From time to time, as I travel around the UK, ministering in churches and interacting with church leaders and their members, I hear views expressed which alarm me because they reveal some basic misconceptions about world mission – misconceptions are usually not based on fact. It’s important that these ‘missiological myths’  are debunked or they will continue to affect the level of engagement on the part of UK churches and Christians.  In the next few Mission Matters articles I want to address some of these myths and if you are aware of others or would like to challenge me with a mission view of your own, please feel free to contact me.

Myth 1: The rest of the world needs us (the western church) in order to know God

Sometimes given as a reason for getting involved in the work of world mission, the danger of this myth is that it contains an element of truth. God who ordained the culmination of mission – a multicultural church where men and women from every nation, tribe, people and language would join in worship, also ordained the means to that end, namely that it would be through the ministry of the Church that those who have not heard the gospel would hear it and have the opportunity to respond – “How can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard….how can they hear without someone preaching to them ... how can they preach unless they are sent?” (Romans 10:4-15). While in the West we have the resources and the opportunity to share the message of salvation with those who are lost, and yet fail to do so, there is a sense in which their blood is on our heads.

The narrower the cultural prism through which we see the grace of God, the more unworthy will be our view of him. The more we confine our ministries and activities to our own people and type, the poorer will be our spiritual life and growth.But in a way, the truth lies in the very opposite of this ‘missiological myth’. I am more and more convinced that we need the rest of the world in order to know God properly . What I mean is this – the more we are exposed to and interact with what God is doing among the peoples of the world, the greater will be our appreciation and experience of the grace and majesty of God.

In one of the most wonderful prayers of the New Testament, Paul prays that, as believers, we would have power to “grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ”, but what I have only recently come to see is that Paul prays that this might happen “together with all the saints”.

There is no question but that in my own life my experience of God and his grace have been enriched beyond measure by seeing him at work in the lives of men and women from a wide diversity of cultures and backgrounds – and the more of the rest of the world I encounter, the more I know God.

Now, there are implications of this for individuals and for churches. The narrower the cultural prism through which we see the grace of God, the more unworthy will be our view of God and the poorer will be our own hearts and souls. The more we confine the ministries and activities of our churches to our own people and type, the poorer will be our spiritual life and growth.

Shift

History is littered with examples of churches that turned in on themselves, lost their vision for cross-cultural evangelism and mission, and slowly died. In the early years of church history, some of the strongest and most outward looking churches were in North Africa. Then, over a period of time, the emphasis shifted from mission and outreach to councils and internal debates and before long the church in that part of the world became almost non-existent. I am not suggesting that this was the only cause, but it does seem as if there are times that when God sees a church adopt different priorities from his own he leaves them to get on with it. He then ‘moves’ the centre of his activity to others who share his burden for the gathering in of the nations.

Christian writer, Philip Yancey comments, “I have observed a pattern, a strange historical phenomenon of God ‘moving’ geographically from the Middle East, to Europe, to North America to the developing world. My theory is this: God goes where he’s wanted.” (Christianity Today, February 2001)

One of the ironies of today’s church scene in UK is that the very thing many local churches see as a threat to their survival may actually be the key to their survival. With the church struggling as it is in much of Western Europe today, many are adopting a ‘batten down the hatches’ solution, seeing the challenge of mission as something which might divert resources and energies that are needed simply to maintain ministry here at the home end. Sadly, that approach may be hastening the very thing they are trying to avoid. Perhaps it’s our failure to fully engage with world mission – down our own street or across the other side of the world – that is the real cause of our problem.

Broader Horizons

Through the grace of God the Church in the West has achieved much over the past centuries. We have been at the centre of a remarkable move of God’s Holy Spirit. However, our reliance on the resources at our disposal, our considerable wealth and our technological gadgetry, may have led us to believe that we can continue the work on our own. Our resources bring the responsibility of stewardship but we fool ourselves if we believe that God can’t bring about his purpose without us. God is bringing to Europe missionaries from lands to which we sent missionaries in the past to point us back to the gospel.

The rest of the world needs us? In one sense yes, we do have a God-given part to play. But our need in the West is for broader horizons, bigger hearts and more involvement with the world at large in order to truly become the church that Christ wants us to be.