Zimbabwe and the SA Mission

LIFE-STYLE AND MISSION 

The Lausanne Covenant calls for sacrificial living and sacrificial giving with a purpose – namely, in order to contribute more generously to both relief and evangelism. 

The basis of the call is the emergency of the evangelistic task: the spiritual needs of the more than two-thirds of mankind who have yet to be evangelized. Then there are the poor, starving millions of humanity-victims of socio-economic injustice or natural disaster or both – for whom God’s people have inescapable Christian responsibility. That is the task from a global perspective.

From the point of view of Christians’ immediate contact and involvement with their fellow men, their life-style affects (for better or for worse) both the credibility and the communication of their message. Speaking on Christian service and witness at the Pan-African Christian Leadership Assembly, John Mbiti gave the following challenge to the church in Africa:

The Christian faith is not just a private bank account which the depositor uses secretly or privately. It is public property which has to be shared through service and proclaimed through evangelism. It is at the very heart of what our Lord Himself did: he went about preaching the Gospel, healing the sick, raising the dead, feeding the hungry…

African Church Life must reflect and incarnate this work of our Lord, within the context of the peoples of Africa. There are many who are ready to listen to the Gospel - but they must hear it in their own languages and life situations. There are many who are sick; the Gospel must bring them hope, healing and newness of life. There are many who are spiritually and morally dead, politically oppressed, economically exploited, socially ostracized. The Gospel and the Church must bring healing to them all. There are many who are hungry - physically starving, eating only the crumbs that fall from their master’s tables, babies suffering from malnutrition, thousands crying out for the food of love, the food of justice, the food of care….. The Gospel and the Church must feed them first. Unless they have enough to eat and drink, unless they are touched by the grain of love, they will be too concerned about their stomachs to hear the Gospel; and unless they are given socially and economically given to eat (set free) they will not understand what the Gospel is all about. The center of a hungry man is his stomach, and not his heart. The center of the oppressed man is the chains that bind his legs and hands, and not his head. The center of the destitute is not his soul but his basic rights and his craving for love. African Church life should address itself to the centers of human life.

This is the language of self-sacrificing, caring love which is understood in every culture of man. Every Christian’s life-style regardless of his or her own culture, should reflect this love.

Rev. Gottfried Osei-Mensah

Former Pastor in Nairobi, Kenya and executive secretary of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization