Church Planting Mission (Alternative
Model) By: Salvador
Cariaga
Let
me first state that I do not oppose US mission teams or
US-based missionaries going overseas, especially to the
Philippines. I have and will
continue to recruit US-based workers.
I am convinced that without the presence of US
workers (long-term and short-term), our mission efforts
will not progress much. This must be a joint effort. Having
said that, we should seriously consider supporting more
local workers as well. This is an unrealized potential,
that for certain reasons, our brotherhood has not fully
utilized. I have studied this for over 20
years, and I am convinced that this is an imperative
action in order for our evangelism efforts in the Philippines
to take off. Here are my reasons:
US- based
mission teams are costly. For a team of
5 workers with families, at an average of $40,000 a
year of total annual support (salary, work fund, travel
fund, and benefits), that amounts to $200,000.00 a year
of total support. Multiply that by 5 years. That means
for every church planting effort by a team, whether
it be successful or not, it will cost about $1,000,000.00.
A
joint American-Filipino team effort will
reduce that cost by half and double the result easily.
Filipino team members can receive salaries ranging from
$150.00 to $400.00 a month. I would average the local
workers at $200 a month. At that rate, you can support
at least 20 local workers for every missionary's support.
In terms of contribution, the locals can compensate
for what the US workers lack, such as knowledge of culture,
language, people, etc.
American-led
or assisted church-planting teams are
another viable possibility. The US worker could provide
either the logistics, organizational skills, training
programs, spiritual guidance, preaching, or vision needed.
Or a local-based leader could even be the dominant worker,
and the missionary could be a support person. Either
way, this would maximize and stretch both sides.
All-Filipino
workers. I believe that we can start forming
local mission teams of 4-5 workers now with initial
US supervision and funding at a fraction of the cost
of a US-based mission team. I would put that ratio conservatively
at 1:20. For every all-US based team, you can field
as many as 20 local church-planting teams.
