Doran's "Human Sympathy vs. Missionary Compassion"

Dr. Dave Doran's post is well-worth reading--one of those posts that make you stop and wonder why you haven't thought about a certain concept before. Even Doran admits he is just thinking the concept through, asking questions, not pontificating.  Some crux excerpts to help you get the idea are below:

Should the current deprivation of some people create more motivation for missions than the relative prosperity of other people?

The tendency to motivate Americans for missions by appealing to the deprivation of other people is really a base attempt to turn our materialism into an ally of the gospel. Instead of seeing people as headed toward an eternity apart from Christ, they are presented as objects of our pity because of their desperate [physical] circumstances. If you doubt that this is what’s happening, imagine the presentation full of rich kids dressed in designer clothes or young adults chatting in a Starbucks.

My responses to the post are below, but like Doran's post, they are thoughts out loud rather than dogmatism:

• No, missionary motivation should not be rooted in a target group's poverty or prosperity, but in God Himself, the Great Commission, our love for Christ, jealousy for His name, and God-infused compassion for lost people (despite their economic condition).
• Arguably (from the Scriptures and church history), the poor are the ones most likely to turn to Christ. Yes, there are the Lydias, the Zaccheuses, the Corneliuses, and the like, but "not many" of those who come to Christ are high-born (1 Corinthians 1:25-31). In this sense, we might have justification to give the poor a bit more weight in our presentations and targeting.
• No, I do not think our materialism can be an "ally of the Gospel" in the sense of making human sympathy a motivation for missions; but poverty may be an ally to reveal materialism as a great hindrance to missionary volunteerism.  I do think there is probably some benefit, missiologically, to seeing people in poverty or sickness, in the sense that it may awaken our consciences to our abundant self-love and stuff-love. I can remember the cup of ice-water that my first missions trip was when I was confronted by poverty and the unusual (to me) responsiveness to the Gospel among the poor.  And as we made our final descent back into Washington, God used the plethora of opulent city lights beneath my wings to bombard my heart with the question, "So what are you going to live for?" My materialism wasn't necessarily an "ally" of the missions call, but was revealed to me by the poverty God dropped me into for the week. Perhaps it was something like the law which "revived sin"--how would I have known materialism if I had not been awakened by poverty? God wanted it smashed before it could take over my life.
  
• It is probably a sign of spiritual maturity to have compassion on someone richer than you (so long as your "compassion" is not a masked, spiritualized jealousy).
• Finally, Dr. Doran, if you ever invite me to Inter-City Baptist to seek financial support, I promise you that my slide show will display the rich neighborhoods here (and of course, to "become all things to all men," I'm going to need a good amount of financial support from you guys).