A MISSIONAL REFLECTION | PART 1
Early June while in Korea, I was asked to participate in National Consultation on World Evangelization (NCOWE) to observe and advise. This was the 8th NCOWE gathering with about 600 leaders with a couple of dozens of other global south missions leaders. Toward the end of the consultation after a lot of listening, I was asked by the leader of the consultation to write a reflection paper that would be shared with the participants. I told him, “Yes, of course, with honor.”
I thought I would share this short reflection (3 pages) with you in the next two weeks as a window into how I have been integrating spirituality and missions as well as how we live our life.
June 20, 2023
The air was different. I was different.
What came to me toward the end of 8th NCOWE was the verse from Zechariah (4:6) “He said to me, ‘This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts.”
Missions had been done for too long with overbearing might and power if we are honest enough to admit it. Missions flowed from civilized to less civilized (so we thought), modern to unmodern or premodern, privileged to less or underprivileged, educated to less educated, and economically affluent to less affluent. Even when we tried to be humble and approached with incarnational spirit, power, prestige, and wealth and the progress of the West had gained too much momentum and power. When the modern missions movement began (emphasis on “modern”), colonization was already well on the way and would reach its climax in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Though most of the colonized nations gained their independence by 1970, other waves of colonization rolled in in the form of economic and cultural superiority and resulted in suppression of the non-West by the West, by and large. With the backdrop, however, we were so concerned with “what”—the “task of world evangelization” that we over-emphasized the number of workers the world (especially the West or Global North) needed to send to all nations—over how the missions work needed to be done. In retrospect, this was absolutely needed, and not wrong. The task was mainly about “what”—the goal of world evangelization. The words like task, beachheads, breakthroughs, etc borrowed from military warfare embodied certain colonial assumptions. In all, the urgency drove us all.
Now, we, the Korean missions, are confronted with the accumulating stories of shortcomings (as well as encouraging and heartwarming stories) of what “what” had produced over the years, greatly heightened by COVID pandemic. I would like to think that we are turning a corner in embracing the importance of “how.” How do we reach and love the world God so loved? The focus is no longer about “winning” them to Christ but to love and serve them, and how to coexist and partner together to usher in the Kingdom of God to earth now. From my vantage point, the 8th NCOWE was the first large gathering of leaders that reflected such humility and honesty in willingness to face and own shortcomings of the Korean missions movement in the last generation. Additionally, the 8th NCOWE has shown great courage to do something about our own shortcomings, mistakes, and failures. (I know that there have been pockets of leadership gatherings over the years that have been discussing such questions of “how.”) Thus, the shift from the WHAT of missions to the HOW of missions is decisively significant. However, this introspective process will not be easy as it trickles down to systems, individual organizations, and churches (as well as down to each individual) and will require greater courage and humility to continue to walk in it.
To use a slightly different language, we are no longer concerned only about the “message,” but exhibit willingness and readiness to embrace the importance of “messengers.” Who we are and who we are becoming is a far greater and more impactful message than the message we use our mouths to proclaim. With the risk of sounding simplistic and general, we have been too concerned with the right message to the point that we perhaps undermined the importance of being faithful and loving messengers. The Gospel was truncated down to believing the right dogma and doctrine rather than preaching Jesus Christ—his life, ministry, teachings, his death, resurrection, ascension—and living incarnationally. The multiple iterations and mentions of the importance of “spirituality” during NCOWE highlight this shift. There were also many emphases on possessing the right “attitudes” of the workers be it missionaries or global Christians in action. To be sure, the right attitudes flow out of who we are and who we are becoming which essentially is about transforming spirituality.