It is impossible to express as clearly as we would like all of he information in our heads and in our hearts on a blog post. I have no doubt that your desire is to see Kingdom growth that can reproduce. My prayer is that God would grant you the desires of you heart. As a good friend of mine is quoted as saying . . .

It is a great joy to lead someone to Christ.

It is a greater joy to plant a new church.

It is the greatest joy to teach others how to lead someone to Christ and how to plant new churches.

Blessings on your continued efforts!

Suffice it to say that all your counsel is part of our consideration and that we do not want a single mis-step that would hinder or impede in any way the birthing and replication needs of the indigenous CPM.

Good to hear from you!

Guy pointed me to your blog and this post in particular. I am glad to find you again so that I can link to your site from my blog.

I guess it is no surprise that I would give a hearty “Amen” to Guy’s comments in response to your post and the description of your experience in Russia. I would like to be quick to say that if you truly believe that God has told you to do this, as opposed to being emotionally caught up in the moment, to not follow through in obedience to His leadership would be sin.

You describe two projects that represent quite a paradoxical view of missions in the 21st century. The repair of the playground is a perfect example of a one time infusion of funds to assist a community, to open doors to the sharing of the Gospel. We have used and continue to use this type of project as part of a larger church planting strategy. The main reason is that we are not concerned if anyone can reproduce playground renovation.

The church building project is quite another issues. Here are questions that I would ask as in terms of healthy or unhealthy assistance.

1. Are we doing something that local believers can and should be doing for themselves?

2. If we are going to bring financial support and labor to this project, at what level should local believers be expected to invest in this venture?

3. If we truly believe that this project is reproducible by local believers in other areas that need a church, then why is it that this congregation cannot provide a building for themselves without our help?

4. And lastly, and for me, this is the most critical question of all. If we move forward with this project, with the results be an acceleration of the Gospel or will it hinder the spread of the Gospel because local believers cannot replicate what has been done for them.

This is in no way to diminish the excitement that you and others felt. The fact that you are not attempting to provide new “cathedrals speaks volumes to your understanding of history and local culture. If you continue to post on your progress, I will read with interest how God will use you and your team to impact eternity. Blessings!

Your counsel on the finance and dependency issue is critically important and well received.

In planting new churches in cross-cultural settings needs to be handled with much care, especially when we begin asking questions, “If money were no object, what kind of building would you want to house a church?”

Sometimes our good intentions can cause more harm in the long run if not handled very carefully. I am speaking from a lot of personal experience on this one as do many of my M colleagues. As David Garrison says, its not bad to build church buildings, but THEY must be the ones to do so. We must be very careful in coming in and offering to foot the bills. Maybe there is more to the story than has been shared in this post, and quite possibly I am reading more into your words than intended, but the whole dependency issue is probably one of the greatest obstacles confronting modern missions today. It takes a huge amount of wisdom to handle money matters properly.

I encourage you to read Ken’s blog, he has a lot of great posts addressing the way we use Stateside churches, financing missions, volunteers, etc.