mbjones

The WORD became flesh and moved into {our} neighborhood. That’s an exciting thought to consider, isn’t it? To think that God willfully stepped out of His kingdom and came to earth is an amazing thing. He came from a place of perfection that we can only imagine and entered into all of the goriness of life on earth. And in such an odd way. You would think that if God was going to visit earth and experience life as a human He start at a place of honor, born into royalty or wealth or something like that. But no — He forsook all of that, choosing the poverty of a voiceless Jewish family in the midst of imperial occupation. He chose to not even be born in a legitimate setting. Who of us in their right mind would say, “Yes! I want to be born next to donkeys and cows and sheep! Lay me in their feeding trough to rest!” What a choice this was.

This makes the words of Paul in Philippians striking:

Jesus existed in the form of God but emptied Himself of this. He took on the form of a slave. He looked just like you and me. He shared in our nature.

This WORD becoming flesh, this God becoming man, this incarnation — it’s not about who He was but about who He was becoming.

Jesus was God throughout His time on earth; if this wasn’t so, we wouldn’t have the cross and complete liberation from the works of evil in the world. What mattered though wasn’t that He was still God but that He became man. This identification is an incredible thing. It’s something I don’t currently fully understand and don’t think I (or anybody for that matter) ever will, fully. We like big words like incarnation and kenosis and theosis and the like to refer to doctrines that attempt to describe at least some of what is going on but I’m pretty sure there will always be something of a mystery surrounding it all.

And it’s well and good to sit and wonder and awe at the mystery of it all; that’s something I readily admit to doing. Recently though an element of sober reality has found itself intermixed in my wonders and awes. The WORD becoming flesh — the WORD emptying Himself of Himself and taking on the form of me, well as I said it’s incredible. It gets sobering now though: This WORD made flesh in inviting me to live as He made me to, has invited me to enter this incarnational kenosis as well: To empty myself of myself and what He has made me, and take on the form of the other.

What does that mean? Forsaking Jesus? No. Jesus emptying Himself of God didn’t mean He was any less God. God didn’t forsake God, so to speak. It does mean stepping outside the bounds of life He’s ushered me into. Jesus chose to leave heaven and enter our muck and mire — theologically speaking: kenosis. Taking up Jesus, we enter into heaven (at least metaphorically speaking; I suppose we could have theological discussion about the technicalities of this) which I find to be a form of Theosis — the filling of ourselves with what Jesus chose to leave. We are called to emulate Jesus though so kenosis must follow. Jesus set that aside, came as a man, called people into what He was (giving glimpses of it all along the way) and loved so much that He chose to die so that we might live.

That kenosis hits home to me now in ways it never did before. Life was comparatively easy back in Oklahoma. It didn’t take much effort to empty myself and become something other because the reality was that the other was more like me than I might care to admit. Now though — it’s something different. Not to long ago I found myself sitting on a wooden bench in a filthy concrete room full of junk that the attached Shebeen (illegitimate bar) didn’t have use for with my wife, teammate and the drunk homeless guy who slept there. He proceeded to spill His guts about all of life, culminating in his desire and plan to hang himself. He drank day in and day out to forget this pain he carried with him everywhere but it was getting to the point where the bottle could no longer numb him to it. Sitting there that day I experience incarnation as I’d never experienced it before. It was in love-driven desire to be somewhere I knew I didn’t belong. There it was, reaching out to someone who had drunk too many 40s to count. It was the willingness to enter his world and feel and understand and see as he did.

In an academic sense, I knew that coming here and living incarnationally would involve wading into deep and dark problems in the lives of people — issues and feelings and thoughts I’d probably never known existed before — but it wasn’t anything more than that academic sense.

And, I wouldn’t have it any other way. You see the incarnation produces something incredible. For where kenosis happens theosis is soon to follow. Jesus came as man and presented something more (His kingdom), and many back then, and you and me now, entered and where filled with something more. So to for people like this drunk homeless man who wanted to give up on life in the worst possible way. That day about a month ago was incredibly sober. Today though His story is something different. He’d never had someone tell him that they loved him. And for it to be a white guy from America — that blew his mind. It made him stop and think. And when he found out why (Jesus in me, my wife and teammate) it made him reach out for something more. We did a lot of sharing and a lot of praying with him that afternoon and God filled his heart with a joy and with a peace he had never known before. We came back the next week to find him sober and smiling. The next week he was outside playing soccer with kids. Two weeks ago he excitedly shared of his new job — something he hasn’t had in quite some time. Last week he brought us a friend who had seen his transformation and wanted it in his own life.

This has been long and rambling and probably won’t make much sense to anyone but me; I just needed to get the words down and the thoughts out, to be mulled over and considered further.

It is easy to look around at Africa and see it solely through white western eyes. Those are the only eyes I’ve ever had after all. As Africans look around at their land though, they more often than not see things in a completely different manner. Whether or not we are willing to admit it, the culture we grow up in greatly influences how we see the world around us. It shapes how we approach problems. It defines our ethics. It determines our values. All of our interactions and ideas about the world around us are influenced by this lens which is commonly called a worldview.

As I’ve already mentioned, the African worldview is different (vastly different, in fact) from my white American one. Those differences, when not addressed, cause much unneeded conflict. Further — as we try to approach and see transformation to some of the vast problems afflicting this great continent — we must keep the African worldview in mind. Transplanting a western worldview doesn’t (and won’t ever) produce the desired change. In truth, it exacerbates the problem more often than not.

So what broadly is the African worldview?

For one thing it is cyclical in nature. The physical world isn’t the starting point or final destination but merely a temporary existence. The real home is the afterlife, which souls periodically step out of to come to earth. It can be compared to the grass that grows and is burned off. After a good rain and some sunlight, it comes back seemingly exactly the same as it was. Or take the sun. It disappears every night but then shows up again in the morning. Life is visible yet all too often invisible. It’s physical yet deeply spiritual. And ultimately our primary residence isn’t here but in that spiritual place.

Because of this endless cycle the points of transition are extremely important. They mark movement from one residence to another and then back again. Pregnancy, birth and death are sacred moments often ritualized and ceremonialized. The lack of the these movements — sterility and impotency for example — are seen as some of the greatest curses.

And as a cyclical view of life implies, reincarnation is seen as the normal mode of life. In every birth, a soul leaves its home and takes up temporary residence here on earth, yet again. Names are often common as they represent not only the present life but all of the lives lived. Dreams and visions and the consultation of witchdoctors are necessary ventures in determining the name of the soul coming back to life.

As already implied, the African worldview necessitates a high degree of interaction between the spiritual and physical world. Spiritual “beings” (most often souls at home) are seen not only as real but as omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. They are the source of all that is — both good and bad — and physical life is held subject to them.

And communication between the different worlds is common. The physical calls upon the spiritual through invocations, sacrifices, prayers and the aid witchdoctors just as the spiritual calls upon the physical through signs, dreams, visions and witchdoctors. Some of the spirits are good and some are bad, just as some people are good and some are bad.

In everything — harmony must be maintained. Harmony must be maintained with the spirits. It must be maintained within family units. It must be maintained with in tribes. Everyone must be responsible in this; nothing is more important than honor. There is nothing worse in fact than seeing family or spirits dishonored. In this solidarity with one another is incredibly important. It’s not a matter of what I have — the issue is what you need. All property, all monies, all food, all shelter, all everything is available to those that have need as they have need. It’s a way to maintain honor. It’s a way to maintain ancestral heritage. it’s the way to maintain life.

As previously mentioned this worldview stands beyond and even against the one in which I was raised. There is a lot within it that makes me raise an eyebrow. There is a lot within it that I wouldn’t want to live out (and some I might). But to understand Africa — to understand truly its problems and begin to develop solutions — you have to understand its worldview.

I’m not going to be prescriptive at the moment but I do plan to write more in the coming days regarding a few of the implications of such a worldview. For now it’s something to chew on and consider — not to judge but to understand.

I’ve often heard it said that short term trips are a waste of time. Some claim that those on them just tend to “get in the way” by distracting long-term missionaries from their mission, whatever it might be. Others have said it’s an excuse for comfortable Christians to take a “vacation” while masquerading as mission focused individuals. Other people tend to make up other stories and excuses too.

I don’t buy it though.

I mean, sometimes it might be true. There are times I wonder with some of the trips I’ve heard about in my days. You’ve probably heard of those I’m talking about too — the ones that sound like wild and crazy adventures that might include a bit of evangelism (or might not). But by and large I think many times when we pull out the “waste of time” card, we do so erroneously.

So why do I say this?

The biggest reason is the overwhelming amount of evidence that lives are forever changed by short term teams. My church in the states, for example, has sent short term teams to Cape Town, South Africa the past 3 US summers (it’s actually winter then in Cape Town). On those trips we saw God move in many incredible ways. Lots of people professed HIS name for the first time. Many of those (and others) were healed of infirmities as serious as TB. Still others saw God move into their lives in ways they have never experienced before.

On those trips, we worked in a particular township called Masiphumelele (Masi for short). And if you are reading this blog, you likely know that my wife and I are currently in cross cultural church planting school called CPx which started a week ago. We were so encouraged upon arriving to find out that their are 3 people from Masi actually in CPx! One woman was led to Christ by a few women on our short term trip 2 summers ago. The other two also have less direct but ties none the less to our short term trips. And it’s so exciting to see that fruit matured and so encouraging to know that God can and will mightily use short term trips. They aren’t just sightseeing ventures for Christians and definitely will, when walked out in the right attitude, radically affect the kingdom.

There are other readily apparent benefits too. Short term trips can do wonders to encourage long term missionaries. They can allow for a more targeted, direct and focus mission that might normally take a long term team a while to get into. They often can allow long term workers to rest for a period (particularly in the case of the AIDs orphanage I worked with 3 summers ago). And they often allow for individuals with specialized skills to briefly provide services to those that might need them.

I’m definitely for short term mission trips and encourage everyone to go on one at some point in their life. If you are looking for a place to go — I heartily recommend Cape Town, especially after the World Cup finishes in July.

It was my first time preaching and to a crowd of 165 at that. It went over really well (yay!). Also great to have the encouragement of one of my groomsmen (Neal Foster) in the audience. Family kind of has to tell you good job but he I can trust to be honest. And I'm not going to lie, it felt kind of good being able to preach successfully in front of folks with seminary degrees.

It's also weird to think that I'm listed on http://www.sermon.net now. You never quite know how life is going to work out.

If you haven’t had the opportunity to talk with us in person about our trip, you might be missing out on some of the excitement we feel about where we are going and what we are doing. One of the (many) things we are excited about is the organization we will be working as a part of: All Nations. As you may know, their focus tends to rest on church planting through discipleship. There isn’t just one specific avenue though that this takes; as an organization, All Nations is clear that we’ve been given passions for a reason and that we are to use them for the Kingdom. To that end there are people that raise AIDs orphans as their own, people that teach music and art and other classes in schools, people that impart business skills to those that have none; the list of possibilities is limitless, really, and is why we are excited about technology training centers as all things can (and should!) be done in the context of Jesus’ mission.

I did want to highlight for you all one young lady we will likely be working quite a bit with. Her name is Bethany O’Connor and she does a lot of social work “stuff” within the townships of Cape Town. Our teams these past couple of summers have spent quite a bit of time working with her and it’s really life giving to see her heart for the widowed, orphaned, sick and broken. Her primary focus currently is a project called the Baby Safe which is a place where mothers and fathers can drop unwanted infants anonymously, insuring their care, rather than dumping them in trash bins or just on the streets.

Her most recent blog post is a good introduction to what she does, I think, and would be good for any of our readers to read to get a broader picture of what God is doing in Cape Town and South Africa.

Africa needs discipleship, and not just church planters, and definitely not just mission workers unwilling to truly invest in people. Churches are abundant, even in the poor areas, but so often they are syncretic messes (and often they are sponsored by denominations and congregations from outside of the continent so there is limited local oversite). Syncretism is the blending of traditions in such a way that pieces of each are retained and active. This can be very problematic for followers of Jesus as part of what He calls us to is a repentance (an active turning away from) from the track of the world (particularly idols and other ‘gods’ existing in our lives).

We saw this play out in our time in Cape Town this past may in that many of the folks that we met that said they knew Jesus went to churches where ancestor worship played a large part of the religion. It was Jesus and…this. It’s in the this where things get problematic because people make for themselves, often unwittingly because discipleship is non-existent, idols that open them to dark spiritual forces.

Many of you may not be aware of ancestor worship and its problems. Ancestor worship says that when we die, we still have a spiritual presence in the material word and can act upon it through our living descendants. People believe that their ancestors come to them as spirits and that they have to do anything that their ancestors say. It’s always the destructive path that the ancestors lead people on: drinking, drugs, promiscuous sex and the like are common things that people say their ancestors affect. People commonly seek both protection and aid in dealing with these spirits through witchdoctors, who are actually allowed to play a fairly prominent role in syncretic churches.

Syncretic churches aren’t the only reason Africa needs discipleship though. I mentioned previously that many African churches have some connection to outside churches and denominations but oversite is limited and we’ve tended to export our bad along with our good. One “bad” that we’ve exported is our western consumerist attitude that says not only that church is just another decision we make but the church we choose is dependent on what’s best out there (it’s fairly common within the western church to be based on ideas of “attraction” or what we can best do to attract people into our church).

One particularly bad case of this gone awry is seen in Nigeria (and many other places in Africa) where churches are quick to label children as witches in order to attract people in with their supposed power. According to the linked article, over the past decade in two of the Nigerian states 15,000 children were accused of witchcraft (1000 of them were brutally murdered and countless other brutally tortured). If it wasn’t bad enough that these supposed pastors use such false accusations to garner attention, they also often charge an arm and a leg to perform supposed exorcisms (often $60/session to people who make no more than $2/day). And what’s worse it’s often the orphan that’s targeted.

As I started by saying, Africa needs discipleship. This is why we are moving our family half way across the world. More than planting churches we seek to truly disciple leaders, training them to do the same, not in the ways of western churchianity or old African traditions but in Jesus who transcends all of these. He has a plan for this continent and these people; when they truly grab ahold of Him and Him alone, old ways will pass away, lives will be transformed and a whole continent will be closer to the kingdom of God.