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Church Partnerships

2. Partnering for Discipleship in the West

The wealth, consumerism, and individualism of the west has left us spiritually and socially impoverished. By comparison, African churches in their material poverty are spiritually vibrant, and rich in community life. They have much to give us. Through these partnerships with Burkina Faso churches, I want to help western churches explore what God wants to teach us about living as his church in the world.

The poverty of the west.

Our material wealth has not produced a healthy spirituality. We struggle to maintain a vibrant life of faith and mission in the busyness and fragmentation of consumerist 21st century society.

Our nations are wealthy, yet rife with depression, loneliness, immorality, inequality, divorce, and family and community breakdown. Churches are emptying, seen as irrelevant. Spiritually and socially, we are the under-developed nations of the world.

The church, which should offer God's answer, is rendered impotent by our compromise with the stuff of the world. We are caught up in the same consumerist pre-occupation with our own comfort, security, pleasure, prosperity, prestige, and possessions. Our love for the world has killed our passion for sacrifice for Christ, and robbed us of our anointing as God's community. We have exchanged our God-given inheritance for a bowl of consumerist porridge.

There is something about our wealth that makes it difficult for us to experience the life of God. As Jesus said:

"It is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven."
We need input from the church in other parts of the world to speak into and minister to us in our poverty.

The wealth of Burkina Faso.

Burkina Faso is the reverse: it has relatively few Christians and is materially poor, but has a spiritual dynamic and a social/community richness that we have lost.

The church in Burkina is growing. Christians are passionate in prayer, zealous in evangelism, hospitable, and generous. They know the reality of faith in hard times, perseverence in suffering, and joy in worship. Pastors there are examples of the heroes of faith, carrying the cross of ridicule, simplicity, servanthood, and suffering for the sake of Christ and others. And they do it with the joy and anointing of the Holy Spirit.

"They are so poor, but..."
Anyone who has spent time in Africa, and has an open heart, has probably said this, usually followed by "they are so generous with what they have", "they are so happy", or "they are rich spiritually".

It is as the Bible says:

"God has chosen the poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and inherit the kingdom" (Ja 2:5)

Partnering for discipleship.

People often come back from Africa saying they received much more than they gave, having been blessed by the generosity, joy, hospitality, and faith of the Christians there. This realisation is usually accompanied on the return to "home" in Europe or the States, with a sense of dislocation, and of the superficiality and poverty of our lives here. Yet after a short while, the impact passes as we re-adjust to the busy-ness of life, and it becomes but a poignant memory.

I want, through these partnerships to explore what God might be saying to us through the church in Africa - maybe that life does not consist in the abundance of our possessions, or in the success and security that we are striving after? Maybe that by our single-minded pursuit of economic prosperity, we are destroying community, shutting out God, and reaping social breakdown, with its violence, immorality, isolation, and disfunctionality? Maybe that we cannot serve both God and money?

And, if God is speaking, how can we take take that on board? Is God maybe calling us to adjust our lifestyles? To swap material wealth for spiritual wealth? To exchange security for a life of faith? To pursue the good of others rather than just our own agenda? What can the church in Burkina teach us about this life of faith and discipleship?

These partnerships are two-way. If we have eyes to see, we are the neediest partners. And God will use the partnerships to lead his church here deeper into himself and his purposes, and to reach out to communities around our own churches.