In Asia, for example, where 60 percent of the earth’s population lives, many of whom are not Christian, “we have a long and deep history,” over 170 years in some areas, said David Hudson, area coordinator for Asia and the Pacific for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). He told of visiting a cemetery in Korea where Presbyterian missionaries are buried, “holy ground in my opinion.”
But Presbyterians involved in mission work also are struggling, to some extent, to figure out just how to discuss what they do. In some areas, the work is sensitive – particularly in the Middle East or predominantly Muslim countries. Hunter Farrell, the PC(USA)’s director of world mission, spoke of “an age when cartoons published in Denmark one day bring riots in Indonesia the next,” and the need for caution in an interconnected, multicultural world.
Some Presbyterian mission co-workers “have not been able to return to the field or are facing visa difficulties right now,” because concerns were raised about the work they’re doing, said J. Dudley Woodberry, the lead speaker at the Association of Presbyterian Mission Pastors meeting Dec. 2-4 in Louisville.
Woodbury, a professor of Islamic studies at Fuller Theological Seminary in California, has taught in Pakistan, served as a pastor in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, and provided an historical overview of Christian involvement in that part of the world, going back to the first century church.
Change and interconnection take different forms.
So, while one of the mantras in the PC(USA) these days is the importance of “telling the story,” some congregations and groups with a passion for international mission work are cautious about where they get involved and how.
Congregations are raising their own money and developing their own mission partnerships; individual Presbyterians want a bigger voice in how the dollars they give to support international mission work is spent.
A few decades ago, “they were very happy to put money into the big God Box” – a colloquial name for the denominational headquarters – “and trust they would give it out responsibly,” said Tom Taylor, the PC(USA)’s deputy executive director for mission. “Those days are long gone.”
So this can be a “teaching moment” for Presbyterians, Taylor said – a chance to develop integrated partnerships, pulling together the energy, connections and ideas of the grassroots and the expertise of the national staff, for more efficient and effective on-the-ground ministry.
Next fall, the PC(USA) will hold its second World Mission Challenge from Sept. 22 to Oct. 19, sending international mission co-workers out to visit American congregations – in an effort to tell the story and raise money for mission. And from Oct. 21-24, a World Mission Celebration will be held in Louisville, a conference held in conjunction with meetings of mission networks focused on particular geographic areas or types of work.
But the work American Christians are doing is just one piece of a much bigger picture.
Christians from the global east and south are sending out their own missionaries – to the United States and elsewhere. Korean Presbyterian churches, for example, have sent out more than 1,000 missionaries, Hudson said; missionaries also go forth from places such as Nigeria and Brazil.
And Presbyterian mission co-workers deal with complex issues, he pointed out — for example, the realities of human trafficking; of food scarcity and security; of people from the South Pacific whose islands and economies are being impacted by the rising seas and global warming, but who do not want to relocate.
For Presbyterians who want to be involved in the global field, all of these changes mean that “any manual you’re writing today, you’re going to need to rewrite in the next year,” Farrell told the mission pastors.
And, “this work is so important that we need to be doing our homework. We can’t just be going on intuition” about where the needs are greatest. All involved in mission work, from the grassroots to the denominational level, need to work together cooperatively for effective partnership.
That doesn’t always happen.
For example, Farrell said that last month, he got a call from a friend describing a consultation held recently with a partner church in West Africa. At some point in the gathering, the African partner church asked if a representative of the PC(USA) would come forward and bring greetings. Three people stood up to go to the microphone. Each started to go forward, then, noticing the others, sat back down.
Afterwards, according to Farrell, “our West African partner said to us: you can do this better.”
There was also discussion during this meeting about the realities of Christian-Muslim relations, both in this country and around the world.
And, with an estimated six million to eight million Muslims now living in the U.S., “the United States is now part of the Muslim world,” said Jay Rock, the PC(USA)’s coordinator for interfaith relations.
“This I think is a huge mission opportunity,” Rock said, in the sense that “part of being a disciple is building relationships with people of other faiths.”
Some of the Muslims in the U.S. are converts – including many African Americans, some of whom formerly were Christian. Others are immigrants, some arriving in the past several years and others with roots that go back a generation or more.
Through the General Assembly, “we at the Presbyterian Church have affirmed clearly that Jesus is the full and only complete revelation of God and that salvation is only through Jesus the Christ,” Rock said. “And that our calling as disciples is to make witness to Jesus and to what Jesus has done in our lives to people of all faiths.”
That starts, he said, with building friendships — with seeing that “relationship is the bridge” to people of other faiths.
And “one of the key disciplines of that is listening. Listening. It’s not something that all of us do really well. Listening with the whole self, not listening to figure out how to counter the argument the other person is making, but listening to try to understand what the other person is saying, to understand what the other person’s spiritual experience is, listening with the whole self. … If we give respect, we will get respect. If we give openness, we will get openness. If we give receptivity to other people’s traditions, we will get receptivity to our tradition. This is not rocket science.”
And Rock said he has found “Muslims are anxious to talk about things of faith. They’re anxious to talk about Jesus. What does it mean to be a faithful person in this country, which is so secular, which is so materialistic, which pulls people away from religion?”
He also starts such conversations with the understanding that “God is already present and active among Muslims.”
And Rock stressed the importance of Christians considering their actions, as well as their words.
“I think it’s really important for us to understand that everything we do as Christians is witness — everything we do,” Rock said. “Everything we do is witness, not just our proclamation, not just our service, but our hospitality, our way of meeting and greeting, of being present and talking. … When we are present, Jesus is present.”
