In the growth of church movements there are always a host of internal problems. They usually center about three basic difficulties: 1) the tendency on the part of the missionary that everything must be done at once or according to some strict sequence, 2) the usurping of control by foreigners, and 3) the diverting of a movement by the missionaries toward peripheral or unworthy goals.
Even though the theory of self-propagation, self-goverance, and self-support was widely accepted by mission boards and field missions, it was very seldom tried. Missionary paternalism and their lack of faith in the ability of their converts to take control prevented their letting go.
Presumably all missionaries from the beginning have had it at the back of their minds that as a result of their labors Churches would sonner or later come into existence . . . but all too often they seem to have been hazy in their outlook, and hesitant about putting into force the experiments through which alone Churches can come into existence in regions where previously Churches were not to be found.
Our distance from most other cultures is so great, the cultural specialization of the West so extreme, that there are almost no avenues of approach whereby the work which we do can normally result in anything of an indigenous nature. it is an ironical thing that the West, which is most concerned with the spread of the Church in the world today, and which is financially best able to undertake the task, is culturally the least suited for its task because of the way in which it has specialized itself to a point where it is very difficult for it to have an adequate understanding of other peoples.