Slideshow image

The nineteenth century gave us some really great things, like photography, the light bulb, the internal combustion engine, and the telephone. (Wait. On second thoughts, let’s remove ‘telephone’ from that list of ‘great’ things and place it in a list of ‘things that got out of hand and came to hold the human race in captivity’.)

It was also a time of great overseas missionary work, which was well-motivated, well-intentioned, and well-misunderstood. Nineteenth-century missionary work had mixed results in extending the kingdom of God, partnering as it did with commerce, empire, and human exploitation. Even in its best moments it seems to have functioned with an unenlightened attitude to the people who were the targets of its good intentions.

Missionaries from the UK and the US were moved with compassion and the burning urge to do something about global suffering. They saw, rightly, that God was interested in people’s spiritual state and also the physical and social conditions in which they lived. Missionaries gave up everything – often including their lives - to serve people in the developing world.

But here’s one of the big problems with the nineteenth-century missions movement – paternalism. “We in the Western church have many resources, including material wealth, education, and medicine. Those poor folks in other countries lack these essential resources. So, we have a duty to go to them and give them what they lack. Then we return, feeling good about ourselves, knowing we have helped.”

What’s wrong with that picture? Well, it fails to understand another glorious and profound truth – people in the developing world have resources WE need too. It should be a genuine partnership of equals. People we have classically defined as lacking in resources are actually rich in important places where we are lacking. We may have money to share, but they have faith, resilience, dependence on God, strong communities of belonging and mutual experience of God’s faithfulness in hardship, a true and godly perspective on life.

True outreach is a two-way street. We give AND receive.

It is humbling to encounter an act of mission where we, the people who think of themselves as well-resourced, receive vital gifts from people we assume are under-resourced. Here’s the truth that will bring us down to earth and stop us getting full of ourselves: We are poor and needy. Yes, those of us who are materially comfortable, well-educated, cultured, and classy - we are poor and in need. May God give us the wisdom to spot where we are poverty-stricken and to truly partner with those who can help us.

In next week’s newsletter I’ll write about one of our mission partners that serves as a great example of all this.