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Africans into World Missions?

Steef van 't Slot, Ph.D.

The question in this title does not indicate any doubt about the validity or plausibility of sending Africans into the entire world as missionaries, on the contrary. It is my strong desire and life commitment to see this happen. Some of my estimated missionary colleagues however doubt whether this is possible and whether it will ever happen on a large scale. They see big problems - as I do myself; yet I have come to believe during discussions with many African Christian leaders that it is not only possible but vitally and crucially necessary. Therefore, more Africans must be mobilized and recruited to participate in world missions because without them the job will not be finished. They possess specific redemptive gifts most westerners lack. In this article I would like to highlight some of the problems Africans face and in a next what they can contribute to world missions.

Some problems

In the context of doctoral research I carried out two research surveys during a four-year period: one in a Southern African country and another in a Central-east African country. During that same period I also conducted the first of these two surveys in two West African countries. I interviewed dozens of pastors, Bible school teachers and -students, leaders of church denominations and in West Africa also leaders of indigenous mission agencies. I asked them about the missionary-sending status of the national church, the attention missions receive in Bible school- and seminary curricula, how many long-term, cross-cultural missionaries they had sent out and other related questions. Although the West Africans are way ahead with the missionary-sending process in comparison to their Southern African brethren, some features in the answers of both groups kept coming back. I want to mention five main problems:

1. Where the common goal of participating in world missions lacks, there will be no sacrificial giving to make it happen. Where sacrificial giving lacks the Church misses out on the blessings God intends to give her. Ps. 67 seems to indicate that when the blessing of v. 1 is spent for the benefit of the nations (so that they learn who God is, v. 2-5), business will boom and abundance abound (v. 6). So, as long as such giving lacks, the speed of world missions will be impeded and the poverty of 'fields yielding no harvest' will continue.

2. Where a common vision - like 'all nations, tribes, peoples and languages' (Rev. 7:9) - lacks, material means may be abused for idolatrous purposes. This was true of Israel in the wilderness when they made the golden calf, and it is sometimes true for the church today that fails to actively engage in world missions. In the case of Israel the purpose for their means was the building of the Tabernacle, so that God could live in their midst. Today, the purpose for the means of the church is similarly to meet the conditions that Immanuel, God with us, Jesus Christ can return and live in the midst of His people (Matt. 24:14). World missions is all about bringing the King back to earth and with Him His Kingdom on earth, visible for all. It occurred to me that this eschatological purpose is much more alive in West Africa than it is in Southern Africa. Wood and Takenaga write about A.B. Simpson:

One of the driving passions of his life was to see the Great Commission completed so that Jesus could return. … He [Simpson] said, Missions is 'the Lord's own appointed way of hastening His speedy coming.'… Simpson made sure that his congregation knew that reaching those who have yet to hear the gospel was the only thing holding back Christ's second coming: 'The work of missions will hasten as nothing else the personal return of the Lord Jesus Christ. It appears to be the one yet unfulfilled condition of preparation' (in Mission Frontiers, July 1994).

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.


Steef van 't Slot, Ph.D.
steefvantslot@gmail.com

Evangelism and Growth of the Assemblies of God Churches in Tamilnadu, India - From 1989 - 2003 | Africans into World Missions? | Am I the Keeper of My Sister? | Manhattan Declaration - A Call of Christian Conscience | Lloyd C. Douglas' Ministry through His Novels | Light | An Evaluation of the Growth and Expansion of the Protestant Missionary Movement in the United States | The Way Forward in Missions -- New Wine in New Wineskins | Celebration of Love in the Book of Ruth | You Are Valued! | The Light of Christmas | Jesus Christ | Freedom in Jesus Christ - Our Lord's Ministry | HOME PAGE of December 2009 Issue | HOME PAGE | CONTACT EDITOR


ISSN
1548-7164


Vol. 5 : 9
December 2009

Board of Editors

Dr. Tan Kok Beng

Olive Rajesh, Ph.D.

Stan Schmidt

Steven Wakeman

Sudhir Isaiah, Ph.D.

Sundar Singh, Ph.D.

Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

Vasanthi Isaiah, M.A., B.Ed.

M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D., Managing Editor


© Copyright 2009 M.S.Thirumalai. All rights reserved.