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Search Results For: Dependency
The Dependency Syndrome
Prevention and Early Detection
Tags: church planting, dependency, funds, prevention
Those following medical reports these days are aware that several themes keep recurring. One is the importance of prevention of serious illness. Another theme is early detection. Of course, the...
Overcoming Poverty
Does the Church Have the Answer?
Tags: children, dependency, poverty
We’ve all seen them, awful pictures of little children with emaciated bodies, video scenes of long lines of desperate parents seeking help for the children they love at some overrun clinic in some...
Localization and Globalization
Tags: dependency, local resources
Signs of globalization can be found in many places. I have a friend in Zambia who is a retired pastor, now living in a rural village with no running water or electricity. However, he has a cell...
Oh, An American Is Involved?
Tags: dependency, funding
Some time ago I accompanied a young Zambian church planter to Central Mozambique, where a self-reliance seminar was scheduled. We had been traveling together and doing similar seminars in Zambia...
The Importance of Assumptions
Tags: dependency
When it comes to the dependency syndrome, much of our success or failure can be traced to the assumptions with which we begin. A colleague in WMA ministry, Jean Johnson, says it this way: “What we...
Avoiding the “Church Development” Syndrome
Tags: dependency
The Church of Pentecost was begun in West Africa before the middle of the 20th century. It grew without the unhealthy dependency on outside resources that sometimes characterizes...
Large Churches and Short-Term Teams
Tags: dependency, resource
There are days, after nearly thirty years of my current ministry, when I wonder who is listening to what we are saying about healthy sustainability for mission churches around the world. And then I...
Do No Harm
Tags: dependency
Medical people have a basic guideline for the treatment of patients: “Do no harm.” I have often thought about that when dealing with cross-cultural situations. I know by experience that it is easy...
We Can Do It!
Tags: dependency, giving, local resources
About a year ago I was asked to speak in a small church in Kampala, Uganda. I had been there for other meetings and was asked to preach on a Sunday morning. Normally I decline such invitations,...
When God Is In It
Tags: dependency
Several years ago, someone gave me a small sign for my desk that reads “When God is in it, it is fun to watch.” I have since concluded that when God is in it, you may find yourself running just to...