The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum Rating services for para-church ministries

I'm not looking for how they handle their finances, but their orthodoxy and ministry practices. Is there a rating service doing that kind of work?

I doubt there is one, but perhaps there might be. However, the "orthodox" issue would be rather nebulous, wouldn't it? I mean, it would depend upon the theological views of the one doing the rating.

That sounds like something you should do.

I ran across this article on FB, that I can no longer find, where a pastor in Africa, maybe Zambia, was saying that Christianity in Africa though expanding, is not very deep.

I know of friends who travel to Africa every year to minister. Also, the church supports other non-denominational ministries ministering in Africa. When I look at the mission statements from the groups they are with, they appear to be orthodox. However, sometimes I wonder if they strictly abide by these statements.

That is why the question.

There are others here who can agree with the "not very deep" comment and who are more privy to what is going on in Africa.

But what I will comment on is those in the missionary field. First let me make it very clear that I do believe there are some very dedicated and orthodox missionaries, albeit I do believe they are the exception rather than the rule. From reports I have personally heard from some of these very orthodox men, the majority of missionaries are hypocritical. What they said was they give lip-service to the Confessions to which they swore to uphold and the doctrines of Scripture they teach. But in the field, they do anything but. It's mostly pragmatism that governs the content and methodology of most missionaries, so I was told. Funding is the primary focus. The more reported "conversions"... the more funding they will receive or at least keep what funding they get coming in.

Another individual who made it his goal to travel the world and see if the Reformed Faith was being taught by those missionaries who were being sponsored by Reformed churches/denominations said what he discovered was shocking. The number of missionaries who were actually preaching the biblical gospel and teaching holiness of life before God were few and far between. He said the majority of those whom he came into contact with were preaching anything but the biblical gospel and using any means available that "worked" to increase the number of alleged 'converts' to put in their reports.

This was nearly 30 years ago that I heard these men speak. If you take into account the current trend toward 'culturization', compromise, heterodoxy, antinomianism, etc., etc., that has been sweeping through the Reformed churches for the past 10+ years, I can only surmise that the situation has gotten worse and not better.

People will for the most part tell you what you want to hear in order to keep their "jobs". We have personally experienced this fact with men in the Ukraine when they visited here and spoke about their "progress" but then of course, their "needs", aka: $$$$$$$$. Instead of simply accepting these perceived heart-felt reports, we decided to make some inquiries and found that many of the things we heard from the lips of this "missionary/pastor" were lies.

YMMV......

Speaking from the Zambian perspective,I must admit that Christianity here (and generally across Africa) is 752,000 square kilometers but only 1 centimeter deep. With the spread of Nigerian junk theology, it seems to me that Africa is sliding back into the dark ages with Ministers of historic Protestant churches such as Presbyterian or Reformed Church promoting Nigerian prophets. that is the sad reality.

Concerning the missionaries who come to Africa, very few are sincere but many are tourists. I have met a couple of missionaries from Mission To the World, a missionary agency of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). I can bear witness that these are doing a great job but they are mostly operating in South Africa. Other missionary agencies tend to be more interdenominational, especially here in Zambia and therefore their effectiveness depend largely on the doctrinal dispositions of the individual missionaries.
However, I must state also that our people tend to respond more favorably to American missionaries because they bring with them material benefits which local pastors cannot afford. So sometimes the numbers of "converts" reported by missionaries are often true but many of these conversions are not genuine.

In my opinion, the best way to go is for American churches to partner with the few faithful local churches in the work of Church planting. Here in Zambia, a model example is what Kabwata Baptist Church (KBC) is doing in partnership with American churches. KBC sends local/indigenous missionary pastors to plant churches instead of having white missionaries coming over to do the work.

Thanks for your imput.