S2 Ep6: Viewing Money through the Lens of "Greater Together"

The law of money is whoever pays the musicians gets to say what songs are you playing. And so if we raise our money, we play the songs that we want to be played, or that we need to be played. But if we're using somebody else's money, then we play their music, which might not be the kind of music that we want to play. I don't think that anyone likes to be patronized. Partnership can go horribly wrong and it can go fabulously well. Partnership with our research, I have no enough time for them. It feels very good, it feels really cool to have that power hand. What would it be like if we truly considered every believer as co-equal? Or maybe met together, you was just like, love it for sight, come for a husband, and then like Jonathan and David. I'm Karita Chen, and this, this mission's shift, a podcast where we explore the changing face of global missions. Join me and my co-host, Josh Irby, as we explore this new era of global missions and what part each of us might play. Today we're talking about money. So welcome to all of you who had the courage to start this episode. As you heard from Leo Leyva at the top of the episode, money comes with a set of laws. We want to unpack those laws today and better understand how to build healthy partnerships. And before we jump into our main interview, another word from Leo to prepare us for our conversation. The role of money is the role of power, you know, who has the money, has the power. And you can use money for good or for not so good. I assume you're here because you, like us, want to use it for good. This episode, we're going to focus around one guest who has a book's worth of things to say about this topic. We'll let her introduce herself. My name is Mary, letter lightener. I started working in the partnership area about 25 years ago. I started with Wycliffe and S.I.L. International at the time. So when I entered the partnership conversation, it was kind of at a bigger picture level. I led our financial operations in Asia. From there, I did other roles with Wycliffe. One thing that came out was a desire to spend a couple of years just doing research and partnership to find the answers to things we were running into at the time. And out of that came a look, cross-cultural partnerships navigating the complexities of money and mission. Mary has a Master's from Wheaton College, a PhD from Trinity International Divinity School, and has taught at both institutions, in addition to continuing to work with Wycliffe for over 20 years. So you can see why we wanted to talk with Mary. There's clearly a lot we can learn from her. Let's have her set the stage in terms of partnership and power. [Music] What happens so often times with churches of just not realizing that their efforts at partnering are actually causing a lot of harm and damage. I got into the partnership conversation and I did all of this research because I care about relationships. And I saw a lot of relationships ending or breaking up for years over misunderstandings about money in partnership. For me now, partnership is the foundation for everything I do. It's so much a part of my DNA, I can't see hardly anything in life that doesn't have partnership implications and power implications. Mary sees partnership implications in everything she does, but not all partnerships look the same. Mary continues, "You can have a boss wherever you're working and you can have two very different relationships. You can feel like a partner in ministry or you can feel like an employee being managed and told what to do. You can have that exact same situation happening in the same organization. Why does one feel like such a positive experience and one feels disempowering and discouraging? It's because of the partnership ethos that the person carries with them. I just feel like partnership is so critical to modeling God's character and living out his values in our work. And it kind of also gets it, it why people sort of fall into paternalistic or controlling behaviors because I don't think that they've stepped back and actually thought about how God works with us. God could have worked in so many different ways to further the gospel. I mean, if I were God, I would have picked so many different ways to further the gospel. But he furthers the gospel by partnering with us, working with us. And he's a very, he is the ultimate high-powered distance partner, the ultimate wise, all-knowing partner. And yet, you know, he listens to us, he talks with us, he actually even considers our requests and accommodates us. You know, he does all these different types of things. And I think that sometimes we look at this and we're concerned about quality or whatever. And I think God is concerned about quality too, but I think he's looking at quality in different areas than we are. He's looking at quality in the growth of our character. He's looking at quality in our Christ's likeness. He's looking at quality in our ability to love people and grow in the fruit of the spirit and how much our lives are sort of marked by that. God seems very secure. We often are very insecure. And because we're insecure, then we try to control everything and it makes it very hard to be a good partner when that's how we're thinking and working and living. I feel like Mary is so insightful here, Carita, as she talks about this idea of partnership about those, that you can have a partnership, it can have completely different results. Even in the same organization, it can result in empowerment and encouragement or disempowerment and discouragement. I could lead to mutuality or a sense of paternalism and control. We use it in word partnership for both of them, but they can all produce such different results. That's so true. And you don't have to be involved in any kind of partnership for very long to be able to see one or the other. You know, because it is. And I'm sure you've experienced probably both, right? Yeah, me too. And I love how she's calling us back to really what's at our heart, our faith and drawing out the point and she says in this way that God is the ultimate high power distance partner. Right. What do you think of that? Man, I love that because you think about it that way. It really is true what she says about, you know, he's the person who has the most power. But yet he chose he didn't have to, but he chose to want to work with us. He chose to want to partner with us. I mean, that's totally opposite of what you were talking about earlier in the paternalistic way, the controlling way. And it's truly I say this every year when I'm talking to administer partners that it's such a privilege to get to do what we do. And that privilege, it's because he's sharing that with us. He's inviting us. He wants us to be part of it. And that's amazing. As followers of Christ, his Christians, we should literally be the best at partnership in the world. That's right. Because we have the best example. We have the most example of the reason. Yes. We talk to you. She talks about how you know, God secure and we're insecure. But we have a source of security that's in God that's better than any other source of security in the world. And here we have a guy who walks with us, carrying more about our growth and character than about often in results because he's trying to help us make us who he wants us to be. And we should reflect that in the way we relate to others. Yeah, I mean, I think often what it comes down to is we don't take the time to think about our actions and behaviors. And what I've seen from my own life is that particularly shows up when it's about my insecurities. You know, like so much of what I do, especially when I think about when I exert control, it's from my underlying insecurities. And I think that if we're not careful, we forget to assess our motivations that are in our hearts. And it becomes really easy for us to just get caught up in our do-do-do mentality. I'm so glad we're starting here before we even get specifically to the topic of today on money because you know, money can cause senses of security and insecurity. Money can definitely trigger control in so many different ways. Yeah. So it's so helpful to start here with again talking about partnering and what that looks like both in its negative and negative. positive forms. Yeah, you're right, Josh. And Mary does go on to talk about what a healthy partnership looks like. I've had people that have said they've wanted to partner with me and what it basically means is they want to leverage all my gifts to benefit their ministry or free as far as little money is humanly possible. That's not partnership. Partnership isn't about just achieving your own ends and getting your own goals met. Partnership, I believe in the healthy ones mean that I care as much about the other person's well-being is my own. If I don't care as much about the other person's well-being is my own, I should never use the word partnership. It's not partnership. The healthy partnerships I've seen are marked by core components. I would say the first is very deeply a fear of God. And with a fear of God, it's that Matthew 25 passage. What's whatever I do to the least of these that I've done under Christ. Whatever I've done to one of my partners that I've done to Christ. And this is not a little thing. This is a very serious thing. And they take it seriously. The next thing is that they're humble. And they listen. Humilities always at the heart of every one of these good partnerships around the globe. And where you see it is everybody makes mistakes. I believe how I treat my brothers and sisters in Christ is a very serious matter. And I'm prone to screw up her fail. It's impossible to go into these partnerships and not mess up, not make mistakes. It's absolutely impossible because we're human only God's perfect. But if we fear God and if we're humble and also if we love and care about people, we are so distressed when we hurt people. We get on our knees, we pray, we repent and we ask God to change us and we get better and we get better and we get better and we get better. We improve, we mature, we grow in new ways and those partnerships flourish. So as I'm listening to Mary talk Josh, I love that she brings out again the idea of humility about loving and caring for people when we think about partnerships and why we have partnerships. But something she brings out here that I don't think we've talked about much is a fear of God. So curious for you Josh, when you hear about the fear of God and the idea of having a fear of God, how does that pay into partnerships? I think I'm really going to ask you about it because a fear of God can be so orienting for us. It takes our eyes off ourself and onto God. It both simultaneously helps us to realize how small we are so we don't make too much of ourself. But also how big we are and we could remain in his image to a tremendous idea that can help deal with some of these insecurities or I don't know if you'd say over security but over emphasis on ourself that often show up in partnerships. Yeah, that's a great point. I love that you brought the both and because I think it's true. Sometimes we may think too little of ourselves and then there are other times where we're not remembering that we are made in the image of God. So yeah, that's great. And it doesn't. It comes from the fear of God and understanding what that looks like. And when you're when you're fearing God, it's a lot harder for you to come with your own agenda to say, as Mary said, I want to leverage all your gifts for my agenda for as little cost as possible. Yeah. And I want to use you to achieve my own end. It's a lot harder to do that when we're rightly related with God and with ourselves. For sure, for sure. Yeah. Not so I mean, I want to be like Mary when she says, so what I want to do is, yes, I'm going to be humble. Yes, I'm going to listen and yes, I'm going to learn. And ultimately where that comes from, I think it is. It's from having a healthy fear of God, the right view of what a fear of God looks like. So if a fear of God can be very orienting for us, money can be very disorienting. For sure. Maybe we should maybe we should talk about that. Well, fortunately, Mary is also a CPA. And so this is her area of expertise. And so we're going to learn more about that from Mary. Most people that go into ministry are taught to contextualize, say if it's Bible translation, contextualize your Bible translation program, contextualize community development or contextualize church plan, contextualize evangelism, all these things we contextualize. And we prepare people for them. But at that time, there was really no preparation for helping people to critically think about how they viewed money and what was impacting how they viewed money. And most people are impacted most by how their family used money and viewed money. And next by their surrounding predominant culture that's impacting them. And so the money piece gets really confusing for people for a lot of the cultural reasons. For instance, individualism and collectivism. The classic dichotomy of two different ways to look at assets and resources. In the US, it's an individualistic culture predominantly and that has impacted all of our accounting laws and our philanthropy. And so basically one individual donor gives money to an organization. It's in that donor designated fund that is shaped based on that donor's expectation and then it's sent to the other part of the world, land in a community that could be a collectivistic community. And in a collectivistic community, there's just all kinds of different expectations that happen when that money arrives. For instance, in a, say a US based situation as long as the power grids are working as long as the infrastructure is working as long as the economy is functioning, there's an expectation that each individual will just look after themselves. And that's usually possible unless there's been a terrible illness or something bad. In other cultures, there might only be a 30% employment rate in the whole country. You know, maybe only 25% are fully employed. That means the only way they survive is by sharing resources. Also, the whole infrastructure could be very unpredictable. The political situation can be very unpredictable. Violence can erupt in ways that really disrupt things. And so in those cultures, people learned that the wisest way to handle money was to spend it on the most pressing need now and trust God that when the next need comes up, he'll provide. So then when money comes from a donor who wants a project done six months from now into a place where maybe there's a pressing need, they don't realize that say a pastor in that collectivistic culture is actually prone to lose influence and lose credibility with the very people that you're partnering with him to influence. If he doesn't use money, the way the community is expecting money to be used. So emissions we do spend a lot of time thinking about contextualization. And as Mary said, that's usually about the Bible and the gospel and how we come across culturally. But money she suggests we don't spend enough time thinking about our contextualized understanding of money. When we were overseas, we had a team of people from different parts of the world. There were some of us from the west, some of the some local people and some that were from the east. And everybody saw money differently. Everybody used money differently. But yet without any training or even forethought of talking about it, we were supposed to function together as a team using whatever funds we had individually or whatever funds we had as a team. And it just became really messy. And it took a long time for us to figure out why were we having some of these tensions? Why does some people not want to do certain things? And of course those of us in the west are like, this is a great idea. Of course we should do it this way. And later on, we realized it's because money was involved. And in our minds, it didn't cost us a whole lot. But then you think about those people who are local and they look at that same amount of money. And it costs a lot to them. Right. And that reminds me of our conversation with Al-Fimou Zay with Senator National. And they have teams all around the world that are multicultural people from many different backgrounds and countries. And one of the top challenges for those teams, This is. surprise, money. Because people are coming from different levels of income, people are coming from different levels of support raising, people are coming from places where different products and experiences have different values. And you try to mash those together and it's just a formula for challenges. It really is. I mean, that's exactly what we faced. And when you don't pay attention to that and you just dive in and start doing things, it can kind of become a train wreck and it can cause a lot of relational issues that ultimately can disrupt what you're trying to accomplish there, which is God's mission. And if you can't get along, you can't see things the same way that you're not going to be able to work together well. And so, yeah, that is, again, it just makes it so tricky. And you add into that what Mary mentions is this idea of collectivist versus individualist and even the whole concept of owning something, then it gets another level of complexity. I mean, if you're on a road trip with a bunch of Bosnians and somebody buys a bag of chips, it's not, he has a bag of chips. It's, we have a bag of chips now. For sure. And you pass it around, you know, you don't open a bar of chocolate and not pass it around let everybody have some. Yes. And you play that out into just understanding of resources and a partnership or an organization is that you have resources and I have different resources or do we have resources in this partnership? How do you think about that? Yeah. I mean, I don't know that I knew that that was something that was so different because I grew up in an Asian context, right? And so, as Mary says, sometimes when you think about from the west and the east, you look at it differently. We're a very collective culture. And so I always viewed everything as we share everything. And so I remember even using your example of food, whenever I had anything, it'd be like free for all. And then I remember one time we went to eat with some people and they, you know, it was actually an Asian meal and they were ordering their entree, whereas we always order a family style and we're all sharing. But literally the plate came out. They put it on the middle, you know, where it's a little, can you imagine, you know, when you go to a Chinese restaurant, they have the little lazy season in the front. And this person reached out and took that plate off of the center and put it in front. And I was like, Oh, I wonder why they're doing that. And that that was actually one of my first realizations that there's a difference. And now that was just in terms of sharing of food. But I think that translates very directly into how, again, it's a resource. That was a food resource. And it could be the same way as if that was a pile of money. It would be the same thing. Right. And she, she touches on one of those cultural aspects just a little bit at the end of what she said about, if you're an eclectivist society, where, you know, this is our, yeah, our resources. And you're a pastor of a church and you have designated funds for a project, but there's a need in the community that is large that everyone knows. And you don't use that resource. And you're being committed to the partner or the donor who's given the money and their designated fund. And so you feel constricted by that perhaps rightfully so. But you see in your community this need and everyone sees that need. And they know you have this money and you're not using it for that need. Then you actually have caused that partner pastor to lose credibility in the community. A lot of my colleagues over the years that were really wise in the area of partnership would often say, would you still partner with this person if they didn't have money? Like are there enough other values that you actually just like being with these people? And you feel like you grow closer to Christ being together and they bring out the best in you. I mean, these are really important questions. Or are you just partnering with them to get money or to have access to funds? So that's one piece. Once again, CRETA, money is the great disorienter. Here it's a disorienter of relationships. Is our relationship based on the money that is passing hands in our partnership or is it based on something deeper or fuller? Reminds me of Alfay's comment a few episodes back talking about the professor who was able to teach at the at the seminary because he was the donor. Right. You know, nobody wants to be that. You don't want to be the partner that is accepted because you come with a checkbook. We really do want to be treated as people to have values beyond the finances to be able to grow together in Christ. We know the things she mentioned here. But there's always a fog around money that prevents you from knowing where you stand in that. Yeah. And oftentimes money has the loudest voice. That's what we see is what happens. In fact, it's like what Leo said in the top of the episode where he says the person who pays the musician gets to pick the song. He's not wrong. And he also goes on to say, right, the role of money is the role of power. So money is like a fog machine. That's just pouring fog over the relationship, over the partnership to where we just can't even really see through the fog anymore. And this is a challenge to both sides of a partnership. Obviously, there's a challenge here for the the local workers in a country who have people coming in from the outside to challenge himself to say, if this person came with nothing, what I want to partner with them, just a great question to ask. Yeah. And then for the person coming over saying, if I was bringing no money, would these people want to part with me, which is harder to answer actually? Oh, right. And again, I think that that the humility piece, like when you were just saying that I was like, wow, that takes a lot of humility to kind of get yourself in that position to be able to ask that question. It is very easy. If you have more money and if folks are struggling financially, you can hire away their very best people. You know, so how is that honoring Christ in terms of was God not working through what they were doing before? Is God only working through what you're doing? Again, you get back to a partnership kind of ethos. What is what is respecting what God has done? A lot of people that really have a heart for partnership, really fear squelching work that God is doing. So they're careful and they're discerning, you know? But if somebody has to feed their family and if they're struggling, even if they want to stay with their own mission, they might go with another organization that offers a lot more money to care for their families, you know? So money becomes a power that can then significantly disrupt things if you don't have some agreements about how you're going to work in that regard. And if you're primarily focused on yourself, you have no problem taking folks best people, you know? But if you really care about partnership, it means you want something that's sustainable over the long hall and you want to see those local ministries flourish. So here Mary brings up the idea that not only can money be disorienting in our relationships, but also in the work that God is already doing in a place when you show up. Yeah. And I think back to some episodes ago when we were talking about results, right? And how so many things are based off of what's expected from, let's say, you send a mission strip somewhere and the sending charge is expecting you to bring back certain results. So if that's the way that we're thinking, which primarily is about ourselves, then we are going to look towards what's going to bring about in our minds the best results, not necessarily what is the best that God is working towards or what is best for the people that are there, but it's for us. And so, you know, I think it's really easy for us to think, well, if, and again, I say this from my own personal experience, I know it's easy to think this is like, if you go in and you see someone who's really effective in a certain area doing ministry in that in that location, like, wow, I can really see this person doing a great thing for us. That would be incredible. And then they could maybe bring other people and so forth. And what's wrong with that? But then that's where it takes the focus off of, well, didn't that where that started was, I saw that person doing incredible things there where God has them there, but how quickly, without really intentionally having a switch to, and now they can do it for me, for us here. And it happens so I hate to say it, but it almost happens without thinking. Yeah. And that's the problem. So say that it's true that God is working everywhere in the world. Okay. At all times. Yeah. Then that means that you cannot show up anywhere in the world and God is not already at work. Correct. And say that we really take seriously what Mary says earlier about the need to fear God in partnership. And we're going to show up in a place and we're not going to respect what God is doing. And in fact, we are going to do things that might even squelch that. That should really hit us in the fear of God place. That should create some fear in us that we should walk softly, because we don't want to step on what God is doing, if God is already at work. And the fact of the matter is, he is. Another piece where money gets very powerful is when the people with the money coming into the new setting have preconceived ideas about what they think is going to be most impactful. And they want to fund it, and they have their preconceived ideas of the best way to set it up. And in a lot of countries, people don't want to shame a person and tell them their ideas won't work. And they sure don't want to do something that upsets donors that are bringing in a lot of money. So a lot of times they'll just go along with it, or they'll be so overshadowed they have to do it. And everyone knows it's never going to be sustainable. You know, but then once the folks that funded it in the beginning get distracted or want to fund other things, and now tell the people who never created that system to begin with, okay, it's up to you to make it sustainable now. But they would have never created that situation to begin with. They only created it because there was all this extra money. So that's one of the areas where the power is really felt. I think one of the questions that Mary is bringing up now is the thing we're building even worth sustaining. Is it a sustainable from the beginning? So you show up in that country, hey guys, have money. Does anybody want to be my friend? Sure, I'll be your friend. I've got a great idea that's going to transform your country. Anybody want to do it? Are you paying for it? Sure, why not? Here's the plan. Everybody needs to jump on one leg and pat their head at the same time. It's going to transform the country. By the way, we're going to take your best person and we're going to pay them four times their current wage to be the lead, jump on one foot and pat their head person in the country. Next thing you know, everybody's jumping on one foot and patting their head and getting paid for it. Eventually, I think about going to another country to help them jump on one foot and pat their head as well. I say, "All right guys, you keep it going." You know? How long are they going to keep jumping on one foot and pat their head after I leave? Right. Because the only reason they were doing it in the beginning is because it was being paid for from outside. Wow, that is really, really challenging when you put these three power issues together related to money. We need to start a different place if we're going to end in a different place related to sustainability. [Music] Showing up in a country and saying, "Huh, God's it worked here. What is God doing?" And then what are the things that God is using to do that? That are ideas that are from the place where I am? And that includes the people, right? The people that are already doing those things. And maybe we don't take them from where they are working and doing the things that God is already working in. But we invite them to show us, maybe to partner with us, to share with us, to teach us, in fact. How can we do this? And then in our way, you know, as we're working this together, it may build into something even more beautiful that goes with what God is already doing over there. How can I learn from you? How can I come alongside you? And this doesn't mean that money never plays a role. Right. But that's just a different posture and a different place for money to show up. Yeah. Then on the front end. I mean, in fact, it's almost, if you think about it, it's almost impossible to say money doesn't ever play a role. Because it does. And so I'm glad you brought that up, yeah. I mean, this has been such a good conversation. And we've said a lot of hard things about people coming from the West. But Mary said something that's challenging for all of us. I used to think it was a Western non-Western problem. Like I thought, okay, Western people were prone to being terrible partners, misusing power and being controlling or paternalistic. So the problem is almost primarily on the Western side. And the majority world, you know, they should just be leading everything because then everything would be better, you know. That was sort of the philosophy back then. But as there are all of these new sending countries around the world, I feel like we see very clearly that's not the issue. It's not a Western issue. It's a human issue. I think whenever somebody has more money, more wealth, and more education, they are prone to not partner well unless they are very intentional. Because it seems to be human nature that if somebody has more wealth and more education, they think they should be the partner that is making the major decisions and have the key power. And I don't care what country they come from. This can be the case even in their own countries, you know. It's very counterintuitive to learn from people that have less wealth and less education than you. It takes a lot of humility and it's not typical. But it's the way wisdom works, you know. All the education we have is helpful, but we don't know the local context. We don't know all of the different things going on. We are going to miss so many cues. There's going to be so many things we're not going to ever understand. So this is the, for me, the biggest change from when I first got into this, thinking it was a Western issue. There are many Western folks who are amazing partners. And there are many folks from majority world countries all around the globe that are amazing partners. And there are many Western partners who are terrible. And there's a number of majority world partners who are lousy partners. You know, it's not based on your country of origin. You know, I think it's based on your heart and a lot of much deeper type issues and values in how you work. These power issues and power dynamics that money draws out are not embedded in the country that we come from. They're embedded in the brokenness of our heart. Yeah. This doesn't mean that some people from some countries are more prone to make these issues worse. To make money more of an issue. Obviously she says whenever somebody has more money, more wealth and more education, they're prone to not partner well. Well, the West tends to be places with more money, more education, more wealth. But that's changing. Sure is. And every country has some place in it that has more money, more wealth and more education. Right. And it seems like this issue Mary is saying is an all play. We all need to search our hearts and understand how we're relating in partnership. Yeah. The reason it was so challenging for me is because. And it's not necessarily of all bad thing. I think it was thinking, yeah, well, man, I've done all these things wrong. We're the ones that need to change. But it's also helpful to remember that within the places that we're going to, they can also struggle with this. And so it's something that we together need to be reminded of is it's in our hearts. We each have to think about this and what that looks like within us because it's not a location issue. It's not West. East. None of that is an individual human issue. And talk about an issue of a brokenness of heart. CRETA. This idea that Mary brings up that. We are so slow to think we can learn something. And I'm saying we as a. Coming from the West with more wealth or money. Slow to think that we can learn something from someone with less money than us. And that to me just goes to show how much power we've inherently given to money to wealth, which is also connected to education, all of that. And perhaps those that have had less access to wealth, who've had to lean on that less, but lean on the Lord more, have more to teach us than those of us who have. Made it through challenging situations because you know we can pay for that. Absolutely. There's more. I want to say creativity in being able to come up with ideas of new ways of doing things. There's more strength that comes from having to have had to. walk through some hard times, hard situations to be able to accomplish some things that maybe they had thought was impossible to accomplish. And so even as I'm saying that I can see those opportunities that I've missed that we may have missed in the past because we did not allow ourselves to humble ourselves to that posture of being able to learn from others in that position. So how do we improve these partnerships? How do we really operate with money and partnership and a healthy way? Well Mary starts with some advice here when she talks to people who might be coming with less money or less power. For the people on the lower power side, I would make sure there's some kind of intermediary. Somebody they can talk to who can pass information indirectly onto the person who's wielding more money or influence because it may or may not be easy for them to speak up directly when there are issues. You know in some countries it's viewed as respectful to be very direct and it's viewed as disrespectful to not be and in at least half of the world, if not more, it's the exact opposite. Just like someone might need a language translator, Mary suggests that we might need a translator as well and intermediary to help bridge the power gap. She doesn't stop there. She also brings up an idea about recognizing the power in all the members of a partnership. We've talked about this before. Everyone brings something to the table. The folks coming, maybe the partnership will have less resources. I'd also talk to them about what are, what are the assets you've got that you haven't really realized? Like part of the money piece is that and this is really tragic. You hear stories of like budding generosity movements starting some place and they're starting to pull together resources to do something and then somebody from outside, maybe it's somebody who was on a short-term mission trip or somebody who's just whatever. All the sudden says I'm going to give this amount of money to that. Well it's exponentially more than what people there could raise and they were so proud of what they were raising and now they feel embarrassed about what they were raising and they're like why are we even trying? Why don't we just find donors outside of the country? So it's really important to make sure that however the partnership is set up that it is encouraging local generosity and affirming local generosity and not discouraging it, not destroying it, not causing people to think their gifts don't matter. This comment from Mary as well as what she was saying earlier about sustainability just reminds me that everything we do and money is a multiplier on this but everything we do creates expectation, creates patterns that are going to continue on and with the money multiplier it has even more of an effect on the norm that you're creating. And she's saying make sure your norm doesn't mess up the gifts that the smaller member or the member who's coming with less power to a partnership don't mess up their contribution. Yeah that's good. I mean I don't have a money example that pops into my mind real quick but I think of even for example we did this unknowingly but we were trying to do worship I've put that in air quotes when we were at the part of the world that we were in and you know we can't have open worship there. And so of course you know we're just like toning it down nothing like what we do here and I kid you not. When this happened I never played guitar I don't know how to play guitar but there was one person who did and he was like well I'm just gonna train you teach you a little bit so you can do it. So I remember first time we're having this little meeting very small group and I take this guitar and I'm like literally just playing like two chords that I know that we can maybe sing very basically. And later you know those people are like oh that was so great because that's all they knew. And later I remember going back to the person who does know how to play and I asked him how can I did hit me but how can you just go do that you know why did you want me to do it. He was like was because if I had gone then later what they would have thought is that's the level that they have to have before they can start leading worship. But not you're terrible but you know you're a beginner but yet you were brave enough to do that and they can be like oh maybe I could do that too. And then what happened was that others who were in that group came out and said oh I actually know how to play guitar way better than I did say god I didn't know because I would have been really embarrassed that they stepped in you know and so then more of their gifts started coming out whereas I think if we had come in with maybe you know our mindset of what was the best they may not have. And so again that's not exactly a money example but it's a kind of a bringing out the gifts that other people have but if you bring it all first then they don't realize what they can contribute. And this is biblical. Yeah. Great. Right. I mean this is the widow bringing her mind and Jesus saying she gave more than everybody else. Yes. And this is really practical when we think about partnership. Right. For example a matching grant. If you were to give a matching grant does that encourage generosity or not? That's a good question. And in what way sometimes it might and sometimes it might not. It might in the sense of saying you have a piece in making this happen and we're not going to just pay for the whole project because it's a project we all want. It could have a negative effect and that you know I gave my $10 but someone somewhere is able to give $10,000 and that makes me feel small and the 10 I've given. Right. This is not like I never do this and always do this kind of situation. Yeah. But it is a always think about this. Exactly. Always think about the effect. How our generosity affects local generosity. Yes. So to our listeners if you haven't picked up on this yet that's what we're trying to say right. And we've said this multiple times that this whole concept of money is not something that we just don't think about. In fact it's needed and therefore we have to think about these things. One more piece of the complexity of of money in partnership. Right. Crita there's so many things to be thinking about but it doesn't end when you decide how to give money or what to give to. There's also the piece of accountability. What has happened with that money and how do we report back when this this is a piece that Mary talks a lot about in her book which I would recommend looking at but she also touches on our conversation. People in different countries they have accountability methods. Everybody has accountability methods but they look differently. So if we come from the outside and we try to impose the accountability it could actually send the exact opposite meaning of accountability. So I mentioned this in the book and it comes up often in some countries like say in the the US a printed receipt from a cash register can show a high level of accountability because there's all this software that ties that into all kinds of other accounting systems in that store. It's a very hard to fudge one you know they're reliable. In a lot of countries people then say we want to receive for everything and in that country the easiest way to scam as you receive and you just go to the market and I used to try to do this. Can you give me a receipt every single time? What do you want it to say? I mean it's a statement it actually cost and they look at me confused because usually it's it's higher than that and then you split the difference with that person who's issuing the receipt. So you really have to contextualize what your expectations are because you're doing one thing if you impose a process and you think you're ensuring good accountability but actually what you've just imposed is sending the exact opposite message and everybody thinks well these people don't really care about accountability so they don't care if money's stolen. So then that whole view impacts the whole culture of the partnership. Well here we are back around to contextualization. Greed again. Because a lot of people say well accountability or no or we have to keep people accountable but we're not asking the question what does it look like for appropriate accountability in the context of partnership and relationship and cross culturally. There has to be accountability. There has to be a reporting. Right. Just because we all know our own broken hearts and how power and money affects it and on all sides of a partnership there has to be clarity and accountability. But you want the way that you do accountability to actually make the partnership stronger. Exactly and that's why she uses that word contextualization which that's what the purpose of contextualization is. That's what it means is you're taking the goal or the objective of what you're wanting to reach and fitting it into where you're located or what your purpose is right then and there and making sure it fits there not that it fits where you came from or what you used to do whatever but it's for right then and right there. If we really take seriously what Mary is saying here then accountability. ability becomes this tool that builds relationship inside a partnership, not some kind of wedge driven between it. I'm so glad you pointed that out because to be honest, a wedge is what I oftentimes think of when I think about accountability. But now I see accountability, it's really the context by which growth happens. And so that's a positive thing. We actually contribute to each other's growth when we hold each other accountable. And especially when that accountability is mutual, like maybe I am keeping someone accountable for their finances, but they're keeping me accountable for my prayer life, for my spiritual growth, for my role as a father in the family. And when that goes both ways, that's when the relationship is deepened. Yeah, and you know, the beauty of what comes from that is a more beautiful relationship together. And those are things that all of us, no matter what culture we're a part of, we desire. We desire to have a healthier family. We desire to have a healthier balance in life. We desire to be closer to the Lord and our daily prayer life and our daily time in the Word, things like that, right? And so how beautiful would it be? Yeah, no one wants a partnership that's all about, show me last month receipts. Right. I'd rather not have anything to do with you because that's going to be your go-to question all the time, but no, yeah. But there's sometimes, you know, again, sometimes those kind of things are needed and there's a time and place for that. But when we're talking about holistically, what's involved, there's so much more. Emility really is at the heart of these partnerships that really flourish. Also, if there's not that intentionality and the person just has the money and they want to see this thing happen and they're just looking for partners to do it, which happens all the time. What happens is always a fraction of what could have happened. And it also is usually not sustainable over the long haul. Let's not miss what Mary just said. So that's why we face the difficult things around partnership and money and power. It's because when we enter into that complexity, something greater comes out on the other side. I would say one of the things I most love about these global partnerships is the impact on our discipleship. Short of people having people close to them die or suffer with cancer and die, I've not seen the level of discipleship happen so quickly and be so transformational. And the reason is that when you have a lot of loss, there's so much brokenness. As long as you make meaning of it in the right way, you're coming out, you're different, you're more compassionate, you're more loving usually, unless you've gotten bitter and gotten stuck in that place. But with, when you're just with people all the time that were raised like you and you're just doing life together, they're never calling out the blind spots. You're not even aware of all the blind spots. Take materialism here for heaven's sake. Nobody calls out materialism hardly ever. I mean, an occasional one does. But when you're interacting with brothers and sisters in different parts of the world, all of a sudden you're like, is it right that I lived the way I lived? Is that a good use of stewardship? You know, you meet other believers and, you know, in other parts of the world and they're really gifted in areas that you've never seen. And you're like, you know, why are our churches not also modeling that quality? That's an amazing quality, you know? So it just has this ability to deepen our discipleship in such a profound way. It only happens if we're humble and if we're willing to be broken and really, truly work through these things. The best guy I have ever met in partnership is the most gifted partnership person I have ever met anywhere in the globe. He is phenomenal and I interviewed him once and I said, "Listen, I just, you know, I'm just amazed at how God uses you in these partnerships. He can go in to the most dysfunctional partnerships where there's all this conflict and it looks like it's all going to fly apart and very often six months later, it's healed and going great." And he told me his secret. He said, "Well, the secret is, is I know I'm just prone to screw everything up." So I start every day and I ask God, "God, help me to not screw this up. Help me not to screw up what you're doing." And I try to find out if I'm doing things that are hurtful and I try to change that quickly. Well, what's the root of that? It's humility, it's love, it's caring for people, it's realizing the impact of the fall, but also realizing that the Holy Spirit can use us, but it's not an assumption that everything we think is God's will and everything, every idea that goes through our head is divinely conceived. There are a lot of people that think that way. For me, created this is such a powerful one-two-punch argument for partnership, for pushing through the complexity because it changes us. We grow. We become more like the people that God wants us to be. Right. And the flip side of that, I think a lot of people who don't want accountability in their life is because they don't want to be called out on things like that. And then what happens in that case is you don't get to grow. You don't get to become more like the person that God wants us to be in and to do the things I got wants us to do. When Mary started talking about this best guy she ever met in partnership, I was kind of, you know, my mind jumps ahead and I'm thinking of what is she going to list like a cross-cultural ninja, speaks 12 languages, amazing wise person. And when she gets to the part where she says, every day he says, "Help me not to screw things up God." That was both shocking and in some way a relief because that makes being a good partner accessible to me as well. Right. I think if she had just come with a list, I know that I would have just been, "Okay, well great, I'm going to write these things down, I'm going to do it, check it off, be good, partnership's going to be great." But also I think that that would have overwhelmed me a lot and I think that would be the same for many people. And we might even feel defeated and so I love that she made it so simple. How do I not screw up what God is doing? I mean that's really the posture that I want. I really want that. And the person that's saying that is going to look for what God's doing, trying to not squelch it. Right. Thinking about the long term impact and what they do, all the things we've talked about so far, they're going to do those things out of a spirit of humility. Yeah. What comes from that spirit of humility is it's a love for people. It's a caring for people. It's a lasting impact that we're wanting to ultimately leave wherever we go because of the Holy Spirit living in and through us. The partnerships are set up well. You can really do a lot more in ministry. You can impact and reach more people for the gospel. You can maybe set up systems that will generate wealth for generations. You can do a number of things with money that will definitely further God's purposes in the world. The thing when people will point to just the negatives and partnership and say, well, they should never partner. I'm like, do you really think that God's purpose, like, are we a global church? Is God's purpose really for the wealthy countries to just, the lack of a better, heard, hoard all of that and spend it on more and more frivolous things or partner someplace so that kids that would never get an education can actually get education or medicine and not die? There's many, many things, amazing things that happen when we collaborate. And in the end, it's God's money. It's not ours, you know? So it comes down to a stewardship. How do you best steward that? Just like we try to steward our time and just like we try to steward our talents. But there are so many fabulous things that are happening because of partnership. But if that wasn't happening, we would see a fraction of the outcomes. But it's not a given. That's the problem. It's not a given that partnering will go well. It's not a given that partnering will harm. That's how you set it up. It's having discernment and seeking God and learning what you can and using wisdom. It can go horribly wrong and it can go fabulously. Well, Mary leaves us with a picture from author and mission leader John Raul who wrote to give or not to give If all of God's kids are at the same table and it's God's table, we're at and One side of the table has loads of food and the other side doesn't have much and if they say would you pass? I can't remember the exact analogy past the potatoes or past the bread or past the whatever If we care about everybody at the table, we are concerned about the well-being of everybody at the table and And that's not an unreasonable request Yeah, so I mean it's a metaphor But it gets at the idea that we are all part of one global body of Christ and we are joined together and Scripture says if parts are suffering, we're all suffering And I think we can have fabulous partnerships if we're humble and we love one another and we're Careful and wise and we listen to one another. I think that's how the Holy Spirit works You know through that kind of relationship. So you know, I think it's worth all the effort And I think it's central to ever accomplishing everything that God once done down here, you know on As we heard in today's episode, money has a profound influence on partnerships. Its power can be both disorienting and at times overwhelming The alurea financial gain and even spiritual gain and the sway it holds can disrupt the very fabric of partnerships Potentially leaving a trail of broken relationships, destroyed partnerships, and leaving local ministries Unsustainable and unhealthy But amidst this chaos, there's a principle that can reorient our perspectives and fortify our alliances The fear of the Lord When we approach our partnerships with reverence, acknowledging a higher purpose beyond the power of money We find that the fear of God redirects our focus to what truly matters Ennavigating money and partnership, a few essential principles stand out humility Recognizing our limitations, vulnerabilities, and needs helps us transcend the alure of power that money often brings Secondly, the saying, help me not to screw it up may sound simplistic, yet it resonates profoundly It's a reminder to tread carefully, to exercise prudence, and handle financial matters with care Understanding the potential impact on the partnerships we hold dear and to remind us of our dependence on the Lord Furthermore, mutual accountability emerges as a cornerstone It fosters an environment of trust and transparency Paving the way for a discipleship and personal growth It's within this framework we discover the essence of sustainable driving partnerships One that are built on shared values, integrity, and a commitment to a higher calling So as we navigate the intricate dance between money and partnership, let us bear in mind these principles humility, self-awareness, and mutual accountability And by doing so, we can forge enduring partnerships that flourish filled with purpose, harmony, and lasting impact, and be and do greater together Thanks for listening Mission Shift is brought to you by Crew City Global hosted by Carita Chen and Josh Irby Produced and edited by Jeff Johnson Music and mixing by Scott Crawl Stay connected with us at crewcru.org/missionshift If you enjoyed today's episode, please like and review this podcast wherever you listen We would appreciate it if you were to share it with others who may be interested in coming on the starting with us