Teaching Native People the Principle of Self-Support
By T. E. Bowen
In mission enterprises there is danger that missionaries sent from Western civilization, with its well-equipped institutions, sanitariums, schools, etc., will overlook a very important principle in giving the natives the gospel, and so fail at the beginning to train them to start out from where they are, and depend largely upon their own efforts. The gospel has power to work out its own providence; it adapts itself to its environment. Jesus in his wisdom saw best to develop resources as the church developed. He taught that the most important thing to be accomplished is the transformation of the natural heart. To Nicodemus, he unfolded this truth by saying, “Ye must be born again.” Connected with this, he laid down the principle of self-sacrifice, that others might receive the benefit of the gospel. In the Missionary Review of the World for January, 1911, appeared an article written by Chas. W. Briggs, after about eighteen years’ experience, entitled “Self-Support in the Philippine Islands.” Some valuable suggestions to missionaries are given in this article. The writer says:— “Self-support may also be promoted by adapting Western institutions, not adopting them, on the mission field. Chapel and church buildings should be adapted to the country and the economic conditions of the people. Orientals living in thatch houses or in huts of cheap materials, do not need expensive church buildings, which are beyond their means and necessarily make demands upon mission funds. There are exceptions to the strict application of this rule, but they should be exceptions. When one congregation is helped to build a church beyond its station and means of support, it is a bad example to other neighboring congregations. Human nature is such that help is likely to be taken where it can possibly be obtained.” “The missionary is in danger of not appreciating the fitness of a humble chapel or church building or school building to the people who build it and are to use it. One needs to be made over into the native, and to see from the native point of view, before passing on the fitness of a given building to its users and their environment.” “No congregation can be self-supporting when it is weighed down with a plant that is away beyond its means or tastes, and when the members thereof must simply be subjects for charity and funds from abroad. Vigor of spirit, and the independence and aggressiveness of Christ, as well as the grasping of his great principle of self-sacrifice, can not be inculcated nor fostered by institutions that may fit some other country ever so well, but be a misfit on the field in question.” “Self-support on the mission field may be promoted by definite appeal to the self-respect of the native, and to the persistent inculcation of the principles of Christian stewardship. The native Christian has something that he can give for the support of the gospel; and he will never thrive and become vigorous till he gives it to the point of making sacrifice. He is just as truly one of God’s stewards as is the millionaire Christian in the West. The great principle includes him, just as it did the poor widow who ‘cast in more than they all.’ Just because the native church is poor, and living from hand to mouth, the missionary must not neglect the matter of teaching it, and training its ministers, to the idea that they are to give every week, as the Lord prospers them. We can not afford to despise the day of small things. It is only the amount itself that is small; the principle is just as big as in the case of the rich, and obedience to it brings just as great a blessing as to them. Moreover, the missionary will find it easier to get his poor congregation to respond, and apply Christ’s great principle, than will the eloquent preacher in Christendom, when he seeks to teach stewardship principles to a wealthy congregation. And the result of such inculcation of the principles of Christian stewardship will be a vigorous, independent, self-supporting, and aggressive Christian body.” “The appeal to the self-respect of the church and the individual Christian on the mission field, is never in vain. When the young men and women workers are made to feel that the task of evangelizing their own people is their task, not that of the missionary, and when they are encouraged in doing some heroic work at this task, they respond with enthusiasm. Christ’s call for sacrifice stirs in their spirit just as it does in the spirit of the missionary. They find it is easier and far more interesting to be willing workers for the Lord, without prospect of pay from some foreign purse, than to be parasites on foreign bounty.” “I have found a blessing in working to this end by indirection, getting some young preacher to teach this, and preach it in public. This is better than for the missionary to be forever harping on it.10He may be suspected of wishing to avoid the expense of paying for the work. But the young native minister can set his own people on fire with the same thought and motive, without being suspected of ulterior motives. An organization can be brought about by indirection, with a platform demanding obedience to Christ and strenuous service for his kingdom, without a cent of pay from any mission board. If properly managed, such an organization will ring with the very spirit of patriotism and of the passion of Christ; and it is the native pastors who must do the teaching.” When we stop and ponder that, in our effort to take the third angel’s message to the waiting millions in heathen fields, we can send only a few missionary trainers, and that the real bulk of the work must be done by the natives themselves in these various countries, the principles outlined above should certainly appeal to us with great force; and surely they are in harmony with the simple Bible principle that Jesus laid down at the beginning of his work. When souls are fired with the passion that filled the heart of Jesus to reach their own people, God’s mighty Spirit will work with their consecrated, self-sacrificing efforts wherever they are put forth, and as a result souls will be won to the kingdom. Let us not despise the day of small things, and so fail to recognize the hand of God working for hearts, even though there may be no great show of churches, schools, or sanitariums in fields where the message is seeking to gain a foothold. Are not these but the later-developed fruit of the former?