Generating New Energy
Tena tātou katoa e te iwi mīhana… (Greetings to all the people in mission),
This month’s whakataukī (proverb) is: “Mauri mahi, mauri ora.” (“working with life force brings life or wellbeing”). This is part of a longer whakataukī that I referenced back in June 2019 in an attempt to uncouple the unhelpful (colonial and essentially misinformed) concept of animism from our missions vocabulary. I will not cover that ground again here, but you can assume that I embrace and can biblically defend the reality of life force (flowing from God) as central to the created order, which Paul accredits to Jesus (cf. Colossians 1:15-20). In his writings, some of which are collected by his nephew Te Ahukaramū Charles Royal in The Woven Universe (2003), the Rev. Māori Marsden notes that the Māori view the universe is essentially generative—life affirming and developing.
The mauri, or ‘energy’ of the universe if you will, pulses with life and the Māori view is that the responsibility of humans is to nurture, foster, guard that life, to honour it in highly creative ways as we seek to live together in harmonious community. This is the source of what Māori know as kaitiakitanga—guardianship. I believe that this has great relevance to our theology of creation care and, more to the point, our participation in God’s mission, which seeks to reconcile disharmony and establish new creation (in part now, as a witness to what will be established in fulness at Christ’s return). I see this as foundational for an innovative ‘missions imaginary’ as we move into a new era of global missions.
Old energy provides a semblance of life, but its impact has become greatly hindered.
I was reminded afresh about this generative indigenous perspective, working with the flow of energy in the universe (which I fully recognise as given by and inseparable from God), when I read my former colleague and friend Ted Esler’s August 23 Substack reflections, Organizational Inertia. Ted provides a compelling metaphor of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that can move and manoeuvre incredibly well so long as it is generating fresh energy. However, should its nuclear reactor get spent, its agility is greatly diminished. It can still maintain a great deal of momentum under what Ted identifies as “old energy”, which provides it with a semblance of life, but its impact has become greatly hindered. He likens this to many of our Evangelical institutions (including churches).
Ted’s analogy reminded me of something my former colleague and friend Darren Birch noted about missions organisations in Aotearoa New Zealand in the late 2000’s. He likened them to aircraft with varying degrees of altitude (according to their resource stores), but most of them seemed to be in decline. He hypothesised that some could stay in the air longer, but eventually the fuel would run out. Over a decade later, with statistics in hand, I can confirm Darren’s thesis. Energy, the resource available to our national missions community to promote and conduct missions, has been draining and attempted innovations do not appear to be refuelling traditional methods of missions effectively.
It is safe to say that Aotearoa New Zealand’s contribution to the global missions force has been depleted by 1,000 workers over the past two decades..
At the turn of the century, Missions Interlink NZ Director, David Jenkins placed the number of workers in missions from Aotearoa New Zealand at 1,700 (Starting and Strengthening National Mission Movements. WEA Mission Commission, 2000. P47.). In the same article he noted that “New Zealand has long had a strong commitment to global mission, and for some years it has had one of the highest Protestant missionaries-per-capita ratios in the world”. But that has long since been the case. In fact, when I started collecting annual missions worker statistics in 2016 the number had already reduced to around 1,200. The loss of 500 in about a decade and a half. This year’s aggregate total is about 700 field workers (excluding support staff). If we’re only tracking missionaries serving cross-culturally, it is safe to say that Aotearoa New Zealand’s contribution to the global missions force has been depleted by 1,000 workers over the past two decades.
That’s the bad news. And every missionary deploying organisation in Missions Interlink NZ’s membership must be feeling it. The tide has turned and 225 years of traditional missions (166 years from Aotearoa New Zealand), enabled as it was by the imagination and momentum of European colonisation, is drawing to a close. But the traditional missions chapter is not the end of the story—and that’s where the good news starts.
The gospel is spreading indigenously, sacrificially, passionately by locals with minimal resources and little need for sending infrastructure.
The Spirit of God continues to work out God’s purposes and still calls us to participate in what has been called the missio Dei or God’s mission. God’s mission is far broader than the colonial constraints of traditional missions. It remains concerned for where the gospel is least available or understood, and so should we, but we are seeing the Spirit of God move in remarkable ways that are different from the past couple centuries. The gospel is spreading, and the church is growing rapidly from within traditionally unreached contexts—by the millions. In much the same way as the gospel was accepted by the majority of Māori in the mid-1800s, it is spreading indigenously, sacrificially, passionately by locals with minimal resources and little need for sending infrastructure. People are following Jesus because of the faithful witness of people they recognise, know and trust—many of whom wear hijabs and have calloused foreheads—people like them who are suffering with them and have found a new and living hope for their wellbeing through faith in Jesus. This is innovating new energy for the eternal gospel.
God continues to call people to participate in the missio Dei through cross-cultural service.
Does that mean the era of trans-border missionary sending is over? Heaven forbid! God continues to call people to participate in the missio Dei through cross-cultural service, just not necessarily in the way it has traditionally been conceived, nor in the numbers that were arguably motivated by a sort of colonial imagination. In his book, The Innovation Crisis, Ted Esler speaks of the need for genuine innovation to overcome organizational inertia. He defines innovation as the use of something new (or uniquely combining existing elements to create something new) that will provide solutions to identified problems—correctly defined problems. With reference to Nehemiah 3, in times of catastrophic change it can be prudent to avoid rebuilding on old foundations. Archaeologists agree that, at least for the eastern part of the wall, the work teams took a shorter and higher (easier) line for construction because the context had changed, and the urgency demanded a different approach. They innovated to secure what they imagined to be a bright new future ahead of them.
What can we imagine for missions from and within traditional sending nations like Aotearoa New Zealand? What do followers of Jesus, who sense a call to serve beyond their context of origin, see themselves contributing to the growth of the global Church? What is the better future they desire to work towards with their gifts, talents, experience and expertise? What or who is informing their imagination? How can deploying organisations ‘pivot’ to help facilitate a new vision or missions imagination in innovative ways? Answers to such questions will inevitably be contextual, born out of a relationship between the ones called to serve and the potential receiving contexts—and that requires reciprocal relationships across the boundaries.
Motivations have shifted, and we might not see a return to the heyday of a large missionary cohort from traditional sending nations, but new motivations are emerging and therein lies great hope for participation in God’s mission from and within formerly Christianised lands. God’s grace to us in our contexts gives us a great deal to contribute alongside fellow believers in God’s global Church in other contexts. So, let us remain energized, generative with the Spirit of God, and innovating anew as we #stayonmission.
Arohanui ki a koutou e haere ana ki te ao (love to you all as you go into the world),
Jay
