column 6: mission and kung fu

column 6 for the christian herald

I have some friends that do kung fu. This is good exercise, a good way to meet new people, and about learning self defence. It involves a discipline of rehearsing certain moves again and again. The theory is that if you master the moves, when you find yourself being attacked you will have developed the reflexes to respond and improvise drawing on that set of moves.

Being a missionary to another culture is not that different. You learn a set of moves and reflexes - about crossing cultures, preparation for culture shock, the dangers of imposing your culture on another, the importance of contextualization (growing the gospel in the soil of the local culture), local theologizing and encouraging and helping develop local indigenous leaders for the emerging church. You also immerse yourself in the life of Jesus and the early church and in stories of how people have shared the gospel across cultures before. All of this helps to build up a set of moves, a set of mission instincts and reflexes. Then it is off into the unknown and the future and it is down to drawing on those moves and reflexes. Nothing can fully prepare you for that adventure. Solutions from another context simply won’t translate to this one.

At the beginning of the 20th century 75% of the world’s Christians were in Europe and America. At the beginning of the 21st century 60% of the world’s Christians were in Asia, Africa and Latin America. In other words the heartlands of the Christian faith have dramatically shifted. In large part that is due to people who responded to the challenge of mission and dared to cross cultures to share Christ with others. We are probably all aware of the mistakes, the blind spots, the embarrassingly Western clothes in which the gospel was shared at times and the legacy that is still being worked through because of that colonial past. But by the grace of God the church has emerged in amazing ways round the world in the last hundred years.

I began this set of 6 columns suggesting that insights from cross cultural mission can help inform the emerging church in our own context(s). I want to suggest in conclusion that with all the talk of emerging church and mission shaped church, what is actually required is that we follow Christ and simply go to share the gospel with people in our emerging culture(s)! It’s not rocket science. The grace of God may just be enough to do the rest. Don’t get stuck just rehearsing and talking about the moves.