Mission in the 21st century

We are used to thinking of missionaries as westerners going off to exotic locations to share the gospel with the natives. But what does mission look like today, and how can we be part of it? David Williams investigates.

A friend of mine is a missionary. He is working on the African island of Madagascar, serving the local Anglican diocese in a church planting initiative, which they hope and pray will see many thousands of people come to know the Lord Jesus. He is helping to train evangelists, and is investing much time and energy in learning the local language so that he will be able to teach the good news of the Lord Jesus properly. His home churches are supporting him, giving generously and sacrificially to a mission agency that is coordinating his financial and prayer support. I wonder what images have come to mind as you've read about my friend. For example, what do you think is his skin colour: black or white? I'm guessing that the mental picture many of you have painted gives my missionary friend white skin. So it may surprise you to learn that my friend is a black Kenyan, that his supporting churches are all Kenyan and that the mission agency that has sent him is Kenyan. Over the last 30 years, mission has changed rapidly. In the wake of this change, we face a twofold challenge: on the one hand, we must hold firmly to the unchanging truth of God's word, which reveals God's mission to us, but on the other hand, we must be radically flexible, willing to do away with old stereotypes as we seek to proclaim God's unchanging word to the fast-changing world we live in.

Some things don't change

In the face of so much change, some churches and mission agencies seem to have lost confidence in the whole mission enterprise. For the purposes of this article, let's define mission as ‘making disciples of all nations’. God's primary agency for this task is his word committed to his church. A loss of mission confidence reflects a loss of confidence in the authority of that word. The resurrected Lord Jesus commands his disciples to proclaim the gospel to all nations and to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth (Luke 24:47, Acts 1:8). These same disciples are told that “[t]he harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few”. They are commanded to pray earnestly that workers will be sent out into the harvest field (Luke 10:2). So the New Testament model of mission envisages gospel workers proclaiming the good news of Jesus in a plentiful harvest field. God's word will produce a harvest of new Christians who are then gathered together into church communities. Therefore it should come as no surprise that churches who are confident in the authority of God's word are also churches who want to engage in mission. These truths are universal; they are neither time-bound nor race-bound. God's word does not suggest that the harvest will be plentiful for a limited period of time; instead, the implication is that the harvest field is enduringly plentiful, and that there will be a continual shortage in the labour market. In addition, God's word does not suggest that these gospel workers will have one particular skin colour; instead, the gospel, wherever it has taken root, will produce gospel workers, excited about reaping a harvest to the ends of the earth. As God's word has taken root throughout Africa, Latin America and Asia, it has produced the fruit of the gospel, which includes churches who earnestly ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into the harvest field. All churches who remain confident in the authority of God's word will remain confident in a universal gospel, a plentiful gospel harvest and a shortage of gospel labour. As we think about what these truths mean for us in practice today, we can't allow ourselves to become stuck in a 19th-century time warp. We face a number of challenges. Firstly, we must think carefully about where gospel workers are most desperately needed in the Lord's harvest field. Secondly, we must adjust to the realities of the increasing strength of churches in Africa, Latin America and Asia. And thirdly, we must think through how we engage in mission in the light of all of this.

A changing harvest field

A significant percentage of the world's cross-cultural missionaries continue to work in locations where the growth of the gospel has been explosive over the last century. There are both good and bad reasons for this. As the gospel has produced a harvest of new believers, there has been a continued need for discipleship training, for equipping leaders, for providing Bible teaching and for supporting theological education. These are all critically important ministry areas. It has been said that the church in Africa is a mile wide but an inch deep—a reality that points to the appropriateness of continued engagement in Bible teaching and discipleship. However, we also have to recognize that traditional models of mission, while suited to gospel work in sub-Saharan Africa, do not provide Christian missionaries with easy access to many of the places where the gospel is most needed today. These places of greatest gospel need are, perhaps, best defined thematically rather than geographically. Let me suggest four areas.

The Muslim world

Without doubt, the greatest gospel needs lie in the Muslim world, stretching across Muslim north Africa and the Middle East, through central Asia and into parts of south-east Asia. You can't get a visa to enter these countries as a Christian missionary, and mission here is both dangerous and challenging. However, we should not think that mission is any more dangerous or challenging than it was in sub-Saharan Africa 200 years ago; some of the early missionaries had the realism to pack their belongings not into suitcases, but into coffins. Missionaries seeking to enter the Muslim world must do so discreetly. This means that they may not have formal or obvious links with a mission agency, that they cannot easily or openly talk about their ministry, and that they must, in some instances, relate to home churches pseudonymously. This makes fundraising for Muslim mission particularly challenging. At the same time, personnel may require a professional skill or business background in order to gain entry to many of these places. We may be making a strategic mistake if we encourage all our doctors who have Bible teaching gifts to leave medicine and apply for ordination, for doctors and other professionals who have Bible teaching gifts are exactly the kind of people who might be able to carry the gospel into locations that would otherwise be closed. However, professional people working in a tent-making capacity will probably not be in a position to take six months' deputation leave every three years. Therefore, all sorts of mission agency presuppositions may need challenging if we are to mobilize significant numbers of people for this kind of service.

Former communist countries

A second massive area of gospel need arises in places that have a communist political heritage either in the recent past or continuing today. Many of these countries (some from the former Soviet Union, others in south-east Asia) are closed or semi-closed to the gospel. Mission access, therefore, has to follow similar approaches to those suggested for the Muslim world. Some former communist countries face serious problems of social disintegration and insecurity that add to the challenges facing gospel workers.

The Roman Catholic world

A third area of gospel need is defined by the traditional Roman Catholic world—particularly the Mediterranean countries of Europe. Visa access to some of these countries may be more straightforward, particularly for those with European passports. However, mission agencies have not always found it easy to mobilize gospel workers for this sphere of work for a number of reasons. These countries may be perceived as being Christian and not in need of the gospel, or they may be perceived as being wealthy and not in need of mission input. The high financial cost of sending personnel to Europe has also been something of a stumbling block. Some mission agencies have responded to this by using tent-making models of mission. Others have been willing to bear the high costs in the light of the strategic opportunities available.

Urbanization

A fourth area of gospel need that challenges traditional models of mission is the reality of urbanization. More than half the world's population now live in cities. One billion people (about 15% of the world's population) live in city slums. Churches have often struggled to reach slum dwellers with the gospel because they have imported models of ministry that, while tried and trusted in rural areas, are of less value in the cities. Informal settlements and slums are often fractured communities of transitory people, which make long-term ministry extremely challenging. Does the harvest field still need labourers? Absolutely! But in the face of such change, gospel workers need to ask whether traditional methods best serve the needs of the world we now live in.

Changing harvest labourers

A second reality that the world of mission must adjust to is the growing pool of gospel workers who come from the churches of Africa, Latin America and Asia. 19th and early 20th-century world mission was characterized by western dominance. European, Australian and North American Christians looked across the world and saw vast numbers of people perishing apart from Jesus. Their response was to send missionaries whose sacrificial service for the gospel led to the extraordinary growth of the African, Asian and Latin American church. As these churches grew, so the western dominance of mission became increasingly questioned. As a result, mission in the second half of the 20th century was characterized by attempts to create greater equality and shared responsibility between the West and the rest. 21st-century world mission is likely to be characterized by a further shift—no longer the West ahead of the rest, nor the West and the rest alongside one another, but rather the rest ahead of the West. A significant part of the struggle within the Anglican Communion, expressed at GAFCON,¹ is about the redistribution of power: African bishops are no longer willing to meekly accept decisions from Canterbury. Between them, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Sudan represent more than half of all Anglicans worldwide. This shift in the distribution of power within one denomination is an example of a wider shift within mission. The majority world churches of Africa, Asia and Latin America will make their own decisions about what mission should look like, who will be doing it and where it will happen. These churches have often been very successful in engaging in mission within similar cultures to their own—for example, the huge numbers of missionaries from southern India working in other parts of the country. The same churches have been less successful in working in radically different cultures, with failures sometimes occurring because of an inability to find appropriate models of mission. It is only a matter of time before these teething problems are resolved. Then we can expect African, Asian and Latin American Christians to look across the world and see vast numbers of people perishing apart from Jesus. Their response will be to send missionaries to those countries that are less Christian than their own—countries like France, Spain, England and Australia. The experience of being on the receiving end of mission rather than the sending end of mission has the potential to discomfort us. It also has the potential to revive our churches and draw many people to faith in Jesus Christ. I talked about this on one occasion in the UK and was told, “We wouldn't want missionaries here from Africa; they are so different to us and they wouldn't understand our culture”. The fact that this is how African Christians have been feeling about western missionaries for the last 100 years seemed to have passed my listener by. We are already beginning to see some of these realities in practice: orthodox Anglicans in the United States are already receiving episcopal oversight from African bishops, and African churches have already made attempts to plant multicultural churches in cities like Sydney, London and New York. These attempts haven't always been successful, but then early western mission wasn't always very successful either.

Getting involved in world mission

In the light of all these changes and challenges, how can we Christians get involved? Paul's letter to the Philippians paints a wonderful picture of gospel partnership that provides us with an enduring model. We can trace the theme of partnership through his letter by following the Greek word koinonia, meaning ‘fellowship’ or ‘partnership’ or ‘sharing’. Paul paints a picture of an active partnership in the gospel (Phil 1:5-7). This partnership exists at a number of different levels. The first and most fundamental level is the partnership that the gospel gives us with God himself, uniting us with the Lord Jesus Christ. So Paul tells the Philippians that they are in Christ and are therefore in partnership with God's Spirit (Phil 2:1). And being in Christ and being in partnership with God's Spirit also brings us into partnership with Christ's sufferings (Phil 3:10). However, the same koinonia (partnership) in the gospel not only brings us into partnership with Jesus, it also brings us into partnership with other Christians. So partnership is not an individual thing; rather, we as a Christian family are united together in Christ. Paul goes to particular trouble to explain the partnership that exists between the Philippian church, and Paul and his fellow workers. Paul is not in Philippi; he is many hundreds of miles away somewhere else. But Paul says that he and the Philippians are still partners in the gospel: they have partnered with him in his troubles and have supported him financially (Phil 4:14-15). So, as Paul tells us, all Christians are by definition in partnership, because together we are in Christ, sharing in God's grace and having the Holy Spirit. All Christians have the privilege and responsibility of being a worldwide family of fellow workers. Together we share the task of advancing the gospel by preaching Christ to the ends of the earth. We must act upon the status, privilege and responsibility we share by encouraging each other in our gospel work wherever we are, understanding ‘fellowship’ in this active sense—participating, not simply sharing, in Christ. Paul's understanding of gospel partnership is a bit like a rope made up of four separate strands: doing, praying, communicating and sharing. So firstly, gospel partnership involves doing: all Christians are called to do the work of the gospel. This means we are called to proclaim and contend for the gospel, and even suffer for it. We are all called to live the gospel by becoming imitators of Christ. Paul is not saying that he goes off as a missionary to preach the gospel, leaving the Philippians behind as passive products of gospel preaching; he's saying that both he and they are in partnership as, together, they do the work of the gospel. Secondly, gospel partnership involves praying: all Christians are called to pray. Paul expects the Philippians to pray for him, but he also prays for the Philippians. Gospel partnership in prayer is reciprocal: it works both ways. Thirdly, gospel partnership involves communicating. Paul is eager to hear how the Philippians are going, and they are eager to hear how Paul is getting on. The communication that Paul talks about in the book of Philippians is simply a reflection of their relationship: Paul and the Philippian church communicate with one another in order to inform and encourage each other in their gospel partnership. Fourthly and finally, gospel partnership involves sharing. Paul gives thanks to God for the Philippians' willingness to support him and his colleagues in material and financial ways. Their support seems to have been generous and effective. It also seems to have been a long-term commitment. And while their sharing partnership was largely one-way (i.e. from the Philippians to Paul), we know that in other situations Paul worked as a tent maker in order to not be a burden to the people to whom he was preaching. The example of the collection among the Greek churches to support the famine-stricken Christians in Jerusalem also suggests that the sharing partnership idea was reciprocal and two-way: the Christians in Palestine had helped to plant churches in Greece, and, years later, they received famine support in their time of need. So for the Apostle Paul, partnership means gospel partnership, and gospel partnerships are tied together by the strands of doing, praying, communicating and sharing. Each strand of Paul's gospel rope runs in both directions—that is, doing the work of the gospel together, praying for one another, communicating with one another, and sharing on the basis of need. This reciprocal model of partnership has the flexibility to draw us into fellowship with fellow gospel workers in a huge variety of settings. It transcends all barriers of race or culture, and it allows us to find new models of mission with which to reach the lost. In addition, it allows us to receive gospel workers from other cultures when the time for such developments arrives.

Endnote

¹ The Global Anglican Future Conference (http://www.gafcon.org) which was held in Jerusalem in June 2008. See also Tony Payne's reflections on page 8 of this issue.