Challenging Times

When someone goes to work in a foreign country as a messenger for Christ and his Church, we understand that there are certain things they have to do if they are to be effective (learn the language, live with the people, understand the culture). Yet somehow, we take it for granted that the same rules don’t apply to us ‘back home.’ Here, we think we can get away with expecting people to come in to us and hear the message on our terms. Changing this default way of thinking is the biggest challenge that the Church in the UK must face if it is going to survive. Eddie recently blogged a talk by one of his friends in Switzerland about this:

When I returned from the field to live in Switzerland I was perplexed at the lack of relevance of the Church in peoples’ lives. I really felt we were on the sidelines, not on the pitch in the midst of the game. It took me about 7 years to start a journey towards an understanding of where we were at. And it took even longer, another 5 years, to become conscious of the fact that what I had as my ideal for the people we worked among on the field, I did not practise back in Europe (Switzerland), and as far as I could see, neither did the Church. Somehow in Europe we had a model of “evangelism” (making a foray into the world to leave it with a message, then retreating back into the safety of Church), whereas for missionary work we had a model of incarnation.

This whole post is worth reading. Go here for more.