Doss, Gorden R

English

Andrews University

Andrews UniversityDigital Commons @ Andrews UniversityFaculty Publications World MissionJanuary 2011A look into the future: What will Africa and thechurch look like in 20 years responseGorden R. DossAndrews UniversityFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/world-mission-pubsPart of the Missions and World Christianity CommonsThis Contribution to Book is brought to you for free and open access by the World Mission at Digital Commons @ Andrews University. It has beenaccepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Andrews University. For more information, pleasecontact repository@andrews.edu.Recommended CitationDoss, Gorden R., "A look into the future: What will Africa and the church look like in 20 years response" (2011). Faculty Publications.Paper 1.http://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/world-mission-pubs/1    Thank you for your interest in the   Seventh-day Adventist Missions Resources Digital Library Andrews University Digital Library    Please honor the copyright of this document by not duplicating or distributing additional copies in any form without the author’s express written permission. Thanks for your cooperation.  Thank you, Dr. Owuso Antwi, for your insightful paper. I wish to in-teract with your paper by sharing seven points that grow out of my time in Malawi. As a preface to the main points, my observation is that, as a group, our brothers and sisters in Africa are very resourceful, resilient, and committed. When we speak of the need for self-sufficiency we are not implying that they have none but that their self-sufficiency needs to be enhanced for the sake of God’s wholistic mission to the world.First, the hard truth is that the Adventist Church in Africa functions within a larger economic environment which is generally troubled. When there is a recession in America we hear of hiring freezes, withholding of salary increases, and other economizing measures in the conferences. When I hear North American church leaders bemoaning financial pres-sures I think of how much more intense those pressures are in the Malawi Union, where I grew up and worked. Yet, we would be wrong to throw up our hands in despair over the situation in Africa. At the First Adventist Mission in Africa Conference, Dr. Tite Tiénou warned us against “Afro pessimism.” We should remember that the Early Church was not wealthy and that church history is full of amazing things done by believers in the context of poverty. One of the leadership challenges for Adventist mis-sion in Africa is to combat the general hopelessness and helplessness that undermines self-reliance.Second, one of our realities is that the Adventist Church in Africa func-tions on different economic scales. On one hand, average church mem-bers, whose tithe and offerings support the Church, live on a lower, “third A Response toA Look into the Future: What Will Africa and the Church Look Like in 20 Years?  Gorden R. Doss2ECONOMIC SELF-RELIANCE IN AFRICAA Look into the Future Response18world” economic scale. On the other hand, the Church in Africa needs to interact with the economic “first world” as part of the world Church. This means that we need well-trained pastors who are content to serve rural districts in isolated places and also pastors who relate well with the educated elite and the world Church. Financial realities preclude having a single educational level for pastors because the better educated are often unwilling to serve the bush districts and the less educated are unable to serve the educated elite and the world Church. One of the ways to address the problem of over-sized districts is with pastoral training programs for those who may lack the qualifications for higher education but who would serve well in rural districts. Local churches would be better served by pas-tors with a two-year ministerial education than by untrained local church elders. We surely wish for an adequate number of pastors who all have their BA in theology degree or even higher education. However, financial realities suggest we need an interim plan while waiting for economies to improve. Another solution would be to offer structured church elder training programs. In summary, the model I am suggesting is composed of three types of education: post-secondary school, BA pastoral educa-tion; post-10th grade, two-year ministerial training; and structured local church elder training, with certification.Third, self-reliance in the church is only valuable when it benefits the mission of the church. Today, sub-Saharan Africa is one of the best evan-gelized parts of the world, with about a third of all Adventists. African Adventists need to become self-reliant so that their own tithes and offer-ings added to those of the world Church can support expanded mission to the 10/40 Window where millions have yet to be evangelized. Mission has always moved on the wheels of self-sacrifice and Adventists in Africa need to be led to commit their all for the sake of the unevangelized. A century ago Adventists were sacrificing to evangelize Africa. Today the unevangelized masses inside and outside Africa need the human and ma-terial resources of our whole Church.Fourth, the discussion of self-reliance in missions has been around for a long time. Henry Venn and Rufus Anderson, leading mission states-men of the nineteenth century, promoted a “three-self theory” for de-veloping indigenous churches. Churches should become self-governing, ECONOMIC SELF-RELIANCE IN AFRICAA Look into the Future Response19self-propagating, and self-supporting, they said. In spite of that empha-sis the disparity of wealth between the historically missionary sending nations and the missionary receiving nations has tended to perpetuate financial dependency. A wholistic approach to missions also ironically tends to perpetuate dependency as wealthier believers want to lend mate-rial support to poorer believers. Even though Adventists in Africa now outnumber those in the nations which originally sent missionaries to Af-rica, the attitude of being receivers persists. Some Christian groups have taken the bold step of refusing aid from outside Africa but most have ac-cepted it willingly and wished for more. We need to be fair to ourselves because Adventist stewardship in Africa is often admired by other Chris-tian groups. However, that does not relieve us of the need to bring about change in a church culture that tends toward dependency. Fifth, the Pauline theology of the church as the body of Christ (Eph 4:12) teaches that the various segments of the church must always be a sharing community. Paul collected gifts from the wealthier Gentile churches for the poorer believers in Jerusalem. However, belonging to such a community places constraints on both the more wealthy and less wealthy members of the body. The less wealthy have the same obligation as the more wealthy to be faithful stewards in proportion to what they have. The more wealthy must share in a way that does the best good for God’s mission in the contexts of the poorer members. An objective look at our beloved Church in this century may suggest that both the more wealthy and less wealthy Adventists have things to learn. I fear that some of the ways funds are used, with the intention of promoting missions in Africa, are most effective in providing interesting trips and experiences for wealthier Adventists. On the other hand, faithful stewardship is lack-ing among some Adventist groups in Africa who think of the Church as a source of money rather than a receiver of money. Unhealthy relationships can develop within the body of Christ where the poor are manipulative toward the wealthy and the wealthy are paternalistic toward the poor. Part of developing self-reliance in Africa will involve strategically plan-ning and managing interactions with well-intentioned visitors from out-side the continent.Sixth, we must not assume that we understand the reasons our own ECONOMIC SELF-RELIANCE IN AFRICAA Look into the Future Response20people persist in dependency. Thirty-four church leaders in the West-Central Africa Division recently completed their Doctor of Ministry de-grees from Andrews University. One of their shared testimonies was that when they did a detailed cultural analysis of their own people, they realized how much more they needed to learn about them. Africa is a large, dynamic continent, with many different cultures. As the Adventist Church culture has been planted within these many diverse cultures, the result has been the formation of sub-cultures that differ from each other in certain ways. The Church in some places is more self-reliant and in others less so. In the discipline of missiology we study worldviews which are the deepest factors of culture that drive what people think, feel, and do. To change our internal church culture we will need to study the larger cul-tures around us and how they have fused with our Adventist culture to produce particular perspectives on self-reliance that we wish to modify. We need to develop a research mentality to our work that will inform good leadership. Self-reliance has to be based on deep knowledge.Finally, the paper’s church membership projections were fascinating to consider. There is a process underway that might alter the projections in some ways. The General Conference has been encouraging the divisions to audit church membership figures carefully and some of that has already happened in Africa. One division on another continent has conducted a rigorous audit that resulted in decreasing their membership numbers by over one million. The numbers were there as accumulations of baptismal reports but many names behind the numbers were missing. Although the audit was bitter medicine to swallow in some ways it promoted the mis-sion of the Church in that division. For example, prior to the audit unused Sabbath Schools Study Guides were piling up in warehouses because they were being printed for inflated membership numbers. Once the numbers were based on actual member names in well-maintained local church clerk records the division was able to better plan and strategize in many ways. I believe that the careful stewardship of membership will under-gird and promote self-reliance in Africa in many ways.

A look into the future: What will Africa and the church look like in 20 years response

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A look into the future: What will Africa and the church look like in 20 years response

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