The Dilemma facing the Global Church

As we consider ministry models and the rise of the global church, it quickly becomes apparent that they face a dilemma when it comes to the acquisition of materials and resources to help them grow in their faith. That dilemma can be summed up as follows:

• The worker is worthy of his wages
  
• The global church is not able to pay the wages of the worker

The worker is worthy of his wages

Those who create discipleship tools (materials, resources, software platforms, etc.) are biblically within their rights to receive monetary compensation for their work.

The global church is not able to pay the wages of the worker

Many in the church around the world come from developing communities, far removed from the relative affluence of many Western cultures. The global church is not economically able to pay the “wages” of workers from more affluent societies who have created (and are creating) many of the excellent discipleship resources in existence today. Consider someone in the following context:

He is from a minority language group of 10,000 speakers located in the foothills of a mountain range on the other side of the planet. He lives in a small village with his wife and two children where he keeps a garden and sells the produce to try and pay for his children's schooling. His entire family lives on less than 4 U.S. Dollars a day.

In many ways, his life is very different from ours, but in one way it is very similar: He is a follower of Jesus Christ with a call from God to reach his people with Good News of Jesus Christ.

He wants to translate the Bible and provide discipleship resources to teach his people "to obey everything Jesus has commanded." His dream is to be able to understand and apply the Word of God in his own life, but he struggles to understand the only Bible he has, which is in the trade language and not the language he grew up speaking. He needs access to discipleship tools that provide Biblical teaching in his own language, adapted for use in his own culture, possibly in audio format (if he is primarily oral in learning style, as many in the global church are), that he can freely use, improve (as he grows in his understanding of God's Word and how it applies to his culture) and redistribute.

The challenge of acquiring discipleship tools

Existing discipleship resources are often out of the reach of believers in contexts such as these, simply due to the cost. To pay retail prices for existing tools could cost more than half a year's total income, making them completely inaccessible.

In some cases, maybe some people in some language groups can afford the resources or donors provide funding to give them discipleship tools, but there is still the problem of making the tools effective in the target language and culture.

The challenge of making the tools effective

Many existing discipleship resources are available in some common languages. But without translation and adaptation of these resources, they are still completely ineffective for many in the global church who come from thousands of different languages and cultures.

For larger language groups, some copyright holders may fund a translation project or other donors might pay for the project. But what about for a language group of 10,000 people? According to the Joshua Project, 52% of least-reached people groups are under 10,000 in population.

If we allow economic factors to shape missions strategy and we assume that the cost for a translation project of discipleship resources for a language group of 10,000,000 is comparable to a project for a people group of 10,000, it follows that it is more cost effective to target only the largest language groups, so as to reach the most people with the same amount of money. But even if that was the best way to approach the problem, there is another factor to consider.

The challenge of maintaining the tools

What about when a revision of the discipleship tools is needed?

Some languages – especially oral cultures without a corpus of literature to preserve it – can change very quickly. If we approach ministry from an economic model (or a "scarcity" mentality – producing a one-time-shot printed book is an expensive undertaking and resources are scarce), who is going to pay for the revision project and, more fundamentally still, who determines when a revision is necessary? The people writing the check who do not speak the language? The speakers of the language who are not providing the funds?

These are complicated questions but there is something happening around the world that may change everything.

We have an opportunity to serve

God is raising up people from people groups all over the world and calling them to ministry. Brazilian Indians are going into the depths of the Amazon rainforest to make disciples for Christ among some of the most remote people groups in their country. Papua New Guinean villagers are rising up with a call from God to translate the Bible into their own language and teach their own people to obey "everything that Jesus has commanded." Thai believers, in the face of a population comprised of 99.9%+ Buddhists, are reaching out to the orphans & widows in their communities and crossing borders into neighboring countries to bring the Good News to the lost. Countless other examples from people groups all around the globe suggest the same thing: God is at work in the global church.

The global church needs to be equipped with tools and resources in their own languages that enable them to grow in maturity as disciples of Christ. Many are coming to the point where they are no longer waiting for things to be done for them, they are doing the projects themselves. This creates an interesting situation for copyright holders because translation of a resource is restricted by copyright law. We are likely to face a growing number of scenarios where the global church wants access to discipleship tools so that they can translate and adapt them for effective use in their own language group.

Many copyright holders are hesitant to relax the copyright restrictions necessary to allow the people to translate and adapt discipleship for themselves. This is understandable when their ministry model – which is biblically sound – depends on the income from selling the resources they create.

Some creators of discipleship tools have graciously made them available for free use and sometimes even translation, as long as the content itself is not changed in any way. This is a huge step in a good direction and addresses some of the challenges listed above (though we maintain that as soon as permission is given to translate into a language you do not speak, you have to trust the translator's motives and work completely – and this is a good thing – so we may as well give them the permission outright to not just translate the content but indigenize it so that it can be truly owned by them and used with the greatest effectiveness. If we can trust them to translate the original content well then we can trust them to adapt, re-purpose, improve and re-use it well too.)

We propose that a third approach addresses all the challenges: the “Free & Open” approach to ministry.

Why "Free & Open" is the answer

The “Free & Open” approach to ministry states the following:

• Ministry is most effective when anyone can use, translate, adapt, improve and redistribute discipleship tools, legally.
  
• Monetary compensation for discipleship tools should be neither categorically required nor forbidden.
  
• What was intended to be free, should stay free.

From a licensing standpoint, we consider the Creative Commons “Attribution-Share Alike” to best reflect this approach.

Here's why we think the “Free & Open” approach is the answer for the global church:

• It “teaches them to fish” – Instead of being in a constant position of needing to acquire their discipleship resources from others, this approach allows anyone, in any people group, speaking any language to take the discipleship tools and make them their own, building on them and increasing their effectiveness.
  
• It provides a foundation for reproducible ministry – Because the discipleship resources can be legally reproduced and redistributed without any licensing fees or copyright restrictions, the global church is able to function without dependence on outside resources or goodwill.
  
• It puts the global church in the driver's seat – When the global church is responsible to create, maintain and distribute their own discipleship resources, they learn to make their own decisions, guided by the Holy Spirit instead of outsiders, who move into roles of providing training and assistance where needed.

By adopting a "Free & Open" approach to the creation and licensing of discipleship tools, the global church is equipped for reproducible, effective ministry.