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Magazine

March 2005 - PAN-AFRICAN BRETHREN CONFERENCE ON MISSIONS by Kelvin Samwata

Kelvin Samwata (SGM Zambia) was the Chairman of this five-day conference,
held at the Good News Convention Centre in Johannesburg, South Africa.
The following article is a summary of his closing remarks.

The Challenge to the Church in Africa is: when are we going to pass on the gospel to others?

The aim of this conference was to bring together representatives from a wide range of Central and Southern African countries, where many aspects of the work are similar, so that we could discuss some of the contemporary problems and the challenges of service and witness today. Hopefully, besides exchanging tales of woe, we have learned from one another and been encouraged together in the task that God has given us to do. As we conclude the conference, there are a number of issues that will need our attention.

The world
The message we have to share has always been unpopular because it is at odds with the values of the world in which we live. Some common reactions are:

• Suspicion. Those associated with Christianity are thought to suffer from an arrogant imperialism. In the past, some have confused the message of the gospel with the political aspirations of certain colonial powers. But they are two separate things. True peace comes not through a change in government but through a living relationship with Jesus Christ. When politics and the Church have come together, the result has been disastrous for the gospel.

• Disinterest. The attempt to convert people to Christ is rejected as an unpardonable interference in their private lives. “My religion is my own affair”, they say. “Mind your own business, and leave me alone to mind mine.”

• Marginalisation of the Christian world-view. We are deeply offended when Christianity is relegated to one chapter in a book on the world’s religions as if it were one option among many, or when people speak of “the Christian God” as if there were others! No, there is only one living and true God, who has revealed Himself fully and finally in His Son, Jesus Christ. As Paul wrote to Timothy, ‘For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus’ (1 Tim. 2:5).

• Hostility. Millions of people are extremely hostile to the message of the gospel. Some dislike it because it is an attack on traditional values and beliefs; they say that it loosens the cement of the national culture. Others see it as bigoted or religiously narrow-minded because it makes exclusive claims for Jesus. In some parts of the world, saying that Jesus Christ is the only way to God is a crime. Recent legislation in the UK makes us wonder what will happen when it is considered that the message of the gospel is likely to incite religious hatred?

It is essential, therefore, for Christians to understand the grounds on which Christian mission rests. Only then shall we be able to persevere in the missionary task with courage and humility, in spite of the world’s misunderstanding and opposition. More precisely, biblical Christians need biblical incentives, for we believe the Bible to be the revelation of God to His people. So I ask: “Has He revealed in Scripture that ‘mission’ is His will for His people?” Only then shall we be satisfied. For then it becomes a matter of obeying God, whatever others may think or say.

Africa
Africa is a continent that has experienced so much pain and suffering. The devil is really inflicting pain on the people of Africa in the hope that he will alienate them from God. But thanks be to God that, despite all these problems, we Africans are saying: “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” The reality is that poverty, disease and war are driving people towards God, as they see that their only hope is in Him. During the war in Congo, the churches were strengthened because they were cast upon God.

But we cannot ignore these circumstances - the agonies and pain in Africa. Inadequate education, poor medical facilities, poverty and disease all abound in Africa. How do you preach the gospel in such a situation? Besides taking the Word of God to the people, we also have to share the love of God with them in a practical way.

We would like our brothers and sisters in the Church in the West to continue helping us, and in fact we need them. We are not asking for charity, but we want you to share with us in the Great Commission, which has been given to you as well as to us, to take the gospel to the people of all lands. Please continue working together with us as we unite our respective strengths and abilities in this land, which is so fertile for the gospel. Where there is a vacuum, others are sure to step in - others who have an altogether different message; one that centres upon propagation by the bomb and the bullet. Give us the opportunity to prove ourselves as worthy partners, as we who serve the Lord in Africa walk side by side with you on this straight and narrow path which is often fraught with many difficulties. Help us, to the extent of the ability that God has given us, to put out some of the fire of suffering as we take the gospel to the people.

The spreading of the gospel
The world needs Jesus Christ, and God wants to communicate through us. God wants to move among His people and to demonstrate His power and majesty.

In Romans 11 there is a situation similar to the one we see today in the Western World, ie, contemporary America and Europe. Christianity was founded by a Jewish Messiah - the Lord Jesus Christ. All the Gospels were written by Jews except the Gospel of Luke. In the early Church, Jews sent out missionaries to take the gospel. Paul was a Jewish missionary to the Gentiles, telling them about a Jewish Messiah.

We in Africa must learn from the mistakes that the Israelites made. The Jews were God’s people, whom God loved and blessed, and God used them to take the gospel to the Gentiles. But they broke His covenant and so God turned His grace away from them towards the Gentiles.

The early Church
In the early Church, Gentiles who accepted Jesus Christ replaced Jews who rejected Him. Gentiles were grafted into the olive tree. Initially, Christianity was a faith within Judaism, and the Jewish believers wrote the New Testament in Greek, the international language of the time. These Jewish believers began to send missionaries to the Gentile world, to teach the Gentiles about the true and living God through His Messiah, Jesus Christ. But then something happened: soon there were more Gentile believers than there were Jews! The original people who had been given the covenant, who had the gospel, who sent the first missionaries to others, now became a minority within their own church!
These Gentiles who replaced them were in danger of certain things.

1.  The first danger was that of arrogance towards the Jews, forgetting that they had received the gospel through the missionary work of the Jews.

2.   The second danger was that of forgetting that they were liable to make the same mistakes as the Jews. In Romans 11 Paul is saying, in effect, ‘Take heed, for if God did not spare the natural branches for denying the Saviour, neither will He spare you’.

The Scriptures were written for our benefit so that, as Christians today, we will not make the same mistake. Those who denied the Saviour were cut off from the original tree. Just as there were 7,000 people who did not bow the knee to Baal, so there is a faithful remnant of the Jews, and the number is growing today just as the Scriptures predict.

The first Christians were Jews and the last Christians will be Jews. However, the Gentiles were in danger of making the same mistake that the Jews had made, by becoming arrogant and transgressing God’s commandments.

3.   The third danger was that the Gentiles would forget their mission to the Jews. The Scriptures say that ‘if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance [of the Jews] be, but life from the dead?’!

Gentile Christians were grafted into the Jewish tree. As God used the Jews to give the gospel to the Gentiles at the beginning of the Church, God’s plan is now to use the Gentiles to bring the gospel back home to the Jews. We have a debt to the Jews for bringing the gospel, and it has to be repaid.

The same kind of situation is happening in Britain and America today.

Question
How did the gospel come to Africa?
Answer
White Protestant missionaries brought it to Africa. The only reason we have the gospel in Africa is because white missionaries brought it to us. Dr David Livingstone came to Africa, William Carey went to India, Hudson Taylor to China, etc. In the past there have been many injustices perpetrated against Africans in the name of colonialism, as the colonial powers of Europe used Christianity to subjugate, control and impoverish the people in Africa. But if we think that apartheid was unjust, we should look at the caste system of India, and tribalism within Africa, which are also examples of social injustice.

Faith in action
But there is another dimension to that statement. There was also the self-giving of missionaries who could have led good lives in Britain, America or elsewhere but chose to serve God in faraway lands. These were professional people - doctors, engineers, nurses, and ordinary men and women - who left careers and their countries, and came to live in subhuman poverty in Africa to bring the gospel of salvation. At one time the colonialists bragged: “The sun never sets on the British Empire”. While the British used the expanding British Empire to amass wealth for themselves, God used the spread of the British Empire to spread the gospel!

What is God telling African believers?
God is telling us: Don’t make the same mistakes that the Jews and the white Christians have made. Remember, if God did not spare the natural branch, he won’t spare African believers either. And if we Africans make the same mistake as the Whites, our church is going to end up just as dead as theirs! That’s what was happening in Romans 11, and that’s what is happening today.

Churches are closing in the West, but there are more churches being opened in Africa. The Western World today is in a post-Christian world.

a) Where is evangelical Christianity declining? It is in the Western World, where they have had the Bible for over 500 years.

b) Where is evangelical Christianity exploding and spreading like wildfire? It is in the Third World and Eastern Europe, where material poverty abounds!

God is turning His grace from the rich countries to the poor ones. The Church is growing rapidly also in Muslim Indonesia, and South-East Asia.

Today, the future of the Church is in our hands as Africans. It is no longer with the white believers. God is doing mighty things in Africa. In the West there is a lot of hype - man-made enthusiasm, the prosperity gospel. Do you know the reason why? It’s a consumer society!

What did the Jews do when they had the gospel? They gave it to the Gentiles. And what did the white man do with the gospel? They gave it to the African.

Africa
And now that we Africans have the gospel, who are we going to give it to? The time has come for we Africans to take the gospel to the West and to the Muslim World! As the white man is slowly becoming the pagan, it is the African who is becoming the missionary and the evangelist. As Christianity declines in the West, the missionary team has changed places.

The same principles apply. God told the Gentiles that they ought not to be arrogant towards the Jews, as they had what they had because the Jews had given it to them. So God is saying a similar thing to Africans - that we ought not to be arrogant towards white Gentiles; we have what we have because God used them to give it to us. Their missionaries came sacrificially to Africa to bring us the gospel that has now saved us. We, the believers in Africa, shouldn’t make the same mistake as the believers in the West have made. If God has not spared them, He won’t spare us either.

God sees Africans as missionaries for this generation, because white believers who gave us the gospel have lost their way. It’s payback time! We would still be steeped in animism if the white missionaries had not brought us the gospel. They gave us the gospel. Who are we going to give it to? This is our challenge in Africa today.

What has destroyed Christianity in the West? How could a country like Great Britain, whose government, commerce and industry were modelled by Christian influence, and how could a nation like the USA, which was influenced by the Bible as a society, become so pagan today? The reason is pride and self-sufficiency. We must learn from their mistakes.

Conclusion
In Revelation 7:9, John sees in a vision ‘a great multitude which no man could number’. It is an international throng, drawn ‘from every nation, from all tribes and all peoples and tongues’. And they are ‘standing before the throne’, the symbol of God’s kingly reign. That is, His kingdom has finally come, and they are enjoying all the blessings of His gracious rule. Their wilderness days of hunger, thirst, and scorching heat are over, for they are in the very presence of God!

I find it extremely moving to glimpse this final fulfilment in a future eternity of that ancient promise of God to Abraham. For here are the spiritual descendants of Abraham, as countless as the sand on the seashore and as the stars in the night sky. And here, above all, is Jesus Christ, the seed of Abraham, who shed His blood for our redemption and bestows His blessings on all those who call on Him to be saved.

We have been able to worship God in our brokenness in these few days that we have been here, worship in the wonder and joy of knowing the forgiveness of our sins. Worship is indeed all that we can delight in, for all that God is to us. We have been listening to God and to each other.

We are thankful to all our missionaries from overseas for their continued work and support in the Lord’s work in Africa. Their work has not been in vain. We believers in Africa are the product of your hard work and faithfulness to God.

The challenge is for all of us to continue to walk on this straight and narrow road, which the Lord has marked out for each one of us. We in Africa should now take up the baton and share the gospel with other people within and outside of Africa.

Let’s forget ourselves and focus our attention on Jesus Christ; for without Him we can do nothing. God wants to save His people, so let us be obedient to Him, so that His will for the continent of Africa can be done. God is waiting to use us as a means to get through to His people across the world!