The Pioneer Gift

Explorations in mission

Ross

• Publisher: Hymns Ancient & Modern
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781848256538
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christianity

Ordained pioneer ministry is a significant and growing presence in the Church of England and the Methodist Church and in denominations around the world. Here leading practitioners and theologians in the pioneer movement reflect on emerging trends, practices and key theological challenges.

1. The Pioneer Gift

JONNY BAKER

An extraordinary gift

People who are pioneers bring an amazing gift. One of the ways I have come to think of it is as the gift of not fitting in. This is not to suggest for a moment that pioneers are the awkward squad. It is that they see and imagine different possibilities to the way things are now, to business as usual. They are then able to build a pathway to make real what they see or imagine. I think the simplest description I have come across is from Beth Keith, who puts it this way: ‘A pioneer is someone who sees future possibilities and works to bring them to reality’ (Goodhew et al., 2012, p. 137). Not only do they dream up new strategies, they implement them – they are ‘dreamers who do’ (Arbuckle, 1993, p. 7). Every culture or organization or church needs this if it is to have a future and not get stuck. And every church needs this if it is to be missional and move out of its comfort zone.

It is not a new gift. Many of the heroes of our faith, such as Abraham, who set off by faith in obedience to God’s call without knowing where he was going (Heb. 11.8), were pioneers who took great risks in leaving the safety of their known world to journey towards something new, crossing borders and boundaries to do so. Jesus is described as the pioneer of our faith (Heb. 12.2). It is an interesting exercise to go through the list of saints commemorated by the Church as inspirational for our faith. The vast majority of them were pioneers, though once their pioneering endeavours become accepted we forget the initial prophetic challenge and difficulty of what they brought. The word has come to the fore in the Church in the UK over the last few years off the back of Mission-Shaped Church.1 The report recommended that the Church needed to identify, select and train ‘pioneers and mission entrepreneurs’ (Cray, 2004, p. 147). Subsequently the Church of England recognized a new designation that joined the word ‘pioneer’ together with ‘ministry’, calling this vocation pioneer ministry, which was a descriptor for people (pioneer ministers) who could church plant and develop fresh expressions of church with those beyond the reach of existing churches. It has been part of the discourse since in the Church of England and Methodist Church but also more widely across other denominations and networks. The Fresh Expressions website has this description:

A pioneer minister is someone who has the necessary vision and gifts to be a missionary entrepreneur: with the capacity to form and lead fresh expressions and new forms of church appropriate to a particular culture. Pioneer ministers may be ordained or lay (not ordained) and different denominations and streams have ways of training and authorising pioneer ministers.2

Of course, pioneers existed before this resurgence of the word but it just named it in a particular way.

The word pioneer is a metaphor and therefore laced with possibility and ambiguity. Depending on the mental images it conjures up, it might be a rich word that opens up vistas or one that is an immediate turn-off. Even if it plays out well in one context, it might be heard very differently in another. This is often the way with language. To further complicate matters for those who like to be on the front edge of change, language that was once used at the edge and is now used in the centre can become uncomfortable or shift its meaning over time. So it is already an interesting question whether the word pioneer is one that will stick or not. Is it the right word? As soon as you come up with another, such as entrepreneur or missionary, they turn out to be just as problematic. Language makes and remakes the world, so this is not surprising – finding language is a huge part of the journey to the new. I personally hope that we are able to work with the metaphor of pioneer for a good season and in doing so keep its ambiguity open rather than pin it down too quickly. Not all pioneers are pioneer ministers (an equally difficult and rich word). The Fresh Expressions definition understandably pulls it into pioneering church communities, which is much needed, but there are many pioneers in mission who see and build other possibilities that equally join in with God’s mission in the world. I am in danger of weaving a complex web already, but the point I am trying to make is that the pioneer gift is not straightforward. It has elusive qualities and can be opened up and unfolded in multiple directions, many of which we are yet to discover. While for some this might be frustrating, I want to suggest that this is a good thing. There is something intriguing and wonderful about the mystery of it.

Church Mission Society (CMS) was first involved in missiological education by training leaders in 1807 in a space that was different to the then existing colleges, presumably recognizing that a different formation and curriculum was needed for cross-cultural mission to what was currently in existence for training for church ministry.3 I have worked for the CMS for over a decade in several roles, all focused on mission in the UK especially in relation to the emerging culture. The most recent has been setting up the CMS Pioneer Mission Leadership Training as a pathway for equipping both lay and ordained pioneers.4 We stand in a line of a long and good tradition in CMS. We had our first intake of pioneers in 2010, and now run a Diploma and Masters programme as well as having pioneers who audit modules with us. Like any start-up, it has been quite an adventure, with a steep learning curve and a lot of hard work, but has been one of the most exciting ventures I have ever been involved in. The thing that has made it so exciting is the pioneers themselves and the gifts they offer through who they are and what they then bring to birth.

We are reflecting together, learning all the time. It never seems to stay still. We have discovered that the gift is multifaceted and each pioneer has a unique shape and calling. There is a wide spectrum of the pioneer gift.5 Things go best when they develop self-awareness and pioneer out of who they are rather than someone else’s expectation of what a pioneer might be. It is not age or gender or culture specific, exclusively lay or ordained. It is not the preserve of any one denomination. It is a gift that is best carried in or with a team, and it is definitely not a word or gift reserved for the most extreme pioneers. I have had many conversations with people who are wondering about their own gift and pioneering because they are comparing themselves to the most entrepreneurial and innovative pioneers on the course or that they have come across, when their vocation is to be who they are called to be and not someone else. Mike Moynagh helpfully recognizes that a presumed set of characteristics can be a problem that puts people off and suggests we should look for qualities that can be unfolded in various ways that fit the person’s capabilities and their context (Moynagh, 2012, p. 231). I had a conversation with one student who thanked me for a module she had found extremely helpful because it had enabled her to reflect on her sense of call and gift. She said that she was now leaving the course because she had concluded that she was an artist and contemplative. I pointed out that we need plenty of pioneers who are artists and contemplatives as they have developed ways of seeing and imagining that are essential. I am glad to say she stayed. She most definitely has the gift. I have since begun to recognize a strand of pioneer mystics.6 We have also discovered that there is no blueprint, no manual to pull off the shelf that tells you how to see and build something new, though there is a growing body of wisdom around practice. The ways that new things emerge are as full of surprises and diversity as the range of people. It is an extraordinary gift!

A mission-shaped gift

Whatever else it is about, the pioneer gift is about mission. The mission of God that we seek to discern and join in with is like the magnetic force of true North around which pioneering orients itself.7 When navigating landscape that is not mapped, a compass and a needle that shows this overarching direction is an invaluable tool in the kit bag. This is a helpful picture for the current moment because the landscape is unmapped in a number of ways. It is unmapped in that there have been such huge changes in the wider culture in the West over the last 50 years or so that it seems like we are literally in a new world. It has been described in multiple ways often with a ‘post’ on the front – postmodern, post-Christendom, and postcolonial are three big posts. While writers describe the new world differently they are almost all agreed that in substantial ways reality is not what it used to be.

The gospel is always culturally robed and the Church itself is embedded and embodied in time and space in particular ways (Bosch, 1991, p. 297). But navigating this new world has proved something of a challenge in the West for the churches. Their identity, imagination, theologies and practices have been more shaped by modernity than perhaps at first we realized or like to admit. When the wider culture changes and churches do not, over time they can seem wedded to a bygone era. This is certainly not to make an argument for changing everything at a whim or to denigrate what is ancient, or to suggest that the Church has not changed, but rather how to prolong the logic of the ministry of Jesus in a new era (Bosch, 1991, p. 34), or orient to true North, has become a pressing question, especially when there is an overall pattern of decline in attendance in the main denominational churches and growing economic pressure. Doug Gay suggests that one of the outcomes of debriefing the western missionary enterprise has been a growing awareness within western churches of how their own beliefs and practices too were inculturated (Gay, 2011, p. 16). The pioneer gift may be needed for such a time as this.

One of the pluses in this difficult climate has been a growing awareness that the UK (and Europe) is a mission context itself. Mission is not just something that happens overseas. The lens, imagination and practice of ministry called for is a cross-cultural one (Cray (ed.), 2004, p. 147). This is the reason I joined CMS several years ago as I recognized they had a deep well of experience and nous in this area, which I was keen to draw from. It is also why CMS as a mission community is so well placed to encourage, nurture, train and form pioneers. Cathy’s chapter creatively weaves together contemporary themes in missiology alongside CMS’s founding story.

One of the jargon words in theological education is formation, which is a recognition that it is about much more than knowledge; it is forming people to be mature disciples of Christ and for ministry. I have been very helped by Gerald Arbuckle’s thinking in From Chaos to Mission where he looks at refounding formation (Arbuckle, 1996). He contrasts formation in religious communities that are cloistered, where the focus is on predictability and stability, with formation in the communities of friars who are spread out and live in the world. For them the purpose of formation is inculturation and prophetic ministry to the world, with a focus on flexibility and the ability to adapt to rapid change. Further, for a Franciscan, say, if their ministry is to be among the poor, then that is where they must be formed. Jesuits had to develop the ability to be open to the presence of God in the world where they found themselves, to find God in all things rather than withdrawing into cloisters to find God (Arbuckle, 1996, pp. 18, 24). You could say that for one the emphasis is a con-formation to the ecclesiastical status quo and traditions, and for the other trans-formation in and of the world. He is writing about a different era but I think it helped me see that there are various formations at play that are contested, and often they are both invisible or assumed and not critiqued or reflected upon. The formation of pioneers is very much about the latter. There is so much creativity and energy in a learning community of pioneers that this second kind of formation takes place. It is also why it is essential that pioneers are trained in a context rather than residentially, which thankfully was an insight and recommendation in Mission-Shaped Church (Cray, 2004, p. 148). How much it has been heeded is a different question.

These are some of the contours we navigate that help pioneers develop the ability to imagine and build. Every pioneer is in a context. This is one of the words we use most I suspect. The turn to context in global Christianity is massive. To make sense of that context will involve, for example, exploring of notions of identity, reading cultures, economics, religion, locale, myths, texts, symbols, power relations, gender, ethnicity. Each pioneer is unique and has particular gifts and calling that they will relate to the context, so we spend time working on who you are. That includes personality, calling, story, identity, brokenness, character, posture, self-awareness. We study mission – this is such a rich vein for pioneers with its themes of ecology, liberation, hospitality, the five marks of mission, discernment and joining in with God’s mission, evangelization, inculturation, migration, healing, prophetic dialogue, ecclesiology and so on. To both see and build something requires tools and skills such as theologizing, reading culture, crossing culture, resourcing, strategies and tactics, communication, pastoral care, fundraising. Some of those skills will relate to the particular pioneering such as church planting or building social enterprise. They are not the first people to do such a thing so there is lots to learn from history, including various paradigms of mission, both good and ba...