VULNERABLE MISSION

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VULNERABLE MISSION VIS-À-VIS MAINSTREAM MISSION AND MISSIOLOGY tor, they operate as “haves” among “have nots,” and they cannot begin to imagine doing mission with an oral approach to life rather than an analytical approach. Missiologists and most advocates of partnership in mission know this kind of mission activity will not reach the goals of mission, so they make some major improvements to the ethnocentric model, such as advocating that Westerners do things with people instead of for people. They promote these better methods even among short-termers whenever possible. 11 Goal Partnership methods Short-term mission methods Contextualized English or local language English only Sustainable Prime the pump, or top up local resources Missional Simplify the message Provide from outside Operate analytically without realizing it at all VM takes the whole thing one step further, though none of us are claiming that VM methods are the silver bullet that will solve everything with one shot. Goal VM methods Partnership methods Contextualized Local language English or local Sustainable Local resources Prime the pump, or top up local resources Missional Local thinking style Simplify the message VM has been very explicit about the first two methods (local language and resources) and has not yet said much about the third, that is, local thinking style. We have assumed that oral thinking style is naturally built into local languages and resources, but I believe it might be helpful to raise it to the status of a third defining mark of VM. What is a “local thinking style”? In the broadest strokes, there are basically two styles— oral thinking and analytical thinking. Various labels have been used for these two styles. 12 11 For “Standards of Excellence in Short Term Missions,” see http://www.soe.org/explore/the-7-standards. For excellent summaries on partnership principles, see Mary T. Lederleitner, Cross-Cultural Partnerships: Navigating the Complexities of Money and Mission (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2010); The Lausanne Movement, “The Lausanne Standards: Affirmations and Agreements for Giving and Receiving Money in Mission,” Documents, http://www.lausanne.org/docs/standards/lausanne-standards.pdf; Phill Butler, Well Connected: Releasing Power, Restoring Hope through Kingdom Partnerships (Colorado Springs: Authentic Publishing, 2005); and Daniel Rickett, Making Your Partnership Work: A Guide for Ministry Leaders (Enumclaw, WA: WinePress, 2002). 12 For example, Sherwood G. Lingenfelter and Marvin K. Mayers, Ministering Cross-Culturally: An Incarnational Model for Personal Relationships, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 51–64, describe “holistic/dichotomistic thinking;” Duane Elmer, Cross-Cultural Connections: Stepping Out and Fitting In around the World (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2002), 142–49, sketches “categorical/holistic thinking”; and Paul G. Hiebert, Transforming Worldviews: An Anthropological Understanding of How People Change (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008), ch. 2, deals with 71
MISSIO DEI 4.1 (FEBRUARY 2013): 68–80 I am indebted to John Walsh for the following explanation which greatly helped me on this point: “When people routinely assume that the opposite of orality is literacy, they are making only a superficial contrast. The real contrast is not oral vs. literate. It is oral vs. analytical.” 13 In other words, an oral style is a story or narrative or holistic style of thinking as opposed to a conceptual style that breaks everything down into pieces and then connects the pieces. Oral thinkers apprehend whole ideas; analytical thinkers comprehend them one piece at a time. Again in very broad strokes, the preferred local thinking style is analytical in the West and oral in the Global South, though oral thinking is growing quickly among younger Westerners and analytical thinking is widespread among people with a lot of Western education, regardless of their home culture. The aspect of this relevant to our discussion is that the vast majority of mission today is undertaken by analytical thinkers working in contexts where oral thinking is the preferred local style. Let’s return then to the earlier comment about doing mission with “an oral approach to life.” This hit me like a bombshell while I was giving some guest lectures in a Central Asian seminary a few years ago. I was talking about Bosch’s overview of paradigms of mission throughout church history 14 and the question was asked, “What is a paradigm?” My on-the-spot attempts to answer did not shed any light for the questioner. In later reflection I realized that a paradigm is a tool that an analytical thinker uses to compare two or more systems. Non-analytical (oral) thinkers do not use that tool because they never undertake that task. They simply do not look at their worlds that way. Further, I realized that every lecture by a foreigner and every book in that seminary library (except the biographies) was structured for analytical thinkers and was basically lost on the oral ones. I understood why a Scottish faculty member at the school had said, “We try to get them to answer the questions on an exam but often all they do is give testimonies.” The entire seminary system was set up to turn oral thinkers into analytical thinkers rather than to capitalize on their natural strengths as oral thinkers. Whether that illustration was helpful or not, here is the abstract description of the problem. Outside money is often used for mission methods such as building a seminary or paying a salary for a church planting pastor, which are seen as the best or only means to the desired goal, such as a strong church or a successful outreach plan. There may be several Xs in a chain; for example, Bible schools (X 1 ) are seen as the means to theological orthodoxy (X 2 ) and spiritual maturity of pastors (X 3 ), good study habits using good study tools (X 4 ), and quality sermons (X 5 )—in order to reach the goal of mature believers and a mature church. But the vision of the “mature” church may have been flawed in the beginning because it assumed that genuine disciples are analytical thinkers and their leaders must use analytical methods to help them grow. Look at the financial implications of this ethnocentric assumption. different kinds of logic. (My thanks to Missio Dei editor, Greg McKinzie, for these helpful references after the conference.) Jim Harries speaks of the issue most often as “monistic/dualistic thinking.” 13 John Walsh, an astute practitioner of orality (http://christianstorytelling.com), explained this to me in a memorable personal conversation in October 2011. 14 David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission, American Society of Missiology Series 16 (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1991). 72
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FEBRUARY 2013 EDITORIAL BOARD Execu
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MISSIONAL THEOLOGY
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BIBLIOGRAPHY “MISSION IN WEAKNESS
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Vulnerable Mission in Angola: An In
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REFLECTIONS
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BOOK REVIEWS
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