The thought nagged at me.
What if we concern ourselves with international missions because it’s easier than loving our immediate neighbors? In C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters, Screwtape coaches his demon pupil, “The great thing is to direct the malice to his [the Christian’s] immediate neighbors whom he meets every day and to thrust his benevolence out to the remote circumference, to people he does not know. The malice thus becomes wholly real and the benevolence largely imaginary.” Thus, we become believers who allow ourselves our hatred for a coworker, but crusade on behalf of the Syrian Refugees in Europe. The threat is real, and I think we should avoid a hypocrisy of that kind, but not by becoming isolationist. As if by abandoning global missions we would somehow become more loving to our nearer neighbors. When the Pharisees similarly struggled to obey two competing laws, Jesus’ direction was clear, “These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.” But what if only the church in America has this global concern for the gospel because it can afford to? On my last trip to the DRC I found that the missionary impulse is universal to Christ’s church around the world, and may even be thicker in other parts of the world than here in America. As I spoke to various church leaders it became clear that Jesus is currently speaking to His church in Bunia of his desire that they send their members to new regions of Congo. It’s really exciting. I visited Shalom University, which had an entire missiology and development department that was doing amazing work in poorly served regions of the country. According to Philip Jenkins this is consistent with a broader trend. In his book The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, he writes, “Moreover, churches on all three continents [Africa, South America, and Asia] share a passionate enthusiasm for missions and evangelism that is often South-South, organized from one of the emerging churches, and directed toward some other regions of Africa, Asia, or Latin America—we think of Brazilian missionaries in African, Ugandans in India, Koreans in the Middles East.” In fact, Jenkins also documents how immigrants from the global south are revitalizing the church in some European countries where the church is in decline. My experiences shattered the thought that missions might be a fad of a wealthy American church. As the church in any country follows Christ, they universally arrive at the same conclusion: Jesus is commissioning them to, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” |
No matter how hard you throw a dead fish in the water, it still won't swim.
-Congolese saying For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will.. -Jesus Wesley & Mindy McKnightThis blog will address critical questions regarding our vision of ministry in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is meant to last only until we depart the U.S., with each post being 500 words or less. Archives
July 2016
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