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EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH IN
TANZANIA
FROM GLOBAL TO
“GLOCAL” MISSION: New Areas of Mission in 50 Years to Come.
(New strategies of opening new
frontiers, facing the challenges of fast growing cities and the role of
Evangelism and Diaconate, Integrity of Creation and Gender Issues)
Presentation at the 50th ELCT Jubilee, Makumira, 22nd
June 2013
By Bishop Dr.Benson K. Bagonza,
Karagwe Diocese.
Introduction
Brothers
and sisters in Christ, it is not my intention through this presentation to
define what is “Mission”. The term
itself has drawn a lot of fire in the recent years, and I believe it is not the
intention of the ELCT to bring that crossfire through this jubilee
consultation. It is therefore enough for
the purpose, to say, mission as traditionally understood, connotes the act of
reaching out from inside. As a church or a Para-church organization, mission is
done to respond to the Great Commission of Jesus Christ to his disciples. The Commission charges to go and reach all nations, baptizing in the
name of the trinity, teaching and making disciples (Mathew 28: 19-20). Under that umbrella, motives, commitment,
methodologies, and strategies are put in place to justify the act of moving
from inside to outside. That is what
traditionally has come to mean mission. The scope of this act can range from
local to global.
A)
What then is “Glocal Mission?”
For
the purpose of this presentation, “glocal mission” connotes the
multidimensionality of mission. The operation level of mission is both local
and global and in its broader terms is conventionally divided between inner
mission and so the called global mission. Inner mission is also built on the
same concept of “reaching out” “departing
or moving out”, but this time it is to move from inside to inside. This act requires a deliberate commitment to
stop the dangerous routine for the sake of addressing a pressing need
domestically. This action is critical
because in most cases, what is to be addressed or attended domestically is
normally “a New Area of Mission”. It is a domestic issue which has managed to
escape an attention, but now, it has come to be noticed and therefore resources
are to be accessible for that purpose.
In essence this is a technical area which requires expertise because
passion and charity cannot help here.
Besides passion for mission, something beyond that is required. This “beyondness”
is important here, because in most cases that not, the mission activities
driven by passion and revival are prone to misconceptions and lack of clarity
and transparency. New area of Mission
has to be done with certain precision otherwise it is better not to do it. The damage that can be caused by wrong
approach in the “New Area of Mission”
outweighs the gravity of leaving the issue unattended.
For
the purpose of this consultation, the responsibility of attending New Area of
Mission in any traditional church, involves the following:
a) A clear identification of what constitutes new area of
mission in that particular context. It must be borne out of critical and
methodical analysis.
b) The presence of concrete plans to witness among the
non-Christians in the church/organization.
This witness in any shape or form should provide sufficient, concrete
and deliberate locus to reach out to
the non-Christian.
c) A clear and unambiguous strategic plan beyond
alleviating poverty among the people. The plan should address structures that
create poverty among the people. Poverty
dehumanizes and thus reduces people to be less Godly. Poverty among the people
becomes a new area of mission domestically.
When we cease to see this reality, we have then ordained poverty to be a
permanent structure among the people who worship in our churches.
d) A clear and spontaneous worshiping spirit and life of
joy in the institutions and congregations of the church. This has to be planned and executed without
fear or any undue economic pressure.
This is crucial because secularism that we normally thought to be a
western problem is in our backyard!
e) Well planned efforts to bring about conscientious
agreement between the church and society on what is acceptable life for all
people. This is different from a utopic
classless society but rather a movement toward a sustainable life standard that
do not pose threat among socio-economic classes.
f)
A candid
declaration that the church on earth is God in mission for the world and to
every creature. By such proclamation,
the church should show clearly the readiness to pay the price of this
proclamation.
B) The
Situation Analysis: New Areas of Mission in the ELCT
Generally, the congregational life in
the ELCT is a complex and sometimes paradoxical. What seems to be the solution for a certain
prevailing problem, it can abruptly become a problem after a short while in
that particular congregation. In some
cases, these challenges have taken away a joy that always kept the congregation
together to withstand suffering. The
situation is so complex such that it is difficult to envision who is the common
enemy of the church and its mission.
Where orthodox and traditions are kept, some people are complaining that
the church is a backward organization.
If you introduce a contemporary and spontaneous spirit and settings, the
same people may complain that secularism is too much in the church! Seminaries and training centres are not able
to manufacture a magic bullet to treat’ this phenomenon. There was a time in the history of the
church, when Christians were persecuted and being killed by non-Christians-and
at that time; the enemy was visible and real.
But today, due to globalization, it is difficult to rally Christians in
perceiving the enemy of their faith and therefore the inner mission of the
church, as I said earlier is the complex matter as well.
On several occasions, I have developed
a somewhat church sociological theory that says, ELCT is growing in the
periphery and disintegrating in the centre.
The growth that the ELCT has enjoyed over the last five decades (from
350,000 members in 1963 to the present over 7 millions) can best be described through
this theory. That, to every centre of
the church (national, diocesan, district, parish and congregation), mission is
not necessarily a matter of urgency but church politics. But as you move from that centre to the
periphery, that is where there is joy and growth through witness and
hospitality. Though a blessing in
disguise, conflicts in the centres are part that caused growth in the
peripheries. This can also be explained within a broader globalization
discussion. That, the so called “northern partners”, seen as centers of
mission, have over the last five decades lost grip over the mission work to the
so called “peripheries”. In the same spirit and trend, “peripheries” have since
become centers and no longer peripheries. This trend is what I term “From global to glocal Mission”.
The emerging polar between rural and
urban based churches is the case to reflect upon. While, even within the rural based dioceses,
there are congregations that are well off economically, there are still
congregations that are about to close the service because they cannot afford to
pay an evangelist or pastor. But also,
in the richer congregations, it is cumbersome to get them to be involved in
rescuing poor congregations even though, ELCT is an evangelical church with strong
mission tradition. Thus said, being rich
in term of collecting enough offering does not solve the problem of inner
mission. The trend of urbanization and complexities that come with it, poses a
challenge that mission and theological institutes have not managed to
manufacture solution. Hence, urbanization stands out to be a single new area of
mission in Africa today. Urbanization affects how people behave, believe,
relate to one another, relate to creation and so forth.
As a result of the above polarization,
and due to our synodical structures, management of our pastoral ministry faces
endless tensions. For instance, a pastor
serving an urban parish is more economically and socially well taken care of
than the pastor in the rural poor parish.
While a rural parish is struggling to raise funds for the kindergarten
classroom, the urban one is deeply discussing and voting for the colour of the
carpet, air condition, wireless microphones, etc. These two parishes belong to the same
church/diocese! How can we tune down the consumerism spirit instead of
escalating it at the expense of polarizing the church?
Traditionally, pastors and evangelists
are to reach out to the outstations as often as they can manage in order to
keep members involved and committed through sacramental life. These outreach visits are expensive but very
essential. Over time they become routine
and economically burdening. The endless
discords and conflicts in most of our congregations have their origin in this
phenomenon. Also the growth of
charismatic and Pentecostal movement is partly a response to the ‘routine’ and
‘chronic conflicts’ in the mainline churches.
We may disagree on how to analyze this, but it remains truthful to say,
charismatic and Pentecostalism, is undeniably both a new area in our domestic
mission.
The issue of growth is also
problematic. But be it external or domestic mission, growth has to do with the
positive increase in new members as well as positive increase in knowledge
about God’s salvation. Thus, mission
aims at growing the church and with the growth of the church the mission is in
return strengthened. So the mission and
the church are intrinsically related and diametrically depending on each other.
Up to this point, we
can certainly pose a question if it is really possible to continue with our
‘business as usual’ in the midst of these challenging issues? I bet we
cannot. How then, can we reach out
traditionally and at the same time reach domestically?
The
above situational analysis has in the recent years caused a stead decrease in
the Sunday service attendance especially in the rural based churches: The following are said to be immediate
reasons:
-
Complaints about
the quality of sermons and teaching: Pastors and evangelists are too busy to
attend multiple chores and cannot afford to prepare good sermons!
-
Shortage of
pastors: Ratios in KAD is 1 pastor 8 congregations; 1 pastor 3,700 members but
at the same time, unemployment among pastors is becoming an issue is several
urban based dioceses.
-
Expensive
tradition that expect too much from pastors
-
The church on the
open and free market: Is the church attractive enough to be marketable?
-
Money factor: Is
money a realistic dimension in inner mission?
-
Chronic
conflicts: Has the seminary training equipped pastors with skills to face
conflicts?
-
Shift of focus:
From discipleship to membership.
B)
Key “New Areas
of Mission”
At a risk of oversimplifying or underestimating the
concept of new areas in mission, what follows below can be a primer attempt to
identify SOME key new areas of mission within ELCT:
a) Re-proclaiming good news to Christians: In this
post-Christian era, it is evident that somewhere along the way salt and light
got lost among the Christians. The “religionless Christianity” has slowly but
steadily substituted the long cherished traditional way of Christian life. We
now have thorny and touchy issues believed and practiced by Christians. All
colors of corruption, human sexuality, pornography, racism, perverted way of
life, genocide etc are no longer taboos in Christian families. These people were baptized and
confirmed. They are still in our church
registers, but they are in my view, a new area of mission in our churches.
b) Participatory Mission: We are all co-workers with God in the garden. No one is a spectator and no race is in
charge of mission. How is this being
realized in our partnership? Paternalism and submission are new areas of
mission. Gaps within our broader relations have to be filled. They include:
gender based imbalances, generational gaps, technological gaps, economical
gaps, regional gaps, etc.
c) Prophetic Mission: Globalization has managed to transfer the prophetic
responsibility from churches to the NGO’s and civil society. The sting is no longer felt in the church
teaching and whenever it is felt, threats and intimidation are resorted to in
silencing the church. With a crippling
dependency, the situation of the poor churches is expected to get worse in the
area of being prophetic. The power of euro
and dollar has substituted the power of the word of God that supplied churches
with prophetic voice. For ELCT this is a crucial area because we have a double
duty: to witness to the north as well as to our beloved corrupt society
including our own church structures.
d) Mission as mediation: Globalization has taught us a bitter reality that
nobody own the whole truth about faith.
As a church we hold into Christ’s absolute right to truth because he is
the way, truth and life. Christianity in
some critical areas is still a minority religion. This poses a challenge for our new areas of
mission strategies. We have to learn to
live with conditions we cannot change on our accord and therefore dialogue,
mediation and negotiation are ways suitable to do new areas of mission in those
contexts.
e) Mission through small Christian communities: Our Lutheran
church structure depicts ‘home’ to be basic first church. However, a workable structure is realized at
the congregational level. As a result,
most people meet once a week on Sunday service even though they come from the
same street or village. As a result,
faith issues are not part of the daily agenda at work places and in the
sub-village meetings. We need to
incarnate the word and sacrament right from the home and village through small
communities. We started this in KAD
years ago and already results are remarkable.
f)
Mission
through children: Again, globalization has shattered
families. It is no longer possible for
the whole family to be present at the lunch or dinner table everyday. Children are away from the families since
kindergarten all the way to the university level. Baby and day care takers spend more time with
children than the parents do. This
sudden change in our family structure cannot pass without affecting the church and
community at large. In my view this is
the special new area of mission that requires immediate attention.
g)
Mission to Climate Change: Climate has changed. This change is given many names
and concepts. Without doubt, this change is changing everything without
discrimination. It calls our attention to minister to it and this is a new area
of our mission. Through it, God given rights to people are threatened, namely,
water, land, ecological aspects and atmospheric rights. This is a new frontier
for the mission of ELCT but we have to engage it boldly and confidently. Since
it is a cross cutting issue, it even affects other territories that we have
traditionally dealt with namely medical, education and diaconal.
D) Financing
New Areas of Mission
Experience has shown
that it is difficult to finance new area of mission through conventional
means. In KAD we developed a plan
whereby mission department came out with a list of identified new area of
mission. A special fund for new area of
mission was established with specific criteria. All congregations and
institutions contribute to it through budget allocation approved jointly by the
executive council and pastor’s conference.
Even congregations to benefit from the fund, are also contributing to
the fund. Three times a year, a grant is
distributed to the areas identified. We
are in the seventh year and so far the system is running smoothly. This is not a magic bullet. Each church has to come out with a suitable
strategy based on the specific needs. The bottom line is that, we cannot treat
new area of mission from a business as usual perspective.
CONCLUSION
Dealing with the new
area of mission effectively, builds the capacity of the church to deal with the
external or traditional mission. It is
even scandalous to deal with the external mission at the expense of neglecting
the new area of mission domestically.
They have to go together because they strengthen each other in a way
that only God knows! I would like to end this presentation with a warning.
A devastating
disempowering shadow of missionary activities is still with us even after a
century. Mission has to empower not
otherwise. Therefore when we are dealing
with the new areas of mission in our backyards, we should not create a
situation where people are taken hostage for ever. Mutuality, interdependence and respect are
essential and indispensable. Money in
this respect is not indispensable, but recognition and solidarity between the
so called ‘sender’ and ‘recipients’. If
we fail to yield to this caution, we will be surrendering the mission work into
the hands of the irresponsible mortal beings that are likely to use money and
power to sabotage God’s mission.
Thanks for listening
and Happy Birthday ELCT.
+Benson,
Bishop
Karagwensis,
Lukajange
TRINITATIS
2013.
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