Recently we visited some friends who are part of a team hoping to see new churches start in a North African city. We spent a few days getting to know the team, and I don’t mean to be rude when I say that I was struck by how very slow they all are.
They shared openly how much they struggle with daily life, forced to acknowledge that language learning is incredibly slow. A couple of years in, they reflect that, ‘it feels like being a toddler again’, full of thoughts they can’t quite articulate, surrounded by adults who wonder why they are still illiterate, frustrated and often tearful.
The team’s strategy seems pretty slow and inefficient too. A lot of time chatting to their neighbours and sitting down to drink cups of tea with very ‘unimportant’ people they meet in the market. A vision for house-churches that will never attract the attention of anyone impressed by size or professionalism.
As we sat and listened to their stories, I was struck as well by how long it had taken them to get there. How many had dreamed for years, sometimes decades, before reaching the country. Years of waiting for clarity, raising support in their churches, thinking they were about to go and hitting another “no”.
It’s all so slow.
Towards the end of the week, one of our friends shared some of the lessons he is learning about living cross culturally. In the UK, I’ve often used the phrase ‘culture shock’, coined by psychologists to describe the anxiety and stress people moving from one culture to another often experience. But that evening, I was introduced to a new phrase: ‘cultural attrition’. Shock can sound so fast but in reality these challenges drag on. I joked afterward that I was glad we had signed up for the trip before hearing that talk.
It’s a common refrain I’ve kept hearing, over the last two years I’ve been on the Unreached Network Internship. In different books, talks and personal conversations, I keep being reminded that this will be slow, we will feel weak, things will not go according to our plans. And it keeps prodding my mind because, if I’m honest, being humbled, suffering and uncertainty are three things I do not enjoy.
Surely God could have found a quicker, more efficient way?
Over the month since returning to the UK, I’ve been musing more and more on the slowness and smallness of cross-cultural ministry. Two pictures have been helping me think about why God might have designed things this way.
The first is lyrics from a song:
‘It feels like I could now go the extra mile / ‘Cos I’m seeing now
There’s a long road ahead / And it’s making me wonder / If it matters how fast I get there?
I’ve been rushing ahead, / But it’s getting me nowhere, / So am I a tortoise or a hare?’
Maybe God designed us in such a way that going slower can mean going for longer?
And maybe I won’t fully learn that living in the rush of the UK, but perhaps I can start to practise here, slowing down and choosing inefficient, relational ways.
The second is hobbits
In Tolkein’s The Lord of the Rings, the most important task in the world is given to four ‘halflings’. The world needs saving, a journey needs to be completed and the task is seemingly impossible, yet it’s entrusted to characters from a small, slow, unimpressive race.
At the end of the trilogy, there’s a dramatic climax as the hobbits complete the task and are rescued by giant eagles swooping in to save the day. If you follow the same nerdy social media feeds as me, you’ll see a lot of movie-watchers asking why the eagles couldn’t have carried them the whole way there in the first place, and saved three books worth of diversions.
Surely Tolkein could have found a quicker, more efficient way?
But the book hints at some reasons for the way they chose, and I think they might teach us something about mission.
Firstly, it’s explained in the first book that they faced an enemy who had surveillance everywhere and a mindset of power. The only way to avoid his eyes was by choosing the way of weakness. ‘’At least for a while,’ said Elrond. ‘The road must be trod, but it will be very hard. And neither straight nor wisdom will carry us far upon it. This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. Yet such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.’
For our teams overseas, there are eyes watching out for them, both political powers and the spiritual opponents behind them, and the slow, weak way will often last longer and reach deeper than a public display of strength.
Taking the route of weakness and not seeking our own power, somehow subverts our spiritual Enemy too. Paul tells the same story as Elrond, when he writes to the church in Corinth: ‘But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him’ (1 Corinthians 1:27-29)
Another reason we can infer from Tolkein’s books, is that you can’t simply ask a giant magical eagle to give you a taxi ride. These magnificent beasts have motives and plans beyond what the earthly characters could imagine and wouldn’t simply do men’s bidding.
And thirdly, we must also look to the author. If the eagles had swooped in as soon as the challenge was set, it would have been a rubbish story, with no drama or character growth at all.
And these reasons help me to process my questions better. Because I often do wish that ministry was quick and easy, efficient and predictable. But I’m glad that God doesn’t do my bidding, that his ways are higher than ours, and his magnificent birds-eye perspective sees much further than mine.
And I’m glad that he’s writing a good story, and that our character growth matters to him.
I am glad, in some strange way, that I signed up before hearing this. That my delight in Jesus and his church led me to commit to obedience, long before I realised how slow it would be.
And I’m glad that in the end, when the journey feels too difficult, I know something the hobbits didn’t know. I’ve skipped ahead to the final page. The nations will bow to Jesus, the tortoise will claim his medal and at the very last moment, when it all seems impossible, the eagles will come.
T hails from the north of England and has been fascinated by God’s global mission for about as long as he can remember. This passion was fed by six months volunteering with a mission agency in Uganda followed by three years at university asking questions about poverty, development and conflict resolution. He is currently based in West Yorkshire where he is involved in making disciples among university students and serving in a Newfrontiers church. T is exploring and preparing for a move to North Africa and found completing the Unreached Network Internship incredibly helpful as he continues working this out.
