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When Paul recounted his various sufferings for the gospel to the Corinthians, he concluded by turning from outward pressures to his inward stress over the state of the church: “Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concerns for all the churches” (2 Cor. 11:28).

I identify with this double-sided sense of pressure. Externally, I ache for the church around the world—suffering in the Sudan, opposition in Indonesia, struggling to survive in Iraq. But the concerns that can keep me awake at night often relate to the church in my own country and our role in world evangelization.

I am growing increasingly troubled by the following American tendencies.

The rich/poor gap. On a global scale, this gap refers to economic realities, but here I’m referring to the resource of knowledge. The information rich are adopting people groups, studying the “Isa Mosque” phenomena, or examining indigenous missions. The information poor don’t know any of these things.

Mission and church leaders dug deep into the nuances of Islam and the Koran, and Muslim-Christian tensions in the world today at the Overseas Ministries Study Center last December. But on Sunday at church, I met a lay leader who, in his own words, “could not tell you the first thing about what a Moslem believes.”

Even sadder, at a mission conference the pastor prayed for the short-term mission team headed to Russia: “Lord guide them in their evangelistic efforts in Romania.” The mission team leader (an excited, information-rich graduate of the “Perspectives” class) lamented that the pastor did not know that Russia and Romania are different countries.

Oversimplifying the world. We leaders often talk about Chinese, Muslims, Hindus and Latinos as if they are large homogenous units. With such an oversimplified view of cultures (and the multiple cultures within cultures), it’s no wonder that church leaders fall prey to plans designed to “crack the code” of a culture and evangelize everyone at once through a campaign, a movie or a technique.

After 9/11, one American mission agency sent out an emergency fundraising solicitation. The president referred to their budgetary state-of-emergency—which he attributed to “the collapse of the US economy.”Did I miss something? I recall a downturn, but a collapse? Such overstatement can only lead to an overall loss of credibility for that agency and missions at large.

Nationalizing God. Recent world events have exaggerated our propensity to blur the lines between patriotism and Christian faith. We talk about deaths-in-the-war as if only our people count. We pray identifying “us” versus “them”—obviously implying that God must be on our side. We pray as if God is our national Santa Claus and we need only bring him our wish list.

Christians in the Muslim world warn us that the blurring of these Christian and nationalistic lines will confirm to Muslims the need for holy war. These Christians tell us that identifying our Christianity with American foreign policy will serve to intensify the commitments of Muslims to their faith.

A loss of critical thinking. The church speaks as God’s prophetic voice, but have we become so “amused to death” (‘a-muse’ means no thinking) that we simply absorb the status quo?

Consider our ability to think critically about where we’ve been and learn from history. Present a pastor with the historical perspective of a Palestinian—who believes that land they occupied for more than 1,000 years was stolen from them—and you’ll be labeled an apostate.

Or how about thinking critically about what we’re doing? I am devoted advocate of short-term missions, but is it possible that the idea needs some serious review? Many churches seem to believe that the global cause of Christ will automatically follow our increase in short-term missions. Doing more and involving more people takes the priority—without much evaluation of the local, financial and global impact.

What about where we’re going? When churches hear the presentation of some mission agencies, they get the impression that the replacement of retiring Western missionaries is the highest priority in world evangelization. Are we assuming that Western missionary influence needs to stay the same or increase?

Option overload. Program-driven church ministries and other priorities shove global issues into a category one pastor calls “sideshow missions.” Some devotees will faithfully carry the burden, but most see missions as one option among many, and often the music ministry, men’s ministry or 1,000 other specialized ministries keep people from involvement in the wider world.

Cross-less Christianity? A South Asian leader wrote an essay several years ago critiquing the American church’s excesses in supporting and sending short-term missionaries. He entitled the article, “Bring Back the Missionary Cross.”

The theme carries into our lives. What will the missionary cross look like to new American missionary candidates who bring their addiction to comfort to cross-cultural settings? Will those demanding evacuation policies and multiple containers full of stuff be able to be incarnational ministers of the gospel in the midst of Two-thirds world poverty?

A Short attention span. We participate in missions with a remote control in our hands, a possible case of “Global Attention Deficit Disorder”—today the fundraiser for the seminary in Brazil; tomorrow the short-term mission trip to Burkina Faso; the speaker who represents indigenous missionaries from India; and the Sunday-School-adopted-missionary who translates the Bible in southeast Asia. We move freely from project to project and place to place with little concern for long-term issues.

We often critique the church in other regions as being a mile-wide and an inch deep, but our church missions programs may suffer the same malady. If we do have a societal case of A.D.D., how will our hesitancy to make long-term commitments hinder our effectiveness in reaching Muslims, Hindus and others—who might require years of relationship and service before they consider Jesus?

Several years ago, I discussed the mobilization of new missionaries with recruiters from Wycliffe Bible Translators. They asked, “Do those coming out of the American church have the capacity for commitment and sacrifice necessary to do the work of Bible translation?” I wonder.

I hope my concerns for the church keep you awake—at least for a night or two.

Paul Borthwick trains leaders with Development Associates International and and moblizes others toward global ministry through Urbana 2003 and Gordon College.