Uncategorized

Invulnerable Mission: a Confession

By Rev Dr Stephen Skuce ⋅ October 20, 2008 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

St Patrick wrote his ‘Confession’ and right at the start I need to declare that what you are reading is my confession and, to some extent, my testimony. You see, I was a missionary in Sri Lanka and while I was contextual, holistic, evangelical, co-operative, fairly inclusive, living in the local church ministers’ accommodation and so on, I was fairly invulnerable. Let me unpack that and then bring a challenge (to myself).

I served with the Methodist Church, Sri Lanka as a pastor between 1997 and 2001. I was assigned to that church by the Irish Methodist Church, of which I am a minister, and worked wherever the Sri Lankan church stationed me. Consequently I had pastoral responsibility for several churches in the capital city, including for my last couple of years a very large (approx 1000 membership) city centre congregation in a complex where the church headquarters were based alongside a very large Methodist school.

On the surface I was almost a model missionary. With my wife and two young daughters I lived in the local ministerial accommodation and avoided renting large, air conditioned homes like other missionaries in Colombo. I was paid the standard Irish Methodist missionary stipend which was very significantly less than my colleagues in Ireland received (although approximately 15 times the level of Sri Lankan colleagues). We had no private health insurance. I thought I was as culturally sensitive as a missionary could be: learning the language, eating the local food, observing local customs and integrating myself into the (at times) fairly alien way of life and ministry. Back in Ireland I was considered a fine missionary and in Sri Lanka was ‘promoted’ within the denomination, additionally taught in a Bible College and got involved in the sort of social and building projects that holistic evangelical missionaries tend to promote. So far so good? But there is a but …

Firstly, I never mastered the Sinhala language and defaulted to the use of English and translation where necessary. By way of justification, for a lot of my time my ministerial appointment was where I was expected to use only the English language. The Methodist Church Sri Lanka has several city congregations where English is the chosen medium. This reflects the education and choice of members and also offers a place where Sinhala and Tamil Christians can worship together in the same medium–the pragmatic use of English enabling a very important statement about the uniting power of the gospel to a tragically divided nation, although this, of course, helped to create evidence for the claim by some that Christianity was ‘foreign’ to Sri Lanka. It was local choice to use English for this purpose. I found myself personally questioning this policy, but also recognising issues that an outsider may be wise to be silent on. Yet it was seen as appropriate that I, as a foreigner, could be a ‘successful’ missionary in Sri Lanka without a mastery of Sinhala or Tamil. In my appointments I had three congregations meeting in the one building, congregations based on the use of English, Sinhala and Tamil respectively. Many of the members were bi- or trilingual, but many not. Joint meetings, irrespective of my presence, normally were conducted through English even though this disempowered some members. Language and its use is a key issue.

Secondly, like far too many evangelical missionaries, I was very keen ‘to do’ and not so keen ‘to be’. One of my projects was to build a hostel for young working women who moved from rural areas to the capital. This was an excellent project that met the physical, social and spiritual needs of a group of vulnerable young women, introduced many of them to Christian faith and provided a financial income for the congregation which was spent on further social projects. The actual building was completed shortly after I left, financed with money I raised in Ireland. When I came back for the opening, to my surprise, disappointment and even a little shame, the grand dedication plaque contained my name (not the name of my Sri Lankan colleague who had the original vision) and reference to the financing by Irish Christians. Don’t get me wrong, it is an excellent, self sustaining project, meeting a specific need in an appropriate contextual way. But it had to be largely financed from outside of Sri Lanka. Is this so bad? Maybe, maybe not. But what I did realise on the day of its opening was that as long as the building stood if would be a reminder of foreign influence, mostly financial, in a nation where Christians are (almost always) wrongly accused of ‘buying’ converts.

Thirdly, I was personally fairly invulnerable. My children attended a fee paying school, when sick we headed to the best fee paying hospital, and when the civil war appeared to put us at clear risk (as opposed to just the rest of the population) my wife and children were ready to leave, even if I expected to remain. Finally, I left when one of my children found life in Sri Lanka increasingly difficult. Vulnerable mission? I found it hard to escape from the western mindset where so much of the lifestyle is intended to make us invulnerable.

Cross cultural mission, from everywhere to everywhere, is valid; but some of the ways in which this mandate is carried out need to be questioned. For me the real question is, will I do it differently in the future? Philosophically and theologically I have no hesitation is saying yes. But practically? Can I limit myself to Sinhala (or whatever language), and to whatever finance and ability can be generated locally? An answer comes to me not from my reasoning but my observation, because the ‘successful’ evangelists in Sri Lanka today are nationals who are incredibly vulnerable with little finance, at times little education, little protection and nowhere to escape to. And because of that, while in Ireland I was viewed as a successful missionary by what I did, I always knew that national workers were far more authentic to the gospel by who they were.

Rev Dr Stephen Skuce
Cliff College, Hope Valley, UK
s.skuce@cliffcollege.ac.uk

Readers who viewed this page, also viewed:

• Vulnerable Mission: You Mean What?
• Vulnerable Mission: Radical Fringe or Common Practice?