URBAN MISSION AS FRIENDSHIP 1

URBAN MISSION AS FRIENDSHIP 1

Brian Edgar

At the famous 1910 Edinburgh Missionary Conference (a consultation that continues to influence global mission strategy today) Bishop V. Samuel Azariah of South India applauded the heroic and self-denying labors of missionaries, but famously appealed to those delegates who came from sending countries for something he considered to

be even more important than either missionaries or money:

You have given your goods to feed the poor. You have given your bodies to be burned. We also ask for love. Give us friends! 2

Azariah understood friendship as a concrete expression of the love that is the dynamic power of the gospel that changes the world. It is central to both the life and the mission of the church, and so it was not enough for there to be a mission that changed social structures, converted people, healed bodies, and relieved poverty if there was no real friendship between missionaries and those they ministered to. It was counterproductive if they offered the gift of the gospel of reconciliation while they themselves remained separated from the people they ministered to. It was not enough if the missionaries were influential leaders, evangelists, agents of change, and social reformers, but were not actually friends with the people of the church.

There are many factors, good and ill, that can inhibit friendships and keep ministers and missionaries apart from those to whom they minister: cultural differences, the conviction that the church or the individual should be allowed to develop in their own way, a desire not to become too emotionally involved, feelings of superiority, a sense of propriety and position, and the desire to retain control can all play a part. But the gospel cannot flourish in situations where people stand apart from real, genuine

1 Adapted from a forthcoming book on friendship as a model of our relationship with God, the primary form of relationship within the church and the foundation of mission.

2 Ruth Rouse and Stephen Neill, A History of the Ecumenical Movement (London: S.P.C.K., 1954), 359.

NEW URBAN WORLD

friendship and fellowship. Evangelism, social change, or church growth without love and friendship is superficial. One may have an abundance of gifts, strategies, and resources, but without friendship they are noisy gongs and clanging cymbals.

And it has always been this way. The book of Acts is the story of groups of friends, like the Twelve, Paul and Silas, Barnabas and John Mark, and Silas and Timothy, who traveled and labored together sharing the gospel and establishing communities of faith. The friendships they established along the way are sometimes recorded at the end of various epistles along with warm greetings and holy kisses (Rom 16; 1 Cor 16; Phil 4; Col 4). James Miller puts it all down to friendship:

Ever since the day of Pentecost this wonderful friendship of Jesus has been spreading wherever the gospel has gone. It has given to the world its Christian homes… it has built hospitals and asylums, and established charitable institutions of all kinds in every place…. The friendship of Jesus, left in the hearts of his apostles, as his legacy to the world, has wrought marvelously; and its ministry and influence will extend until everything unlovely shall cease

from earth, and the love of God shall pervade all life. 3

The dynamic power of the gospel is love and this is primarily expressed in all of the actions and attitudes that are part and parcel of being friends. Any mission, urban or otherwise, has to include a dimension of friendship. Indeed, it is tempting to rephrase the Great Commission in this way:

Go therefore and make friends of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you” (Matt 28:19-20).

In a general sense this is appropriate as Jesus’ disciples are certainly his friends and it does effectively make the point that the mission the church is engaged in is really nothing other than taking the friendship of Jesus to the world.

Dr. Brian Edgar is professor of theological studies at Asbury Theological Seminary. He is an ordained minister in the United Church in Australia where