A New Mission

I am a long time member of Davidson United Methodist Church. Last Sunday, our Senior Associate Pastor, Jeff Hassell, gave a sermon on the new direction of front line missions. Jeff came to Davidson after several years of service in Lithuania and also serves as our Director of Missions. This is a major post in our church as we have an annual missions budget of $1 million.

Jeff announced, that after thirteen years, Davidson was severing ties with our sister church in Shalaiu, Lithuania. Teams from Davidson have gone to Lithuania to mentor and help build this church. Now that the church is complete, the bureaucracy in the Lithuanian Methodist system limits the independence of the churches and creates a culture of dependence where 95% of all funding is controlled outside the local church. In other words, continuing to send money to this church will just enable the status quo and will not further the goals of the mission.

Jeff told of a visit by a group of mission directors from Davidson and other large churches to a church in Jamaica that has developed a program of micro loans. These are loans to people to better themselves and their communities. To get these loans, the recipient has to attend a class, develop a business plan and go through interviews. The example was a man known as the “Wacker Man.” This man supported himself with a homeowner model Weed Wacker cutting weeds along steep banks where tractors could not go. He was given a loan for $500 to purchase a commercial grade machine to increase his productivity. He was able to pay back the loan one month early. Later, he got another loan to buy another machine and hire an employee. Over the course of this program, no one has yet defaulted on a loan.

Davidson intends to take this concept to Nicaragua where we are partnering with a Texas group to start a mission in a Mayan village. We also continue to work with Habitat for Humanity in Guatemala.

I had the chance to speak to Jeff after the service. I told him I was encouraged by this. I used the analogy of giving a man a hand up, not just a hand. He said it was more like extending the old analogy of if you give a man a fish he has a meal but teach him how to fish he can feed his family. The extension is now to help him buy a boat so he can feed the community. And, when the loans are paid back, they can be reinvested to extend the program exponentially.

I like this. It makes sense. It's not just charity, but an investment in self reliance and the betterment of the world.