Missional Conversations: A Dialogue between Theory and Praxis in World Mission

By SCM Press

Missional Conversations introduces the reader to key themes in contemporary mission through global conversations between theory and praxis. Exploring emergent themes in missiology, the book takes the form of a conversation between reflective practitioners – both those in academia and with those who are practically engaged.

With contributions from:
Dave Bookless, Amy Ross, Daniel G. Groody CSC, Amy Roche, Mark Poulson, Richard Sudworth, David Barclay, Ash Barker, Stephan de Beer, Elisa Padilla, Berdine van den Toren-Lekkerkerker, Andrea Campanale, Michael Moynagh, Kyama Mugambi, Harvey Kwiyani, Dennis Tongoi, Paul Bickley, Jonny Baker, Ric Stott, Ian Adams

• Language: English
• Publisher: SCM Press
• Release date: Oct 30, 2017
• ISBN: 9780334057093

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© Cathy Ross and Colin Smith 2018

Published in 2018 by SCM Press

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Contents

List of Contributors

Introduction: The Far Off Country Coming Ever Closer (Cathy Ross and Colin Smith)

Part 1: Contexts for Mission

Environment

1. Context or Content? The Place of the Natural Environment in World Mission (Dave Bookless)

2. Creation Care Around the World: Grounded Engagement (Amy Ross)

Migration

3. Refugees, Lampedusa and the Eucharist: Reflections on the Mission from ‘Otherness’ to ‘Oneness’ (Daniel G. Groody CSC)

4. Mission and Migration (Amy Roche)

Interfaith

5. Being With: A Personal Reflection on Christian Presence and Other Faiths in Southall, West London (Mark Poulson)

6. Being With: Christian Presence and Other Faiths (Richard Sudworth)

Economic Disparity

7. Economics and Inequality: A Christian Response (David Barclay)

8. Economics and Inequality: A Relational Response (John Wheatley)

Urbanization

9. Klong Toey and Barriers to Transformation in Urban Slum and Informal Settlement Neighbourhoods (Ash Barker)

10. Urbanity in the Global South and the Future of the Christian Faith: Reflections on Theology and Mission (Stephan de Beer)

Part 2: Expressions of Mission

Community

11. An Ecosystem Called Community (Elisa Padilla)

12. Community as Mission (Berdine van den Toren-Lekkerkerker)

New Forms of Church

13. Church as God’s Conversation Partner with the World (Andrea Campanale)

14. A Conversational Approach to New Forms of Church (Michael Moynagh)

Southern Mission Movements

15. Audacity, Intentionality and Hope in the Churches of the Global South (Kyama Mugambi)

16. Mission in the Global South (Harvey Kwiyani)

Innovation

17. Bridging the Divide: Mission and Social Innovation in East Africa (Dennis Tongoi)

18. Treasures Old and New: Social Innovation and the Renewal of Mission (Paul Bickley)

Imagination

19. I’ll Meet You There: A Conversation on the Meeting Place of Mission and Imagination (Jonny Baker and Ric Stott)

Epilogue: A Mission Spirituality for Turbulent Times (Ian Adams)

Bibliography

List of Contributors

Ian Adams is a poet, writer, photographer and Anglican priest. He is Mission Spirituality Adviser to the Church Mission Society, Associate at Ridley Hall Cambridge, and a partner in the Beloved Life project. He loves jazz.

Jonny Baker is Director of Mission Education at the Church Mission Society where he founded and leads the pioneer ministry leadership training. He is also a photographer, musician and writer and lover of all things creative and innovative.

David Barclay is a Partner at the Good Faith Partnership, a consultancy based in Westminster that helps leaders in the worlds of faith, politics, business and charity to work better together on common goals. He is also a Fellow of the Centre for Theology & Community where he worked for four years, helping churches to respond to issues of money and debt. He has been a William Leech Fellow of Durham University, and has co-authored For Good: The Church and the Future of Welfare with Sam Wells and Russell Rook.

Ash Barker is a pioneering urban activist, educator and Minister. After 25 years immersed in urban poverty contexts in his native Melbourne and Bangkok’s largest slum, Ash and his family relocated to Winson Green, Birmingham (UK) in 2014. Since then Ash has sought the renewal of this inner-city, multi-racial parish as a Pioneer Minister and established the Newbigin School for Urban Leadership (NewbiginHouse.uk) as a seedbed for urban change. Ash is the author of eight books, including Risky Compassion, Slum Life Rising and Make Poverty Personal.

Paul Bickley is Director of Political Programme at Theos. His background is in Parliament and public affairs, and he holds an MLitt from the University of St Andrews’ School of Divinity. Paul is the author of a number of Theos reports focusing on faith-based social action, including The Problem of Proselytism, Doing Good Better: The Case for Faith-Based Social Innovation and, as part of a William Leech Research Fellowship, People, Place and Purpose: Churches and Neighbourhood Resilience in the North East. He also pastors Trinity Vineyard Church in South East London.

Dave Bookless is a Mission Partner with the Church Mission Society and seconded to A Rocha International as Director of Theology. He was born in India, lives in Southall (London), where he is also Vicar of St Mary’s, Norwood Green, has written several books, and has spoken on creation care in many parts of the world.

Andrea Campanale is a Lay Pioneer Minister in the Anglican Diocese of Southwark and has been doing outreach to spiritual seekers for over 12 years. She teaches, mentors and networks pioneers nationally, primarily for the Church Mission Society, but also for Methodist Pioneering Pathways and Forge.

Stephan de Beer is Director of the Centre for Contextual Ministry, hosted by the Faculty of Theology at the University of Pretoria. He worked for 20 years with an ecumenical inner-city ministry in Pretoria – the Tshwane Leadership Foundation – creating responses to post-apartheid urban realities and rather dramatic social changes. His current research is focusing on homelessness, housing and spatial justice, and the response of faith-based communities. He is also interested in re-imagining curricula for transformational urban theological education.

Daniel Groody CSC is a Catholic Priest and Associate Professor of Theology and Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame. He is also the director of the Global Leadership Institute at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at Notre Dame, and has published in the area of theology, spirituality, migration, globalization and refugee issues.

Harvey Kwiyani is a Malawian missiologist currently teaching African theology at Liverpool Hope University. He studies non-Western missionary movements with a particular focus on African Christianity in the Diaspora.

Kyama Mugambi is a lecturer and researcher with the Centre for World Christianity, at the Africa International University, in Nairobi in Kenya. He served as a church minister for 18 years. Until 2016, he was the Director of Mission at the Mavuno Church, working with teams in ten countries – mostly in Africa. His current teaching and research interests revolve around the history, leadership and mission in Urban Pentecostal/Charismatic Christianity in Kenya.

Michael Moynagh is based at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, and is a member of the UK Fresh Expressions team. He has written or been lead author of over 15 books on social issues and new forms of church, including Being Church, Doing Life and Church in Life: Innovation, Mission and Ecclesiology.

Elisa Padilla and her husband are members of the Kairos Community and of La Lucila Baptist Church in Buenos Aires, Argentina. They have four adult children and are involved in nature conservation, instrument making, engineering and circus arts. Their chapter in this book was a shared endeavour.

Mark Poulson was formerly the Secretary for Inter Religious Affairs to the Archbishop of Canterbury and National Inter Religious Affairs Adviser for the Church of England. Prior to this he was Vicar of St John’s Church, Southall Green, in West London, for 11 years. Mark is now Diocesan Coordinator for Presence and Engagement for London based jointly at the Kings Centre Southall in West London and at St Paul’s Cathedral.

Amy Roche is a Mission Partner with the Church Mission Society working in Beirut, serving in lay ministry at the Anglican International Church, Beirut, and volunteer teaching at a local Syrian Refugee Education Centre. She is also researching with women from different cultures interpreting the Bible together, for her doctorate in Theology and Ministry with Durham University.

Amy Ross is a practising environmentalist who has spent time studying global ecotheology and working for various Christian and environmental charities including Cambridge Carbon Footprint and the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide. She is a Church Mission Society mission associate, currently caring for two young sons and supporting her curate husband; before this, she was working as a research assistant at the University of Leeds Sustainability Research Institute.

Cathy Ross is Tutor in Contextual Theology at Ripon College Cuddesdon, and MA Coordinator for Pioneer Leadership Training at the Church Mission Society. She has previously worked in Rwanda, Congo, and Uganda with NZCMS. Her research interests are in the areas of contextual theologies, world Christianity, feminist theologies and hospitality.

Colin Smith is Dean of Mission Education at the Church Mission Society. He has previously been a Mission Partner in Nairobi for the Church Mission Society, where he was Director of the Centre for Urban Mission, and served on the staff of Carlile College and St Paul’s University. Prior to going to Kenya, Colin spent ten years in parish ministry in south London.

Ric Stott is an artist and Methodist Venture FX Pioneer minister whose ministry focuses on creativity and contemplative spirituality. He helped to found the creative community at 35 Chapel Walk in Sheffield in the UK, and is now developing his art practice after recently completing an MFA in fine art.

Richard J. Sudworth was formerly a parish priest in the Church of England, Birmingham, and is the author of Encountering Islam: Christian–Muslim Relations in the Public Square and Distinctly Welcoming: Christian Presence in a Multifaith Society. He has also been a Mission Partner for the Church Mission Society in Birmingham and North Africa. From September 2018 Richard has been the Secretary for Inter Religious Affairs to the Archbishop of Canterbury and National Inter Religious Affairs Adviser for the Church of England.

Dennis Tongoi holds a DTh in Missiology from the University of South Africa. At the time of writing he is the International Director for CMS-Africa, a mission agency helping multiply transformational leaders in and from Africa. He was co-ordinator for Samaritan Strategy Africa (2001 to 2014), a movement that has over 600 trainers in more than 40 countries in Africa. He is a Director at Herbal Garden Ltd, an Agribusiness SME established in 2007. Dennis has written a number of books, including Mixing God with Money: Strategies for Living in an Uncertain Economy.

Berdine van den Toren-Lekkerkerker works as a Mission Partner with the Church Mission Society, specializing in theological education in communities and schools in Africa and Asia. She is based in Groningen, in the Netherlands, where she is also connected to the Protestant Theological University as a PhD candidate.

John Wheatley is a voluntary youth worker in Bournville, Weston-super-Mare, where he and his family live as part of a small mission community. He is a graduate of the Centre for Youth Ministry, and has an MA in Pioneer Mission from the Church Mission Society. John is the Movement Leader of Frontier Youth Trust, a national movement of pioneering youth work.

Introduction: The Far Off Country Coming Ever Closer

CATHY ROSS AND COLIN SMITH

Introduction

In the midst of World War Two, surrounded by death and destruction, C. S. Lewis was dreaming of a ‘far off country’. In 1942, he preached a sermon in Oxford that has become known as ‘The Weight of Glory’. In this beautiful sermon he captured something of our human longing and desire for what he called ‘our own far off country’. Taking his hearers into the complexities of desire he spoke of a longing for that which is yet to be experienced, yet to be known. He noted that ‘We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience.’¹ In our human condition, we catch but a glimpse of the weight of glory that is to come.

The notion that ‘another world is possible’ is an alternative way of speaking of that ‘far off country’. Of course it describes not a flight of fantasy nor a utopian dream, but rather a conviction about the nature of the kingdom that is to come and the vocation of the Church to live in prophetic anticipation of its dawning. This is no simple task. Together, in community, how do we discern the signs of the coming of that kingdom? How do we re-imagine the present in the light of God’s future? Our exploration of those questions takes us into the heart of our understanding of mission as shared conversations, rooted both in our reading of Scripture and in our experience of the work of the Spirit in our diverse cultures and contexts. But if mission is conversation, what kind of conversations are we engaging in? What is it that frames these conversations; what gives them shape, content and meaning? Whose voices speak, whose voices are heard, and whose are not?

The Scriptures are full of what might be described as missional conversations, encounters between people through whom we discover deeper truths about the purposes of God in our world. It is John more than any other Gospel writer who gives extensive accounts of intimate and individual conversations that Jesus has with those he encountered in his ministry. In many of these interactions we see a vulnerability and a questioning, both in Jesus and in his conversation partner.

In John 4 we meet a Samaritan woman, apparently ostracized by her community, who not only ministers to Jesus, quenching his thirst, but also is ministered to by him. It is a complex conversation exploring themes of the sacredness of place, identity, religion, history, ethnicity and religious difference. It is a conversation about a resource so immediate and basic to life on the planet – water – yet it is also about eternal and transcendent sources of life. It is also a contemporary conversation, picking up many of the issues alive in our world today. This is an ‘earthy’ conversation, rooted in the everyday, gritty realities of domestic life. Yet it is a conversation where the one who is marginalized through religion, gender, race, geography and apparently failed relationships reveals a more profound understanding of just who Jesus is than the devout Pharisee, whose conversation with Jesus we encounter in the previous chapter.

Nicodemus, devout and religious, is invited to reimagine faith as something that is not only radically life changing but also profoundly unpredictable. Jesus tells him that he must be born again and that ‘the wind blows where it pleases’ (John 3.8). Nicodemus is invited into a faith that must recognize what God is doing in the world, to see plainly that what has been done has ‘been done in God’ (John 3.21). Yet in this encounter it is as if he has been taken beyond the boundaries of his own faith and religious experience. Dumbfounded, this learned teacher of the faith can only ask ‘How can this be?’ In stark contrast, a Samaritan woman, a woman without a name at the margins of her own community, will lead many in her town to express with confidence that the man Jesus ‘is truly the Saviour of the world’ (John 4.42).

Both these conversations depend heavily on metaphors, inviting the hearers into a new imaginative space where faith is reframed in ways that sit, somewhat discordantly and uncomfortably, with the religious traditions and understanding that inform their own side of the conversation. Both these conversations take place in unusual circumstances – one at night and the other in the heat of the day. One conversation was started by Nicodemus, and the other, shockingly, by Jesus with an untouchable because of her race and gender. What kind of conversations are we engaging in? Who speaks and who is heard? It is perhaps unsurprising that many of the themes of even just these two missional conversations are echoed through the centuries in our world. We see these conversations mirrored in each generation of the Church, in all its diverse contexts, as the Church is challenged to discover and join in with what God is doing.

In these two conversations we see the importance of narrative and story. If mission is conversation, it is also story. Mission lives and tells a story. Stories help us to ‘attend’. And ‘attending’ in a setting of storytelling and story-listening helps us to pay attention and to be attentive. Listening to the other, and the sharing of stories, is the beginning of understanding and of entering into the other’s world. Telling stories and being heard are part of what it means to be human.

Our reflections on mission in the chapters that follow are rooted in narratives and conversations. Part of the structure of this book has been an attempt to create conversations between our experience of God in the world and an intentional reflection on that experience in the light of faith. It is a conversation between action and reflection. The Scriptures reveal and recount for us the story of God’s activity in our world; the Bible offers us a narrative and stories that shape our understanding of God and God’s ultimate purposes. It is also an ongoing conversation between God and humanity on how to live in this world, on how to reflect the nature of God’s character and purposes – how to live in this world and embody God’s love, compassion and tenderness. We also believe that narrative serves not to confine or constrict, but to offer resources for fresh imagination to each generation. The reality that the wind blows wherever it pleases creates an inevitable unpredictability about mission that will always seek to catch the wind of the Spirit.

Mission then becomes the ongoing participation in that unfolding and sometimes wildly unpredictable story of love and grace, reflected in the light of the biblical narrative. This book is an attempt to communicate just that.

The Book

The book is divided into two parts – Part 1 considers some of the current contexts for mission, and Part 2 explores some expressions of mission. Contexts for mission have changed over time and in Part 1 we have chosen ones that we think are important for our contemporary age. So there are conversations engaging with what it means to live in an interfaith context – to live with migration and how it is changing the nature of our world, with the challenge of caring for our planet; with what economic disparity means for our engagement in mission; and with urbanization as an ever-increasing phenomenon in our interconnected world. Part 2 considers how mission may be expressed: in community, in new forms of church, in places outside the Western world that are not minority players in mission, and where innovation is increasingly demonstrated. The final chapter (Chapter 19) in Part 2 is a conversation on creativity and imagination that we believe is vital for mission, for opening up new possibilities, and cracking open different and perhaps surprising perspectives. The Epilogue captures some of these themes, weaving them together through the stories of Simeon and Anna and inviting us to reflect on spiritual practices that might resource us, individually and communally, in a life of mission. Each pair of chapters in the book concludes with some questions to encourage you to think further, to dig deeper, and to continue the conversation.

The book is intentionally framed as a conversation – originally, we naively thought, between an ‘academic’ and a ‘practitioner’. You will soon see how contrived and artificial this is. Mission, by its very nature, requires reflection and reflexivity. It requires engagement or, as one colleague put it simply, ‘doing stuff’. So, quite simply, mission is about doing stuff and reflecting on it and then doing more stuff! Perhaps this is not the most elegant explanation, but it has a certain beauty in its simplicity. However, this is not to say that mission is all about programmes and strategies. Rather, as you will see in these conversations, mission is relational, ever evolving, creative and creating, embodied.

Vulnerability emerges as a key theme whether that is in interfaith conversations, in developing a sensory garden, or sharing lives in community. Indeed, there is a vulnerability at the heart of our faith and the cross stands as a potent reminder of that vulnerability. Much of Jesus’ teaching on the growth of the kingdom is about its veiledness, its unpredictability and the sheer length of time maturity can take. Creativity is another key theme that you will discover throughout the stories narrated here. We are created in God’s image so it is part of our DNA – we are hard-wired to be creative. Moreover, we need creativity because we live in a complex world and we need one another’s creative gifts and talents to help us navigate this complexity. Creativity also ignites the imagination and enables us to re-imagine what mission can look like in different contexts. Of course, all this is driven by love. Love can be a driver and motivating factor for innovation and invention. The Burundian woman Maggy Barankitse, who founded Maison Shalom for orphaned children after the terrible massacres in Burundi, claimed that ‘love made me an inventor’.² She improvised and innovated so that the children could not only survive, but flourish in that sad and devastated context. This is a generous love that flows from a sense of the super-abundance of God’s grace, unconstrained by the limitations of human resources and endeavour. The poet Rumi writes, ‘Find the real world, give it endlessly away, grow rich flinging gold to all who ask’.³ Mission takes place in the turbulence of this real world. It requires a generous, loving self-giving yet it does so in response to God’s enduring and loving generosity towards us.

You will read of other examples here of love driving innovation, catalysing new ideas and experiments for the sake of God’s kingdom. Vulnerability, creativity and generous love – found in God, modelled by Jesus, inspired by the Spirit – are key virtues for our engagement in mission. Finally, we would like to think that these conversations offer a prophetic dimension to our engagement with God’s world. We want to keep the prophetic voice alive and heard in these conversations.

Conclusion

We hope that the chapters in this book will give you a glimpse of the ‘far off country’ drawing nearer. It is not here yet but we are encouraged by the small signs of the kingdom, the chinks of light that are breaking through, the glimmers of hope that these conversations and these stories offer. Just as C. S. Lewis was dreaming of a far off country during the years of World War Two, so we too long for a better world and believe that another world is possible. As many in our world suffer from the trauma of wars or forced migration, from poverty and uneven living standards, from overcrowding or from the effects of degrading our environment, from living in contexts stifled by a lack of imagination, we hope that these conversations begin to introduce you to another possible world. As C. S. Lewis says, our longings may be for something that we have not yet experienced, but we believe that these conversations offer glimpses, rumours of glory, hints of change, hope on the horizon – the far off country coming ever closer.

Notes

1 C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, and Other Addresses (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), rev. edn, p. 30.

2 See her story in E. Katongole, Born from Lament: The Theology and Politics of Hope in Africa (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2017), p. 242.

3 Quoted in G. Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion (New York: Free Press, 2010), p. 26.

Part one: Contexts for Mission

ENVIRONMENT

1. Context or Content? The Place of the Natural Environment in World Mission

DAVE BOOKLESS

This book places ‘the environment’ among several key contemporary contexts for mission. While this is vitally important, it is also theologically and missiologically problematic, as this chapter will demonstrate. The approach taken will be to examine first why it is essential to consider the environmental context of twenty-first-century mission before, second, explaining the need for a basic shift in how we see mission in order to put creation in its proper place – not simply as a ‘context for mission’ but as fundamental to God’s mission and ours.

Many scientists are now labelling our current geological era as the ‘Anthropocene’ – the age of humanity – because for the first time in the earth’s history the size of our human population, and the impact we have through consumption, construction and waste, is having impacts that are not merely superficial but geological in their scale. From the microplastics coating the beds of the deepest oceans, to the dangerously increased greenhouse gases filling the upper atmosphere and causing climate chaos, from the spread of urban sprawl and landfill sites, to the deforestation that feeds our appetite for meat and disposable consumer products, our missional context is one of environmental destruction and uncertainty. In a century where some see humans as ‘the virus species’, a planetary disease that the earth will probably eradicate and from which it will recover, the question needs to be asked afresh, what is the gospel – the good news – that Christian mission offers?

In terms of contexts for missions, it can be demonstrated that environmental issues underlie and interweave with many of the other major trends that we encounter, and that this book considers. The migration of millions of people is caused overwhelmingly by their homelands becoming uninhabitable not only through war and extreme poverty, but through the underlying causes of flood, drought, desertification, and an unstable and unpredictable climate.¹ Twenty-first-century wars have many causes – ethnic, religious, political – but a common thread underlying most of them is also environmental change.² Darfur was a war fundamentally about access to water as desertification made existing farming patterns untenable.³ The ‘Arab Spring’ that unleashed both hope and conflict across North Africa and the Middle East, triggering the Syrian civil war, had substantial roots in the failure of grain harvests in preceding years, leading to economic chaos, hunger and instability.⁴ Urbanization is another important global context for mission. More than half the world’s population are now city-dwellers and two-thirds are likely to be by 2050.⁵ The causes are mixed, including both ‘pull’ factors (better paid jobs, healthcare, communication, education), and ‘push’ factors, including poverty caused by population growth, desertification, habitat loss, flooding, drought and resource depletion – and many of these are clearly environmental, as communities who have lived off the land sustainably for generations are forced to seek alternative employment.

Global economic inequality is another important contemporary context for mission that is closely related to access to and consumption of environmental resources. We now live in a world where the world’s eight richest people own as much as the poorest 50% of the world’s population.⁶ Inequality is often measured in terms of income, but far more revealing is the disparity in consumption between those in wealthier and poorer countries. The global average biocapacity (dividing the earth’s capacity to produce food, energy and other natural resources we need by total global population) is about 1.7 hectares per person, but average global footprint per person is 2.8 hectares, meaning we are consuming resources unsustainably, and storing up problems for future generations.⁷ However, these global statistics conceal enormous discrepancies between rich and poor nations. The ecological footprint of the average Australian is 9.3 hectares, closely followed by the USA (8.2 hectares), with the UK not far behind (7.9 hectares). At the other end of the scale lie Eritrea (0.49 hectares), Haiti (0.61 hectares) and Bangladesh (0.72 hectares), along with most of sub-Saharan Africa. Some countries contain huge internal inequality, such as India where the average footprint is only 1.16 hectares, but the footprint of urban middle classes and wealthy elites is comparable to Western nations.

The reasons why consumption is not just an economic issue, but an ecological one, are twofold. First, billions still go hungry while a third of food globally is wasted,⁸ and croplands