Note: Below is something I have written up in the last week as I have thought about the state of western commitment to missions and in particular my own generation's commitment. While I know that there are potentially many flaws with what I have written, (most notably that I have made quite a few sweeping generalizations without empirical data to back it up) the point of posting this here is to get people thinking about what it means to truly give our lives to following the King. I have been working back in Africa now for two years and in the current trend of missions that is "a long time". There is something drastically wrong about that. If you get the time I encourage you to read below and give it some thought. Thanks - Aaron.
In my work I have the privilege of working through national church groups to deliver relief supplies and aid to the needy communities within which they work. Often, in both Sudan and now in Congo I have spent hours bouncing my way down trails through the bush only to reach locations where the church has centers to help those around them. These centers are, more often than not, old mission stations built more than half a century ago by missionaries intent on making a difference in Africa.
While much has been said and can be said about the mistakes these missionaries made, one thing is certain; they answered the call of the King and gave their lives to answering that call. The very permanence of the structures that still stand is a testimony to the missionaries commitment to the call of Christ on their lives.
This past week I was at one such mission station, with the church having been built and established long before even my parents were born, and I had an encounter with an individual there that has left me pondering the state of western commitment to the call of Christ to follow him. The man I encountered was the cook, named Solomon, at the small guesthouse where I stayed. He heard me speaking Bangala and inquisitively asked where I had learned it. When I explained that my parents were missionaries and had worked not far from where we were he grew excited and began to tell me of all the missionaries he had worked for as a cook. His list was long and began with missionaries who had worked in Congo many years before it had gained independence from Belgium. He has served faithfully as a servant to the servants of Christ for more than half a century and continues to do so joyfully.
As I walked away from my conversation with him I couldn’t help but wonder at the number of missionaries this saint (because he certainly is one) has seen come and go. He has served for years with commitment because he believes he is serving those sent by the King to bring good news to his people.
These old mission stations and the old saints that remain in them stand in stark contrast to the current state of missions and commitment among westerners to the call of Christ to take His good news to the farthest reaches of the earth. While these old mission stations and the legacy of the churches the early missionaries left behind endure, today’s missionary comes and goes having achieved a great experience but having left little of enduring quality behind.
The work of missions has certainly changed and evolved over time but the commitment to it should not. While missionaries should be looking for ways to partner with and work under the existing African churches, those churches should not have to bear the burden of providing experiential short-term opportunities for westerners to feel as if they have served their King. The need for long-term commitment is as great as ever and felt all the more by the lack of impact short-term missions has on a church or community in Africa. While these short-term missions experiences may be life changing for those involved from the west the focus is wrong; after all, when did Christ ever send out the disciples so that they could boast about their service to him and tell of the great experience and life changing opportunity they had to serve him. Christ’s call to go is not about personal betterment but about spreading abroad his glory and fame.
Most of the founding members of both AIM (Africa Inland Mission) and SIM (Serving In Mission), two of the earliest missionary groups to work in Africa, died while founding the fledgling missions to Africa. Early missionaries to Africa knew that the likelihood of survival was slim but they went anyway; trusting that the One who had called them was faithful. Dietrich Bonhoeffer correctly wrote, “When Christ calls a man he bids him come and die”. In Matthew 16 Jesus says to his disciples that they must take up their cross and follow him. A cross is a place to die and until we recognize that the call of Christ is a call to die to all that we hold dear our commitment to his call will be flimsy. The early missionaries understood what it meant to follow Christ. When I look around at western missions today I have to question whether or not we still do understand the call of Christ. It is a call to abandon ourselves in obedience to the King’s directives for our lives.
Today westerners are keen to be involved in confronting the injustices and hurts of the world but are not willing to abandon themselves to the very causes they claim to be passionate about. They are willing to devote themselves to a point; if they can have a great experience to tell of and to check off on their “to do” list of spirituality they are content to go back to their unchallenging lives of comfort, suburbaness and feel-good worship. If the call of Christ presents a challenge to the comforts they have known they go on a mission trip to ease their conscience and then go back to “normal” life. Today’s western Christian does not know what commitment means; if the call of Jesus Christ the Crucified and Resurrected LORD means that they must battle alongside African brothers and sisters for life and not simply a few weeks or months, the white flag of surrender is raised to the comforts of western living.
The call of Jesus Christ is not a call to apathetic religion supplemented by doses of good works, but a call to weakness, perseverance, suffering and joyfulness in the face of a world that rejects us even as it did our King. Suffering is not something that the disciple of Christ runs from but gladly embraces knowing that in suffering we are gifted the greatest of opportunities to share the incomparable riches of God’s grace in our lives. Jesus lamented the rich young man because he was unwilling to abandon his all to follow the One who fills our every longing. Will we in the west heed our King’s call? Will we give him our lives or are we content with just a few years, or months or weeks? The enduring works of the early missionaries for the glory of the King stand in testimony against us and our unwillingness to commit ourselves to the challenges that await us if we, in obedience, listen to and obey His calling on our lives. Jesus calls us to deny ourselves and carry the cross. For some this may not involve the mission field but it involves denial of self nonetheless, while for others it means letting go of that well manicured lawn and finding yourself covered in African dust.
Many of the old missions have become so entangled in the western non-committal attitude and the false pretext of “non-dependency” that it may be that the committed Christian must look for new avenues of partnership with the African church. It may be that committed missionaries will find themselves under the direct leadership of African churches, battling alongside brothers and sisters who understand perseverance in the face of poverty and suffering. I am not saying that missionaries who work with the well-established western missions of today are not committed to the call of Christ (Two generations of my family have devoted their lives to the King and Africa through such missions). What I am saying is that many of these missions are softening their commitment to the countries in which they serve, creating more and more short-term possibilities for westerns who are unwilling to spend a lifetime of service in a foreign land.
Here is one interesting link that is somewhat tied into these thoughts: Do Short Term Missions make a Difference?
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