Into Culture: Into Pakistan VII

I get into the car and my host runs through the packed schedule of our time together.

“We will begin with the Women’s Training Centre set up by Bishop Azad and then we’ll go to Raiwind to visit a Girls’ High School which is supported by the Diocese, followed by the Technical College, teaching young people skills to get work and we’ll finish at the Church in Raiwind’s School.”

All of these initiatives are either established or supported by Bishop Azad Marshall and the Diocese of Raiwind giving a holistic, multi-generational support programme for the poorest and marginal people in Raiwind and Lahore. It takes women who are neglected, abused and poor and gives them a safe place to teach them basic skills; textiles and needlework as well as literacy and numeracy. Then there is a school for the children to go to which is cheaper than other schools enabling the poorest to still get an education. Once they have completed that there is the technical school giving those children opportunity to start work and their own business. All of this is supported by literacy and numeracy and, boldly, discipleship.

I am sat with Mrs Lesley Marshall (she happen to be Bishop Azad’s wife) who runs the Women’s Centre.

“These women come to us in such need needing skills, yes, but also a shoulder to cry on. They need to be shown dignity and love. No one leaves here unless they know they are loved.”

The same message is heard at the schools and training colleges that I visit. All of these are resourcing and equipping, they are teaching the faith to those who would not have opportunity to learn, they are proclaiming, to Muslim students who cannot afford to go to school elsewhere, the Gospel message and they are challenging and promoting a better way of structuring society to benefit the poor. All of this, at no point, forgets the pastoral call to love and serve the poor. Without the gentle tending none of the other ministries will sow seed that bears the fruit that is being seen through these programmes.

We are driving past a patch of land with temporary shelters of a large traveller community on.

“This is our land. We are planning on diverting the water and building accommodation blocks to house clergy and offer others cheaper lodgings. We are also in talks with Islamic universities in other places in the world to offer an exchange programme for students.”

“How is this all paid for?” I ask.

“We are a poor Church. Many of our people do not have money to give in tithe and so the Diocese must cover the cost of clergy and buildings, etc. We do not have much income generation like other places. We rely on external donors but for the last five years the government blocked us from receiving any financial aid from outside of Pakistan. This has now changed but it has been very challenging few years. We are trying to be entrepreneurial and find ways of supporting this missionary work.”

This is apostleship in action. It is prophetic, as the Church’s ministry in education and healthcare (as it always has been) is lauded by wider society and inspires reform. It is also pastoral in that it shepherds those most vulnerable away from danger and abuse into dignity and safety. I am so impressed at how much blessing has been seen in these initiatives. They are creative and bold, not just in their ambition and strategic coherence but also in their holistic approach to mission. Mission that does not silo the five-fold ministry outlined in Ephesian 4 but, rather, sees them work in harmony.

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Mission in the UK is so often seen only as one or two of the five marks of mission working at one time. We pick and choose as to which ones to use for any initiative.

“We’ll do some evangelism and we’ll teach the faith and others can do the pastoral work and ensure that we are resourced sustainably.”

This doesn’t work. I am baffled afresh by the lack of joined up thinking and action takes place in the Church of England around mission. For all we talk about it we still have a pick and mix approach to ministry. This is evident by how we talk about ministry. There are so many training streams and titles and opportunities; preachers, worship leaders, pioneer ministers, pastoral workers… We have, for too long, seen the call to ministry as picking from a menu of what we feel we want to do; what we are skilled at; what suits our temperaments and personalities. We take gift audits to decide, like some ecclesial sorting hat, where we fit within the machine that is the Church.

Here in Pakistan, they do not have this luxury. Mission and ministry, the same thing, is the fulfilment of the Ephesian call to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers. We have taken the small and questionable grammatical idiosyncrasy of the Greek to justify our personal selectivity towards these ministries.

Our English translations of Ephesians 4:11 suggests that ‘The gifts he [Christ] gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelist…’ (NRSV) But the Greek does not, necessarily, lend itself to that translation. Other translations read ‘Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers.’ (NLT). But each of these (apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers) are the gifts that Christ gives. He gives these gifts to his people (Eph 4:8) so how can these gifts also be the people?

What if he gives an apostolic gift, a prophetic gift, an evangelistic gift, a pastoral gift and a teaching gift?

“Sure,” you might say, “but which gift is he giving me?”

Why must we limit the generosity of God? Which gift did he give Paul, for example? Apostleship? Yes. Teaching? Yes. Evangelism? Yes. Prophecy? If he wrote in 1 Corinthians 14:1, ‘strive for the spiritual gifts, and especially that you may prophesy’, he must believe that all may prophesy, including him. Yes. Pastoring? Although many want to portray Paul has a heavy-handed brute, in his way he shepherded his people and those he mentored. Yes. So why should we limit which gifts God might give us?

“Ok. But what about the Body image in 1 Corinthians 12?”*

I’m glad you ask, rhetorical interlocuter.

It rests, for me, on Paul’s unanswered questions at the end of the chapter. ‘Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret?’ Our immediate response is “No” but hold on. Can God work miracles through anyone he chooses? Yes. Are we not all called to pray for healing? Yes. Should not all desire to, as Paul later writes in 1 Cor 14:5, speak in tongues? Yes. So why do we reject this all encompassing call to a broad and multi-gifted ministry that I am witnessing here in Pakistan?

I think it is because we are reading this through a comfortable and wealthy cultural lens where we acquire things to own and possess. In resource-poor Pakistan there is no guarantee that that which you receive is kept. Anything you have, at any time, may be taken from you. Through this lens the gifts of God are given to be used to build up the Church not our own security and sense of importance. When martyrdom is a reality and the path you walk is truly narrow then there is no room nor time to argue who should and should not to do what. You put your hand to the plow in front of you and work while you have the gift of time.

The unity of the Church is a necessity in the persecuted Church for when your homes are burnt and your possessions and livelihoods are taken from you; when your relatives are killed you need to have the Body of Christ ready to care for you. There is no question of whether that other Christian has the gift or calling to be pastoral: if its not them then it could be no one.

This selective nature of the Western approach to ordering the Church is indulgent and we must start to heed this lesson now and adjust our mindset if we are going to continue to be obedient to God’s call on our lives, individually and collectively. This will mean more closely identifying with the persecuted Church as it is here that I am witnessing, more frequently, Spirit-inspired ministries changing lives, bringing people into the Kingdom of God and encouraging me to live more radically as a disciple of Jesus.

*You can read more about my interpretation of 1 Corinthians 12 in my book, ‘Ash Water Oil: why the Church needs a new form of monasticism’