First, the soteriology (theology of salvation) of the missionary (simply – “sent one”) impacts their approach. If they are hard-line Arminian in their approach, they might be more concerned about making the Gospel message more attractive in a sense, so as to help or draw non-believers to make a volitional choice to trust Christ. Hard-line Calvinist (or whatever you want to call it), might focus more on the actual preaching or communication of the Gospel message, with less or no concern for attraction. Most tend to fall somewhere in between. The correlation of this to the post’s topic is complex, but I think it is important to consider.

Second, the missionary’s theology of being “sent” is important to consider. Take the old revival evangelist who were a product of the 2nd Great Awakening in N. America. Their theology of being “sent” basically comes down to going and verbally explaining the Gospel to non-believers. Their assumption is that everyone already knows they are sinners and our role is to be sent to them to tell them they need Jesus. Relationships are unnecessary.

We see this public proclamation in Acts, but we also see phrases from Paul like, “I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.” Paul was explaining that he was willing to live like a Jew, Roman or whatever if it meant he could be used by God to save some.

You asked, “Does the perception by others of our assigned “agenda” to convert…discourage people from…an authentic relationship?” My answer to that is that we need to step back and figure out what we believe in regards to the two points I brought up. Our Soteriology and theology of being sent must be established before we determine how or what relationships with non-believers are important.

If we believe we are sent to tell a people group about their need of Jesus, but we withhold telling someone this until we have a relationship with them, how authentic are we really being? At the same time, if we are so tunneled visioned about simply seeing them converted, that we are unwilling to “become all things to all men”, we run the risk of subliminally communicating that trusting Christ is only about accepting our Gospel intellectually and converting to our western-biased way of life.

People in my field tend to react to foreign missionaries as you describe, and it seems to further push away those who are considering a longer stay as it appears they are not accepted at even a superficial level.