African Americans finding mission fields at home and overseas

By Eugene Scott
journalist

One weekend earlier this year, I found myself in the Kinoya neighborhood just outside of Suva, Fiji's capital city, preparing for the largest missions event I'd ever been a part of. I originally traveled to the South Pacific as a missionary to serve at Homes of Hope, a parachurch organization committed to rescuing women and children victims of sex trafficking. But I now found myself partnering with some locals as they prepared for a church wide rally that would raise funds to support about 300 Fijian missionaries all around the world - including in the United States.

While this was my first international missions trip, missionary work was not new to me. It just did not look like this. I grew up in two different predominantly black churches in Washington, D.C. And while the denominations that my home churches affiliated with were certainly involved in international missions work, overall, our missions philosophy was very local. This approach to missions work is not unique to Christian communities of color or urban churches and it has been my experience that these communities are less likely to be consistently involved in international missions than predominantly white and/or suburban churches - and when they are, that involvement rarely includes actually sending missionaries abroad from their local congregations.

"I don't know if people of color are interested in missions traditionally the way they are done - the idea of going and taking my cultural understanding to another place," said Leroy Barber, president of Mission Year, an Atlanta-based organization that sends missionaries to America's underserved urban communities. "If I come from an Asian background and I really love my culture and understand that I don't want the dominant culture pushed on me, I think there's an understanding that I don't want to do that to someone else."

Beyond the similarities to colonialism that have historically surfaced in international missions, I concluded that a localized missions philosophy simply made the most sense. It just seemed ethically wrong to step over a neighbor in need to get on a plane to go help someone else. I understood that in theory, the ideal is to do both, but honestly, I'm not sure that I ever really saw a church community master that - certainly not to the extent of supporting 300 missionaries around the world in addition to local missionary efforts.

"By necessity, black churches have had to be present in the midst of the urban pain and problems of the communities they serve. And that history has not released the black churches from an obligation to be an advocate for the quality of life and justice that black people have struggled for. So certainly, you'll find among the priorities of ministries are the communities in which they serve," said Forrest Harris, director of the Kelly Miller Smith Institute on the African-American Church at Vanderbilt University Divinity School.

This made sense to me, but I'm not sure that it was so clear to the world's communities that long to be served by the diverse American Christian community they hear so much about.

The day I arrived on the island, a resident of Homes of Hope questioned why more missionaries of color hadn't come to Fiji. After meeting easily more than 100 missionaries, I was the first African-American she'd met. I defensively, but unapologetically, explained that it was my experience that black American Christian communities were more local in their missions philosophy. She didn't seem to understand why I thought that was okay. And it wasn't until going to the rally - which was sponsored by her church - that I understood her confusion about why there had to be an either/or.

Although numbers are difficult to come by, the belief that Americans of color have been long absent in the international missions field is more anecdotal than scientific, Harris said.

"The African continent is actually a place where missions work has had a history among black Baptists and African-American Christians," he said. "Whether people see white people or black people in their country doing missions, the most important thing is that missions work is going on."

The Lott Carey Baptist Foreign Mission Convention has been a global missionary leader in predominantly black Christian circles for well over a century. Earlier this year, David Goatley, the Washington, D.C.-based organization's executive secretary-treasurer, coordinated the African-American Baptist Mission Collaboration. The initiative united five major African-American Baptist organizations to pledge $50 million to Haiti relief.

"To be involved globally, to do it most effectively, you need to do it in collaboration, because local congregations often don't have the scale, the resources to make a major impact alone. And even some of the larger membership churches can benefit from collaborations," Goatley said.

The AABMC hopes to deploy missions teams to Haiti later this year. Goatley understands and supports local missions, but encourages urban and ethnic churches to expand their missions philosophy.

"If we're going to be relevant today as you should be, you have to be global," Goatley said. "In our understanding, a gospel that doesn't go everywhere doesn't go anywhere. It's not enough to be exclusively localized."

It appears that many in urban and ethnic Christian communities support a "both/and" approach to missions work instead of an "either/or" approach, but perhaps the most prominent conclusion is to reject a philosophy that promotes a "one size fits all" method to missions work - or ministry altogether.

"Ministry priorities should be based on the context they serve," he said. "As long as we continue to try to place stress upon churches about where they ought to be and what they ought to be doing, we deny the idea that churches have to determine what they are called to be and to do based on the context and challenges they face."

Eugene Scott is a journalist and missionary living in Phoenix.

By Eugene Scott |  June 10, 2010; 9:36 AM ET Save & Share:                 
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