Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Rwanda reflection : sustainable cross-cultural mission

We came to Rwanda with CMS, as employees and under the responsibility of the Anglican church here. Our role was to serve the mission of the church in Africa. That is the basis on which CMS works and it seems on reflection to be a good one, especially for short-term missionaries like us. It never seemed to us to be fair or reasonable to do things which we would not have to see through nor to live with the consequences.
However, we also reflect that our first experience of Anglicanism, although we have appreciated many aspects, has left us feeling that in the longer term we could not give ourselves whole-heartedly to its mission. The shape and nature of the Anglican church in Rwanda is such that it clashes with several things which we hold to very deeply, things which we believe that God has put into our hearts and built into our lives. It has been a privilege and a wonderful opportunity for us to be part of the Eglise Anglicane au Rwanda, but we know that what we believe about leadership, authority and accountability; about community and about diversity could never be expressed as part of it. In that respect our time as cross-cultural missionaries has come to a natural end and we understand that the next Christian community we belong to needs to be one which better expresses these core values.

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