Stakes of Mission Engagement: Reflection on Remodeling Mission in Africa
Fohle Lygunda li-M1
There are many things in life that will capture your eye, but very few will capture your heart. These are the ones to pursue. These are the ones worth keeping. —Unknown author.
The hardest job kids face today is learning good manners without seeing any —Fred Astaire.
THE OVERALL VISION OF THE HARVEST IN TODAY’S AFRICA
The Edinburgh conference in 1910 had a view of Africa as mainly Muslim in the north, pagan in its great central areas (where Christianity and Islam were seen to be in competition for the souls of animists) and Christian in the southern tip. John R. Mott, the chairman of the conference, observed that “if things continue as they are tending Africa may become a Mohammedan continent.”2
Mott’s concern still is real in many Central African countries. Islam has become so influential that churches see themselves losing some of their members, mostly young people who long for jobs and scholarships, women who get married to Muslims, and key political leaders because of their search for power and money. The concept and practice of interfaith dialogue has become a challenge in troublesome Central Africa. Christian churches then experience the paradox of claiming the expansion of the Gospel and starving for peace and unity of humankind.
In much literature today, the challenge of Islam and the struggle to reach out to Islam-related groups has been pointed out. Some people understand the harvest in Africa mostly in term of Islam. However, today’s African harvest is more than that.
As I was reading assigned books in my doctoral studies, I discovered Lee Strobel’s categories of populations of America. According to his findings, four groups compose American population: churched Christians, churched non-Christians, unchurched Christians, and unchurched non-Christians.3
Churched |
Churched |
3 |
4 |
Fig.1 Population groups in most cities |
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Reflecting on the current reality of the harvest in Africa, I came up with a chart that highlights how Africa is ablaze today with a great harvest. The chart highlights the rapid advance of Islam and the increasing growth of converts to non-Christian (African and Asian) religions.
Islam |
Other Eastern Religions |
African Traditional Religions |
Churched non-Christians and |
Fig.2 The real harvest components in today’s Africa |
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Compared with Strobel’s categories, these findings show that the harvest in Africa is composed of three groups: unchurched non-Christians, churched non-Christians, and unchurched Christians. Although we don’t have any official statistics now, Fig. 2 shows that the harvest is available within the church (among churched non-Christians) and outside of the church (among unchurched Christians and unchurched non-Christians).
As part of our ministry, we conducted a survey in the city of Bumba, the Democratic Republic of Congo (D.R. Congo) from November to December 2005. We wanted to quantify the unchurched people living in this city and discover how we could help pastors to minister to them in a meaningful way. Our students were trained to collect data from the mayor of the city and from church leaders. We wanted to know how many people belonged to one or another church. Out of a population of 215,949, only 28,954 were identified as regular members of Christian churches. That number would decrease if we had limited the survey only to “Evangelical churches” or to “baptized Christians.” This surprising finding helped us to cast the vision of reaching out to 186,995 unchurched people through a training seminar we envisioned a few months later.
From 2 to 8 April 2006, we launched a six-day leadership training seminar for church leaders from different denominations in the city of Bumba. “How to Reach Unchurched People in our Area” was the theme of the seminar. Participants came mostly from African initiated churches. They actually had not had the chance to attend Bible schools or seminaries. In the conclusion of the seminar, we initiated an open-air prayer concert that attracted many people who did not attend the pastors’ seminar. The concert was so attractive that people kept coming –even those far from Bumba. The common expectation was that Jesus was among us to restore any person who could surrender to him his problem. Indeed, there was healing, reconciliation, repentance, conversion, etc.
that drives populations when they see impossible and hopeless people finally surrendering their lives to Jesus.4
That was the birth of our first “Restoration Missionary Church” (RMC) which did not hesitate to describe its mission statement: “We [members of the RMC] exist as church to restore people in their relationship with God, with themselves, and with others; to help people participate in the transformation of their communities through a living activity that longs for excellence; and to multiply the impact of the church within and outside of our local congregation.” Restoration, transformation and multiplication are core values of the RMC, our “first fruit” in planting mission-minded churches in an African context. Three months later, six more local congregations were planted in five different cities directly or indirectly by the participants in the prayer concert.5
Now, the questions are, “What are actually the groups of the harvest that must catch our attention for our mission engagement in today’s Africa?” “Who can be missionaries among the people who compose these groups?” Most often, for one or another reason, Western mission societies do not have this “holistic” picture. In their counterpart, African churches seem not to be proactive in addressing these questions even though they have potential resources to start small, go deep and think big.
Referring to Mott’s vision in 1910, the reality today is that the Democratic Republic of Congo and its neighboring countries represent the sensitive heart of Africa, a strategic region to win or to lose for the Kingdom of God. Unfortunately, while international policies and community understand this reality, Christian churches seem to minimize, if not to ignore it. Most church members are similar to the kids in the Fred Astaire quotation at the beginning of this paper. The hardest job most church members in Africa face today is hearing good things about cross-cultural mission without seeing any!
That is why, after having served with Congo Evangelical Covenant Church for fourteen years as pastor in three local churches, seminary teacher, administrator and mission director, I asked the church board to set me apart in 2003 for a new ministry, the Centre Missionnaire au Coeur d’Afrique (Mission Center in the Heart of Africa). Many things in my life have captured my eyes, but mission engagement in the African context captured my heart, and I decided to pursue it.
CEMICA EXISTS TO MEET THE NEED OF THE HARVEST IN AFRICA
The Centre Missionnaire au Coeur d’Afrique (CEMICA) exists to mobilize churches for cross-cultural mission, to train church members—pastors and laypeople—and to send out African missionaries. This three-fold objective comes from our vision to get African churches involved in mission, not only in intracultural mission and in transcultural mission, but also in cross-cultural mission.6 Not only among one unreached group, but also among what we call “unchurched people” (Islam, members of other Eastern religions, African traditional religious, unchurched Christians and churched non-Christians). Our strategy is a process that starts in the Democratic Republic of Congo, going through the nine neighboring countries (French, English and Portuguese speaking countries), and then to other parts of the continent and the world.
ON-GOING ACTIVITIES
Since 2003, our activities correspond to the three-fold objective of mobilizing, training and sending out.
Mobilizing activities: Every year, we hold mission-leadership seminars (teaching for 3 days), conferences (teaching and consulting for 3 days), and forums (consulting for one day). We focus our speech on mission (What is it? How to do it? What are the challenges? What are the opportunities?), and on leadership (What kind of leaders do African churches need? How to become a leader who restores, transforms, and multiplies?). We hold these gatherings in several cities, sometime at the national level, other times at a local level. We welcome pastors and laypeople from all denominations without discrimination of denominationalism, tribalism or political parties.
Training activities: We have several training programs. Since 2003, we have trained about 800 pastors from 75 denominations in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic.
Pastor training schools: We have a three-year program in one city (Bumba) for all denominations, a two-year program in three cities (Bangui, Buta and Kinshasa) for all denominations, and nine-month distance training specifically for CEMICA’s pastors. We focus on planting and leading a mission-minded local church in a context of brokenness.
Barnabas Training Center (BTC): We just started last year (2007) in Kisangani and Kinshasa a five-month training program that we call Barnabas Training Center, designed for pastors and laypeople. We try to help people become “Barnabas” of our time. Leaders take courses on personal leadership development, professional development, community development and Christian ethics. We use training material published in French by Global University, Springfield, Missouri, USA. Most of our students are professional (pastors, business people, political leaders, university professors and students). Through BTC, they are mentored to raise resources (human and material) for mission (cf. Acts 4:36,37; 9:26,27).
International School of Mission and Leadership (KISML): This nine-month program begins in September 2008 to meet an urgent need in Congo. There has been a tremendous interest in learning English as a second language in Congo. While some people learn English in preparation for their international ministries and business, some others learn English as a requirement for their doctoral or overseas studies; still others learn English for their own knowledge. Most of these learners are influential young and adult Christians –pastors and laypeople. Many have been looking for opportunities to enhance their English skills through biblical and managerial studies, taking advantage of both their language improvement and their faith empowerment. Our vision is to use English to mentor African English speakers (clergy and laity) in Christian mission and leadership development studies so that they may impact their immediate professional communities and get involved in holistic ministries, even worldwide.
Sending activities: Our first step in sending out missionaries relates to the mission-minded church planting movement. Our slogan is Sauvé Pour Sauver (Saved To Save). We want people to get saved in order to save others. We send out our graduates to minister to unchurched people. This particular emphasis is not a common evangelistic language in Africa where everybody knows the “un-reached” concept. We have discovered that churched people represent only one-third of the population in most cities. Therefore, unchurched people become a challenge for Christianity in Africa. While unchurched people are generally non-Christians, we have found from our survey that, for various reasons, many influential Christians become more and more unchurched. In 2006, we planted one mission-minded local church in Bumba. It has now about 600 members. In March 2007, we reported 7 churches. And today there are 27 churches in 6 provinces of Congo.
The next step in our sending activities will consist of commissioning missionaries for holistic ministries (education, health care, agriculture, fishing, women’s schools, and job creation through small business) where we have already planted churches. In planting Restoration Missionary Churches, we believe that God’s plan is to save each human being entirely, his body, his mind and his spirit. This reality shows how the Gospel is really “Good News” to our people who live in extreme poverty.
Our next step consists also in sending out missionary to nine neighboring countries with the same vision of providing the whole salvation to the whole human being. That is why the International School of Mission and Leadership (KISML) is a strategic training program for us.
HOW CEMICA IS ORGANIZED AND HOW IT OPERATES
Since 2003, we have been working hard to establish the ministry from bottom (grassroot) to top, instead of establishing a bureaucratic system from top to bottom as most churches and organizations do. We try to make sure that in the local setting, there is a facilitator, a local pastor, who helps people to catch the vision of Sauvé Pour Sauver. We believe that CEMICA is not just a bureaucratic organization, but a community of mission-minded Christians who act as a team to accomplish the three-fold objective of mobilizing, training and sending out. We work in three countries, and in each country we have a national director who works with a small team of 3 to 5 volunteers.
We had a plan of developing the administrative system slowly, step by step:
Step 1: (2003-2006)-National staff of 2 full-time CEMICA members (1 executive director and 1 secretary-accountant) and 4 local training centers (each center having 3 full-time members from other denominations—1 school director, 1 accountant, 1 secretary— and 4 part time teachers who come from other denominations).
Step 2: (2006-2007)-National staff of 3 full-time CEMICA members (1 executive director, 1 accountant, 1 administrative secretary) and Restoration Missionary Churches working as a group within a district. We hold an annual meeting (general assembly) at the national level, and in each local center for strategic planning and accountability purpose.
Step 3: (2008)-National enlarged staff (1 executive director, 1 finance-administrative coordinator, 1 coordinator for mobilization, 1 coordinator for training and 1 coordinator for mission) and local churches working as a team within a province. We hold an annual meeting (general assembly) at the national level, and in each local center for strategic planning and accountability purpose.
Step 4: (2009)-National executive committee and provincial executive committees working as a team. According to our Constitution and Bylaw, accountability is assured at each level.
CEMICA is legally registered by the Ministry of Justice as a non-profit Christian ministry. While interdenominational through its effort of mobilization and training (serving all denominations), CEMICA belongs to the non-denominational group.
HOW CEMICA RELATES TO OTHER MISSIONS AND CHURCH BODIES
The relationship between CEMICA and other denominations is to be understood through the lens of the current picture of Protestant churches in D.R. Congo. The Protestant realm is divided into several sub-groups:
- The Church of Christ in Congo (Eglise du Christ au Congo, ECC) composed of sixty-two Western-related denominations (mainline churches) and some new denominations resulting from a division within mainline churches. ECC became the second most influential Christian federation during Mobutu’s regime. Some think that this was due to the fact that the then president of the ECC, Mgr Bokeleale, was from the same province as President Mobutu. Lands and some other privileges were given to the church. Today, ECC has the same reputation for having been headed by Mgr Marini, a senator who belongs to President Kabila’s political party. In partnership with Western churches, denominations of the ECC have initiated many biblical and pastoral training schools. The ECC owns a university with several tracks, including theology and missiology without a specific class on leadership. In general, students of theology and missiology must belong to one of the mainline denominations.
- The Revival Church in Congo (Eglise de Réveil au Congo, ERC), the fast growing branch, is composed mainly of African Pentecostal Initiated Churches. Most of their pastors are bi-vocational, without any formal theological training. Just recently some leaders have been enrolled in new modular-training systems mostly led by American non-denominational Pentecostal ministries. A leader is not replaced unless if he passes away. In this case either one of his children or his wife takes the command of the church. In some cases, a church splits after the death of the former pastor.
- CEMICA belongs to a third group, the Non-denominational Churches, which share a similar ethos and characteristics with the Revival Church in Congo, except that they don’t adhere to their organizational structure of having a general bishop who acts mostly as an ECC bishop. This third group however has a national board with a president who acts as a coordinator, giving freedom to each denomination to organize the administration of its churches according to its vision. Some of them result from division from one of the above bodies. Others, including CEMICA, emerge from a church planting movement inspired by mission desire. The Restoration Missionary Church, which is the third objective of CEMICA, comes from the effort of sending out African missionaries.
- Non-aligned churches (independent churches) are those which, for one reason or another, have not made a decision to adhere to any of the above corpuses. Non-aligned churches do share a similar ethos and characteristics in the organization of the church with the three above bodies, but they prefer to act independently.
- Interdenominational ministries are serving churches in several ways regardless their corpus. A few of them are Campus Crusade, Scripture League, and many others initiated by Africans. Through our ministry of mobilization and training, CEMICA is also to be listed in this category.
The Christian church in Congo faces several challenges; a few of them which are more sensitive to CEMICA’s vision being the following:
- The unity of the body of Christ and the mission of the church in a post-war context where the majority of people are hopeless;
- Holistic ministries that are carried out by the local church as its Kingdom business;
- The raising and development of a servant leadership for church health and church growth, so that the Christian congregations become really “impacting churches.”
We face two major obstacles:
1). Economical instability of the country that prevents us from getting financial resources locally to mobilize, to train and to send out missionaries as we should do. My colleagues and I work as volunteers without regular and consistent financial support.
2). Syndrome of “ism” (denominationalism, clericalism, tribalism, nationalism, paternalism, afropessimism—the idea that because everything is bad in Africa we cannot try!) that prevents some churches from benefiting from our effort of mobilizing and training. In the beginning it was not easy to get people from other denominations to attend our seminars and schools. We praise God that he has allowed us to overcome this obstacle.
FUNDING FOR MISSIONS AND MISSIONARIES
Our fund raising effort doesn’t meet the real needs of the ministry in regard to our two-fold areas.
1) First Area: We seek support for mobilization (seminars, conferences and forums) and for training (schools) activities. Due to economical instability, we think that as members of the body of Christ, churches in America, Europe and Asia could provide financial and material support. If our people are not mobilized and trained, they will not be able to get involved in cross-cultural ministry. Some American-based organizations and churches have provided one-time financial support for our pastor training schools (2003-2006). When we express our gratefulness to them, we also continue to encourage them that the need for mobilizing and training still is enormous.
2) Second Area: We seek support also for sending out missionaries. As part of the body of Christ, we are not ashamed to ask brothers and sisters from other parts of the world to help our native missionaries who are serving God with so much sacrifice and many financial struggles. Our 29 pastors (actually missionaries) have planted 27 churches within two years (April 2006- January 2008) without regular financial support. They live in a paradox of having passion for mission and being unable to send their children to school in a context where parents have to pay for their children’s education.
SOME CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES IN MISSION ENGAGEMENT IN AFRICA
1. Challenges related to the “unreached” people
Africa is ablaze today with a great harvest, characterized by the rapid advance of Islam and by the increasing growth of converts to non-Christian (African and Asian) religions. Unfortunately, most of our African churches seem to be less active in taking appropriate actions to address these challenges.
Some missiological questions for fruitful mission in an African context today must be addressed:
- Who are the groups circled above and what is their worldview when they live in African context?
- What are they doing in order to bring answers to African daily and eternal questions?
- What do they consider as Good News or Salvation that they offer to Africans?
- How should we, as missionaries, demonstrate our Christian Good News or Salvation?
of the combatants claim to be Christians, one of the significant approaches is to promote and practice tolerance in each local community.
The challenge of evil powers:According to the testimonies, it becomes obvious that those who commit violence are not led by principles of love, forgiveness, or the other fruits of the Holy Spirit (cp. Gal. 5:22). The powers of evil are seen through the actions described in countries in conflict. Therefore, people need to be liberated from these destructive powers. The church must demonstrate that Christ is concerned about the enslavement of humankind. His mission is to free human beings from the power of darkness. This is how we can understand the theology of liberation today in Central Africa: liberation from anger, from killing, from exploitation, from conflicts, and so on.
The challenge of the Kingdom’s life:Violence in most countries will not come to an end if the reign of God is still being denied in speech and deed in daily life. The message of the Kingdom of God means that by faith in Christ, we become members of a new family, citizens of a new party. Kinship and denominationalism no longer determine our worldview as members of a temporal society. The message of love and forgiveness has to be a leitmotiv for the new family of Christians, who have become children of the Kingdom of God, and light of the world and salt of the earth.
The challenge of holistic ministries: The nature of mission of the church in regard to human needs becomes a preoccupation. Western missionaries spent a great deal of time and energy serving as medical practitioners. In some cases, because of their specialization, they did not really spend much time curing the souls of their patients. Due to the current context of poverty in most countries caused by civil wars, bad governance and diseases, the passion for holistic ministries has been, since the 1990s, both a challenge and an opportunity for many Christian churches. Serving a people confronted by diseases such as malaria, typhoid, leprosy, and HIV/AIDS has challenged most churches to develop medical programs as a part of Christian ministry. They set up healthcare centers, while also spending time curing the souls of their patients through chaplaincy and healing ministries. This has a tremendous impact since the spiritual health and physical health are intimately connected for many Africans.
The challenge of education and literacy: Churches are more and more aware of the strategic responsibility of impacting people through the ministry of education and literacy. Western missionaries stressed literacy and education from the very beginning of their work in Africa. One of the first tasks for missionaries in a new mission field was to translate the Bible into the language of the people among whom they lived. Converts had to learn to read so they could read the words of God. The work of translation tremendously shaped many cultures, codified languages, and enabled cultures to write down and preserve elements of their oral history and literature. Literacy also gave individual Christians great power in the new colonial world. Mission schooling was probably the second most important source of Christian converts in Africa. Today, Christian churches in Central Africa are called to use the power of education to save the entire man by using the opportunity of technology and social sciences.
The challenge of mission as a double movement of “going out” and “attracting in”:Experience has shown that because of violence, people can find safety only by hiding far away—in the jungle or in other countries. Unfortunately, there they experience an incredible time of extreme poverty or of rejection by inhabitants of the new milieu. The church must move to meet people where they live—both victims and perpetrators—and to serve as magnets to attract people to Christ by living as light and salt in the world. The church must get actively involved in centrifugal and centripetal ministry.
2. Challenges for effective ownership of mission engagement by Africans
Without effective ownership of mission engagement by African Christians, the theory that Africa represents a force for world missions will stay a pious vow! There is a challenge of getting African Christians in the game.
The process is…
Challenge of mobilization: Why should we mobilize? Because most of the people used to think that mission is matter of white and wealthy people of the West. Our citizens need to catch the vision (Jn 4 :35, Mt 9 :37,38). That is why mission seminars, conferences and workshops for all churches are needed.
Challenge of training: Why should we train ? Because “God’s people die by ignorance” and most of our people need more than preaching. They need to be trained (not just to be taught) how to get involved with strong commitment in God’s mission. All church members (not just pastors) need this training to make the local church responsible in mission movement (Ac.13 :1-5 ; Mt.28 :20). Again, we need to help people understand that training is more than teaching or communicating theoretical knowledge. Talking about mission training, we should transfer competencies as we develop and equip students for mission.
Challenge of sending out: Why should we send ? Because most of our churches are not ready to move beyond their geographical and denominational barriers even though many Christians seem to be ready to get involved in cross-cultural ministry. Why can not we help those people to move with God ? (Jn.20 :21 ; Lk.4 :42,43 ; Mt.28 :19). So we should feel more like “facilitators” than as “mission statesmen.”
3. Mission opportunities in today’s Central African region
Mission engagement in Congo or in other regions of Africa is not a dream; it can be done! There are some opportunities today…
The opportunity of mission-minded churches: Both Western-related churches and African initiated churches must become aware of the mission task. The remainder of the story of Protestant missionaries is really the story of an enormous number of denominational missions and interdenominational agencies often characterized by a bad experience of competition, divisions, conflicts and paternalism. The traditional leading role of ecumenicalism and evangelicalism has just enlarged the vacuum. The social rejection and the material advantage that result from adherence to one or another of these two movements have called to a new way of partnership in the harvest. That is why local forms of associations have been attempted from one country to another or from one city to another. It has been clear that engagement in mission is at stake. The Movement of African National Initiatives (MANI) has been instrumental for the missionary spirit that tends to break down some barriers among churches in today’s context. Church leaders from all over the continent are annually challenged by the urgency and the unfinished task of bringing the light and the power of the Gospel beyond their own countries. Mission-minded leaders are needed in order to achieve this unchangeable Great Commission.
The opportunity of mission in the marketplace: In today’s context, political and business affairs long for a transforming ministry of the church. One of the struggles that has punctuated the Christian life has been the relationship with political regimes, mostly, in context of bad governance, dictatorship and civil war. Western missions have been pictured sometimes as either “lieutenant” or “opponent” of colonial powers and then of African leaders. What should be the mission of the church in a complex world where spiritual and temporal worlds are cohabiting? Many churches today have been involved in secular leadership ministry using training strategies from Hagaï Institute, International Leadership Institute, etc. Some churches encourage their key lay members to impact secular institutions and other marketplace areas by incorporating. Unfortunately, this role has been tricky in many countries. Corruption and bad governance have been practiced by the so-called Christians supposed to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth. Voices cry out for transformational leadership within and outside of the church.
The opportunity of media ministries: The strategic role of media is popularly recognized. Radio stations and television represent a power in communicating the Gospel in order to reach unreached people. In many Central African countries, this opportunity has been mostly exploited by African Initiated Churches rather than by Western-related churches. Except for the negative side of an occasional bad use of radio and television, churches in Central Africa must take advantage of new communication technologies to impact the world.
The opportunity of worship in an African style: The last, not the least, opportunity deals with the liturgical expression of the faith in an African cultural setting. The African church has inherited a Western form of worship with the risk of seeing African form as evil and non evangelical. More recently, though, and mostly with the emergence of African Initiated Churches, Christian musicology with African folk styles has proved to be one of the channels to spread the doctrines and the praxis of the church in a powerful way. Miracles have been witnessed even within the Western-related churches while people gather and worship God in African manner. Christian singers rise up from almost all local churches, and this proliferation becomes a power of connexion for many churches which could not get along except for their emerging worship bands. The Christian musicology with African folk styles penetrates any barriers. Many lives are reached and transformed by the power of the Gospel that is communicated through songs. Worship ministry within Christianity is a strategic opportunity for the spread of the Kingdom of God.
Conclusion
More could be said about other missiological insights and for the overall picture of the Christianity in Central African region. As Patrick Johnstone has successfully demonstrated in his The Church Is Bigger than You Think, these insights should relate to geographical, people, urban, social and spiritual challenges.7 Our prayer is that some of the insights discussed above will help give an overview of the most significant trends and opportunities for doing mission in the context of Central Africa today.
With CEMICA, there are many specific opportunities:
- Opportunity of working in partnership with churches within and outside of Africa (necessity of maintaining the concept of Christ’s body)
- Opportunity of reaching out to the unchurched
- Opportunity of mobilizing church members (clergy and laypeople)
- Opportunity of using communication tools (computer, phone, etc.) to reach out to educated people who become more and more unchurched people.
- Opportunity of using English as a Second Language to minister to opinion leaders and educated people who have a great interest in learning English for their international business, profession and personal studies.
- Opportunity of empowering our mission and leadership schools at the undergraduate level
I am not sharing this vision as a person who has already completed the race, but as someone who is working to make it a reality. I welcome your critique, input, and help. I am 20% of the way through developing mobilization and training materials. I need help to design the restoration, transformation and multiplication components. I need mentors and all kinds of other supports. …Because the harvest is plentiful in Africa, but there are few mission-minded churched people
