The opportunities for mission are legion. The fields are ripe for harvest. My brothers and sisters, we are the Eleventh Hour Workers. Pray, therefore, the Lord of the harvest, to send out laborers into the harvest.
I would hope that we could leave this meeting of Global South Provinces having resolved together to make the next ten years a Decade of Mission in the Global South. Where we resolve such things as:
* Every Province will create a mission sending agency. We know how to receive missionaries very well. But, we can’t receive from one another, if we have no way to send them to one another. This means we must also address the issue of supporting missionaries we send, whether through the traditional means of support coming from the sending church, or through non-traditional means of tent-making and Business as Mission.
* We will collaborate together to strengthen our churches, especially those living in strong multi-religious contexts.
* We will commit ourselves to doubling the size of our Provinces and increasing the number of Provinces in the Global South.
Well, ++Henry Orombi may have been stranded in London and prevented from giving the keynote sppech he intended to give on mission and evangelism in E. Africa, but Bp. Stephen Kazimba did a fantastic job taking his place.
I loved his allegorical interpretation of the Parable of the Workers who all got paid the same in Matt 20:
those who labored from the first hour: the Jews
from the third hour on: the early Christians of the first few centuries
from the 6th hour: the Catholic missionaries of the Middle Ages
from the 9th hour: modern Protestant missionaries from the West
those last, 11th hour workers: the GS evangelists and missionaries!
And [i]”the last shall be first.”[/i]
But as the passionate advocate of post-Christendom style Anglicanism that I am, my favorite part of this stirring speech was the section where +Kazimba outlined the first great obstacle that stands in the way of fulfilling our glorious mission as Anglicans (and I’d add: whether in the global north or south) and that colossal obstaqcle is “the State Church mindset.” I couldn’t agree more.
I heartily endorse +Kazimba’s rather blunt summation (I’ve added the caps):
[i]”we have this problem that we think England represents IDEAL Anglicanism…We must PURGE ourselves of the ‘State Church’ mentality…We must not equate pure Anglicanism with England and the English way of doing things.”[/i] AMEN!
Colonialism dies hard. It’s not only embedded deeply in the obsolete international structures of the AC that are still dominated by the global north, but it’s even more insidiously embedded in the whole ethos and spirit of much of Anglicanism around the world. But the day of English domination of Anglicanism is over. The era when the GS will be dominant is just beginning. But what a promising start it is.
And the 11th hour workers just may outshine the rest.
David Handy+