On my recent visit to Mozambique and South Africa, I was reminded again about the importance of the mission legacy from the West. Churches have been planted and grown. In some cases large denominations have been formed. Some things should have been done differently. The ecclesiastical models, the doctrinal imposition and the Western culture as normative for the new believers have caused significant delays in the contextualisation of the Christian faith in many places. The search for cultural roots and relevant expressions for the faith in local contexts creates unnecessary tensions between leaders and generations. The supposed superiority of written books over oral transmission causes a deficient understanding of academia and the overestimation of formal studies in detriment of practical experience and popular wisdom. Leadership development and discipleship are in shortage. Could this be the result of foreign models that are not suitable to African realities?
It is extremely important that mission efforts today seriously consider the local culture and its history and allow local Christians to form their contextualised structures for the church and find their appropriate expressions for the faith. Outsiders can and should collaborate with the dynamic and spontaneous churches in Africa, but the dancing rhythm and the singing tune have to come from the African leaders.
AGORA Newsletter 
Great reading this from you having just realised we were visiting the same country together, same time.
You cannot avoid the fact that in the country you talked about mission was colonial mission! The hidden aim was to prepared Africans to fit and demand colonial institutions. Is as long as the missions that established the church here enjoyed colonial patronage they were agents of the same. So churches were not gravitated towards Africans or their culture as you have rightly observed. This has not changed much in missions today. Many more mission movements streaming into the country are either becoming patrons thus a very unhealthy dependence on every aspect including leadership than developing indigenous community of faith to question both the Christian and local cultures through the prism of scripture. Handing down mission and ministry to the locals is quite different from developing missions with them…should look at the model of TSM international in Mocimboa ….
Great blog Bertil. Don’t know what to comment, except ‘yes, yes, yes’. The ‘how to make corrections’ to the West’s approach to Africa I think is the more difficult issue. This is where vulnerable mission (vulnerablemission.org) into its own.
Couldn’t agree with you more, Bertil. I’m almost finished reading a new book by Jean Johnson that goes right along with what you are saying. It’s called, We are not the Hero: A Missionary’s Guide to Sharing Christ, not a Culture of Dependency.
I’m also starting a global experiment to encourage composition of local songs, dances, and dramas in connection with an annual cycle of festivals called the “Messianic Year.” The point of each festival is to welcome the Messiah to a family, community, or people group, and no foreigner can tell an African how to do that properly! They are the experts, and all my experiment does is encourage them to tap that expertise under the guidance of the Spirit.
The first experimental workshop will be in Liberia the last week of February, bringing together composers, choreographers, and storytellers from several Bassa churches. I can’t wait to see what they come up with. Visitors welcome to watch and/or join in, writing their own material.
More details on the “Messianic Year” are available on my “Mission R&D Lab” page at http://www.gmi.org. More on ethnomusicology at http://www.worldofworship.org.
Dear friends,
Having lived in Angola and partially in Mozambique for 10 years I do agree very much. Missionaries have been used by God to bring the gospel, to heal many diseases, to create schools were there were none, etc. But, at the same time they (or we) have been too slow in empowering nationals, in doing what they consider priorities and in doing what they want us to do, but always seeking to give them the right and the possibility to do their work, and surely, they know it much better. I learned somehow to sing and dance the African rhythms, but in a rather clumsy way, though I enjoyed it…
Tonica