Making Disciples in a World Parish

Global Perspectives on Mission & Evangelism

Paul W. Chilcote, Chilcote

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781498258234
• eBook ISBN: 9781498273527
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

In this collection of inspirational and challenging essays, Methodists from around the globe reflect on the practice of disciple-making in their own contexts. From their own perspectives, they address questions like: What are the challenges you face? What biblical images shape your missional practice? What examples of Christian authenticity inspire your communities? What gifts related to mission and evangelism do you offer the global community of faith? Churches on every continent have their own stories of struggle and faithfulness. Indeed, each distinct community within any given region has a voice of its own that deserves to be heard. The voices included in this volume belong to women and men alike. Likewise, they resound with the accents of Africa and Asia, Latin and North America, Europe, and Oceania. Each voice is distinct, but all articulate a vision of faith made effective through love.In a world characterized variously by poverty and violence as well as prosperity and peace, the church must reclaim its central mission "to make disciples of Jesus Christ." In their effort to articulate a vision of mission and evangelism, the contributors to this volume bear witness to the fact that we can no longer do this work in isolation from one another. To be the ambassadors of the gospel, we need each other and we need to pay attention to the voices that sound different from our own. This volume takes a large step in that vital direction.

part one

Africa

Riding the Flood Tide

Introduction to Part I

Africa boasts some of the most ancient forms of Christianity in the world. We find many of these traditions, of course, in the north where they continue to exist as minorities in a majority Muslim world. The late twentieth century, however, witnessed an amazing burst of Christian activity in sub-Saharan Africa, fueled in large measure by the post-colonial dynamic after the Second World War. It is not too much to claim that African Christianity is riding the crest of a flood tide in these opening years of the new millennium. In 1900 less than ten million Christians resided in Africa, but by the end of the century, this figure had escalated to nearly 400 million. That kind of exponential growth still characterizes Christianity in Africa today, with some estimating that this number will double in less than half a century. Much of this growth is due to indigenous African efforts, so we have much to learn from our African brothers and sisters with regard to disciple-making, mission, and evangelism.

In the opening chapter of this African story, Lubunga W’Ehusha reflects on what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ in the African Great Lakes Region. All of us are painfully aware of the legacy of genocide that has shaped Rwanda, Burundi, and parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo in recent years. What does it mean to be a Christian in such a context? How does one restore trust in a community of faith in which Christians have perpetrated heinous crimes against one another? W’Ehusha explores the mission of the church against this backdrop of evil and violence.

The nation of Kenya has long been viewed by many as the African epicenter. Nairobi, its capital, functions somewhat like a central clearing house for pan-African and international Christian organizations that are engaged in service and witness across the continent. Nahashon Gitonga examines the way in which the history of Christianity in Kenya—including the dominant understandings and forms of evangelism that were part of the colonial era and the East African Evangelical Revival—shaped Christian praxis in both positive and negative ways. He argues that a renewed understanding of disciple-making that takes conversion, nurture, and inculturation seriously offers great hope for the future.

Perhaps no nation on the continent inspires and challenges our imaginations more than South Africa. Dion Forster shares his vision of a church in South Africa shaped by the holistic vision of the Wesleyan heritage, combining vital piety and social witness. Approaching his task from both an historical and theological perspective, he engages the primary concerns of this country of contrasts, including the HIV/AIDS pandemic, pervasive poverty, and the legacy of apartheid. He demonstrates how “the Methodist emphasis on social holiness as a constitutive aspect of a Wesleyan theology of perfection exerted a strong influence upon the missional character and ministry of the Church.”

Both of the concluding essays in this section come from Zimbabwe. Professor John Wesley Zvomunondiita Kurewa’s name, in and of itself, illustrates his rootedness in Methodism and his native Shona culture. In an incisive narrative concerning the church in which he was raised, which takes the form of a case study, he discusses the necessity of understanding people where they are and walking with them in a dzvikiti—a journey with Christ that liberates people from fear and leads them to God’s promised land. One of his protégés, Christinah Kwaramba, draws upon her cultural heritage to depict a disciple-making community that gives first priority to evangelism, rehearses the stories that create identity, and celebrates God’s Spirit manifest in diverse ways among people of faith. Both identify “starting where people are” as the key to making disciples of Jesus Christ.

1

Being a Disciple of Christ in the African Great Lakes Region

Lubunga W’Ehusha

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples,

if you have love for one another. (John 13:35)

Having served as a pastor in South Africa for four years, I know what it takes to make disciples in a post-apartheid democracy when scars of racial divisions are still noticeable. How do you integrate White, Colored, Indian, and Black into the one body of Christ without stepping on some people’s boundaries? It is particularly difficult since hatred, exploitation, and violence accompanied racial discrimination in South Africa. This has been a great challenge to Christian ministry in South Africa and the easy answer but tough practice seems to be, “make disciples.”

Now that I have moved to the eastern part of Congo, in the African Great Lakes region, torn by years of civil war, tribal conflict, and genocide on both sides of the lakes (Rwanda, Burundi, and Congo), I realize how challenging it is to be a disciple of Christ in the midst of mass killing. For many years, the nations of this region experienced a steady growth of Christianity to the satisfaction of several mission agencies. The current crisis, caused by years of tribal and ethnic conflict and poverty, reveals how fragile and shallow Christian faith can be. Very few church members were able to carry their cross as disciples of Jesus and stand firm against the call to pillage and murder.

If statistics are accurate, an estimated eighty-three million people live in this region (sixty-six in Congo, ten in Rwanda, and seven in Burundi), out of which 70–80 percent of the population in each of these countries claims to be Christian. How then can the church account for the breakdown of moral and spiritual values in a region so densely evangelized? Here, as elsewhere on the continent, the same urge resonates: “Make disciples.” Given the fact that crime, corruption, hatred, and bitterness continue to escalate in this part of Africa, despite the fact that Christianity permeates the nations of this region, what went wrong? How does one delineate between “believers” and genuine “disciples” of Christ in the church?

These are tough questions that need to be tackled as one reflects on making disciples in the context of post-conflict Central Africa. The scope of this article does not permit a full discussion of all the complex issues surrounding these questions, but it does provide an opportunity to examine relevant challenges and approaches to disciple-making, scriptural images that resonate with the context, signs of vitality, and recommendations to the global church.

An Evangelistic Approach to Disciple-Making

According to the Great Commission, Jesus sent his messengers with the mandate to preach the good news and teach believers to observe all things that he had commanded so that his disciples might be found throughout the whole world (Matt 28:19–20). This mission entails preaching, teaching, and demonstrating Christ-like attitudes as essential aspects of disciple-making wherever the gospel is spread. This process aims at the creation of a distinctive culture or way of life that cuts across the boundaries of nation, language, and tribe, recognized most fully in the life and witness of the disciples of Jesus.

Today, as so many denominations and groups compete in the religious market place, analysts often measure the success of evangelism simply on the basis of numbers of church-goers or attendants, regardless of the actual character of their lives. In some instances, success even consists in the ability of one group to “steal sheep” from other denominations. At such a time, obedience to Jesus’ approach remains the best way forward for the health of the church. He concentrated on a few and invested time, knowledge, and life until they become his imitators. “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and ordinary men, they were amazed and recognized them as companions of Jesus” (Acts 4:13). To have been Jesus’ companions here means that they spent time learning from him, living with him, and sharing his food and his suffering until they knew him through and through to become his disciples.

We know the success of Methodist classes in the past and of cell groups today in church growth; this remains a powerful tool for making disciples. In these small groups people share the Word of God as well as their own lives and, thereby, become a source of support and encouragement to one another. We need to strengthen this approach by equipping cell group leaders and participants with the tools they need to discern sound, biblical teaching and to engage in current debates, both in the church and society. But despite the fact that pastors proclaim the Word faithfully, crusades draw new converts into the faith, and leadership training events seek to bolster biblical foundations, many Christians still find it a major challenge to demonstrate Christ-like attitudes when they face a crisis. What are the primary challenges that hinder church members to live out their faith?

Critical Challenges

As Christians, we believe that the living Word of God has the power to transform human lives anytime and anywhere. Change will not occur, however, until the church deals seriously with the crucial problems that tarnish her image and hinder genuine disciple-making in our society. In the African Great Lakes region, tribalism/ethnicity, poverty, and lack of trained disciplers stand out as critical challenges.

Tribalism/Ethnicity

“I lost faith,” testified a survivor of the Rwandan genocide of 1994, “when I saw members of my family slaughtered by fellow Christians from a rival ethnic group inside a temple where they found refuge.” The painful reality embedded in stories such as this one, typical in Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi today, undermines the role of the church in society. How could Christians have participated in mass killing and sided with people of their tribe, clan, extended family, or ethnic group to commit such evil? The answer is to be found, in part, in the fact that the tribe or clan for most Africans provides their primary sense of identity or belonging. People are likely drawn by fear and duty to maintain kinship bonds so as not to forfeit their place in the communal life. The traditional African view of a person, “I am because we are,” defines the strong tie that exists between members of different clans, tribes or ethnic groups. As John Mbiti argues, “In traditional life, the individual does not exist alone except corporately. . . . He is part of the whole. The community must therefore make, create or produce the individual.”1

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Table of contents

• Title Page
• Contributors
• Foreword
• Preface
• Introduction: “Love, that never, never fails”
• Further Reading on Wesleyan Disciple-Making, Mission, and Evangelism
• Part One: Africa: Riding the Flood Tide
• Part Two: Asia & Oceania: Navigating Cross-Currents
• Part Three: Europe—Persevering through Ebb Tide
• Part Four: Latin America & Caribbean—Tacking into the Wind
• Part Five: North America—Exploring a New Ocean
• Part Six: Cross-Continental Witness—Valuing the Confluence of Streams
• Conclusion: Lessons from the World Parish
• Bibliography