Friendship Trip ...

As a parent, when my children face a problem my greatest temptation is to simply solve the problem - apply energy, resources, elbow grease and make things better. I know, however, that there is a better way. The better way is to enter into the lives of my children, to wonder with them about possible solutions, to share the journey, to struggle together, to rejoice together. Of course, with my children I am still 'the parent'. We are not equals - I bear the burden of power and responsibility.

In the relationships between the church in North America and churches in developing countries there is often an imbalance of power. What do we do about it? Do we treat it the same as the imbalance between parents and children? For far too long the church in the West did not carefully consider equal partnership with the church in developing countries. We have fixed. We have solved. We have exercised power. We have been paternalistic. Thanks be to God for the winds of His Spirit: In recent years there have been warming chinooks of change in how Christians in the West think and act in relation to churches in developing countries.

For a long time, the group travelling to Sierra Leone (in 10 days!) has been considering these dynmics: What does it mean to really be the church in this relationship? How do we avoid some of our Western and personal imbalance-of-power pitfalls? Will we be able to go to Sierra Leone without a fixed agenda and really listen? Will we be able to both give AND receive in this relationship? Will we fall into the trap of treating those in the church in the developing world like immature children or will we thank God for our brothers and sisters in Christ?

We are not the first to wrestle with these issues. We have been reading, watching, thinking, conversing and praying in the midst of a 'great cloud of witnesses.' We have seen God working in a mighty way already. We watched the following video early on in this process. If you have 4 minutes, you might find it enlightening:

http://www.theworkofthepeople.com/index.php?ct=store.details&pid=V00474