Story, Discourse and Narrative

Yesterday I went to listen to Enos Das Pradhan, General Secretary of the Church of North India talking about the recent violent attacks on Christians in India. It was all rather depressing and conducive of that 'but what the heck can we do about it?' feeling. Conflict is something I would rather run away from, but as reconciliation is so central of the Christian hope, I know I can't just do that. The day was saved for me by a young Indian academic, Mr. Brainerd Prince, who spoke afterwards. He was suggesting that the way into dealing with communal violence is to begin with its ideological roots and to understand the dynamic of story-discourse-narrative. In every situation, especially where there is conflict the story that is told (what happened) is always embellished with the discourse I add to explain why it happened like that and the two together become the accepted (or disputed) narrative. The clue is to realise that our discourse is always informed by ideology. The way into conflict resolution is to try to separate out story (facts) from discourse (interpretation) and then to negotiate discourse independently from story. Sounds great - now all I need is to get into a conflict so I can try it out! Thanks, Brainerd.

Hong Kong joins the party

I woke up to good news this morning. The network of international mission agencies that I look after, Faith2Share, had just gained a new member. For some time I have felt the lack of Christians from East Asia in our network. We already have two agencies, with about 1500 mission workers between them, in India (those Indians know how to do mission!) but East Asians have a distinct contribution to make. Now a great agency based in Hong Kong and working in around 25 countries in Asia has joined us - Asian Outreach International. Their director (well, 'President' actually), Francis Tsui, is already becoming a friend and so great times are ahead - perhaps even a visit to Hong Kong?

Missionary Diocese?

Tonight I took the risk of cooking Indian food for an Indian! - it seemed to work. My dinner guest was Revd Moses Jayakumar the General Secretary of the Church of South India (CSI). Quite a breath of fresh air after the last holder of that post (let the reader understand!). After we had survived the Anglo-Indian curry I was quizing Moses (what a great name!) about how members of CSI churches join mission agencies in India. Two of them are members of our Faith2Share network - hence my interest. What took me completely by surprise was his reply that whilst many do join agencies like Friends Missionary Prayer Band and Indian Evangelical Mission many Indian dioceses send out their own missionaries. I knew that, but what I didn't know was that several send over 400 or more each! Apparently South Kerala and Tirunelveli dioceses have missionaries in almost every state of India and beyond. Wake up Wakefield (the Church of England's so-called 'Missionary Diocese') - that's what you call 'mission shaped diocese'!

Nepal comes alive in Penge

Thank you to the family at St. John the Evangelist, Penge, for a great morning - and lunch! The children (in their crazy hats, above) reminded us of the growth of the church in Nepal, out of suffering, as well a their current sending of mission workers to so many other countries. Kids, I hope you like your picture!