I’m currently trying to write an article on missiology about the role of resources in mission. One of the things I’m toying with is the idea of a missionary as a resource. Money is clearly a resource, language too is a resource. Surely the missionary is a resource too. In this framework, I ask what the role of external resources is in relation to internal (local) resources. 

This picture of a missionary as a resource echoes the coach picture, here, in terms of being a resourcer. However, characterising the missionary as a resource provides some passivity to the missionary role. That is, the resource is at the service of the local. They can use the resource in the way they think. Instead of it just being about what the missionary thinks is important, they allow themselves to be directed and used like a resource would be. They hand over power to someone else. This picture seems to empower the local while at the same time disempowering the missionary in a vulnerable way. Agency is located more with the local than the missionary. 

Even though missionaries may know a thing or two, their expertise in this metaphor are placed subordinately to the locals and directed towards goals that the missionaries themselves may not have thought of or thought important prior to being involved in mission. As a resource the missionary is put in the service of another rather than servicing their own goals.

I like the picture, because my arms display my unreadiness. When you are the resource, change comes not from a position of control, but from outside and we are less ready for it than when as the agent we try to make the change happen ourselves.