believe it or not I am just starting to really understand how certain people interpret evangelism--whether that be for better or worse-- and how it is or is not at times a necessary focus on a ministry.
Here, evangelism is certainly a necessary focus-- to which "the great commission" seems to be a central motivation. Yet I've commonly found among missionaries that, in observing their practice, an unknowing observer would more likely deduce that it is a call to "go make church plants of every nation" rather than make disciples. Discipleship seems to go about as far as delivering a set lesson series (often once a week), at the end asking if they want to be a church, then passing on the lesson plans and sending them "planting". A missionary team here has talked about an approach they have taken of sending out 72 native church leaders in pairs to plant churches, as Jesus sent out the 72. Granted Jesus himself did send out his disciples to spread "the good news", what they had seen, experienced, and what he had taught them. If I understand correctly though, there was so much more to the relationship that Jesus had in his discipling prior and in addition to sending them out. In my time observing missionaries, this initial planting routine hasn't even been the main goings on (if that had been the case we would have had more repeated visits to the same villages). What we have mostly been doing is what might be referred to as "making the rounds" which seems to consist mainly of taking care of "business" and "making an appearance". what this means is that from time to time, in between new planting jobs, the missionaries go visiting villages where they have already planted a church to sell bibles, give more made up lesson plans, schedule their next visit and any other leadership business leaders might want to discuss. As I understand from the missionaries these visits mainly result from insistence from church leaders that they come because no matter how much they might try to distance themselves and let the leaders of that church be the leaders, the church still wants to hear from the white "missionaries".
"The missionaries" (the white people at that) still carry a certain status with them. To begin with, western religion as a whole carries a status of being new and trendy--as do most things from the west with most people for that matter. Yet what's more, is that most the churches of western religion (the majority also being the longest present churches) have a rather set common order of doing things which over time has taken its foothold in modern African culture--how to do church, some sort of hierarchical leadership, church buildings, special outfits, etc. So while the Church of Christ missionaries have done something different than most in their church planting, which is their attempting to distance themselves and put as little of their own interpretation and western church customs into the Africans as possible and let them interpret for themselves how to be a church in their culture, they still struggle with the people wanting all the things of all the other churches to feel more official.
I think the CoC missionaries here have a good idea with this sort of hands off approach in realizing that following Christ isn't limited to the western way and letting the Africans discern from what they know of scripture on how to follow Christ in their culture. However, it seems as though even though they aren't telling them how to order their worship services they are missioning with a clear assumption that they do have to have an orderly worship service and meet on Sunday (even if they don't necessarily believe it must be Sunday themselves) and other subtle traditional doing church practices. I am not saying that any of this is right or wrong, I do wonder though at what being a church is really about when you take ALL of the cultural customs out of it, including those recorded in scripture?
what bothers me more though, Whether rooted in their hands-off attempt or from their church plant factory approach to ministry, the missionaries have formed a very detached relationship for themselves with the villagers (church members). While Planting churches with relatively brief select stories from the old testament and a little more in depth look into the look into the life of Jesus, they seem to have lost a grasp of the actual story they were telling and what they were suppose to be planting. At times I can't help but feel like I am an intern for a business. To which affect they have taken the business practices of Jesus (sending out 72 in pairs) but are missing his life aspects like making himself self nothing, feeding the poor, counting others better than himself, loving unconditionally to (at the time) a seemingly meaningless death. This sort of relationship is so much of what was different about Jesus (and for that matter the early church) and certainly the Kingdom of God as a whole. We are outright told that Love is the most important thing, Love is how people will recognize the people of God, God is Love. Jesus' life was an example of the extents that this love goes and the Church is to complete what is lacking in Jesus' death and resurrection which to be presently living out that Love in a community. So much of "the gospel"--the good news-- that we act like we are teaching of the kingdom of God is the church loving like this. That is good news. what is news about it, much less good or true if people's lives aren't really changed by being loved and seeing love like this?
I am certainly not saying that the missionaries here don't believe any and/or of this and rather purposely leave it out. Only that in their focus on producing churches it feels deeply that they have lost track of it. Mind you, I think at least some of them are at least beginning to realize it more and more.
I think this too, is a great issue in their attempt to let the Africans be their own leaders and in communicating why all of those other "doing church" customs and rules and rulers aren't important or what Church is about. I think it is a great issue because without this sort of Love and close friendship in discipleship they will rarely be able to show what is different about following Christ and what is truly important. How can the Africans be expected to see and understand if they haven't been shown it in their very teachers? I fear they have left hollow the stories and teachings, to which I think "the parable of the sorrow" speaks relevantly in a way I have never read it before. My fear is that in this fashion of evangelism we westerners, as we are bringing this story of the people of God and Jesus for the first time to many while they are very receptive--and thus to their descendants-- we are quibbling their faith for them to become much like the us, where "non-believers" want very little to do with Christian moralist-"church doers", and many "believers" treat Christianity as not really following Christ at all--not to say that this is necessarily acknowledged.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Friday, July 13, 2007
for granted life...
There are moments, very different than any others, that I find my life suddenly calm, still, clearer-- even though I had not realized just moments before that it was not but comparably rather blurred, anxious and otherwise just the opposite. At times the moments come when I have gone about for sometime with white noise such as a fan or a car engine and then when they are turned off it changes my perspective entirely-- as this happened in the Serengeti when we had been driving through the for sometime and past hundreds of thousands of Zebra and Wildebeest to the point that all of us who had never seen either in the wild before were already disenchanted with them almost as though they were field grass and simply anxious to see more exciting spectacles. Yet when we stopped and turned the car engine off so I could hear the breeze and the grass rustling and animal's sounds and breathing; at the time it felt as though I was seeing them for the first time all over again only this time standing in the field in the middle of them, almost forgetting about the car and others completely-- I shudder at such a contrast in experiencing the lions who stared into my eyes only inches from the road. I could have sat there all day with those animals in the Serengeti, just watching and listening.
It is not only at the clearing of white noise that these moments come though. Sometimes they come with a light breeze or laughter or taste or some sight or sound in nature or a form of art; sometimes just with a deep breath I feel as though I could sit there all day and just breath as though I haven't in a long while. With the surprise value that comes with these moments also comes a feeling of wonder at how much has gone blurring by that I've missed? That I could have found so much life, beauty, love and wonder in if I wasn't so expeditiously on my way to the scheduled matters?
It is not only at the clearing of white noise that these moments come though. Sometimes they come with a light breeze or laughter or taste or some sight or sound in nature or a form of art; sometimes just with a deep breath I feel as though I could sit there all day and just breath as though I haven't in a long while. With the surprise value that comes with these moments also comes a feeling of wonder at how much has gone blurring by that I've missed? That I could have found so much life, beauty, love and wonder in if I wasn't so expeditiously on my way to the scheduled matters?
Thursday, July 12, 2007
On a lighter note, the circle of life...
Having just returned from Safari in the Serengeti, I thought now would be as good a time as any to give a brief up date on some unique things I have experienced up to now. On the off chance that you ever carried any noteworthy expectation for the quality of my writing, it might be better for us all if you just play this one by ear, because that's about the most that can be said about the effort that I put into writing it... whatever that means.
Going along with what I have previously mentioned, the comfortable living conditions of the missionaries has also included, at it's best borderline gourmet food, and all other times nothing less than what can commonly be found in American homes. However, outside the missionaries homes my stomach is a great reminder that I am still in Africa. In the villages the staple foods have been rice (this being the greatest because it was a really good year for rice) and ugali, a sort of thick cornmeal base dough (though much less of this and other corn products because it was a bad year for corn). with one or both of these staples accompaniments might include one or multiple selects from beans, boiled greens, cow chopped into small chunks (I describe it this way because they more or less skin the cow and then just start chopping, intestines, bones, traditional meats, fat) boiled in lots of oil and tomato, or the same might be done of a goat; at times we've received a whole fish to pick from (apparently the best meat is at the head by the way, which is saved for honored guest like ourselves); another item we often receive is a bowl of oil-boiled whole Daga, which most of you reading would probably know as minnows (tiny, bight size fish)-- and in case you were curious, as far as fishy smelling fish go, Daga are strong competition for first. With the tomato tainted oil base that almost all meats are prepared and served in, one either pours it over the big dish of rice, or with rice or ugali mold it in your hand to dip it the oil-- other than the rare occasion that we are given a spoon, everything is eaten with the Right hand, all things handed between people are also with the right hand (the left hand is for the butt)...yes, I am left handed.
Where drinks in the villages are concerned, there is usually some form of water around, but unless it is bottled there is always a questionable gamble about the safety of drinking it... most often the the gamble is stacked against you. Other than that we might receive some hot chi tea, but usually without milk.
As far as eating in restaurants go here, there is a strong Indian population here so I have had the opportunity to eat some great Indian food (great by my mouth's standards, however my bowels often beg to differ--as they do with the food in the villages).
On a related note, I have also killed (by way of decapitation) a rooster and a fat-tail sheep. the missionaries wanted the interns to have the experience of having to kill for food as is almost always the case with villages here, with few exceptions. However, when it came down to it I was the one that did the sawing. It sucks that we have to kill animals to give our body what it needs. some wouldn't understand this sentiment, but people attribute some sort of intelligent emotional system to their pets by observing how they react to the way we treat them, so why not animals that aren't pets? Moreover, I don't think it was part of God's original plan for creation, but that's another conversation.
Last but not least is my Safari to the Serengeti. For any who don't know, the Serengeti is a very large area in Africa where African wildlife still run free. It has been declared a sort of park with certain laws and guarded by rangers, such as no hunting, no getting out of the car accept in selected areas and no unlicensed entry, but there are no fences. So we drove through in a land cruiser with a roof that raises so we can stand and saw just about all the African animals one could as for, in their natural habitat. It is the time of season for migration so we saw maybe a million Wildebeest and hundreds of thousands of Zebras, and many of the animals had fairly recently had their babies as well so we were able to see young giraffe, Zebra, Wildebeests, lions, warthogs, crocodiles, antelope, elephants, baboons etc... We also saw hippo, cheetah and leopard, ostridges, love birds and some other really magnificent birds.
As a disclaimer, I feel really unable to here grasp in text (or even later in voice) my experience of being in the Serengeti, though for those of you for whom that just won't do, I will make a small attempt and hopefully throw in some pictures later.
I used the word magnificent ending with the birds because there were so many and I don't want to take the time to name them all nor am I able, though if I were to use one word to describe the experience as a whole, magnificent in its greatest weight of meaning would be it. At times I could forget that we were not in some sort of drive-thru zoo because the animals were so relaxed and just looking at us (they have grown use to cars to some degree), however the slightest thing would remind me that this was just life for them. Things like seeing wildebeest fight or cross the river; baby warthogs run behind their mom in a single file; a lioness hunting a herd of wildebeest; at sunrise coming across a few lions (males, cubs, and lioness included) right next to the road, relaxing and picking at the fresh kill they made earlier that morning and looking into the lion's eyes; listening to the near by sounds of wildebeest, zebra, hyena, and the deep roar of lions while resting in my tent at night; Even just seeing a colt giraffe running beside us for a few seconds as we drove past a whole family, seeing all of this was a magnificent, refreshing, reality check--sometimes frightening and sometimes borrowing--breath of life to me in ways I can't describe.
Going along with what I have previously mentioned, the comfortable living conditions of the missionaries has also included, at it's best borderline gourmet food, and all other times nothing less than what can commonly be found in American homes. However, outside the missionaries homes my stomach is a great reminder that I am still in Africa. In the villages the staple foods have been rice (this being the greatest because it was a really good year for rice) and ugali, a sort of thick cornmeal base dough (though much less of this and other corn products because it was a bad year for corn). with one or both of these staples accompaniments might include one or multiple selects from beans, boiled greens, cow chopped into small chunks (I describe it this way because they more or less skin the cow and then just start chopping, intestines, bones, traditional meats, fat) boiled in lots of oil and tomato, or the same might be done of a goat; at times we've received a whole fish to pick from (apparently the best meat is at the head by the way, which is saved for honored guest like ourselves); another item we often receive is a bowl of oil-boiled whole Daga, which most of you reading would probably know as minnows (tiny, bight size fish)-- and in case you were curious, as far as fishy smelling fish go, Daga are strong competition for first. With the tomato tainted oil base that almost all meats are prepared and served in, one either pours it over the big dish of rice, or with rice or ugali mold it in your hand to dip it the oil-- other than the rare occasion that we are given a spoon, everything is eaten with the Right hand, all things handed between people are also with the right hand (the left hand is for the butt)...yes, I am left handed.
Where drinks in the villages are concerned, there is usually some form of water around, but unless it is bottled there is always a questionable gamble about the safety of drinking it... most often the the gamble is stacked against you. Other than that we might receive some hot chi tea, but usually without milk.
As far as eating in restaurants go here, there is a strong Indian population here so I have had the opportunity to eat some great Indian food (great by my mouth's standards, however my bowels often beg to differ--as they do with the food in the villages).
On a related note, I have also killed (by way of decapitation) a rooster and a fat-tail sheep. the missionaries wanted the interns to have the experience of having to kill for food as is almost always the case with villages here, with few exceptions. However, when it came down to it I was the one that did the sawing. It sucks that we have to kill animals to give our body what it needs. some wouldn't understand this sentiment, but people attribute some sort of intelligent emotional system to their pets by observing how they react to the way we treat them, so why not animals that aren't pets? Moreover, I don't think it was part of God's original plan for creation, but that's another conversation.
Last but not least is my Safari to the Serengeti. For any who don't know, the Serengeti is a very large area in Africa where African wildlife still run free. It has been declared a sort of park with certain laws and guarded by rangers, such as no hunting, no getting out of the car accept in selected areas and no unlicensed entry, but there are no fences. So we drove through in a land cruiser with a roof that raises so we can stand and saw just about all the African animals one could as for, in their natural habitat. It is the time of season for migration so we saw maybe a million Wildebeest and hundreds of thousands of Zebras, and many of the animals had fairly recently had their babies as well so we were able to see young giraffe, Zebra, Wildebeests, lions, warthogs, crocodiles, antelope, elephants, baboons etc... We also saw hippo, cheetah and leopard, ostridges, love birds and some other really magnificent birds.
As a disclaimer, I feel really unable to here grasp in text (or even later in voice) my experience of being in the Serengeti, though for those of you for whom that just won't do, I will make a small attempt and hopefully throw in some pictures later.
I used the word magnificent ending with the birds because there were so many and I don't want to take the time to name them all nor am I able, though if I were to use one word to describe the experience as a whole, magnificent in its greatest weight of meaning would be it. At times I could forget that we were not in some sort of drive-thru zoo because the animals were so relaxed and just looking at us (they have grown use to cars to some degree), however the slightest thing would remind me that this was just life for them. Things like seeing wildebeest fight or cross the river; baby warthogs run behind their mom in a single file; a lioness hunting a herd of wildebeest; at sunrise coming across a few lions (males, cubs, and lioness included) right next to the road, relaxing and picking at the fresh kill they made earlier that morning and looking into the lion's eyes; listening to the near by sounds of wildebeest, zebra, hyena, and the deep roar of lions while resting in my tent at night; Even just seeing a colt giraffe running beside us for a few seconds as we drove past a whole family, seeing all of this was a magnificent, refreshing, reality check--sometimes frightening and sometimes borrowing--breath of life to me in ways I can't describe.
Saturday, July 7, 2007
deceiving myself
happy 07/07/07 everyone.
last week the other interns and I went on a four day survey trip to the towns Shinyanga and Kahama a few hours south of Mwanza. The purpose of the trip was three main parts: to see other towns in Tanzania, perhaps to see what sort of aid or mission work is being done other than Church of Christ, and to gather information oh these towns as possible locations for long term missions for whoever might consider.
As far as information gathered I don't feel the importance of recording it here at this time, however the trip did greatly effect me and it is to that affect that I wish to write.
While we were in the towns I began to be overwhelmed by all that was around me; by the conditions that all of these people live in day and night, the only condition that most of them have ever and perhaps will ever know, along with countless generations before them. I was overwhelmed by the contrast of their living conditions to my own that I have grown up with (and continued in as I drove through the towns in an air conditioned Land Cruiser) and so many others so excessively comfortable throughout the world, and that we have allowed this contrast for so long. The panic attack began to set in, deep inside as their lives became more and more real to me and less and less could I understand how us "superior" species can do this; I could only ask "why?!" Moreover I was not only feeling them more vividly than ever but it was as though I could feel my own comfortable and self preserving life battling against the feeling of their lives within me and I felt as though my spirit was being torn and broken. I became claustrophobic of the minimal conditions around me, both for it being all the people around me had and at the idea of myself in their place; I was able to image myself in their place in a more real way than I had ever before and I didn't know what to do with it.
I'm sure I am sounding redundant but that is because of my in ability to describe what I felt. A felt, vivid reality of the pain and evil in the world (and in myself) and the very real contrast of the Kingdom of God(love) and what a life accordingly means came weighing in on me like a rising ocean current,drowning me. It became hard to breath, hard not to run, hard not to cry and burst in anger all at once.
-----------------------------------
Yet, as I was reflecting on this in my journal I recalled all the ideas about Africa I have had before that time in the town and wondered at how much I talked (to others or myself) about going to Africa to live and changing my life style and giving up everything... and wondered at how much all of that was just to convince myself that I really cared more than the masses; to comfort myself with delusions of really doing something about_______.
"Do not be deceived, do not flatter them and their life and do not make a martyr of myself; our lives are different beyond the very meaning of the word."
I am actually not saying that I no longer think I could live in Africa or give up everything only that I have a clearer reality of what that would mean and how far my life is from that as is. I do not think I will be coming back to America talking about how miserable I was in the villages, in fact I think this makes really displacing myself more truly possible and better for the world around me than before.
last week the other interns and I went on a four day survey trip to the towns Shinyanga and Kahama a few hours south of Mwanza. The purpose of the trip was three main parts: to see other towns in Tanzania, perhaps to see what sort of aid or mission work is being done other than Church of Christ, and to gather information oh these towns as possible locations for long term missions for whoever might consider.
As far as information gathered I don't feel the importance of recording it here at this time, however the trip did greatly effect me and it is to that affect that I wish to write.
While we were in the towns I began to be overwhelmed by all that was around me; by the conditions that all of these people live in day and night, the only condition that most of them have ever and perhaps will ever know, along with countless generations before them. I was overwhelmed by the contrast of their living conditions to my own that I have grown up with (and continued in as I drove through the towns in an air conditioned Land Cruiser) and so many others so excessively comfortable throughout the world, and that we have allowed this contrast for so long. The panic attack began to set in, deep inside as their lives became more and more real to me and less and less could I understand how us "superior" species can do this; I could only ask "why?!" Moreover I was not only feeling them more vividly than ever but it was as though I could feel my own comfortable and self preserving life battling against the feeling of their lives within me and I felt as though my spirit was being torn and broken. I became claustrophobic of the minimal conditions around me, both for it being all the people around me had and at the idea of myself in their place; I was able to image myself in their place in a more real way than I had ever before and I didn't know what to do with it.
I'm sure I am sounding redundant but that is because of my in ability to describe what I felt. A felt, vivid reality of the pain and evil in the world (and in myself) and the very real contrast of the Kingdom of God(love) and what a life accordingly means came weighing in on me like a rising ocean current,drowning me. It became hard to breath, hard not to run, hard not to cry and burst in anger all at once.
-----------------------------------
Yet, as I was reflecting on this in my journal I recalled all the ideas about Africa I have had before that time in the town and wondered at how much I talked (to others or myself) about going to Africa to live and changing my life style and giving up everything... and wondered at how much all of that was just to convince myself that I really cared more than the masses; to comfort myself with delusions of really doing something about_______.
"Do not be deceived, do not flatter them and their life and do not make a martyr of myself; our lives are different beyond the very meaning of the word."
I am actually not saying that I no longer think I could live in Africa or give up everything only that I have a clearer reality of what that would mean and how far my life is from that as is. I do not think I will be coming back to America talking about how miserable I was in the villages, in fact I think this makes really displacing myself more truly possible and better for the world around me than before.
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