In review: Cross-Cultural Partnerships: Navigating the Complexities of Money and Mission, Mary T Lederleitner (InterVarsity Press, 2010)

John Thew and his wife Cathryn served as CMS missionaries in Pakistan from 1976 to 1989. Currently the Federal Secretary of CMS Australia, John is preparing to retire at the end of 2011. And Mary Lederleitner's new book has him enthused all over again about a subject that he considers on a frequent basis.

Here is a book that will challenge and excite your mission passion, and stir up your thinking about working cross-culturally. It has stirred me up, so this is a bit more than a book review! But there are no easy answers to the questions Mary Lederleitner raises.

Lederleitner approaches the subject of 'partnerships' from the standard American viewpoint of money - project funding and the like. But the good news is that this book is more about relationships than money.

The issue of relationship

A bright, keen and well-prepared young couple offer themselves to a mission agency, in the hope of working with an indigenous church. An invitation has come from a Western mission leader working in that area, but what they really want is an invitation from the indigenous people themselves. A great aspiration! But the response of the indigenous leaders is: "How can we invite you until we know you?"

This is the dilemma that Mary T Lederleitner so ably tackles. A logical, even humble partnership plan - asking for an invitation from indigenous leaders - is a Western cultural approach. A partnership based on relationship - personal familiarity - is a Majority World cultural approach.

So how can cross-cultural partnerships even get started? Fortunately we are not working on a blank canvas.

Partners - from whose viewpoint?

In world mission circles, 'partnership' has a variety of meanings, depending on who's speaking. Many mission agencies refer to their missionaries as 'mission partners'. Other agencies view 'partnership' in terms of power - the senior partner and the junior partner - and naturally see themselves as the senior partner, while their 'partners' avoid the word completely!  For others, 'partnership' is a money thing, and guess what! The donor is the senior partner.

At CMS Australia, we define 'partnership' in terms of two or more parties that put on the table what each has to offer, then work together using those resources. Tricky, but possible.

Partnerships need to be vision-driven. There needs to be a common and shared vision on which both (or all) can work together. With some commonality of vision, values and strategies, you can have an effective working partnership.

But this is a Western paradigm. With a good 'business plan', a realistic time schedule, progress milestones and a planned end point, you may have an effective way of working in a Western context. But does it work cross-culturally? Not all cultures are 'business plan' oriented. Indeed, the majority of world cultures think 'family' and 'relationship', rather than 'business plan'. So what's the way ahead?

The issue of power

Money is not actually the real issue, says Lederleitner - power is! Uncritically we agree that 'He who pays the piper calls the tune'. It's enticing and comfortable to be the benefactor with the power, elevating good accounting above human dignity and dependence.

Which is harder? Which is more important? To finance a slum project from the relative abundance of your secure home, or to live and work among the slum dwellers, risking your health, your comfort and your kids' education? Lederleitner writes less about how to manage money matters, and more about how to approach and handle this question of power in ways that honor God, build up His people and do good to others.

The complexity of culture-crossing

Every chapter of this book reminds us that cross-cultural partnerships are incredibly complex. The biblical starting point must be humility and flexibility, with humility first in the blocks. Attitude - yours and mine - is the key. It is hopelessly inappropriate to think with pride: "God has blessed us so richly, and we have so much to share."  In view of the failing state of the church in the West, are our spiritual knowledge and experience really that credible?

Of course, guarding the gospel (as Paul writes to Timothy) is fundamental, but this only finds its application as we work in relationship with others. And where those relationships are cross-cultural, there is an even greater need for humility of approach.

Summary

Mary Lederleitner addresses the core cultural concepts of individualism and collectivism as they apply to cross cultural partnerships of every kind. She names premature judgments, paternalism and poor mutual accountability as the root of many unintended consequences in cross cultural partnerships. She speaks of the importance of true biblical foundations, mutual accountability, regard for human dignity and capacity building (building up the body) in partnerships. And she offers practical approaches to conflict that can redeem healthy working partnerships in the gospel.

The book is worth the cost and reading time for three reasons: 

1. Lederleitner introduces and argues principles, the principles that underlie any and all cross-cultural interactions;
2. her application of the principles to the business of funding are clear and helpful in themselves; and
3. the principles are easily applied to broader areas of cross-cultural working and living. They are transferrable concepts.

Altogether, a worthy and stimulating read.