My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in Me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as You are in Me and I am in You. May they also be in Us so that the world may believe that You have sent Me. John 17:20-21
“Cross-cultural partnerships are on the rise. They have become a primary method in which churches and organizations engage in global missions. Partners from different cultures and contexts start working together with the hope of accomplishing great things for the kingdom of God. Yet despite their noble dreams and aspirations, working through cultural differences that surround money can become overwhelming at times. Over the years I have witnessed often that these cultural differences about how funds are utilized and accounted for cause cross-cultural partnerships to become unglued. When this happens, many relationships are ruptured and the witness of Christ is hindered.”
Mary T. Lederleitner in Cross-Cultural Partnerships: Navigating the Complexities of Money and Mission (Downers Grove: IVP, 2012) 21.
Lederleitner is a respected colleague. I am exploring ideas in her book as part of a growing effort to understand cross-cultural partnerships as it relates to global generosity. Let me explain. If GTP connects the generosity of Christians with big challenges in countries, we must make sure partners use the funds in a way that exhibits consistency and transparency so that faithful stewardship fosters local generous giving and sustainability.
For example, our Palmful of Maize project is spreading across Malawi. It’s making the national news as community and tribal leaders is 6 of 28 districts (think 6 of 28 states) have embraced it.
Someone asked me this question recently. How much does it cost to spread it to another district? The answer is about $1,500. That pays for the gas to send team members to a district, covers printing, meals, lodging, and related expenses. When team members do this hard work, Sunday school teachers get trained and children respond in obedience. It has the potential to shape a society like Handful of Rice did in Northeast India.
So what’s my point today? It’s really a message to church and ministry workers. There is something bigger than rolling out this vision of rallying generosity in every Sunday school class in Malawi.
The bigger item is discipling the national workers to give an account for their stewardship and showing them that faithfulness with small levels of resources results in more coming in so that they participate in spreading the vision with GTP and not so much in reliance on GTP. We get to do it together! Sure, we still need $17,000 to finish by 30 June 2022 to finish the Phase 1 rollout. But the cool part is, they will assist us in Phase two.
Here’s how that relates to the meetings in Cape Town. The new Regional Trainer for Africa will work with Country Representatives to spread trainings to help national workers move from dependency (relying on our support to get anything accomplished) to discipleship (doing the work with us as God supplies linked to their faithful participation with us with what they have).
This is a bold vision. If you want to support it, click to make a gift to GTP here. We are praying for 100 new givers and need 85 more before 30 June 2022 to inspire a major foundation to give us a capacity building grant.
And pray for us as our meetings have a spiritual aspect to attune to God, a social component to build strong bonds with each other, a strategic element to discern our faithful work, and a solitude element to sort our thoughts alone with God in our rooms. We are finding that discussing faithful work to be done with mutual respeect, feedback and accountability, helps us avoid allowing cultural differences to derail efforts.