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Your church sends missionaries. You support missions financially. You pray for the unreached. But are you asking the right questions about how to best advance the Great Commission today?
For two thousand years, Christian missions have followed a familiar pattern: sending missionaries from the West to the rest of the world. That faithful work has borne remarkable fruit. Churches now flourish in nations that once had no Gospel witness. Indigenous believers lead thriving congregations in cultures that previously knew nothing of Christ.
This success raises a crucial question: At what point does a nation or people group need indigenous leaders more than foreign missionaries?
Missions Upside Down, an award-winning video series filmed across eight countries and four continents, invites church leaders to wrestle with this very question. Before your missions committee meets again or your church finalizes next year’s missions budget, consider these five questions.
1. What Percentage of Our Missions Budget Supports Indigenous Leaders?
The average American Christian gives approximately 2.5% of their income to Christian causes. Of that giving, only about $1 out of every $1,000 reaches unreached people groups through foreign missions, according to missiological research compiled by The Traveling Team.
But here’s what many churches haven’t considered: supporting indigenous leaders who are already embedded in their culture, fluent in the language, and trusted in their communities can be dramatically more cost-effective than sending Western missionaries.
Research shows that indigenous ministries plant churches at costs 23 to 40 times lower than American missionaries.[i] A national church planter familiar with language and culture requires $4,800-$6,000 for four years of support, compared to $232,368 to prepare and establish an American missionary through year five.[ii]
Take inventory of where your missions dollars flow. If indigenous leader support represents a small fraction—or nothing at all—it might be time to diversify your missions portfolio.
2. Are We Measuring Cultural Context When Making Missions Decisions?
Not every missions context is the same. Some nations remain closed to Western missionaries but permit indigenous Christian leaders to operate freely. Some people groups have zero Gospel witness and desperately need pioneer missionaries, according to the Joshua Project’s database of unreached peoples. Others have established churches led by mature believers who simply need support to expand their reach.
Ask your missions committee: How do we assess whether a particular context calls for sent missionaries, indigenous leader support, or a partnership combining both?
Consider factors like government openness to missionaries, the presence of established churches, the number of capable indigenous leaders, and cultural barriers that outside missionaries face. The goal isn’t to eliminate sent missionaries—it’s to deploy resources strategically where they’ll produce the greatest Kingdom impact.
3. How Do We Verify That Missions Work Includes Holistic Ministry?
Jesus’ ministry transformed entire lives—physical, spiritual, social, and economic. When John the Baptist’s disciples asked if Jesus was the Messiah, He responded by pointing to tangible transformation: “The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have Good News preached to them.” (Luke 7:22).
Healthy missions must produce what missiologists call “redemption and lift”—the Gospel changing hearts while also improving communities through schools, healthcare, clean water initiatives, agricultural training, and other practical helps.
Review the missionaries and organizations your church supports. Do they demonstrate this holistic approach? Are communities being transformed beyond just spiritual conversion? If missions work focuses solely on evangelism without addressing poverty, injustice, or basic human needs, it falls short of the Gospel’s full power.
4. Are We Honoring the Past While Embracing the Future?
Talking about new missions paradigms can feel like criticizing faithful servants who sacrificed everything to take the Gospel to unreached peoples. It’s not.
The question isn’t whether previous missionaries did good work—they did, and we honor their legacy. The question is whether the same strategies that worked when Christianity had little presence in a region should continue unchanged now that thriving churches exist there.
Your parenting strategy changes as children grow. Investment strategies shift as circumstances evolve. Missions strategies can also adapt without dishonoring those who served faithfully under different circumstances.
Ask: How can we celebrate what God accomplished through sent missionaries while also recognizing that indigenous leaders may now be better positioned to advance the Gospel in their own cultures?
5. What Would Happen If We Watched Missions Upside Down Together?
Sometimes the most important question is simply: Are we willing to reconsider our assumptions?
Missions Upside Down offers six free episodes with study guides, designed specifically for church leadership teams, missions committees, and small groups. The series doesn’t provide all the answers—it creates space for honest conversation about what comes next in Christian missions.
Watch the trailer, then gather your church leaders and work through Episode 1. Each video offers candid reflections about missions today, filmed beautifully in eight countries, free with study guides.
Moving Forward
The Great Commission compels us to go. It also compels us to go wisely, stewarding resources in ways that maximize Kingdom impact. As Christianity continues its dramatic shift toward Africa, Asia, and Latin America—where two-thirds of Christians now live, according to Pew Research Center—Western churches face a critical moment.
Will we cling to familiar missions models simply because they’re familiar? Or will we have the humility to ask whether God is calling us to support the next generation of missions leaders who might not look like us, speak like us, or need us to come to them?
Your church’s missions strategy for the next decade begins with asking better questions today.
CLICK HERE to watch the trailer now.
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[i] John Addink, How I Lost $1,500,000 in Missions (And What I Learned From My Mistakes) (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2018). Addink’s research found that indigenous ministries are 23 times more cost effective at planting churches than Americans, based on his analysis of multiple missions agencies’ financial data and church planting outcomes. Amazon.
[ii] Ibid. The investment cost for American missionaries to be linguistically ready and culturally established by the fifth year on the field is $232,368 compared to $4,800-$6,000 for four years supporting a national church planter already familiar with the language and culture.