Abstract
This chapter offers an invitation to embrace a missiology of joy that reflects the contexts and cultures of emerging missional leaders in the global south. As a way to deconstruct western cultural values of colonial missions, an emerging missiological enterprise from the Latin American context must be liberated from western values of productivity at the expense of relationships and embodied liturgy. A brief introduction to the “sociology of emotions” and participant observation will demonstrate the social nature of joy and how significant it becomes when detached from individualistic connotations, and imposed biases. Thus, a missiology of joy that is embodied in the communal engagement of women and indigenous leaders will open new pathways of missiological thinking and practice ready to challenge the positivism of western missions and, in solidarity, embrace the suffering of the land and its people with the joy of the gospel.
Introduction
The Apostle Paul’s imperative discourse from the letter to the Philippians is to rejoice, and he later repeated: “Rejoice always!” (Phil 4:4). Writing an admonition to express joy often happens when things are mostly going well, but this was not the case for the Apostle Paul. It is well known that the Apostle Paul wrote this letter from his imprisonment in the aftermath of Acts 16. What an odd place to be writing a joy-filled letter.
Long before the Apostle Paul, the psalmist wrote the stanza expressing the dance of sorrow and joy in the very act of planting and harvesting. What a way to bring forth an invitation to reimagine the power of joy in announcing good news amid trials and sorrow (Pope Paul VI, 1975: 80). “Those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy. They weep as they go to plant their seed, but they sing as they return with the harvest” (Psalm 126:5–6). 1
It is within this premise that I find intriguing how significant the experience of joy in the psalmist and the Apostle Paul is in contrast to how missional endeavors have encrusted themselves in the monotony of just “doing the task” without a renewing sense of joy (Bosch, 1991: 145). In colonial Latin America, the missionary presence relied heavily on task-oriented leadership mixed with cultural expectations. Little change has taken place since neocolonial and managerial missions (Escobar, 2003: 167) have seamlessly adapted these attitudes. Therefore, the commitment to task became the thrust by which the interpersonal relationship between the “nationals” and foreign workers depended.
In recent years, there has been a keen interest in reformulating the study of missio Dei as it pertains to the global changes in missionary forces. The fast-paced growth of the church in Latin America needs renewed missiological thinking. It is possible that mission terminology may undergo scrutiny so that it resonates with a new modality of engagement in Kingdom vocations. One element that would provide such scrutiny has to do with a modality in the interdisciplinary task of missiology. Traditional missionary efforts were reduced to the fulfillment of institutional and denominational agendas at the expense of authentic human flourishing in many contexts in the Americas.
As a critique of the traditional task-oriented and mission strategizing of the Western missionary enterprise, Latin American missiologists must formulate a new paradigm for mission aligned with the ethos of God’s people from the Global South. In this essay, I contend that missiological engagement in/from the Spanish-speaking Americas must redefine mission as joyfully expressive, expansive, and liberating from inherited and unwanted cultural forces. In contrast to the positivism in Western missiological endeavors, a missiology of joy from a Latin American perspective must open new pathways to a study of missio Dei based on the power of joy. 2
Confronting what inhibits joy in Latin American missional engagement
The task-oriented nature of the foreign cross-cultural worker neglected relationships over the priority of productivity, which stifled joy. Relational interaction is highly valued in every Latin American country. Although there are always a few exceptions to the rule, I have seen few expressions of deep joy in functional interpersonal relationships between “nationals” and foreign workers where mutuality, interdependence, and trust exist.
As we speak of joy, let us consider three important assumptions: (1) The study of joy cannot be done in a cultural and sociological vacuum (Bericat, 2016: 492); (2) The practice of joy is susceptible and yet resilient to social 3 and affective 4 structures, and (3) The experience of joy is not only an individualistic expression of being human but rather an expression of being God’s people in the community.
These assumptions will provide a framework toward a new understanding of the power of joy in today’s missional thinking from Latin America. Through short vignettes of experience from the field, the assumptions will assist us in identifying new possibilities to embody the power of joy in our missional endeavors through relationships, mutuality, and freedom.
Expressions of joy in social and cultural expectations
Cultural expectation #1: Bodily expressions of joy restricted
I learned to appreciate the culture of foreign missionaries and enjoy a relationship with them in my teenage years in Peru. Before meeting these friends, I enjoyed liturgy through the sound of guitars and clapping in church services as a new believer in Christ. When I moved to another part of Lima, I met my missionary friends in their new church plant. To my surprise, there was only an accordion and organ in the service. A foreign missionary told me that congregational liturgy in a church plant could not have guitars and clapping because of sensual connotations. I was puzzled. It was arrogant to limit my Peruvian culture in such a way. Such an attitude exemplifies how a cultural vacuum can suffocate the practice of joy.
Imagine how you would feel when someone says your cultural experiences of joy through musical expression are wrong. How would you respond? What would you do with what you knew as a natural expression in your culture of origin? As I reflect on this experience, I see the significance of the sociocultural factors that conditioned expressions of joy from what I encountered in the practice of faith. Thus, a preliminary study of joy as a human experience must be embedded in specific cultural and socio-relational contexts.
Cultural expectation #2: Biased liturgy
In Peru, I learned that Andean Folkloric music was banned from most evangelical churches before the 1970s. This style of music was described as diabolic, political, and oppressive. Andean music offered diverse vernacular sounds and instrumentation, but many Christians in the city resisted due to the judgment of denominational forces and its foreign missionary presence. Expressions of worship (hymns) either accompanied by an organ or accordion were acceptable as well as electric guitars and drums. These exceptions belong to congregations founded by foreign mainline and Pentecostal missionaries, respectively.
Elevating one musical expression over another only brought disagreement and exclusion. Although Andean music was prohibited, isolated groups continued using this type of liturgy in marginal congregations. Few grassroots mission centers embraced this liturgy as a way to resist the biased liturgical imposition. Now, decades after, there are countless music groups and congregations that have incorporated Andean music in their liturgy and missionary vision.
Summary
The vignettes above must provoke an interest in sociological research with a new perspective in mind. Such a perspective must include what is described in the sociology of emotions (Bericat, 2016: 491). We must build on what sociologists are suggesting: that sociological research necessitates an integration of feelings, affects, moods, and emotional states, which defines what is coined as the sociology of emotions. Then, this study of joy requires a new understanding, which will open new pathways for a fair appraisal of a situation and the social interaction that produces it. 5 I propose the following: Missiology can be redefined as joyfully expressive because it flows from God’s self-disclosure through his extravagant love for humanity.
With this in mind, let us consider how the practice of joy could be embodied in spite of social and emotional expectations.
The practice of joy despite limitations
For this section, I will analyze two social structures constraining the practice of joy in human interactions: (1) Lack of resources (poverty) and; (2) Patriarchy (male privilege). I acknowledge that both of these social structures are samples of a wider range of causes of human emotions. The fundamental task of the following vignettes should assist us in a preliminary look at the sociology of emotions and its tasks: studying the social nature of emotions (joy) and studying the emotional nature of social reality (Bericat, 2016: 495).
The expansive effect of joy amid poverty: Social structure # 1
I met Hector, a leader of an indigenous Shipibo 6 community of church planters in the South American rainforest. One day after a class, he became ill due to food poisoning and got a fever. He told me something that I never forgot. He said, “the least I can do in the service to my Lord Jesus is to thank Him and joyfully express my gratitude for having me worthy of His mission work.” He never complained or asked for anything; expressing joy was all he wanted to do. I felt convicted. After I left, Hector, a church planter, went back to bed and sang of joy until the fever receded. As Brene Brown (2010: 77) asserts, “joyful people are grateful people.”
Stories and scenarios like Hector’s were not uncommon during my tenure as a mission mobilizer in South America. Expressing joy despite hardships, needs, persecution, and sickness was natural. Samuel Escobar asserts, “Those who go to work as missionaries among the poor confess that many times they receive back the gift of joy from Christians who have an overflow of it amid dire poverty and persecution” (2003: 69). A theology of joy was a subject I never learned in seminary. I learned to quantify my work in mission. From Hector, I learned what Jürgen Moltmann described: “When the Spirit of the resurrection is experienced, a person breathes freely, and gets up, and lives with head held high, and walks upright, possessed by the indescribable joy that finds expression in the Easter hymns” (1992: 153).
Confronting patriarchy (male privilege, machismo): Social structure # 2
Perspectives from foreign missionary agencies influenced church life and its mission in Latin America. To begin with, the majority of expat missionaries endorsed a paradigm of gender roles for women missionaries, and thus set a strong unquestionable paradigm in mission for the Spanish-speaking world. Mireya Alvarez (2015: 96) elaborates on this problem in the following: Through the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), traditional evangelical values prevailed. American Pentecostalism adopted the conventional perspectives of evangelical churches, perhaps unconsciously assuming discriminatory attitudes against women’s ministry. Among the attitudes, beliefs, and values of the North American evangelical church, the exclusive male privilege was emphasized. Proponents of male leadership argued that the government of the church was a matter for men because Christ chose twelve male disciples.
While this assessment belongs to a study of Pentecostal churches, it is unlikely that other denominations have tried to critique their paradigms on this issue. Alvarez invites us to think of the hopeful expectation, worth pursuing and reinserting into a missiology of joy for the twenty-first century.
I walked into the COMIBAM 2017 congress in Bogota, Colombia, convinced I would hear the same old ideas about mission. Everything changed until I heard two women speakers. A native Brazilian, a cross-cultural worker, serving in North Africa, and an indigenous Panamanian spoke of unspeakable joy in contexts of suffering and oppression. 7 They underlined the essence of what mission and missiology would be if joy becomes the starting point of the conversation about participation, presence, and power in missio Dei. I will share a couple of vignettes in which “rapturous joy” (Moltmann, 2015: 153) played a key role in articulating an expression of missional engagement.
A Brazilian missionary in the Muslim world
Sister Zaza presented at COMIBAM 2017 for only 15 minutes. She was joyful and inspired the audience.
God inhabits the celebration, at the party, in the moment of joy, which surely abounds in the Muslim world. God inhabits the surprise in the celebration because it is not our agendas nor our statistics nor our best missionary models that would make the difference. We will continue to serve in mission in the power of the Spirit of God, who longs to control the work of God. (COMIBAM, 2017)
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She delivered a powerful sense of hope. Her experience among Muslim women and the hospitality she received from them were inspiring. Vulnerability was the hallmark of her powerless presence of females in this context (Villacorta, 2017: 47). Thus, this vulnerability informed the practices of hospitality, joy amid sorrow, and simplicity in relationships with the “other” as distinctive characteristics of an emerging missiology of joy.
Another vignette brought forth the power of joy in the transformation of people as they encounter the presence of God through prayer, confession, and community gathered in faith and participation in mission. Sister Zaza shared a compelling story of redemption from the field towards the end of her speech: My God is happy and knows how to dance. This is the story of a woman in an Islamic nation. She was raped and lived her life in complete sadness. She had a son and suffered because her son was conceived as a result of sexual abuse. She told me that each time she held her son in her arms to nurse him, he turned into a snake. One day she couldn’t stand it anymore, so she threw her son against a rock and killed him. Then she told me that the snake still chased her every day. We prayed and hugged each other. We cried together along with the community there. Three days after, she was dancing and proclaimed: “My God is happy and knows how to dance.” God knows how to dance; God knows how to cry; God knows how to suffer.
In my conversation with Sister Zaza, she exuded such joy in what she shared. Despite her limitations as a woman leader, she was able to reach out deep into the hearts of many in the Muslim world in search for the hope and joy of the gospel. It is from a joyful engagement with hospitality, with solidarity and vulnerability that she exemplified and appealed to a new potential to inform a missiology of joy from the lives of amazing mission-minded women like herself.
From these vignettes, I can ascertain that human relationships, authentic vulnerability, and joy amid sorrow were distinctive traits of fruitful engagement in restricted-access contexts. This realization should outline new paths for consideration in training of cross-cultural workers, and a more intentional opportunity to learn from our female counterparts in the practice of joy. I am convinced that this unique insight will provide key modalities for implementation in reaching out to people beyond the forceful agendas of the past.
An indigenous woman from Panama
Sister Jocabed represented countless women of color from the vast indigenous communities of many nations in Latin America. She is part of the Guna nation of Panama and is an active member of the Latin American Theological Fellowship (FTL). Her commitment and study reside on issues of identity, indigenousness, and interculturality. As one of the women speakers at COMIBAM, she expounded on difficult topics such as domestic violence, sexual abuse, and the proliferation of patriarchy and cultural machismo.
The latter themes she alluded to took me by surprise because it has never been a topic covered in a missionary conference, at least from the ones I had participated in before. Given that an indigenous woman spoke with such boldness, I was sure she made many uncomfortable, especially many male leaders in the audience. Along with Sister Zaza, Sister Jocabed spoke with courageous joy as she tackled issues of injustice, violence, and domination against women activists in Latin America. She shared briefly about two women who faced persecution and death for their commitment to justice.
The first exemplar mentioned was Micaela García from Argentina, a feminist activist dedicated to confronting blindness of the political system against sexual abuse; she was assassinated at 21 years of age due to her the nationwide protest movement against violence against women. 9 The second exemplar was Berta Cáceres, a Honduran indigenous woman from the Lenca nation, who stood up against the exploitation of natural resources and promoted equality for the indigenous farmers. 10
Summary
The practice of joy in this section elicited resilient responses to the restraining social structures in diverse contexts. Although Hector, the Shipibo church planter, did not have the material possessions to be grateful for, his joyful response to his circumstances was not conditioned by his lacking material goods nor health. The social structure of patriarchy (male privilege, machismo) found its loci in diverse places: (1) the immediate contexts where both women (Sisters Zaza and Jocabed) emerged from, and (2) the systemic layer of male privilege from which they both exercise their vocations. The practice of joy, however, proved to prevail despite the unchallenged forces of patriarchy. I may infer the following: missiology can be redefined as expansive because of the manifested resilience through the power of joy in the lives of women and indigenous people in missio Dei.
Experiencing joy in the strength of community
Undoubtedly a unique trait in the practice of mission is that it aligns with the cultural and social expectations in which it operates. Of course, there is always room for variation. Instead of becoming a communal and joined effort, it morphs into isolated and individual efforts plus adding emphasis on productivity over relationality, and control over relationships of trust. Although there is an intentional team-effort mentality, the innate proclivity is to make it about personal fulfillment and meaning (Villacorta, 2017: 5). Thus, the practice of joy, for instance, delimits itself with individualistic expressions of well-intentioned missional practitioners who have a difficult drawing those around him or her and bringing others into a communal experience of joy.
The task of missionary formation in countries where scarcity prevails is a constant challenge to faith and trust in God for provision. I recalled an experience that changed a mental model within me about God’s faithfulness in the midst of lacking resources. Given that budgets in most Latin American contexts are at times non-existent due to lack of financial resources, this can be an overwhelming experience for foreign mission agents who come to the field with a set of different values and practices on financial solvency. I illustrate this experience below.
Hungry, joyful, and committed
It was the second week of class, and 100 students needed meals. I was informed that there was a group of students praying and fasting about what to do. I learned that in years past, mission students came up with a word in Spanish manga, which meant that a group of students with musical skills put together a band and went out into the produce market and play for the shoppers and vendors. The idea was to perform for people at the market and ask vendors for whatever donation of their produce they can dispense for a faith-based school. Other students went along and had empty sacks and went by while vendors gave them generously.
The manga practice was done once a week for the remainder of the school cycle of four weeks. There was a contagious sense of joy in doing this together. To my surprise, there was more than enough food to feed students and teachers. I would never have imagined doing anything like this, but the student body took the initiative, and I witnessed God’s faithfulness and a displayed of communal joy as all gathered around the provision and rejoiced.
The collective context of experiencing joy seems to correlate and support what sociologists of emotions suggest. Eduardo Bericat (2016: 505) asserts that Up until now, the sociology of emotions has carried out one-dimensional and static analyses of the emotional lives of human beings, and for this reason, they are often too simple and even mechanical. For example, many specific emotions have been analyzed, but it is obvious that individuals do not feel emotions in an isolated and independent manner. The feelings we experience are part of complex structures consisting of many emotions. Also, subjective experiences happen over time as sequences or emotion chains that have particular dynamics. Therefore, sociologists should analyze the affective structures and the emotional dynamics of social phenomena.
From a collective experience of joy, it is evident that individuals follow a natural way to interface and share emotions with others. As I observed in the manga event, I can attest that there is a dynamic that drew in other emotions. So the validity of this method of analysis offers a robust approach to the study, practice, and experience of joy. I believe this has the potential for more focused research on the power of joy in missional thinking and practical engagement.
The social interactions in context are strengthened through a collective experience leading to a resolution of a pressing need in the community. Thus, a collective experience of joy is clear evidence that an individualistic approach to the experience limits and contradicts the very essence of being God’s people in a shared sense of being missional. From this experience, I learned concerning a correlation between joy and collective action in the completion of tasks.
Penniless, joyful, and determined
After the theoretical component of missionary training, the time for sending mission teams took place. The process commissioned students to serve in prearranged places for three months; it counted as a practicum in the formation. It was not only a fulfillment of an educational requirement; it was a celebratory time as people dressed nicely and participated in a meal together. Prayer, testimonies, worship, and dance were part of the celebration.
There was unity and anticipation that strengthened the student body. Everyone anticipated the transition from theory to practice. Although many of them were sent out without any financial remuneration (unless they brought some before the commissioning), students trusted God for their provision to serve. The experience of collective joy was enriching, so participants had a positive disposition in the overall process; thus, a joyful and festive celebration took place.
Summary
The above scenarios aimed to demystify an individual’s experience of joy; instead, these highlighted the power of a collective sense of joy. Each participant in the scenarios shared and contributed to a specific social situation in addressing a need. Rather than reacting negatively and disrupting the morale of the community, participants arose beyond their limitations with a distinct identity as God’s people—a united people, living with a divine “rapturous” joy (Moltmann, 2017: 153).
While particular circumstances in the scenarios can serve as metrics to measure the success of this missionary training center, the observations from social interactions and its dynamics have proven to be more insightful towards a discovery of a strong sense of community. Undoubtedly, a collective experience of joy attained more than the participants would have ever imagined with robust implications for missional engagement. Thus, I suggest the following: missiology can be redefined as liberating as it confronts individualistic constructs that impede an embodied and collective experience of joy as God’s people in missio Dei.
Conclusion
The greatest lessons of joy have come to me through this recollection of scenarios and experiences found through the lives of the most unexpected individuals, indigenous women, and men deeply entrenched in mission. As I recalled every experience, I only can say that they have instilled deep hope within me. A hope that is like a new horizon for missiology in the twenty-first century, and won’t come exclusively from privileged and elaborated ideas of powerful and well-financed mission agency or missionaries. It might come from the most unexpected and insignificant people in the Global South, perhaps from the Latin American continent, from countless women and men who, in all simplicity, have devoted their lives to embody joy as they serve in missio Dei. These will open new pathways of missiological thinking and practice ready to challenge the positivism of Western missions and, in solidarity, embrace the suffering of the land and its people with the joy of the gospel (Pope Francis, 2013: 216).
Women from Latin America are increasingly immersed as cross-cultural workers in hostile contexts, but their presence and lives abound with stories filled with vulnerability, hospitality, and compassion as testimonies with expressions of “rapturous” joy. The two examples in this article are pivotal to make us aware that there is another way to express significant relationships in mutuality and liberating missional engagement.
In this essay, it is rewarding to observe the social nature of joy, how significant it becomes when detached from individualistic connotations and imposed biases. Its power is unleashed when people’s hearts are liberated to express joy in the beauty of their music and cultures. Its potential to respond to challenges heightens as a missional community embeds itself in the joyful nature of life. The power of joy cannot be contained in the restrictions imposed by others (through outside cultural values or expectations) nor through biased liturgies in context. It must be free to move beyond and touch others.
A missiology of joy must heed the delight and laughter of God. In paying attention, we may be able to hear God rejoicing, laughing, and singing through the faces and voices of the poor, the dispossessed, single women and people of color in the Americas. God’s extravagant love came in, sending his Son. In his suffering love for humanity, the power of joy enabled him to face his darkest hour. He sent his Spirit to his disciples and to us to ignite hearts with the power of joy in the engagement with mission.
In the written words of the Hebrews’ letter, our Lord and Master paved the way for a life of joy, well-lived, and deeply committed in obedience to the mission of God the Father in the power of the Spirit. “We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne” (Hebrews 12:2).
Footnotes
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
