion of LCMS World Mission. The idea was to decentralize missions - to move decision-making out of St. Louis and closer to the "field", where regionally-based leaders who really understand what is going on could exercise regional authority. A key component was the regional leadership. OShoney's idea was to increase the deployed leaders, and decrease the St. Louis staff. So, there was supposed to be 12 Area Directors scattered around the globe, although I don't think all of the positions were ever simultaneously filled.
This idea created some tension between the Area Directors and the St. Louis staff. Naturally, the St. Louis staff felt threatened - their authority was being reduced and their job were being changed from decision-makers to support staff. After Glenn O'Shoney retired, the tension between the Area Directors and the St. Louis staff continued to increase. Some of the St. Louis staff were extremely reluctant to allow the ADs to be making the decisions. When Bob Roegner came on board as executive director, he came into a hornet's nest. He had to make a decision, and he decided in favor of the staff and against the decentralizing concept. He announced that the world areas would again be reduced to 4, but that all of us area directors would be considered for one of the new "regional director" positions. He also said that he was going to solicit the input of our partner churches for filling the regional director positions. (see "Documents" page for official news release - October 30 2003).
The partner churches in Latin America were consulted. They proposed 3 names and three names only for the director of the Latin America region: Rev. Dr. Douglas Rutt, Rev. James Tino, and Rev. Greg Klotz. One of our partner church presidents in Latin America sent a letter to LCMS WM leaders to reiterate their decision. In part, the letter said:
"In the last meeting of the ILC at Iguazu Falls (Brazil), we had the opportunity to present a list of nominees, by acclamation of all of the participating churches in the region. This list was headed by Douglas Rutt, then James Tino and Gregory Klotz. The list was in order...
For these reasons, we request that our list of nominees delivered at Iguazu Falls be taken into consideration." (The complete letter is on file in my office. I have chosen not to reproduce it here because the letter was not addressed to me; I was cc'd as a courtesy since my name was mentioned in the letter.)
My "interview" consisted of the following: Dave Birner (then the newly-appointed associate executive director for world areas) called me on my cell phone and said that LCMS WM was going to go in the direction of Ablaze, and was going to de-emphasize church planting. He asked how I felt about that. I replied that I believed the role of LCMS WM was (and is) to send cross-cultural, evangelistic, church-planting missionaries. The phone call ended, and a few months later I got my severance papers to sign from LCMS Human Resources.
Greg Klotz was never interviewed. Doug Rutt was offered a phone interview. The person who was called to the position, Dr. Jorge Groh, was not a nominee of our partner churches.
The reason I am not a missionary today is because I wanted to send LCMS missionaries overseas to preach the Gospel and plant churches, plain and simple. Any assertation to the contrary is just plain false.
Categories: Real-life Missionary Stories, Why I am no longer a missionary
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15 Comments
Jared.
Am I off base here?
The direction of Ablaze! international is, to me, not entirely clear. Certainly, Ablaze! international is not about sending LCMS missionaries to plant churches overseas. I want to be clear that I do not question the fact that the missionaries that we have overseas are doing important work. It seems to me that most LCMS members believe that Ablaze! is about sending more church-planting missionaries, and it's not. I think - not sure, but an educated guess - I think it's about helping other Lutheran partner churches to be more effective in their contexts overseas. Not a bad thing, certainly - but also, not church planting.
Hi Jim, If they didn't want to plant churches, as you suggest, did you get a sense for what they did want to do?
Jared, good question. My sense was that they wanted to turn LCMS WM in the direction of a resourcing agency - enabling others to work more effectively in their contexts. Nothing wrong with that, in and of itself. The problem is twofold: 1) "Resourcing" quickly becomes funding and the administration of funds only. 2) Teaching is another way to resource, but in order to teach effectively in another culture, you need to know and understand the language and culture of that place. Right now, we have a fairly large pool of former missionaries who have the skills to teach effectively in various cultures. But what happens as the pool dries up? Where is the next generation of missionaries who dedicated their lives to loving and serving another people, learning their language and their life-ways?
Jim, as the last career missionaries left in Vzla, we are so sad by the condition of the church and their lack of direction. People don't understand this is a group of "milk" christians and therefore need the education and presence of missionaries. They are having an election in Nov and no one qualified for president. Also, I'm wondering why in the states we all went through 2 years of catechism and here the bare necessities are taught. Do you think the unchristian actions shown by many could be lack of training - in the church members as well as Pastors?
Sandra, just to clarify for other readers, you are talking about the Lutheran Church of Venezuela (ILV). You make a great point that national churches are often predominantly newer Christians. If the church is growing, it is conversion growth, so that means a continual influx of new Christians. Many (if not most) LCMS congregations in the US never have to deal with this. In my opinion, you are right in observing that the continued presence of missionaries - perhaps in a more "apostolic" role of advisor/mentor - would be helpful.
Yes, God does sometimes do similar things, but even Paul waited years before he became a pastor and there were years before he was sent as a missionary.
Given what we can see of politics, the Venezuelan church may well be on its own in the near future; but I can't help feeling that we have abandoned them. Sigh.
Brent Friedrichs says...
As former BM, ABM, then Regional Business Manager for Africa Region - what I witnessed (accountancy and otherwise) the last 1-2 years of my service really concerned me and after 10.5 years with LCMS-WM we were left with either to completely abandon our 'calling' and settling into a LCMS-WM 'job' or resign. We tried to hang in there as long as we could but after 10.5 years it simply became impossible. The problems (for Africa Region at least) started way back in early 2005 - directives announced at the infamous Johannesburg retreat/Conference way back in January 2005. A long list of bad decisions - cause & effect - that could be listed out. Our last few months (after we announced our resignation) in LCMS-WM turned out to be an absolute horror for both my wife and I. We continue on as LCMS member missionaries and raise our support directly. We encourage others to do the same. Really the only regret we have is that we did not resign 1-3 months earlier.
Dear Brent, I am so sorry to hear of your troubles. Is this wide spread? We have been blessed by our AD as to being aware for over a year we would be dismissed. I am really concerned about the people we are leaving behind. We have found that the actions of " other missionaries other than pastoral" have had much to do with activating areas with no Pastors (native or ours). (For your info, Jim - La Pica, La Tropical, Quebra Seca, Rio Chiquito andat least 2 others are all growing.) Howerver they still direction in correct doctrine and bible studies.
While that would be a matter of discussion (those who support the work deserve a say in what the work consists of), even more problematic are the actions of the LCMS Mission Board to halt and prevent anyone else from doing that central part of mission work, the saving of souls and planting of churches. This seems to be the triggering item for this web site.
Apparently, the LCMS Mission Board has almost always operated as a monopoly. I remember hearing that in the 30s, they attempted to stop activity supporting work in China that the LCMS did not do officially. Certainly the anecdotes mentioned above all agree with that analysis.
I believe that all of our Lord's work areas should be run under Gamaliel's rule (Acts 5:33-39). When several (many) different groups are doing His work, then different approaches can used to suit the donors and the workers, and it is possible for everyone to support everyone else in problems.
Again, in terms of support patterns. Traditionally the LCMS has run mission work as a centralized agency supported out of national funding. Now they are moving towards a Faith Mission (what you call a "network") approach. In itself this is not a theological problem; although it may result in a structural problem if the LCMS Mission Board concludes that they have an exclusive right to raise money among LCMS churches. My solution would be to insist that the Board (for LCMS or independent missions) get their support the same way their missionaries do. This would help to keep the Board/support personnelle on the same wavelength as the missionaries.
Speaking to the advantages/disadvantages of the Faith Mission approach, it does involve the supporters more directly in a particular facet of mission work, which lets them be part of it. It also more closely approximates the sending conditions for Paul, Silas, and John Mark in Acts 13. The possible advantage to deployin more missionaries is dependent on the willingness of the sending agency to keep its staff and control small - otherwise the sources for the money do not change the numbers being sent. [Agreed that it might be harder to raise money for an overly ample support staffing from individual, knowledgeable donors.).
