“We can\’t always be begging our wives for their chickens!” was the comment of a Pai Tavytera community leader and faithful church member to my question about the funding of their church outreaches.

“We will either have to have outside funding or stick to outreaches that are within our budget.”

After returning from a 5-day trip to the bush in northern Paraguay and just a few kilometers from the Brazilian boarder, I\’m confronted with even more questions than when I first set out. What role are tribal churches and their members to play in the Great Commission in Paraguay and beyond? Does the completion of the Great Commission lie solely on the shoulders of wealthy and educated people groups? Are the poor exempt from the responsibility to take the Gospel to the “ends of the earth” because of their financial limitations and lack of education?

While sitting on a rough wooden bench in front of Ruben\’s thatched hut, I picked up a crooked stick that was laying nearby on the ground and drew a circle in the dirt. “Ruben” I said, “this circle represents the Pai church in this village, these other circles nearby represent the Pai villages within 1-2 hours drive by motorcycle, and this far circle represents the Mbya people about 10 hours drive. The “X” right here next to your village represents the foreigners that came to plant your church, how will your Pai church plant a church among the Mbya without the logistical assistance of “X”? He thought for a second and made a very interesting observation, “Mike, if you take out the missionary\’s help, then our church would first have to be firmly established locally while organizing outreaches to the villages close by until there were strong churches planted. Once that happened, we could then form an association among ourselves to collectively gather enough finances to send out one missionary to the Mbya people.” Neither one of us had to say anything to realize that it would take many years of very hard work before the Pai could get to that point alone.

Although there are so many questions yet to be answered, there is one thing that is very clear to me as I dig deeper into mobilizing local churches to properly fulfill their role in the Great Commission: the vision and passion must come from within the fellowship of believers. Outsiders can introduce new ideas into the fellowship and prompt people to envision the accomplishment of greater things, but unless the fellowship is on board, the outsider will have to carry the burden for as long as he is present and then run the risk of collapse after he\’s gone.

Certainly the success of mobilizing, training and coordinating of tribal churches to plant other churches is going to depend largely on indigenous empowerment and assisting where there are genuine needs. In so many cases, what often hinders partnership at this level is attitude; the attitude of the expatriate, the national, and the tribal person. More often than not, we claim our attitudes are in line with that of Christ\’s, but when transferring it across cultural grids, we are at a loss as to what it looks like on the other end. A key element for successful and godly partnerships in an inter-cultural situation is the ability to listen intently and to learn from one another. You could also call that a “mutual respect” for one another\’s ideas and ideals.

Continue to ask God, the Inventor of multi-culturalism, to help His Church sort through these issues at a grass-root level, where people are working together for a common cause according to Mt. 28:19-20.