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Our English-language concepts of love can be woefully inadequate, but we need strong concepts of ‘merciful loving kindness’ to lead us into effective Kindgom witness. God’s mission is always accomplished through loving sacrifice and there is no better time to remember that than through the Lenten season.
We live in an era of missions when, if we don’t consistently and persistently shift our expectations to match reality, we will suffer great harm. The triumphalism of yesteryear will not carry us forward. In humility we must surrender our grand plans and yield to the new and wonderfully fruitful thing God is doing in our day.
What English speakers call the ‘dragon’ is a mythical creature that exists in cultures throughout the world. It is representative of that which humans cannot control – circumstances, powerful people, governments, etc. God is the only one who can ‘tame the taniwha’, but we can terminate its influence by lives lived faithfully in-Christ.
Mission is not a task to be accomplished, it is a relationship journey, and the minute we reduce it to a quantifiable goal we objectify the very ones God wants to embrace. We need a blessing-orientation, to make loving relationship our priority.
We need to be people of empathy, a form of identification where we enter into and share the burdens of another. Without it our mission activity is nothing more than condescension, and our Christian life becomes pitifully parochial.
We make too little of reciprocation in missions strategies. We arrogantly think that we engage in mission to only give, out of our superior surplus. We need a big dose of humility, acknowledging our need and being open to receive.
Courage has many resting places and the call of mission comes to us with new views if we stop long enough to see them. We would do well to foster a posture of exploration in mission, being open to new possibilities, daring to move into them.
Every nation manifests a unique deposit of God’s grace on them as a people/s. We need to recognise that and allow each other to be all that God has created us to be. The way ahead for mission will be greater unity in validated diversity.
The whole world seems to be in something of an identity crisis at the moment, New Zealanders among them. Nations are wrestling with who they are in light of globalizing forces. This provides a great opportunity for missions.
Nehemiah provides us with a model for expansion. He not only strengthened the walls but extended them, and with them the size of the city. There is much to be gleaned for mission and God’s Kingdom advance from this perspective.
In Thailand the community relies on food preparers to supply a variety of meal options for the neighbourhood who are rewarded with income. This symbiotic relationship strengthens community bonds, effectively establishing a common table.
Change can create a deep sense of disequilibrium, but it also present tremendous opportunities for innovative solutions to emerge. Rather than tangle our nets as we go about our mission, let’s cast them afresh for a new day.