THERE was a time when missionaries went out from Britain by the thousands to other nations. The baton has now passed to other nations, and yet this country remains an important and influential centre for training in cross-cultural mission.
“I think it’s a result of this tremendous legacy, with all its mistakes, from the 1800s and 1900s,” the academic dean of Redcliffe College, in Gloucester, the Revd Dr Colin Bulley, says. “We have the benefit of a lot of experience, and a lot of reflection on how things were done, and how they should have been done better.”
The Vice-Principal of the International Christian College (ICC), in Glasgow, Dr David Miller, says: “It means that the kind of missionaries we’re sending out now are a bit more thoughtful about what they do. We’re also aware that the European Church is not doing particularly well; so we’re very reluctant to say: ‘We know how to do church.’
“I think we have the humility to say that we’re learning how to be Christians in a post-Christian society, and that gives us quite a bit of insight.”
THE largest training centre for cross-cultural mission in Europe is All Nations, near Ware, in Hertfordshire. Including online students, it teaches about 250 people each year, of which half are British, and up to 15 per cent come from outside Europe.
“I think we have the humility to say that we’re learning how to be Christians in a post-Christian society, and that gives us quite a bit of insight.”
THE largest training centre for cross-cultural mission in Europe is All Nations, near Ware, in Hertfordshire. Including online students, it teaches about 250 people each year, of which half are British, and up to 15 per cent come from outside Europe.
“The whole paradigm of cross-cultural mission has changed,” All Nations’ executive director, Mike Wall, says. “It’s no longer ‘the West to the rest’, but now much more everywhere to everywhere. The key sending countries are now Brazil, Nigeria, and India.
“Ethiopia has a massive Evangelical Church that wants to send missionaries to the Arab world and elsewhere, and we are helping to train their trainers. There’s a huge focus on the Muslim world. And we have foreign students coming to Britain to do mission here, or elsewhere in Europe.”
Many of Redcliffe’s 100-plus students come from Europe, where, in general, there is not the level of expertise and scholarship in cross-cultural mission training that there is in the UK. Its MA courses, however, are attracting growing numbers of non-Europeans, especially from Africa and Asia, although new restrictions on visas are affecting the intake of undergraduates from outside the EU.
As for where its students want to serve, Dr Bulley has noted a marked increase in interest in East Asia — Malaysia, Indonesia, China, and even South Korea.
Dr Bulley is eager to see Redcliffe more involved in training “return missionaries”, those going to Europe from other parts of the world. At the moment, he says, even if they work only among their own people, they tend to be unaware that they need to “contextualise” their message.
SEVERAL colleges are seeing an increase in the number of young people coming forward for cross-cultural mission training, often within a year or two of taking A levels. Many have already gone on short-term mission trips to other cultures, if only for a week, or have spent a gap year overseas, and want to take things further, without necessarily having anything in mind.
At Redcliffe there are increasing numbers of young men and families where the man studies full-time, and the woman studies if, or when, she can. In contrast, both the ICC in Glasgow, and Tilsley College, in Motherwell, report a growing proportion of women students.
The most fundamental development in training, however, is that there is now a much greater emphasis on the need for contextualisation. “When we teach theology, we ask: How do people understand this doctrine in Latin America or Asia? We teach people how to contextualise what they’ve learnt into any culture,” Mr Wall says.
Dr Miller has found that “there is a much greater regard for other cultures, and perhaps a more respectful attitude towards other religions.
“Even those who would take a traditional, exclusivist view of Christ as the only way of salvation would be much less inclined to stereotype people who belong to another faith — ‘You’re a Muslim; so you believe that, and that’s wrong, because. . .’ — and, instead, would encourage their students to get to know people, build relationships with them, look for what God might be doing in their lives already, and connect with that. We still give people confidence to proclaim Christ, but in a way that is definitely not colonial.”
The Principal of Tilsley, Mark Davies, says: “One of the core elements of our training is to help people to understand that all cultures have elements of the image of God in them, and all also have fallen elements in them. Taking Christ into a culture means that he is incarnated in that culture. The best of that culture will honour him, and the worst of it will have to be dealt with, just like the worst of our own culture.”
IF ANYTHING, students now have to be encouraged to be less pluralistic. “We have one or two, now, who would probably be very reluctant to say that Christ is unique in any way, and others who would be unsure about the implications of that claim,” Dr Miller says. “Helping students to think through that is an increasing challenge.”
IF ANYTHING, students now have to be encouraged to be less pluralistic. “We have one or two, now, who would probably be very reluctant to say that Christ is unique in any way, and others who would be unsure about the implications of that claim,” Dr Miller says. “Helping students to think through that is an increasing challenge.”
Tutors at Tilsley have encountered the same issue, Mr Davies says. Students “have to grapple with the idea that there is an absolute truth in Christ that cuts across postmodernity. We adjust our training to take account of the cultures from which our students come, as well as the ones to which they’re going. It’s quite a complex dynamic.”
Mission training is now much more consciously holistic, Dr Bulley says. “At Redcliffe, we have an emphasis on knowledge, skills, and character. All Nations talks of ‘head, heart, and hands’, which is basically the same thing. Knowledge has traditionally been the big focus of ministry training — above all, knowledge of the faith.
“Skills include contextualisation, public communication, spiritual direction, and so on. Character is the most difficult one: we ensure that students meet a member of staff at least four times a year to discuss their goals for personal and spiritual growth, and to review the progress they are making towards them. It’s part of the course that they have to write a reflection on their growth at the end of the year.”
“Nobody ever failed as a missionary because their Bible knowledge wasn’t good enough,” Mr Wall says. “People fail because they have problems with their relationships, and they get into conflict, or they don’t understand the local culture and they make some classic mistakes.”
WHEREAS, once, people would study cross-cultural mission for two years, and then work for 20 or 30 years overseas, now the average term of service is seven years. But the great majority of people now are doing short-term mission for a year or two.
WHEREAS, once, people would study cross-cultural mission for two years, and then work for 20 or 30 years overseas, now the average term of service is seven years. But the great majority of people now are doing short-term mission for a year or two.
“As a result, our training has to be much more flexible. Our most popular course at All Nations now is ‘En Route’, which takes ten weeks, or 13 if you do it online. We also have a one-week intensive course,” Mr Wall says.
He would like to see All Nations develop a radically new model of training, producing materials that churches can use themselves, “over four Saturdays, say, with some evening study in between”, to become missional churches.
In the same way, Redcliffe allows students to “pick’n’mix”, coming to the college for as long — or as short — as they like, and taking whatever they want from the curriculum, which includes subjects such as anthropology, economics, sociology of religion, Asian studies, courses on Islam and Buddhism, globalisation and post-colonialism, or New Testament Greek.
Nevertheless, the majority of its students opt for university-validated degree courses, and up to half of them study for an MA either full-time for a year or, increasingly, “flexible-studying” for up to four years.
Redcliffe’s training is consciously practical: students have weekly placements that involve at least two hours of Christian service locally, which they have to write up and are assessed; and, every year, they have a six-week full-time placement — an opportunity that many use to go overseas.
Tilsley, which typically has 12 to 15 students a year, mostly British, offers an intense, one-year residential course. Recently, however, it has became a partner with similar colleges on other continents, so that a student who is “really clear before God” that he or she is being led to work in a particular culture can be trained by people from that culture.
The ICC promises a good grounding in the disciplines of biblical studies, theology, and church history as well as “the more applied stuff — how to cope with culture shock, how to read and understand a culture, how to share the gospel and help to build up the Church in that context”, to prepare people for “almost a career in mission”. Its students, too, do a placement, either overseas or in Glasgow, working with foreign students or asylum-seekers. Also, it has a distinctive emphasis on ministry among “children at risk”, such as street children.
As for the future, Dr Miller is most concerned that, partly for financial reasons, agencies and churches are increasingly doing their own thing in mission, and sending people out inadequately prepared. “That is a disservice to the people at the receiving end,” he says.