Tena tātou katoa e te iwi mīhana… (Greetings to all the people in mission)

This month’s whakataukī (proverb) is: “Nāna ki mua” (he/she started it). Anyone exposed to, or recalls being, children caught in a scuffle will understand this proverbial saying. It implies, “it’s not my fault!”. It is the equivalent of “the Devil made me do it” and it goes right back to the blame shifting of Adam to Eve and Eve to the serpent. Contrary to our perceptions of autonomy, our actions are the result of constant and complex influences.

In Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey popularised the realisation of Viktor Frankl that human beings have the capacity to interrupt our cognitive stimulus/response mechanism. In between stimulus and response we have choice. This is now well researched and essentially proven by neurobiological science, although they still cannot prove the source of this phenomena. What they do know is that our synaptic pathways develop in concert with our will. Our will is deeply connected to our core personality, which is coded within our DNA, inherited from a long line of forebears.

Māori have long understood this in terms of whakapapa, hau, mauri, mauri ora, wairua, mana and mahi—respectively: heritage, breath, life force, animated life, spirit, charisma or talent, and activity (the way we use the divine grace that is our mana). How we apply the life and talent sourced as gifts from Io Matua Kore (lit. the parentless Supreme) is our choice, but one shaped by whanaunga, the relationships that influence our decision making processes.

Theories of divine predestination aside, the very fact that we can choose makes us response-able. The trouble is, most of us take the easy route, skip over the intentional choice option and react according to our social conditioning. Feedback from those we relate to will quickly determine whether or not our behaviour is acceptable. Generally, we seek a favourable response and if we get it our synaptic pathways are pleasantly reinforced. Desiring a state of constant affirmation of our thinking and behaviour is known as “homophily”—an attraction to those who are like us: our affinity group.

Only when we encounter those who are NOT like us is our view of the world disrupted. Rejecting that encounter creates prejudice. Accepting that encounter creates growth.

Growth doesn’t require us to conform to the other, but it does require us to dignify them with serious consideration. It’s quite sobering for Christians to realise that is actually we who are the other in this world. We bemoan being misunderstood and misrepresented and try to make our case in the face of scorn and mockery (or physical abuse and death in some parts of the world). Yet that is what we are called to do as ambassadors of the gospel.

We can too easily fall back on technology to do that for us, to “use means for the conversion of the heathens” (William Carey). Today there is an overwhelming flood of resource available to help us share gospel narratives, and the tide keeps rising. With reference to mobilising more missionaries for “the task”, Mark Stebbins (Navigators USA) wrote in the latest EMQ, “Disruptive innovations are taking over traditional North American industries. The missions realm also needs consistent creative effective new ways for how we activate, recruit, and onboard new workers. The environment is ripe for unprecedented breakthroughs in mobilization collaborations in the North American missions’ enterprise.”

But do we really need new innovations? If the existing sea of resource isn’t helping to see societies transformed via regenerate and maturing disciples (a quick look at the news will show you it isn’t in most cases), will new technologies be any different? Technology may change the way we do things but it will not provide us with ‘magic bullet’ solutions that influence people to act as we may desire them to.

In his fascinating history of networks, “The Square and the Tower” Niall Ferguson explores the influence that technology (especially communications technology) has had on the world up to 2016. We can too easily assume that it is new technology that is mobilising people to resist the hierarchies of the day and unseat heirs to power. Think of the ‘Arab Spring’, the Egyptian revolutions, Brexit and the Trump presidential victory. Much has been written about the impact of social media on those outcomes. Social media and the internet has certainly played a role, but Ferguson argues that it’s not nearly as transformative as we might think. It is merely a medium for opinion. Opinion has always been the stuff of social influence if it is shared within a tight social network such that it is able to go ‘viral’ (spread easily and rapidly). Even today, especially in the case of the Brexit and Trump victories, it was only because internet/social media transmitted opinion was discussed in the bars, pubs and clubs that turned the tide in favour of the successful outcome. The overwhelming evidence in both cases was that it was the older, less urban, vote that made the difference—not exactly the tech-savvy types. Ferguson concludes, “In the Library of Babel that is the Internet, much that one reads cannot be trusted. That is why the deepest social networks remain local and sociable.”

Influence is only ever as strong as connection.

Whatever we do, however we are influenced and however we want to influence others, we need to look to our ‘local and sociable’ (i.e.: physical, or at least realistically relational) networks. My reading of The Square and the Tower confirmed a conviction I have had for a long time as a mission mobiliser, which was deepened by the research that resulted in “Mission in Motion“, the book I co-authored with Mal Gold, that: influence is only ever as strong as connection. Resources won’t change society for the better, only changed people will.

Innovations will not activate more people for mission, only mission-passionate people will. Be those people, be the starter of positive change that recruits more missions people, and let’s influence one another positively as we #stayonmission.

Ma te Atua e manaaki koutou (may you all experience the very best things from God),

Jay