“So, you’re a missionary then?”
People often asked me this question back in Australia, or introduce me to others that way here. And I was never quite sure how to answer.
It’s a loaded term: there’s the positive image it conjures up of the hard-working, self-denying gospel workers who leave the comfort of their home culture to serve another. If being called a missionary means joining those faithful servants who left everything, then that’s something that I hope to live up to.
Yet at the same time, the word carries plenty of negative connotations: the well-intentioned but culturally arrogant blunderer like the character in The Poisonwood Bible who plants his crops American-style despite the locals’ warnings of torrential downpour. Or Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s famous account of missionary history:
“When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said, ‘Let us pray.’ We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.”
Coming to Africa as an Australian is tricky on many fronts: we see poverty, AIDS and violence and thank God that we are doing so well. But many of the Africans that I speak to see Australia as a spiritual wasteland. 56% of South Africans are in church each week compared to just 16% of Australians. The “Jesus loves Osama” story made the news here, and my housemates were surprised to see any kind of spiritual initiative coming from Australians.
Yet at the same time, a recent visitor from the UK had brought a massive range of children’s resources to Bible College and I was surprised to see how many came from Sydney: even Kel Richards’ Gumtree Gully gospel outline full of wallabies and wombats had made the trip.
We had a Missions Conference at church earlier in the year, with a speaker, Colin Banfield, up from Cape Town. He suggested, from 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, that we should see mission as the overflow of God’s grace to the world through the church. He described mission in the African context as a ‘grace exchange’: wealthy, well-equipped churches have training and resources to offer those that are financially poor, but churches with no money have passion and vitality and fresh insights to offer the rich. What grace has God given us? What grace has he given you? Money, skills, energy? It’s our responsibility to share it.
The reality is that God has designed the church to need each other. We need the church in Africa just as the church in Africa still needs us. And the lost world still desperately needs Jesus.
So am I a missionary? Perhaps I am, but no more than any other Christian who is labouring to see Jesus’ kingdom grow. More than anything, I am a student: a student in ministry and a student of African Christianity. And I keep praying that I can be a good steward of the grace that God has given me.
