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If we don’t pay attention, today’s missionary teams could become the equivalent of yesterday’s missionary compounds.

At one time, missionary compounds were standard operating procedure for Western agencies. North Americans serving in Africa, Asia or Latin America often lived in an enclave that served as the center of missionary activity. Besides the missionaries’ homes, the church, medical facilities, printing presses and other ministry elements were located on the compound. It wasn’t unusual for the entire complex to be surrounded by a wall or fence.

Missionary compounds were good for the missionary. They provided an island of security where expatriates could function more efficiently. They didn’t have to live with constant culture stress.

Foreign diseases could be kept more effectively at a distance. The missionaries could stay on the field longer, even live longer, than if they tried to live among the people. In fact, the sanctuary environment of the compound no doubt enabled many more western missionaries to leave home and family for an otherwise difficult assignment.

I don’t know, but some agencies may have referenced the benefits of compound living in their recruitment pitches: “Join XYZ agency and you can live on a compound.” After all, sending agencies have long been tempted to blunt the harshness of missionary service in order to recruit more workers.

Although some circumstances still make compounds necessary and/or helpful, the arrangement doesn’t enjoy the same level of favor as once it did. Often, the compound is viewed as isolating cross-cultural missionaries from the very people they are supposed to be serving. By some it is considered an obstruction to the cultural immersion necessary to effective cross-cultural engagement.

Which brings me to the practice of sending teams today. A missionary statesman recently told me that from his perspective, the biggest problem with the North American missionary movement today is that “We are doing teams too well. Our emphasis on the missionary team has decreased our ability to relate to the people.” You don’t need buildings to have a mission-compound mentality. Clearly, a team approach to ministry offers benefits, reducing stress, burnout and discouragement and allowing missionaries to help each other from their variety of strengths. But some of the liabilities of the mission compound spill over into missionary teams.

Consider, for example, a rural tribal setting. When a missionary single or couple comes to such a village, that missionary has to adjust to the people. He or she has to learn from them how to survive in their environment. He needs to have his social needs met through relationships with them. Placing a closely knit team in that kind of environment greatly reduces the likelihood of achieving these dynamics. Everyone-missionaries included-naturally tends to relate to their own kind much more readily, a reality that mitigates against relationships with those of another culture.

What is more, while the people in that kind of setting may welcome the presence of a single missionary or family, they will sometimes feel invaded by even two families. That’s not just a theoretical objection: I have that observation from actual, unsolicited testimony of tribal people.

Of course the type of teamwork is crucial. Teams that include nationals, and/or whose activities result in developing close relationships with nationals, will avoid many of the problems they otherwise can engender.

Let’s be clear: team ministry has important benefits and is here to stay. It also has biblical precedent. These are givens. But let’s also be clear about the liabilities of team ministry. Not every people, not every locale, not every community, comprises a context for placing several expatriates together.

It took a generation or two to recognize the liabilities of missionary compounds. In the current fervor for sending teams, let’s not repeat the mistake.

Gary Brumbelow serves as general director of InterAct Ministries in Boring, Ore.