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Since the days of Columba, Patrick, and Augustine of Canterbury, the British Isles have been home to more than their share of missionaries. So it may be appropriate that as the Christian Vision Project turns its attention to Christianity's global scope and mission, we begin with an essay by Andrew Jones, a globe-hopping consultant on church planting who lives in the Orkney Islands off Scotland's northern coast. Jones, best known as the writer of the weblog tallskinnykiwi.typepad.com, is an irrepressible New Zealander who chronicles the wide and sometimes wild world of innovative efforts to proclaim the gospel in the midst of "emerging global culture." He is the first respondent to our "big question" for 2007, posed as Western Christians adjust to their minority status in global Christianity, and as technologies of travel and communication make cross-cultural encounters ever more accessible to the majority world and minority world alike: What must we learn, and unlearn, to be agents of God's mission in the world?
Pilgrim, Pilgrim, where have you been?
I've been to London to visit the emerging church scene.
Pilgrim, Pilgrim, what did you there?
I found a little queen sitting on her chair.
What did we go out to see? The same thing we always see. The same thing, but in a different place. We seek out sameness. We go to a foreign city to eat noodles, and end up with a hamburger and fries. We know that global church growth is largely happening in the margins, among ordinary people, without big budgets or impressive credentials. But when we go out to worship with the "indigenous" church in Colombia or Malaysia or Italy, we end up sitting on a pew singing expat choruses with a national pastor who has colonized himself for our approval. To be discovered. To be seen by people who do not have eyes to see.
We search for the ubiquitous but discover the obvious. We hunt the exotic but are haunted by the echo of our expectations. We seek judges but we see kings. Or in the allegory of my inverted nursery rhyme, we go out to watch mice but get wooed by a monarch.
By focusing our attention on Western look-a-likes rather than the God-breathed expressions of ekklesia, we miss the joy of participating with the global church. We also miss the blessing these networks and ministries can offer us. But even more tragic is the reinforcement of our western stereotypes as superior models, each one another mega-brick in the colonial tower of Western Christian supremacy. Any attempts at finding a third space, where their world and ours could meet, are thwarted by our search for what appears successful in our own eyes.
We need to learn to see the unexpected and unlearn our compulsion to see the expectable.
"What did you go out to see?" Jesus asked the crowds, in reference to a popular desert pilgrimage to John the Baptist. They expected a monarch, but God sent a monk. Outmoded expressions of prophetic ministry, warped by the greed of the Sadducees and the short-sightedness of the Pharisees, had to be unlearned.
Jesus' disciples had to be taught how to see. The disciples saw the clean robe of Jairus; Jesus saw the stained garment of a bleeding woman. The disciples saw a prostitute groveling at Jesus' feet; Jesus saw a servant preparing his body for burial. The disciples saw a threatening alien force teaching in Jesus' name; Jesus saw more partners for the harvest. Jesus saw a woman giving two coins, illustrating the mysterious generosity of Kingdom economics; the disciples would not have seen anything at all if Jesus had not pointed her out.
Paul had to teach the Corinthians how to see. They saw a church composed of small élite circles, each well-defined group following their own celebrity, whether Apollos, Peter, or Paul. But there was only one church, Paul told them. God's servants were watering it, but God was causing the growth. Being agents of God's mission starts with seeing what God is bringing to life, in order that we may water it. But before we water it, we have to find it.
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