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Missions energy and focus is moving from the missions agency to the local (and ofter larger) church.
The way by which evangelical churches—especially in the United States and Canada—participate in global missions has undergone subtle, but significant shifts over the last few decades. I refer to this shift in missional engagement as being “from agency to church.” By “agency” I refer to the prominent role of missions agencies like YWAM or Pioneers as well as large missionary-sending denominations like the Assemblies of God or the Southern Baptist Convention. Missional engagement has taken place throughout the world primarily through these missional agencies and denominations, but this is beginning to change.
In this short series, I am not encouraging disengaging from such agencies. Actually, I have consulted with several such agencies on how they can engage the substantial trend of local churches doing their own mission sending.
Mission Through Agency
Mission agencies and denominations have long functioned as centers, both of missionary sending as well as missiological strategy and training. Agencies generally have well-established inroads in nations all around the world, with robust strategies and training to match them. Additionally, agencies often have established indigenous missions boards in local contexts around the world that partner with Western counterparts. This gives agencies a unique capacity to understand the needs and cultural mores of the context and therefore allows missionaries from the West to respond to the needs of the context with less collateral damage than a missionary who enters the culture without the insight of indigenous cultural informants.
Missions agencies and denominations have generally been funded through micro-donations from Western patrons and affiliate churches. ...
from Christianity Today Magazine
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