An Online Rant about Missionary Work

When asked "Why don't we get the 'results' that the early church did?" I wrote the following: 

We're following bad methods. We're acting like we're corporations, city planning councils or armies. We have a church that actually calls itself "The Salvation Army." Saving people by marching on them, no doubt. Uniforms, ranks, drums and brass bands. I'm surprised there aren't churches called "The Salvation Corporation" or "Salvationville." Bad ideas. Really bad. 

    But I'll bet a few of you had a little thrill at how cool you thought those churches might be, didn't you? Can anyone say "Western-centric thinking"? We have forgotten to be people first and foremost, in favour of being non-human "positions" or "figures" instead (missionaries, church figures, roles, officers, posts, members, representatives, delegates, chairs, pastors, committees and so on). 

    There is no replacement for being a person. If a pastor is playing a role to keep his job, he's not able to deal with you man-to-man, something Jesus found an absolute requirement to get anything done right. It's the difference between sincere, heart-felt communication, and sound-bytes, platitudes and "positions" on things. 

    We often talk like politicians when asked personal questions. Someone wants to know how we FEEL about God, and we go and say "well, I'm a big believer in The Eternal Sonship of Christ, and I feel that giving up this doctrine explains most of what is wrong with the evangelical church today" which amounts to an intellectual argument, and it is rife with jargon and theological short-hand which leave little room for us to be known as individuals with lives and feelings and doubts. 

    We share a crusade that is dear to us, because crusades are dear to us. Why? Crusades are about us being right and others not getting to talk. Where does this idea that sharing doubts will hurt our theologically stated position or ability to connect to others when talking about our beliefs? It just might humanize us. A person who not only "mould[s] to the everyday culture" but actually forms a truly interactive part of some culture or other (even his own) by being in it is indispensible. 

   We're so focussed on not being "of" parts of the world (and on how special and blessedly different Christians are) that we've largely lost sight of our job, which is to be in it, to be part of things, rather than being perpetual "no"sayers, ghettoizing ourselves. If it wasn't our job to be in the world, we wouldn't have to be here. Home-schooling, a "church life" that takes over every waking moment and comprises most if not all of our social interactions; bible colleges and missions work pretty much guarantee that many of us don't really consistently "touch down" in any community with any permanence, impact or depth. Too many planters and no one watering, I say. 

   It's very exciting (no doubt) to quote large numbers of "churches planted" or pamphlets deployed, sermons given, books sold, or "souls reached" but who is willing to do the day-to-day, gloryless nuturing work, as messy and difficult as that is? Who is both willing to touch the leper, and also to help him have hope, someone to talk to and a place to sleep? Who can deal with the physical and the emotional or spiritual at one and the same time? 

    Someone gave me a "missions" book for Christmas. The world-view in it is fascinating. It sounds like the operations manual for the Nazis about to try to take over the world. It's all tactics, obstacles, inroads and "opportunities" for us to invade various parts of the world, including our own culture. "Our own" culture seems the biggest challenge for us to invade, also. Easier to go somewhere they've never heard of us, if such a place can be found. Less bridges burned, all is new, nothing needs to be forgiven. The Great Commission was carried out, largely, and went awry, got corrupted, and did horrible things like oppressing (and even killing) millions of people, in the name of "Christianizing" or ensuring the orthodoxy of various cultures. And we pretend "That wasn't us. That was other people calling themselves Christians. We're good ones." 

     If we pretend we can just "start over" like that never happened, just by doing something we call "returning to root principles" or the like, we're in denial. We can no more do that than we can "just forget about" Eden. It happened. Deal with it. Approach people with the humility and honesty that people who called themselves exactly what we call ourselves did horrible things, up to and including genocide. Be willing to hear the very convincing problems people have with what they understand to be "Christianity," the bible or even "religion" in general, and be able to see what science means to these people and what a deep and comforting place it has in their hearts, how they use it to tell them who they are, where they came from, what will happen to them, what is possible and what they're doing here. Deal with them in light of this reality before we ask them to celebrate and take part in (or even listen to) what they will take for "magic and make-believe." 

    I'm sure there are scores of books I've never heard of out there that argue this sort of thing in a great deal more depth, with more clarity. Shawn told me once about people asking "How do you make yourself approachable to unbelievers?" or "How do you send off the message that you are open-minded and willing to chat?" and so on, and how boggled they were at his zen-like ("zen" in the sense of "bloody obvious") answers: "BE approachable" and "BE open-minded and willing to chat." "Needing" to save people isn't the same thing as them needing Christ. The difference is that the first one demands a favour of the "unbeliever," and the second addresses their needs instead of our own. We seem to think we're here to put on a show of some kind. Life. That's what we're here to do. No more and no less than that.