Disconnecting to connect

In response to my yesterday thoughts on 'Short Change?', Martin came back to me saying, "I'm not sure if the harder questions are the financial ones?" Thanks Martin, that gives me the excuse to write more on this topic. (Plug .... In fact I have already written quite a lot more which will come out at the end of the year as a chapter in the Edinburgh 2010 report.) But back to our discussion now ....

Short-term mission is costly but I agree with you Martin that there are harder questions. I hinted at one of these right at the end of my last piece. I have just been rereading Tom Sine's The New Conspirators (2008 sequel to Mustand Seed Conspiracy) where he invites "followers of Jesus to do the hard work of decoding the cultural influences in our lives" (Pg.90) and I strongly believe that one of those cultural influences is short-termism and its consequent devaluing of sustained relating. It is becoming counter-cultural to have a two-hour conversation with one person - the 'cool' thing to do is to Tweet the world. This buying into cultural short-termism is one of the hard questions but there are others. Perhaps I have space here for just one more ....

Disconnecting in order to connect. Jesus would never have cried "My God, why have you forsaken me" if he had stayed at home, but he disconnected in order to connect - with us. That's tough and it takes time. When I look at the design of most of what goes for short-term mission today I see very little disconnecting. The umbilical cord of text messages and "my life in Africa" blogs back to the home church, the bonded group of fellow short-termers (sometimes 100 strong!), and the return ticket tucked into the passport ensure connections are maintained. So what space (time, emotional, spiritual, etc.) is left for connecting in the host culture? To parady scripture, "My home church, my family, why have you forsaken me?" might be an important step on the road to a deeper participation in the relationship building cross of Christ.

Short change?

Only twenty years ago the mission agency I worked for sent out 'Short-term' missionaries to do 2 - 4 years service. Some extended to six years but they were still 'short-termers'. That was then. In contrast, back in June I had a conversation with an American church leader who was very excited about the dozens of members in her church who offer for 'short-term' mission. I'm not stupid so I asked her what she meant by 'short-term'. "Oh, its normally a two week trip but some do three weeks or even a month." she continued enthusiastically. We were standing in the lunch queue at Edinburgh University and I wished she had been in the session that afternoon when my friend Darrell Whiteman had voiced his concerns.

Darrell shared with us the following statistics for short-term missionaries in the US

1965 under 10,000

1989 120,000

1994 200,000

2005 1,600,000

That's some growth and my first reaction was to rejoice that so many people are offering for mission service. But then Darrell started asking his questions! If most of these 1.6 million Christians are abroad for just 2-4 weeks can they really be effective in mission? What do they understand about their host culture? How do they build deep relationships? Is this more about enriching the experience to US Christians (no bad thing!) rather than mission in Bolivia or wherever? Should we not be honest and call this "cross-cultural exposure" not "mission"?

Just as I was coming to terms with these questions, wrestling with the concept of 'ecclesiastical tourism', Darrell went on to ask even harder questions ...... If 1.6 million short-termers contribute 192 million hours of free labour to local projects across the world is that not a good thing? But what effect does that have on the local economy? How does this help to build partnership rather than dependancy? If 1.6 million Americans had stayed at home instead and sent the US$4.8 billion that they would otherwise have spent (on air fares, accommodation, food, etc.) to the local church what might that have purchased in the local economy?

There are no easy answers but it does make me wonder whether Christians have bought into the 'short-termism' of our contemporary culture and whether anyone will ever again want to do anything long-term.

Who says what's 'orthodox'

It was June and I was in Edinburgh. The evening was warm and I was climbing Arthur's seat. Mark and Mark walked together - my companion, a bishop from Canada ... not a son of France or England or some other colonial power but a true son of the lands that we Europeans decided should be called Canada. Of course they were not nameless before, nor were they without peoples and soul.

I had had a frantic day running sessions for the (history-making?) Edinburgh 2010 coference, but as my steps fell in line with Mark's steady rhythm my mind began to settle and I began to listen to his story - not from the beginning (my mind was too busy to attend at first) but a story which made sense from the middle. A story of indigenous Christian communities across the arctic north of Canada. The Edinburgh air was calm and the sun still bright but I was transported into a world of dark cabins, of hymn singing late into the night, of Bible stories retold in local tongues, of healing and wisdom ... and pain. The pain I remember most from Mark's story came when settlers, good righteous Christians, brought their bright lights of truth into these native cabins to chase out 'misguided' faith and plant 'orthodox' religion. That pain is still felt today - I felt it in Mark as we walked - I wanted to share it, but could not.

Of course 'ortho-doxy' (right worship) is important and we all need to rid ourselves of our own superstitions and 'idol-doxy'. But who says what is orthodox? Dare I?

Not dead but sleeping

So many of my friends have been challenging me to start writing this blog again that in mid-August I finally set myself a target date and now that magic date has arrived. This blog somehow fell asleep in February this year but 1 September seems a good enough day for a resurrection.

My blog may have been asleep I was certainly not. A lot, I mean a lot, has happened to me since February - some good, some bad, some ... well "life happens" as they say. I'm going to use the next few blogs to do a little catching up with myself and if you want to read along with me - welcome!

When I was planning today's resurrection back in August I was reflecting again on what a blog actually achieves. Well, I suppose they all do different things. Some advertise, some vent the spleen, some impart valuable information, some amuse, some (can I be frank?) bore. If I'm honest most of the time I will be writing for myself (to get those muddled brain cells laid out somewhere where I can see them and begin to sort them) - but if you want to listen in, that's fine.

My Malaysian friend just gave me a Russian gift - let me share this 'amazing gift' with you.