Lausanne World Pulse – Partnership, Cooperation, and Vulnerability: Building a Solid Foundation for Mission Praxis in Africa
By Jim Harries
Recent decades have seen radical changes in mission methodologies. Talk has turned to partnership. Increasing numbers of short-term missionaries from the West offer weeks, months, or even a few years of their lives in service. This essay explores some of the implications and outcomes of three approaches (models) to “mission” in Africa in particular, and then makes suggestions for adjustments.
The partnership model is taken as that in which a direct link is made between a Western church or organisation and an African partner. The cooperation model concentrates on the building of bridges of intercultural understanding leading to contextualised mission. The vulnerable model emphasises the need for open communication within intercultural mission relationships.
Partnership Model
The partnership model for mission appears to have arisen in an attempt to overcome paternalism and neocolonialism1 following “an emphatic demand from people in the Two-Thirds World to their right of self-determination, coupled with an insistence that they remain connected to the West, albeit on different terms than have been obtained here before.”2 Instead of Western missions “running the shop” in Africa (i.e., “the traditional missionary mentality carrying the image of a parent-child relationship”3), the West is to be a helper, facilitator, or a junior party in a partnership agreement, offering expertise to “oil the wheels” of a process that would anyway be happening in its absence. That type of expertise has tended to be financial and technical.4
The communication revolution, which allows almost immediate and constant contact, has extended this model significantly. Today, numerous churches and individuals in the West can enter into partnership with African churches and ministries. This situation is illustrated in Figure 1 below.
Figure 1. Intercultural Partnerships
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Someone from almost any geographical location in the West can enter into partnership with almost any of a wide range of African individuals, churches, or groups. The prevalence of European languages in Africa has aided this process. For many, this has been a liberating and invigorating model. In the West, a church can engage in frontier mission across a vast cultural divide while bypassing somewhat cumbersome “tradition bound” mission structures. A church is free to make almost any kind of arrangement with its partner, thus local churches are also empowered. Meanwhile, among the benefits for the African is direct contact with a wealthy potential donor who, not being hardened by previous contrary experiences, can prove to be financially helpful.
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Dr. Jim Harries is chair of the Alliance for Vulnerable Mission, which seeks to encourage mission using the language of people being reached through non-subsidised ministries. He is also a missionary to the Luo people of Western Kenya. |