Mission Drift?: Exploring a Paradigm Shift in Evangelical Mission with Particular Reference to Microfinance

By Oddvar Sten Ronsen

The Lausanne congress of 1974 marked the widespread adoption of integral mission as essential to the evangelical witness of Christ in our world. Ever since there has been ongoing debate as to the roles of evangelism and social action. In this book Oddvar Sten Ronsen argues that instead of the priority of evangelism over social action there should be the anticipation of evangelism as a result of social action. Although evangelism and social action may not occur at the same time, the author warns of the possibility of “mission drift,” where projects begin with the intention of meeting the social and spiritual needs of the people, but fail to proceed to evangelism. In succumbing to this mission drift, projects cease to be true to the principles of integral mission.
Combining theological reflection with case studies of microfinance enterprises in the Philippines and Thailand, Ronsen evaluates the sustainability of, and social good delivered by, these Christian projects to the communities they serve. The research sheds light on the causes of a drift from integral mission, how these can be managed and whether microfinance can be a bridge for the gospel.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Langham Creative Projects
• Release date: Feb 14, 2016
• ISBN: 9781783680894

Book preview

Abstract

Many Christian missions have included microfinance in their integral mission work as a tool to help poor people break out of the poverty cycle. This study analyses the extent to which Christian microfinance organizations are able to serve the poor materially and spiritually by employing microfinance as a platform for Christian integral mission. I argue that although a basic theological consensus that social action and evangelism are inextricably linked to each other has emerged in the evangelical church, the perennial debate as to whether evangelism should have priority over social action has led to a lack of conceptual clarity and loss of direction in integral mission. I propose that the concept of anticipated evangelism should replace that of the priority of evangelism to reflect the fact that social action and evangelism do not necessarily coincide in time but that the interlinkage between them should be carefully planned. The concept of mission drift is introduced to indicate how Christian microfinance that originally intended to serve the social and spiritual needs of the poor may over time become relatively unrelated to the proclamation of the gospel. The viability of microfinance as a platform for Christian integral mission is appraised in a field study in the Philippines and Thailand. The case study relates to the two standard bottom lines of microfinance – that is, whether the operations are financially sustainable and whether they can deliver a social good to the poor. In addition the study relates to a third bottom line which is whether Christian microfinance can also be integral mission and a bridge for the gospel. The field study also sheds light on risk factors that can produce mission drift in relation to the objectives of integral mission and indicates how these may be handled. The case studies demonstrate that the ability of Christian microfinance to deliver a social good to the poor through microfinance is not incompatible with using microfinance as a platform for evangelism, provided the microfinance organizations are aware of and willing to handle the mechanisms that produce mission drift.

Abbreviations

1

Introduction

In the course of the last three decades the concept of integral mission,[1] also called holistic mission,[2] has become the dominating basis for most Christian mission agencies. As a part of this trend microfinance found its way into Christian mission activities. Previously missions had incorporated health services, hospital operations, orphanages, and so on, into their activities, but up to then not traditional instruments of finance aimed at helping people to break out of the poverty cycle by extending to them small loans for micro-enterprises. When microcredit was launched with the promise of changing the lives of millions of poor people around the world by giving them access to capital from which they had hitherto been precluded, many Christian NGOs,[3] agencies and missions adopted it. This tended to fit well into their focus on poor and impoverished groups in the countries in which they worked. The age of microfinance came with the introduction of other financial products, such as voluntary savings and insurance, that were offered to the clients.

Microfinance was conceptually new and caught the interest of younger donor generations that embraced it as a way to impact the lives of the borrowers and their families directly through help to self-help, thereby creating self-sustaining community structures that could permanently improve their life conditions. However, measuring the effects of microfinance has turned out to be a controversial issue in the microfinance industry, and some observers contend that the gap between microcredit rhetoric and reality is widening.[4]

The decisions by Christian agencies to launch microcredit were, however, generally made on a rather rudimentary basis. At the time little was known about the effects of microfinance on the poor client groups that were included in the operations, or about the implications of introducing microfinance into their mission work on the maintenance of commitment to the core values of the mission and the cohesion in the organization as the work expanded.[5] As some time has passed since then it is now possible to take a closer look at microfinance and consider whether it is justified to include microfinance in Christian mission work. If it is, how should it be structured and operated in relation to the overall mission work and the work of the church at large in order to satisfy basic conceptual requirements of integral mission theology?

In this study microfinance as a part of Christian mission work is considered in three dimensions. In the rapidly growing literature on microfinance the main hurdle of microfinance operations tends to be the need to demonstrate that the microfinance enterprise documents a double bottom line – that it is both financially sustainable and produces a social good for the poor. It is the contention in this paper that microfinance in Christian mission work should also demonstrate that the proclamation part of integral mission is maintained. This may be called the third bottom line in Christian microfinance operations. Some might argue that the double bottom line is in itself a daunting challenge, and to add the third dimension of proclamation[6] and evangelism[7] makes the challenge of microfinance in Christian mission even more demanding.

One key area of research is therefore to investigate important theological aspects of microfinance as an integral part of Christian mission. The study will particularly relate to issues connected with mission drift. A dictionary definition of drift is a gradual deviation from an original course, model, method or intention.[1] This general understanding of the meaning of drift has been widely adopted by the microfinance industry as it uses the concept of mission drift to describe how microfinance institutions often gradually drift away from serving the poor in order to maintain financial sustainability.[2] Another writer defines mission drift in microfinance in the same vein: institutions that once served the poor move up market, abandoning the poor.[3] Mission drift is today a phenomenon of much concern in the microfinance industry as many have witnessed it around the world.[4] In the present study the concept of mission drift will also be applied to describe the extent to which microfinance activities run by Christian mission organizations may become relatively unrelated to the Christian context and the proclamation of the gospel and thus drift away from integral mission objectives, which are both to serve the poor and to proclaim the Christian gospel.

Mission drift in relation to the focus on the poor is of course also a topic of key interest in Christian microfinance. Microfinance is an unproven and immature field and it is today debated whether microfinance operations can produce a social good and at the same time be financially sustainable.[5] In order to ensure the profitability and sustainability of the operations some agencies have used methods that have the common feature of reducing the impact on the poor client groups. One approach has been to increase the average loan size to focus on more credit-worthy client groups (and thus move up the poverty ladder, leaving the poorer groups behind), or to reduce the extent of social service activities for clients when those services are not directly contributing to the profitability of the microfinance enterprise. Furthermore, commercial banking practices are increasingly being introduced in the form of state-of-the-art microfinance practice spearheaded by CGAP (Consultative Group to Assist the Poorest), some of which may not always be easy to reconcile with Christian mission objectives. After all, the extension of a credit also represents a debt at the hand of the borrower. Debt must be repaid. The relationship between the lender and the borrower is impacted and this may at times come into direct conflict with the endeavours to communicate the gospel. The consequences for individuals who do not repay may be tragic.

Critical articles have appeared in the media about small farmers in India who commit suicide as they are unable to pay, and the social ostracism that engulfs poor women who are unable to repay the loans which their solidarity group must then pay for them.[6] It was indeed a signal that the sentiment toward microfinance was changing when one of the major global microfinance capital providers, the Catholic Relief Services (CRS), decided to divest its holdings in microcredit in favour of savings-led microfinance due to a lack of conviction in the agency that the money spent on microcredit had the desired social impact.[7]

The main emphasis in this study is, however, related to some other major tendencies in microfinance operations run by Christian missions today. These may result in mission drift in relation to the proclamation of the gospel,[8] which parts of the evangelical church, especially in the period after the Second World War, tended to perceive as constituting the leading objective and raison d’être of Christian mission work.[9]

First, there are indications that microfinance operations are for various reasons gradually being separated from the work of the local church.[10] Second, the sheer numerical growth and increased competition in the microfinance market has brought more finance and marketing professionals into the microfinance work of the Christian missions, and they are not necessarily committed to the Christian faith. This may make it difficult to maintain a wholehearted acceptance of core values throughout the organization. It is quite probable that the overall effect of these two factors will be a growing lack of proclamation. In such instances microfinance becomes merely a social action activity which may be very helpful as a development project given that the microfinance activities are structured in such a form that they do produce a social good. At the same time, however, they may be relatively unrelated to the proclamation of the gospel, a vital component in integral mission theology. Some Christian microfinance organizations are becoming acutely aware of the seriousness of the issue.[11]

It is thus increasingly important to define biblical boundaries for the use of microfinance as a form of social action in Christian mission. In principle this is not limited to microfinance, but extends to any form of integral mission activity. The need to maintain the proclamation of the gospel in some form and defining how this may be done is additionally important because microfinance absorbs a lot of capital and human resources in Christian mission work.

Some might argue that there is no substantial difference between social action and evangelism, that they are not distinct activities. Reference is sometimes made to the statement said to originate with St Francis of Assisi that we should preach always, sometimes using words,[12] thus downplaying the need to maintain proclamation as a necessary part of Christian mission. However, it may also be argued that without communication social action is like a signpost pointing nowhere, and may be even in the wrong direction, to ourselves and our own charitable acts.[13]

The biblical perspectives on social action as an element in integral mission activities like microfinance are thus important when considering the use of this vehicle in the work of Christian missions. It is therefore important to clarify what the integral mission concept in mainstream evangelical thinking implies and what it requires of churches and Christian NGOs. As many Christian agencies, NGOs and missions have incorporated microfinance in their strategies for social action with a focus on overcoming poverty and exclusion, and more are in the process of moving into microfinance, it is important that a clearer picture of tendencies toward mission drift in the microfinance activities of Christian mission is established. Only thus may shortcomings be rectified and deviations from a biblical mission platform be removed.

The following chapters will deal with these issues as follows:

Chapter 2, A Theological Perspective, explores the development of the integral mission concept and to what extent the evangelical community has come to a theological consensus on the role of proclamation in Christian social action. The understanding of Christian integral mission as adopted and clarified through the Lausanne process as the evangelical platform for mission has been chosen as a basis for an appraisal of microfinance in Christian mission. The reason for this choice is that the Lausanne process constitutes the broadest and most inclusive evangelical platform for thinking on the relationship between evangelism and social action. The initiation of the process was characterized by Time Magazine as "possibly the widest ranging meeting of