The Church in Mission

by David Dawson*

This article appeared in the The Presbyterian Outlook on September 8, 2008, and was re-printed in the Presbyterian Cross-Cultural Mission Newsletter Email Group Posting #23 – October 2008 with the permission of the author and The Presbyterian Outlook. www.pres-outlook.org  There are footnote references in the article indicated by parentheses ( ).

You may be surprised that missionary could be in need of rehabilitating, but some readers will have a visceral aversion to hearing this word. It is time to reconsider what we call those who represent the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in international cross-cultural mission.  The recent General Assembly unanimously approved the Dallas Invitation (Expanding Partnership in God’s Mission) and affirmed the General Assembly Council’s proposal to reverse the half-century decline (from 2,000 to 200) in the number of mission co-workers serving internationally.  These are very significant defining moments for the PC(USA) and they provide us an important opportunity to review our beliefs and actions regarding mission.

Many readers will be surprised that using “missionary” is a no-no for some in the PC(USA).(1)  Officially we have preferred “fraternal worker” (1960’s – 1970’s) and “mission co-worker” since then. Presbyterians are far more influenced in their thinking about missionaries by James Michener’s Hawaii and Barbara Kingsolver’s Poisonwood Bible than they are by mission education provided by the PC(USA). In addition to popular literature this bias is also deeply influenced by western scholars.(2)  It seems that some in the PC(USA) defer to popular literature and academic writers for a critical understanding of missionaries. Maybe we should listen to international partners such as world-renowned missiologist Lamin Sanneh who twenty years ago labeled this lack of nerve “the western missionary guilt complex.”(3)

Have missionaries been paternalistic? Have they cooperated with imperialism and economic colonialism? Have they imposed western theological and Biblical understandings as normative Christian expression? Yes (with emphasis) to all of the above! However, missionaries are no better at sinning than the rest of us. They just get to do it cross-culturally in a foreign language more carefully scrutinized than most of us have had to endure.  Robert D. Woodberry (among many other serious mission historians) reminds us that the knee-jerk, emotional, negative reaction to “missionary” is ill-founded. Woodberry writes: Continue Reading »

Tags: Add new tag, missiological terminology, missionary, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

One more of those maps to put continents into perspective, this time, Africa. Read more about it HERE.

The number of people in Britain going to church is falling rapidly and only one in 10 adults attends church weekly even though 53 percent of adults or 26.2 million people in the United Kingdom identify themselves as Christian. A survey, “Churchgoing in the UK Today,” by Christian relief and development agency Tearfund, said this reflects a drop of 20 percent in weekly church attendance from a similar survey conducted six years ago. The survey shows that 7.6 million adults go to church each month. One in four (12.6 million) attend at least once a year.

+ Ecumenical News International, PO Box 2100, CH – 1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland

Technorati: Church attendance, Christianity

This video is pretty disturbing even if it was edited to accent the humor. While you will not want to take it too seriously, it may provoke some interesting conversation to begin a mission committee meeting!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE]

Technorati: World facts, global awareness

Welcome to to this forum of reflection on the missional character and witness of the church. I hope you will feel free, not only to comment on the themes expressed, but also to contribute your own insights to this perennial role of the people of God in the world today.