Gospel For Asia

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The missionary organization Gospel for Asia has been terminate from membership in the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability.

K. P. Yohannan is the founder of the Gospel for Asia as well as the Metropolitan of The Believers Church. He has not been heard from directly in response to the actions of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability.

 

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World Magazine's coverage of this issue:

www.worldmag.com/2015/10/ecfa_strips_gospel_for_asia_s_membership

 

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Doesn't surprise me; I've heard stories from several years ago.

If an Indian pastor gets 50 USD a month for planting a church and your church is 100 people; why not divide and double your take and have two groups of 50. In some cases, church signs and banners are easy to make and if you photograph a group of folks in front of such a banner as "proof" of a church, then the money will flow.

...And after all....it is so much more "cost-effective" to give to them than to support more "expensive" Western missionaries....you can support 20 indigenous evangelists for the price of one American family.....etc, etc....

 

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Doesn't surprise me; I've heard stories from several years ago.

If an Indian pastor gets 50 USD a month for planting a church and your church is 100 people; why not divide and double your take and have two groups of 50. In some cases, church signs and banners are easy to make and if you photograph a group of folks in front of such a banner as "proof" of a church, then the money will flow.

...And after all....it is so much more "cost-effective" to give to them than to support more "expensive" Western missionaries....you can support 20 indigenous evangelists for the price of one American family.....etc, etc....

The model that K. P. Yohannan proposed was to send out humble indigenous Church planters rather then send Western missionaries. This was a model Gospel for Asia used. God's people responded and gave. Then the leadership of Gospel for Asia loose sight of the goal; and start Empire building, with a $40,000,000 headquarters.

This is an example of why we need to have ecclesiastical oversight of missionary efforts; rather then having para-church organizations conducting the work.

 

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....humble indigenous Church planters rather then send Western missionaries...

This is why I was always suspicious of groups like Gospel for Asia. Its very promotion always entailed an implicit denigration of Western missionaries ("humble indigenous"...versus Westerners)...

Instead of sending out both, their promotional materials were often written in an either/or vein of, "why spend so much money on Westerners.....send your money to these folks instead" and this often created a false dichotomy of "should we support Westerners or send money to indigenous." Or "Western missions has been doing their strategy for years....now, let me tell you a better way..." And then often questionable reports of success were sent to bolster their claims.

I know of churches who dropped all Western support due to an ideological shift gained from Gospel for Asia. They sent out a newsletter to all their western missionaries stating, basically, that they saw the light...and that indigenous workers can do the job for so much less and they could support so many more folks than merely a few Western families. The result was that folks that this church knew personally for years were deprioritized in favor of cheaper Indian pastors.

The world needs Western missionaries. Look at the "indigenous" church movements in Africa. They are cheaper and indigenous for sure...but are they biblical.