Missiology: An International Review

Using the metaphor of dance, this article reflects on the steps needed to create authentic mission partnerships in the twenty-first century. It proposes that both sides of a partnership must enter into a dance that includes the steps of indwelling, indirection, inquisitiveness, iconoclasm, and imagining. It suggests that as we struggle to come to a deeper understanding of what it means to be in partnership, we need to question the very concept of partnership and how it is used. Moving beyond partnership to engagement in dynamic networks is offered as the direction for future mission relationships.

Beginning with a consideration of the meaning of “partnership” as that has been understood by the various Christian traditions in the twentieth century, the author bases his theology of mission partnerships on a missiological reading of Ephesians 4:1 to 5:2. Drawing from the major emphases of Paul's thought in the text, Van Engen argues that because the church's oneness is centered in Jesus Christ (the motivation for mission), Christians are called to partner together for world evangelization, serving one another in love and humility (the agency of mission) as they participate in Christ's mission, offering to one another the unique gifts given by the Holy Spirit to their various regional and global organizations and churches (the means of mission), so that they may equip the saints for the work of ministry until they all together grow up into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (the goals of mission partnerships).

This article begins by defining mutuality as a two-way exchange that is open to give and to receive. It looks at the structural injustice that Africa and Africans have received from the legacy of the slave trade, colonialism, and neo-colonialism, and argues that missionaries in their colonial context misinterpreted and misrepresented African cultures and traditional religions. The author discusses present-day social and cultural realities and the negation of social justice and human rights caused by both external and internal forces. She concludes by offering suggestions for cultivating mutual respect for all, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, class, or age.

Anne Nasimiyu-Wasike lays out several challenges for us from the West, including the need to have a greater sensitivity and knowledge of the richness and complexity of the African culture. We must ask ourselves, how do we become involved in the culture where we live? Nasimiyu-Wasike touches on the historical negative influences that are affecting the political and economic life in Africa. We are called to enter the daily sufferings and deaths of the people in Africa if we follow Christ in his “hour of glory” as he faced his own suffering and death. This means that mutuality in mission demands new skills and attitudes so that we touch all aspects of the lives of people, that is, the social, economic, and political dimensions, as well as the religious and cultural.

The process of transformation from the establishment of a mission to an independent indigenous church is one of the most perplexing challenges of the modern missionary enterprise. This paper examines a particular model, framed in response to particular dilemmas of the Western missionary movement, which was first implemented in the British colony of Sierra Leone. Aptly described as the “euthanasia of a mission,” but more popularly known as the “three-selves” theory, the model in question was postulated on the view that the “settlement of a native church, under native pastors, upon a self-supporting system” was the ultimate objective of a mission. The nature and impact of this concept, as an experiment within an African context, forms the focus of this study.