Differently together

Today I heard from two friends (one an ex-girl friend I haven't heard from for 30 years!), sat in the sun and read a book, and then scanned some scary emails from Pakistan. Strangely they all linked together - is it a plot? A mission director friend wrote from Malaysia to say he had just finished his sabbatical and had been working on a 'theology of ethnicity'. Marion wrote "We Judge!!... but whom do we stand next too ??.. God knows!!.. oh yes he does!!!!... I shared a hymn sheet with a street cleaner, he was black from head to toe!! he held out his sheet to share with me... and began to sing.. i was humbled!!... ashamed!! A voice of an angel!!!! he sang every word with passion!!! and then he carried on cleaning the streets". My book (the sun was great) provided a resounding renunciation of McGavran's 'homogeneous people group' approach to mission and rekindled in me the excitement of the multi-ethnic, multi-everything church. And Pakistan? Well do I have to say anything? ... ethnicity rules! What I really want to know is how we can actually enhance ethnicity, as a contribution to the enrichment of humanity rather than as a rejection of 'the other'. Paul you really do need to write up your sabbatical study. If Christians could really crack this 'difference is what holds us together' stuff then we really would be on to something - perhaps even in the Swat Valley (Pakistan).

Oh, the book I was reading was Eckhard Schnabel's Paul the Missionary - and its not all as good at this afternoon's few pages!