Does the Hierarchy of Missions Pervert the Gospel?
By Anna Price
“You guys are like my spiritual heroes.”
It wasn’t the first time I had uttered the phrase, but it was the first time I saw the missionaries to whom I said it wince.
The Hidden Danger of ‘Spiritual Heroes’
Growing up in church, many of us have heard the stories of the Christians with enough faith and boldness to move overseas as missionaries. We tell their stories of sacrifice and hardship, honoring the work they are doing. God doesn’t play favorites, but if he did …
The sentence goes unfinished, but it’s implications are clear: missionaries are at the top of the spiritual food chain.
After I saw those missionaries wince, I pondered my words and my relationships with cross-cultural workers. I began seeing that the hierarchy of Christian faith—the one that puts missionaries as the tip-top, closest to God—is not only harming our churches and missionaries, but it was also leading me to put stock in a false gospel myself.
It Hurts the Gospel.
Elevating missionaries as the “ultimate” Christians led me to believe a works-based gospel. With an inner desire to reach the higher level of faith that I assumed missionaries had, I made inner lists of things I needed to do, especially relationships with nonbelievers to make, in order to have a close relationship with the Father.
Passages of Scripture about a call to missions began to feel like a burden to carry instead of a joyful mission in which to participate. Instead of joining God in his work to bring the nations to himself, I instead sat under shame and was tempted to doubt the salvation God so freely offered me.
When we see full-time cross-cultural work as the best way to get close to the Lord, we cheapen the very message missionaries carry: that God already came down to us to make a way for that relationship.
