An African Baptist Response to the IMB: Part 3

[Bruce Gourley]

An African Baptist Response to the IMB: Part 3
by Patrick Dube

Missionary lifestyles – integrity, honesty
Baptist missionaries in our part of the world have not shown much sacrifice in terms of their lifestyles. They buy and rent houses in the most expensive suburbs, drive expensive cars and solicit money from churches and individuals, only to use that money to manipulate people and situations. They often use the money to buy loyalty from local people and in extreme situations they use money to cause locals to fight each other while they watch from the sidelines.

Individual immersion into ethnic cultures
Some missionaries do not immerse themselves into the culture of the people with whom they are working. This is evidenced by their ignorance of the cultural dynamics of the people and the lack of concern to learn the language of the people. If it is observed that missionaries are not concerned with the culture and language of the people, the missionaries must be sent back home, otherwise they are on holiday. Surely resources could be better utilized by more passionate people who have a heart for souls. One reason why this issue is never addressed by locals is that some leaders are beneficiaries of perks from missionaries and so they don’t want to lose out on those perks, so they turn a blind eye to such deficiencies.

[William Thornton]

Keep it coming bro...but now I get the sound of an axe grinding. Believe I'd take this guy with a bit of salt. I am sure that some of everything he says is true somewhere in the world among the 5k+ imb mssys, but...

Why did he choose you, a strident critic of most everything SBC, as a foil for his criticisms?

Developing...or maybe devolving...

[Bruce Gourley]

[David Flick]

[Howard]

I've read all 3 sections from Patrick. His concerns are exactly the items that hit my wife and I in the face when we were in West Africa for 50 days in 2002. Missions seemed to still run on a "colony" mentality level. Scary! Kind of like the person knocking on your door and saying, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you."

[William Thornton]

[Jonathan]

[Joseph Patrick]

[William Thornton]