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February 20, 2005
Emerging church and multicultural society 3
From pre-modern Africa to the post-modern West.
The first two parts are here and here.
As the first Muslim Fulani decided to follow Christ, we were faced increasingly with the question of how to do church. Should we introduce them to the Mossi church, which would have severe cultural problems and consequences? Or should we start a separate Fulani church, adapted to their culture, but effectively dividing the church of Christ along ethnic lines? Thanks for those who made suggestions. This is what we did:
Part of the problem, I decided was that we still talk, think, and act about church as though it were a Sunday morning meeting, rather than the community of believers. While the weekly gathering can have an important part in the life of the church, it is only a part of that community life. For example, how many of the “one-anothers” can we do in the Sunday meeting? Love? Serve? Offer hospitality? Forgive? Honour? Be devoted to? Accept? Be compassionate? Submit? Encourage? There is not a lot of one-anothering going on in most Sunday meetings. All these require social interaction. The church is primarily meant to be a community – a community in Christ that expresses itself in worship, fellowship, and mission.
So we started two things:
1. A mid-week meeting adapted to the Fulani language and culture. This took place in a home, sitting on mats under a simple shelter. The focus was on the word of God and prayer. There were no musical instruments, and the atmosphere was relaxed and interactive. We often had Muslims come and join us, because it was culturally non-threatening to them. Some of them also eventually chose to follow “laawol Iisaa” – the way of Jesus.
2. Building social interaction with the Mossi Christians. I would take a Fulani Christian to visit the pastor or other Mossi Christians in their homes, where we would eat, drink, laugh, talk about God’s word, and pray together. Sometimes I would throw a party and invite all the Christians – Fulani and Mossi.
In this way, the Fulani believers were able to grow in Christ, and learn to express their worship and faith as Fulani, without having to lose their cultural identity or adopt Mossi cultural ways. They were also learning how to express unity and fellowship in the body of Christ, and practise the one-anothers, without any obligation to join the Sunday meeting (although most ended up going along at least occasionally). And they kept open contact with their Fulani friends and family, and were discovering how to bring Christ into the Fulani context. Worship, fellowship, mission.
Are there any lessons for how we in post-modern, multicultural Western society should be doing church? I think we too need to focus on rediscovering church as community rather than meetings – to invest more time, effort, and money on developing community life than we do on our Sunday morning meetings and our buildings. And it will take effort to develop community life where there is meaningful friendship and interaction between the increasingly disparate sub-cultures of our society. But that is what the church is supposed to be, as a reflection of the kingdom of God, in demonstrating loving unity in our cultural diversity.
There is still room for different, culturally-shaped meetings. But meetings is not what it’s all about. It’s about people meeting Jesus and finding the new life and new community of the kingdom of God. And that means that we cannot just divide off into a multiplicity of monocultural, context-specific groups, and call it church. Church is bigger than that.
What do you think? How might the lessons from Burkina be applied in practise, say, in the UK or US?
Tags: burkina faso africa emerging church burkina church fulani mission church and culture
Posted by Keith at February 20, 2005 08:49 PM
