TRANSFORMING MISSION
PARADIGM SHIFTS IN THE THEOLOGY OF MISSION
An extract from an essay submitted as part of studies requested by Fuller Seminary, USA.
This essay focuses upon the thesis of David J Bosch in his seminal book, Transforming Mission
and is written by doctoral student John B Clements, Llanelli, UK. © 2007.
A CONTEMPORARY ILLUSTRATION
THE DCI WORLD CHRISTIAN NETWORK
1. Background to the emergence of DCI World Christian Network
The
work of "DCI Trust" began in the 1980's, the backside of a period of
history Bosch describes as having shaken Western civilisation to the
core. Globalisation is in full stride; poverty and inequality have
never been greater across the earth; modernity is giving way to
post-modernity. Within its European heartlands, Christendom is giving
way to a secular multiculturalism, whilst in Asia, Africa and South
America, non-western Christianity is gaining new converts, energy and
confidence at astonishing rates. Thus, the forging of DCI's concerns
and priorities has taken place in a period during which the world
Christian mission movement has experienced both a growing urgency and
awareness, as new technologies have allowed researchers and
statisticians to investigate, analyse, assimilate and represent global
trends with degrees of comprehension previously inaccessible- for
example, in 1978 the global prayer-manual, Operation World, was first
published; following which the evangelistically-resistant belt of the
10/40 Window was identified, focused upon and targeted- making the
world's poorest, most neglected and most evangelistically unreached
peoples visible, measurable and reachable, as never before.
2. Social transformation - the social impact of DCI Trust work
Against
such a background, during the twenty-two years since its inception, DCI
Trust has grown to represent an international, interdenominational
community spanning five continents, touching people of over one hundred
different nationalities. Its vocational work- answering the call to the
lost, the last and the least- focuses mainly upon the poor within
developing nations, empowering them through leadership-training,
micro-loans, business-development and community-building projects.
Through
networking with committed, indigenous, localised individuals who are
proven, responsible leaders, DCI has contributed towards a vast,
eclectic array of projects, including: buildings for churches, schools
and families; computers, camels, cars, farms, seed-stock; medicines,
operations; schools for children and adults; spectacles, tools,
wheelchairs, workshops, bee-keeping, tree-planting, horticulture, home
management, nutrition, HIV/AIDS training, fish farming, brick making,
baking, disinfectant manufacture, tailoring courses, and skill training
schools.
Within
Indonesia, (1) DCI has partnered with Christian business people in the
establishment of a small factory producing doormats, employing mainly
Muslims and feeding profits back into the local church. In Burkina
Faso, it has partnered with local people in the cultivation of a banana
plantation, covering four hectares of dry, semi-desert land, producing
local employment and a regular substantial harvest of this important
cash crop.
Within Uganda,(2) its
partnership in developing a
self-reproducing goat bank has witnessed phenomenal growth and
interest: a local pastor reports: "Goats are God's project number one
in this war zone of Africa. The report about (the) goat project is
spreading like bush fire and we are optimistic about the effects and
the result to the poor community"
Within Aduku,(3) in northern
Uganda, a village banking project begun with half-a-million Ugandan
shillings in 2003 oversaw a series of micro-loans to widows and
orphans-made so by war, terrorist violence and AIDS-resulting in the
growth of the fund to two and a half million shillings, by 2006, with
no business failures! Children there now receive an education for the
first time. (4)
3. Missiological transformation
The mission praxis of DCI Trust and Network
DCI
World Christian Network revolves around the central hub of its global
internet site, which has recorded over 34 million hits, by over three
million unique visitors, to its 3,000 pages, presented, at least
partially, in 17 languages, all of which is offered free of charge.
This web portal is used to disseminate news submitted by subscribers
and visitors to the website. Regular updates concerning profiled
projects and people are disseminated to subscribers via email
newsletter.
The website details the strategies towards which
the resources of DCI Trust are devoted, namely: promoting and
facilitating biblical training centres or schools; a range of business
for mission projects and evangelistic support focussing upon unreached
people groups and neglected members of society. (5)
The DCI School - without - walls resources offers a series of educational
outlines divided into six divisions of evangelism, missions,
discipleship, money, leadership and church growth, plus instructions on
how to start a low-cost school. Each of 85 total lessons includes
elements ideal for small groups, including Bible memory-verses,
discussion topics, homework, meditations, written diploma work, a
biblical teaching and prayer prompts. Research has indicated that this
format is ideal for use within developing nations where educational
standards vary enormously, but where there is an insatiable hunger to
learn. (6)
Business for Mission projects involve mainly
micro-loans within Africa and India, through bank for the poor schemes,
operated under the governance of a local committee, including the
principal contact who has previously applied to the Trust for
funding.
The committee announce the availability, within a village or locality,
of interest free or very low interest rate loans of $50 to $150.
Schemes have a high rate of success, few loan defaulters and are
regularly and easily reproduced in secondary locations. (7)
Christmas
Parties for the Poor are a practiced, much-valued annual event,
sponsored by DCI, in which members of some of the poorest and most
neglected communities, in places such as Malawi, Uganda, Peru,
Indonesia, Thailand, Papua, Kenya and India are invited, at Christmas
time, to a party where they receive food and gifts of clothing, books
and seeds; hear the Good News about Jesus and experience joyful music
and dance. Pocock writes poignantly about such phenomena: "For all the
efficiency of rapid communication and…border obliterating technology,
personal relationships and simple acts of kindness may, in the end,
constitute the best strategies- and they may have the most appeal in a
post-modern era". (8)
DCI's organisational modus operandi is
notable: it deliberately owns no buildings and pays no salaries; (9)
all work is done on a voluntary basis, with workers responsible for
their own funding. The central Internet hub is managed from a
home-office; while up to forty contributors around the world,
responsible for translating news and schools pages into 17 languages,
work out of homes or cyber-cafés, without any form of monetary
remuneration, often without ever having met Trust staff face-to- face.
A small core of committed friends and supporters are responsible for
the majority of financial contributions to the Trust's work.(10)
4. Theological transformation-the mission theory of DCI Trust
During
its growth into a thriving network and movement, the Trust has
developed a precise, post-modern, contextual theology of mission
praxis, located within a series of instructions and teachings subtly
scattered throughout the DCI website. This informal mission theory is
supplemented by reference to developed, detailed teaching contained
with the schools material.
DCI stands firmly within the
evangelical "faith mission" heritage, with emphases upon faith; prayer;
recognition and development of spiritual gifting; engagement in
elements of spiritual warfare; motivation focussing upon God's glory,
rather than escape from hell and a cultural sensitivity that places a
strong emphasis on indigenous leadership and strategy. (11)
An
open, relationship-centred approach marks the DCI movement as
essentially post-modern, as typified by this introduction to the
ministry. The movement has no formal leaders, (12) elders or written
constitution other than the Bible. They work together in friendship,
supporting each other in God's call to different kinds of lifestyle and
mission. (13) This practical ecumenism is echoed in the warm welcome
provided to Catholic visitors to the website, (14) as well as the
discreet place given to the formal statement of belief (Nicene Creed),
but above all through the opportunities provided by the website,
encouraging readers to act out their own faith, supplemented by the
experience and resources offered by DCI.(15)
Nevertheless,
inside this velvet-gloved approach is a firm hand insisting, above all,
on biblical standards of responsibility or stewardship from those who
are offered partnership. They look for a woman or a man with proven
honesty and with a vision for
serving the poor, and who also has the
necessary spiritual and administrative skills.
This focus upon
leadership and community development through locally-initiated, managed
and accountable training centres echoes a trend which Pocock describes
as "an essential counterbalance for internetworking" ministries powered
by new technology, if they are to avoid the dehumanising tendency of
globalisation. Additionally, DCI's concentration upon biblical
education constitutes a vital step towards transforming cultures
towards a biblical worldview, something Miller considers an essential
precursor to sustainable development. (16)
In this context, DCI's
focus upon financial partnership and economic development is
undergirded by a biblically-based philosophy that envisages the whole
task of mission as broader than vocal evangelism. (17) For the poor,
especially those receiving assistance, there is an emphasis upon
"breaking the curse of poverty". Miller refers to a 'mindset of
poverty'- and avoiding dependency through economic self-start
initiatives. Thus, micro-loans are offered with the single, declared
aim of creating genuine self-employment through micro-industries or
working from home with the sole goal of being able to raise the owner
and the workers to a place of self-sufficiency in life and enabling
them eventually to be generous towards others. (18)
For the rich
there is an emphasis upon generosity toward the poor, based upon the
text of Deuteronomy 15.7-11; financial supporters of "business for
mission" projects are encouraged to consider their giving to it as
definite investments regarding which they should expect a return, made
possible by the Lord's blessing, according to Luke 19.13ff. The concept
of "Christmas parties for the poor" is based decisively upon the story
in Luke 14. For those wanting to "go" or extend their mission
activities there is a novel challenge, away from traditional
fund-raising, towards prayerful friend-raising. and fund-releasing! (19)
5. Conclusion
The
manner and format of DCI Trust's work and growth represents many of the
trends being increasingly discussed within Christian mission books,
blogs, newsletters and ministries, typifying the new approaches to
collaboration in training, funding and networking increasingly required
within a post-modern context. As such it represents an authentic,
missiological, post-modern, intercultural Christian community involved
in transforming the harsh reality of some of the world's most deprived
communities. (20)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
1 Bosch 400-08
5
Bosch 447-57; Pocock et al, 34-6, 161; Miller 25-7
8 Pocock et al, 41
9
This statement representing DCI's self-understanding as an organisation
has largely been accepted uncritically: even though it is understood by
the author that the Director of the DCI Trust is financially supported
in his role, it is also understood to be neither in the form of an
employment contract, nor guaranteed by the Trust and thus not a salary
in a typical sense. More significantly, the funding of central Trust
staff is not especially relevant to the use of DCI as an example of a
post-modern missionary organisation: the larger context in which this
"statement of self-understanding" finds itself is the movement spawned
by DCI, rather than the central Trust itself. For example, the
"movement" clearly operates effectively in multiple cultural, overseas,
non-Western settings, where no salaries are paid, where financial gifts
are used for wealth-creation projects amongst the poor, as elucidated
within the text and as compared to, say, financial remuneration for
pastoral work or evangelistic outreach (as is typical of much aid "from
the West to the Rest"). This is by far the more remarkable aspect.
11,12
Bosch 447-57 Pocock et al, 34-6, 161 Miller 25-7 77 Whilst Dr Les
Norman is clearly in the lead and responsible for setting the entire
tone of the DCI Trust work via the website-and, in that sense,
inarguably a leader-as noted above with respect to the issue of
salaries, the wider context of the movement is the where the real point
is made. For example: Bank-for-the-Poor projects and Mission Schools
started entirely with DCI resources are not required (nor I believe,
requested or encouraged) to incorporate the DCI name (except in
providing credit as the source of teaching materials, for example).
Local pastoral leaders, whilst being accountable to DCI for agreed use
of resources received, remain entirely accountable to their own local
leaders in respect to the detailed logistics of projects and certainly
in all other regards of their lives and ministries. Thus, they are not
encouraged to see themselves as DCI leaders, only partners-with-DCI in
shared project work.
13 Bosch 467-74
14 Bosch 457-467
16
Pocock et al 2000, 43-4; Miller chapters 1 and 2
17 Bosch 409-20
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