1.
In the Old
testament we see the role of Prayer in the extension of God's purposes. A quick
look at Jehoshaphat when the nation faced disaster and he called upon the
people to fasting for a designated time. They separated themselves from daily
routines and devoted extra time to considering their sins and praying to God to
help them. We see Jehoshaphat committing the situation to God, acknowledging
God’s sovereignty over their current situation. He praised God's Glory and took
comfort in his promises, and he confessed complete dependence on God, not
himself. (2 Chronicles 20:1-14) Our complete dependence is seen in ways we deal
with daily situations while serving God cross-culturally.
The Holy
spirit through prayer played a vital role in the first-century church. We see
the church put aside every work and waited upon him for 10 days that the power
might be manifest? The apostles in the book of Acts, In obedience, waited
for the gift that Jesus had promised them 1:4, they were all filled during the
day of Pentecost (2:4) The Holy Spirit worked in the disciples to: give them
power to be witnesses (1:8-9), bringing them joy amid persecution (5;41) helped
them to contextualize the message (2:14-40, 3:12-26), gave them boldness in
preaching (4:29-31). He worked among the non-Christian through the gifts of the
spirit to empower the weak and lowly and create a sense of awe and wonder
(2:37) We must depend on the Holy Spirit through prayer.
We see the
Apostles throughout the new testament living a life of prayer as they depend on
the holy spirit to guide them on where to go, how to go what to say and how to
respond with joy in times of persecution. As missionaries, we think we are
better able to determine the action of ministry than the Holy Spirit and so, we
develop a dependency on human wisdom rather than the wisdom of the spirit of
God- the divine helper. (Gallagher 2006b:19-20)
I agree with
Gallagher that we need to repent of underestimating that God’s spirit can speak
and direct through how word, history, and any other means he chooses and
overestimating our own importance in helping the engagement of mission praxis
to grow and strengthen his kingdom.(Gallagher 2006a, Gallagher 2006c) .
Everything
that Jesus accomplished was through the power of the holy spirit, At the
beginning of his ministry the holy spirit affirms him, and he is full of the
holy spirit and He begins his ministry by a demonstration of the power of the
Holy spirit. His life filled with spirit, prayer, guidance, and
teaching. The spirit was upon him as he proclaimed the good news to the poor
and his years of ministry ere full of the manifestation of the Holy Spirit.
If Jesus,
the divine needed fullness of the spirit to fulfill Gods purposes how much more
we the followers need the spirit to live and minister?
God indeed
promises his spirit to those who ask, and we need to ask of his spirit which
should enable us to live every day. The ability to make choices and decisions
should be influenced by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit reveals
what Christ could not speak and uses resources that were unavailable to the
human Jesus. He is the spirit of truth and revelation, it's only the fulness of
the Spirit who will give the church of Jesus an abundance of wisdom and power
(Gallagher 2012:9-22)
In her
engagements with the issues at hand at the case study, Nancy is placed in a
very tricky place as a foreign missionary and her dependence on the Holy Spirit
to help her contextualize the gospel to the converts Is paramount. Her
decisions must involve rhythms of contemplation and spiritual disciplines to
hear and obey the voice of the Holy Spirit. The decisions must be done in the community with an appreciation of the culture. This matter has cultural
potential problems and Nancy must devote time to pray and rely on the Holy
spirit for leading.
A am
encouraged by the role of the Holy Spirit for the Moravian church who observed
hourly intersession “watch of the Lord” that was continuous for over one
hundred years. Zinzendorf believed that the Holy Spirit was the only true
missionary. The Spirit prepared the hearts of people to hear and receive the
message of Jesus Christ. He was the One who called individuals from among the
people to be converted. The missionaries were then led to these people by the
Spirit. Conversion of the people did not rest on the ability of the
missionaries to preach and convince. (John, Robert 2017),
2. MISSION AND CULTURE.
A look at
the book of Acts in the way the apostles dealt with the Gentiles brothers. God
appears to Peter in a trance and asks him “get up kill and eat” (Acts 10-11)
Peter breaks all cultural barriers and goes to the unclean gentiles. After that
there is a debate on how the Gentiles are to be treated and a letter is written
to the Gentile believers in Antioch explaining that they did not want to make
it difficult for them but they list down what they think are non-negotiables
(15:19-21).
In the old
testament we see a compassionate God whose intentions of calling Abraham was so
that the nations would be reached. (Gen 12) And after then choosing Israel to
reach out to the nations. God enters the history of men and allowed himself to be
limited by the events, ideas, and methods of the world at every season in
the old testament. He knows no cultural boundaries as He takes people into a
new future. We see a theme of God who is drawing different people from
different cultures to his saving grace
Culture for
a long time has been treated by missionaries as a problem to be solved, many
missionaries struggle to understand the culture and work with it constructively.
Western intellectual frameworks assumed the primacy of western culture. I have
become aware of the Westermann line of thought that missionary work
sometimes gives the other cultures a life power to remake individuals, tribes
and people, therefore, destroying old age-old institutions The missionary must
stop trying to build up a new society but identify the parts of the culture
that needs transformation and what can be retained? In spite of the gains
made through the development of theories of contextualization the views still
bear the imprint of the modern western missions’ models. I agree with the thought
that constructive theology of mission will be based on Christological
openness to culture, not rejection Indeed, as demonstrated by God through the incarnation of Jesus Christ we ought to be able to incarnate the love of
God to the communities we serve. He identified with human and we can identify
with people without being identical so that parts of them that needs redemption
can be redeemed. “All cultures and people are equally in need of redemption”,
indeed that redemption takes place in an individual’s indigenous environment.
Nancy needs to be keen on not creating a new physical environment for the new
believers but affirm their redemption to take place in their current
environment. As contemporary
missionaries we must discern and work with the holy spirit as he is already at
work everywhere, we are sent, bearing witness to what it means to be “in
Christ” (Gallagher,Hertig 2009).
Andrew Walls
presents a battleground for two opposing tendencies; “God accepts us as we are
on the ground of Jesus work at the cross but if He does, he doesn’t take us as
isolated self-governing units. He accepts us together with our group relations;
with the cultural conditioning that makes us feel at home in one part of human
society and less at home in another”. He takes us with our baggage and accepts
us into his family. It is hard to separate a believer from their social
relationships and their society and that brings the unvarying feature in
Christian history of Indigenization. Even as he takes people as
they are, he wants to transform them they inherit a Pilgrim principle
which puts him out of step with his society. The Christian has all the
relationships in which he was brought up and has them sanctified by Christ who
is living in them. And they, therefore, have a new set of relationships with
other members of faith from all over the world (dual nationality), and they are
given an adoptive past through adoption by universalization. (Gallagher,
Hetrtig 2009)
Zinzendorf encouraged the Moravians to preach Christ
by showing love and humility, not imposing societal changes even If they were
for the good. They were to be sensitive culturally and for example, they allowed
but did not encourage the practice polygamy in Africa, they believed that
people would see the problem with polygamy as they grew in their understanding
of the gospel. Nancy should use this approach in dealing with Muslim
converts.
He
continues to state that “when thinking of the future of Christian theology we
need to understand The indigenizing principle affirms that it is of the essence
of the gospel for God to accept us as we are, we don’t have to give up the culture
history language in order to become Christians.
References
Gallagher, R. L., & Hertig, P. (2009). Landmark essays in mission and world Christianity. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.
Terry, J. M., & Gallagher, R. L. (2017). Encountering the history of missions: from the early
church to today. Grand
Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.
Gallagher, Robert L. (2013). “Missionary
Methods: St. Paul’s, St. Roland’s, or Ours?” In Missionary Methods: Research,
Reflections and Realities, Craig Ott and J.D. Payne, eds. Pasadena, CA: William
Carey Library, 3-22.
______________________. (2006d). “'Me and
God, We’d Be Mates:’ Towards an Aussie Contextualized Gospel.” In International
Bulletin of Missionary Research 30/3: 127-132.
______________________. (2006c).
“Spirit-Guided Mission.” In Evangelical Missions Quarterly 42/3: 336341.
______________________. (2006b). “Praying
for Mission.” In The Pneuma Review 9/1: 19-20.
______________________. (2006a). “The Holy
Spirit in the World: In Non-Christians, Creation, and Other Religions.” In
Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies 9/1: 17-33.
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