A Question

We have friends her in the North American part of the minority world who have a common friend in the majority world who is a wonderfully fruitful disciple maker.  The idea was floated to invite this majority world brother to come and share with us here.  He is making disciples and most of us here are not.  

The idea was to see if the circle here could put up some funds for his airfare and an honorarium and commit to a weekend seminar together.  This did not happen simply because there was not sufficient commitment to it.   Nice idea but few wanted to commit to it.  All good. 

Then I thought what if there had been the commitment to the weekend but we had asked the majority world brother what he wanted to do with that commitment?

What commitment?  Well, to make the weekend work we would have needed about 30 people to put up at least $100 each to cover plane fare and a small honorarium.  Plus travel, food, lodging and time off work for those travelling could have added an additional average cost of $400 per person (assuming some were close by and could commute from home).  Thus the cost of the seminar could easily run to $20,000.  

So I asked the majority world brother which he would have wanted- to come and do the seminar for a $1,000 honorarium or have $20,000 to invest in all of the projects that he is involved with?  

His response?  He would take the $20,000 since anything he could say was  pretty much already on his website and face book pages and if some one really wanted to interact with him, they could do so via Skype.  

All hypothetical since the commitment was not there and the question was never asked but the truth is that minority world christians often spend more on conferences and seminars for themselves than they invest in their own communities or the  majority world.  

Your comments?

Your brother

Steve Hill