Sailboat or Powerboat?

My long time friend and colleague Alex Araujo, who grew up in Brazil, uses a boating analogy to describe the differences between how Western and non-Western churches and organizations operate. 

He says that in a powerboat the power is inside the boat. It's noisy and expensive and fast. The boat goes where you steer it, and you're pretty confident it will get there.

In a sailboat, the power is outside the boat, with the wind. It's more unpredictable. Some days the wind is good and you go a long way. Some days are a struggle and you work hard to make little progress. You have to take it as it comes.

Western organizations can be thought of as being like the powerboat. We can make three-year plans and we can usually find the trained people and the resources to accomplish them. The difference we hoped to make in the world might not be as good as we expected, but we can forge ahead with our plans nonetheless.

Non-Western organizations have more unpredictable factors to deal with. Persecution might come. Governments can shut them down. They may run out of money. If they are in an unreached area, mature Christians with the needed skills might be few. They are more like sailboats, advancing as best they can, dealing with whatever circumstances they find along the way. In fact, an example came even as I was writing this blog post. I've been trying to get in touch with one of our staff in Dakar. I haven't seen him on skype for days and was wondering why. An email that just arrived said, " Sorry Bob, we've had electricity problems here for three days, I can't connect from the office, I'm sending this from home where we can get electricity. We can try again tomorrow if you are available." This man doesn't live in the bush. Dakar is a major, modern African city.

Can you imagine some of the stresses that both sides feel when those used to powerboating try to partner with those used to sailboating?

This might have application in our own lives too. We can think about what we are working hard to do for God, maybe in our own strength and effort. Or we can think about following a sense of the Spirit's leading and flowing along with that, a more unpredictable road. I grew up in a powerboating world, and admit that the former is easier for me than the latter.

If you want to see Alex's full article,  it can be found at  http://cosim.info/conferences/To_Catch_The_Wind-short.pdf.

A photo I took in Sri Lanka, fishermen pulling in their nets. Their day-to-day success seemed real unpredictable to me.