Shifting Culture
Shifting Culture
Ep. 130 Michael Frost Returns - Mission is the Shape of Water
In this episode, Michael Frost and I have a great conversation around his book Mission is the Shape of Water. We hear how mission has taken different shapes throughout the centuries, but the principles of mission remain the same. We hear stories about The missionaries of the first few centuries after Christ, Boniface and the Celtic movement, Zinzindorf and the Moravians, Mary Slessor, and Alice Seely Harris. We then move into how all of this history impacts our world today. What we can learn, take from, and move on from as we join God in his mission to draw all peoples to Himself. Join us as we learn from past mission to inform our future mission as we join God in His work.
Michael Frost is an internationally recognised Australian missiologist and one of the leading voices in the missional church movement. His books are required reading in colleges and seminaries around the world and he is much sought after as an international conference speaker.
Since 1999, Dr Frost has been the founding director of the Tinsley Institute, a mission study centre located at Morling College in Sydney, Australia. He has also been an adjunct lecturer at various seminaries in the United States.
He is the author or editor of nineteen books, inclunding, The Shaping of Things to Come (2003), Exiles (2006), The Road to Missional (2011) and Surprise the World! (2016). Mike’s latest book is Mission is the Shape of Water which is what we talk about in this conversation.
He was one of the founders of the Forge Mission Training Network and the founder of the missional Christian community, smallboatbigsea, based in Manly in Sydney’s north. He is also well known for his protests against Australia’s treatment of refugees, some of which have resulted in his arrest, as well as his advocacy for racial reconciliation, foreign aid, and gender equality.
Mike's Book:
Mission is the Shape of Water
Connect with Joshua: jjohnson@allnations.us
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Hello, and welcome to the shifting culture podcast in which we have conversations about the culture we create, and the impact we can make. We longed to see the body of Christ look like Jesus. I'm your host, Joshua Johnson. Go to shifting culture podcast.com to interact and donate. And don't forget to hit the Follow button on your favorite podcast app to be notified when new episodes come out each week, and go leave a rating and review. It's easy, it only takes a second and it helps us find new listeners to the show. Just go to the Show page on the app that you're using right now and hit five stars. Thank you so much. Previous guests on the show have included Alan Hirsch, Pam Arland and Christopher Wright. You could go back listen to those episodes and more. But today's guest is Michael frost. It is so good to have Mike back on the podcast. Michael Frost is an internationally recognized Australian missiologist and one of the leading voices in the missional church movement. Since 99. Dr. Frost has been the founding director of the Tinsley Institute, a mission Study Center, located at Moreland College in Sydney, Australia. He is the author or editor of 19 books, including the shaping of things to come, exiles the road to missional and surprise the world. Mike's latest book is mission is the shape of water, which is what we talk about in this conversation. We also hear how mission has taken different shapes throughout the centuries. But the principles of mission remain the same. We hear incredible stories about the Missionaries of the first few centuries after Christ manifests and this Celtic movement Zinzendorf in the Moravians, Mary Slessor and Alice Sealy Harris, we then move into how all of this history impacts our world today. What can we learn take from and move on from as we join God in his mission to draw all peoples to himself. Join us as we learn from the past mission to inform our future mission as we join God in his work. Here's my conversation with Michael frost. Well, Mike, welcome back to the podcast. I'm so excited to have you back on to shifting culture. It's really exciting to have you. So thank you so much. Thanks for having me. It's great to be back a second time. A your new book missions, the shape of water is fantastic. It's really good. I love it. My wife loves it. Lots of my friends have already read it. I mean, it's really popular right now, in my mission circles. Why do you choose? Did you choose the title mission? Is the shape of water? What are you trying to express and convey? Yeah, actually,
Michael Frost:I'm not generally very good at titling books. Usually, I submit a, you know, a proposal or a manuscript, and the publisher will always be like, great, looks good, we're gonna have to work on that title. So it's just not my thing. I'm not good with snappy, clever titles, but I think I really nailed it with this one. If I do say so myself. It just it just came to me that I mean, as a teacher unit in the history of Christian mission at the at the college where I serve, and it just came to me that as we look at the history of Christian mission, throughout the years, and around the world, in different contexts, mission is shaped very, very differently in different contexts. And so I've been, I didn't come up with the phrase, the shape of water that comes from a film you might be familiar with. And in that film, the kind of the inference is that love is the shape of water. So love takes many different kinds of forms. But it's kind of riffing off that title of the movie, I thought, Well, sounds mission mission takes many different forms. It's shaped in different ways in different contexts. And yet, it's essential properties don't change. I mean, water is h2o, it wherever you find it, it could be in your bottle, it could be in the Caspian Sea, it could be you know, in a large 44 gallon drum, it's shaped by the container in which it's placed. And it seemed to me like, that is a good way of thinking about Nisha, it frees us from this idea that it has to look exactly the same everywhere all the time. It opens us to actually take seriously context, there's nothing wrong with your water being shaped like a bottle or being shaped like a lake. There's nothing inherently concerning about that. It's happens to be the context in which it finds itself. So I just thought the phrase kind of I actually did describe the fact that mission does look different everywhere. But be it's actually a call to take context seriously and to recognize that there's no thing wrong with a particular spirit of the age the particular concerns of a certain time, in a certain cultural moment for us to take those things seriously. And dare to believe that the mission of God's people could and should respond to those things without its inherent properties being compromised. So I said at the beginning of the mission is always about alerting people to the reign of God through both word and deed, that's always the same, like h2o. That doesn't change. But what that looks like how that's expressed, in what ways we demonstrate that are peculiar to the context in which it finds itself, I
Joshua Johnson:think that's really important for us to grasp and know that the context is really important. So we move forward by the principles and the essence of what mission is, and what God is doing is the same. And so you talked about bringing the reign of God into a particular place through the context of the culture and the age that they live in. What are some of those principles that are the same over the ages and the periods that you looked at? Yeah, I would
Michael Frost:say that, not to be pedantic, but I would say that we don't really bring in the reign of God to any particular context, that that really kind of missional people make the assumption that our God reigns everywhere, universally and completely. But that in certain contexts, people's awareness or experience of that rain is impeded or limited, or they can't understand it or see it. So I don't want to I hope you don't think
Joshua Johnson:I'm being too picky there. But now I think that's really important.
Michael Frost:Yes, sometimes people speak as though we're bringing God into a context. But there are some stories in this particular book about how God actually kind of raises up faith in Christ, completely separated from or divorced from any contact with Western missionaries, or, almost spontaneously, particularly, the stories I share come from Africa. So if God is at work, and God is present in Gaza, is sovereign everywhere. But we do go into context. So what we're seeking to do is to help to alert people to that to help people to see that to kind of clean the mirrors or clean the class of the window if you'd like to help people to see God's sovereignty in that particular context. So I guess central principles are the belief in the sovereignty of God, a thoroughgoing understanding of what Scripture and what Christ has told us, comprises the kingdom of God or the reign of God, it's very hard not to use old fashioned words like Kingdom or rains, I will use them. But if you can find better ones, or different ones in different contexts, I would suggest that you do that we're not there just to bring the gospel. This is another important thing that I think we need to come to terms with that so much language, certainly among evangelicals is that we we are taking God to a place and we're telling people the gospel, and often that has been reduced to a description of atonement theories or certain atonement theory. And so the Atonement is part of the good news, but to actually broaden their understanding of the gospel and to recognize actually, we're alerting people to the reign of God. I mean, and one of the ways to come under that rain is, of course, is repentance and faith, and acknowledgement of God's grace and beauty and kindness and holiness. But it's not as simple as you have a God shaped hole in your heart, I can help fill it for you. This is really about God is present in this place of God's reign is unfurling throughout the world. And throughout history, and we've we've come to help you to see this we've come to mean we don't even see it fully or completely. We're even still coming to terms with what this looks like though. We'd like you to join us in this journey of understanding that the joy and the beauty and the wholeness of the community and the peace and the healing and the sense of presence that's possible when you come under the rain. So an awareness of what the full good news is that the word Gospel means good news, but it's the good news of the kingdom. I mean, good news. Gospel just describes that it's, it's good. What is the good news about it's about the fact that our God writes beautifully, completely and wholly. So some of those things are essential and important, and then it then doesn't become trying to, like convert people to our brand of religion. It's about actually opening people's eyes to the grace of God.
Joshua Johnson:I love I love that and I love the holistic gospel of what it looks like. I'm going to read you back to yourself. From the book, it says he says This this is the gospel Christ is king, as proved by his birth, life, miracles, teaching death and resurrection. And a relationship with Him invites us into a world of deliverance, justice, peace, healing, community joy, and the experience of God's presence as we go out into the world and help unveil the the kingdom of God that it's that's already there in front of us that we get to, to help them that, that there's all sorts of different ways that that takes shape. And so let's go through some of those shapes that you found in your book. And we could just start with that the gods slain shape, which is your chapter one, your first shape? What was happening in those early centuries of Christian mission?
Michael Frost:Yeah, well, I mean, it was incredibly complicated, complex, and messy kind of time. But yeah, I say in that early phase, the post apostolic era, Church Fathers, that kind of very early church, that essentially, the church was emerging in the context of polytheism, that not only was there the Greco Roman pantheon of gods, which was considered at that time, a bit old fashioned it by the average person, there were the currently Old Gods, you know, the older ones that most people will be aware of the pantheon of gods above us, beyond the blue, having orgies, and sleeping with each other sisters, and getting cranky and sending lightning bolts and all that kind of jazz, even at that time, most kind of Roman citizens were like, yeah, they're the old left the old fashioned kind of religion, but bursting up all around them at the same time that Christianity emerges, was this whole suite of mystery religions, or Gnostic religions. And this was the new knowledge that we needed to have to access the gods and the spirits, and the powers. And so Christianity emerges in the middle of this. And so, you know, less wise leaders might have thought, Oh, well, could you clear a little space on the buffet with all the other kind of new religions, plus all the old religions and like, we'll put Christianity on the, on the table to like, have a taste of that, you know, is worth looking at. But actually, that's what they do. Their view is, I'm sorry, like, there's only one God, there are no others, like this, all this old fashioned religion, we all know that kind of rubbish anyway, and all these new religions aren't going to help you. So essentially, they are have sweeping the whole buffet clean, I mean, all the plates and dishes are smashing on the ground, and they're putting the only meal on the table. And it is true that you will find that certainly in some of the the apologists, the church fathers that are pretty brutal about it, they kind of balk and humiliate these other gods, you know, they kind of laugh at that idols, and they bang, all these wooden things that I could do this in my fireplace. And it's respectful mission, as we will understand it. It's not like, well, we want to acknowledge your, your previous faith, and we want to be affirming and gentle with that. And I can see connections between our faith and yours. It's just like, it all goes, in order for us to kind of present Christ. So their first step in their approach to mission was to present monotheism, that was the primary thing, right? Let's make one thing clear. There's only one God like. And at that time, of course, there was an emerging sense, even beyond the Christian church, of this idea of the Lagace of this idea of this, this one voice or one word, or one power that unified the whole universe that was starting to emerge. And people were thinking, Yeah, you know, the world is so integrated, what makes the sun come up at this part of the the east at this time of the year, every year? And how about all the trees No, to lose their their leaves and bow for them to burst back to life? Like, you know, we cut down trees, we looked inside, they don't have brains? And how do they know like, who speaks to the they should all operate at the same time all by sheep give birth to lambs, or pretty much at the same time? Like, how does that order happen? It can't be that there's different gods looking after these different departments as it were, that that's just it. It doesn't reflect the integration of the wholeness of the world that I observe around me. Something must speak all of this into the rhythm that I observe. And they didn't know what to call that. They call it Lagace or the word is this kind of internal logic that kind of kept the sun coming up and constellations moving through the skies. And, of course, as you know, Josh, that Christians just sees Thomas well, actually Jesus seized on this first like, North African Jews were like, II got it. That's exactly what we think except not. It's a inanimate kind of voice. That's, that's your way. And then shortly after they were, you know, the Christians came along and say You bet, yeah, the word is Yahweh, and Yahweh took on flesh and walked about us, let's let us tell you about it. And so there was this sense in which they did play out some kind of common themes or ideas at play in, in the ancient world, but they're also not the least be patient about, about the pagan gods or about polytheism, or any of that kind of stuff. So it's like, stop with that, get rid of that. There's only one God. And now let me tell you about how he's revealed Himself to us. And I mean, if anyone ever said, Wait a second, I'd pray to Zeus and he, my wife gave birth to like triplets. And now I've got three sons. And, you know, this is what are you saying? It doesn't work? The standard response from the early Christians was, oh, yeah, like, that was a that was a deceiving spirit that was tricking you by giving you what you wanted. So like there was there was just no truck, they didn't allow any, any kind of movement. There are no other gods, but Yahweh or the God of the father of Christ. I also do say in the book, I'm not suggesting that we read about that era of history and then say, Ah, okay, let's do that. Let's go out like let's let's go to, you know, some some tribe in Brazil somewhere and just Bach their gods and laugh at them and stamp all their idols. And that is what happened to the first few centuries. But you've got to bear in mind, the Christian movement was this nation's poor, vulnerable community, speaking out against a dominant structure in the ancient world. Now, if we do it today, it's the reverse. It's Christianity is the dominant structure, which would be stamping on like a small village in Brazil's beliefs. And so one of the things I say in the book is, you can't directly say, Whoa, that's inspirational, let's go do that. That was the shape of mission at that time, in that context, within the context of an evil, all pervasive Empire, which was crushing the poor and the weak. And Christianity emerges as this counter voice, mocking these these dominant gods. So I say that's the shape of mission in the first few centuries. Let's acknowledge it and learn about it and draw some inspiration from it. But I don't think that means that the shape today is for Christianity, which has dominated the west, to go out into any other context and do something similar.
Joshua Johnson:Yeah, that's good, Mike, that's really important point. As a Christian in the West, we don't really have a great example of where we are in this biblical story. Because we have, we have power and privilege. And we're not this, this persecuted minority group that is trying to seek some power, we have the power. And so it does shift and change the way that we engage and encounter mission, and what that looks like. So my question is, now that we know that, and now that we have have gone through some of these, and we'll go through some of these, but like, conceptualizing the gospel, and conceptualizing the message, what does it look like in the scan of every culture? Now, I think in the imminent frame that we live in now in post Christendom, there is an utter buffet of spiritualities out there, that people can, but they're not all about. A God that could break into us ourselves to transform us is sometimes it is the spirituality of my inner being. Is there any principles that we could take from this era? After knowing everything that we know now, that would help in a post Christendom world?
Michael Frost:Yeah, that's a very good question. I think it as I guess, should not the belligerent tactics. But I definitely think that there's something very inspirational about the almost triumphant sense of confidence of the earliest church and in the fact that that this kingdom was unstoppable. It's the attitude seems to have been from the writings that I was reading from this era is it's just like, get on board because like this is going to take over the whole world. I mean, It was just utter confidence that that not only was this kind of just the most beautiful and sublime way to be human to the this is this is the key to code living in a beautiful redeemed society. This is the key to actually understanding the the secrets of, of the universe and to encounter the one true only God. But it was like how this is unstoppable folks. I think it's, it's, I was gonna say it's totally and accountable now. Which router it was where they're saying, like, I know people who in in the court of Caesar, I know people who are becoming Christians there. I know people in the military are becoming Christians. I know. It's almost like everyone's becoming a Christian like, come on, join us. Now, then we can't say that today because it's not true. But I think something there is something beautiful about a kind of a, a serene sense of confidence in the beauty of the gospel, but also in the plan of God for the world. And I feel as though today, we often see a lot of anxiety among leaders, lots of fear about what's happening in the world, lots of time trying to hunker down and kind of bolster the remnant to hold on, it's terrible, but he will make it somehow rather than this kind of real beautiful sense of look, you know, we might be the minority here in the middle of the Roman Empire. But man, our day is coming. We're just so confident that our God is good. And this gospel is just so beautiful. If you knew it, you would want to join in on this. So I think that that's certainly something we can take from that era.
Joshua Johnson:I want to talk a little bit about the Catholic mission movement. And St. Patrick can what a peacemaking mean, even for us today, we like to to enter into justice issues and try to figure out how do we create peace and justice among neglected marginalized people? What are the Celtic missions movement looked like? And what was peacemaking for them?
Michael Frost:Yeah, well, back to that kind of robust confidence. I mean, these guys, I mean, Europe had become Christianized, and then had fallen back into paganism. And then from these islands, like way up north, like in the ICD answerable regions of the kind of far north of Europe, I mean, what good could come from some way like, Ireland or Scotland. I mean, that's how the Europeans would, that's how the Romans would have seen it, it's just like, well, if it's just like, a bunch of islands, like off the coast, but again, it's from this place. And actually, this is a point that I make in the book is that you're the first crystallization of the epi comes from Jerusalem and Antioch, like walks like, like from the far east of the of the empire, like, what comes out of there. And then, and then the recrystallization of Europe comes from these islands, you know, to the west or the north. And so again, it's this kind of unlikely people often raised up by God, to bring huge influence in society, the temperament of the Humberto Caledonian missionaries, today, we call these nations, Ireland and Scotland made them incredibly robust and very confident, joyous, big talking, big, laughing, stab, song based culture, lots of be drinking and carousing, and just like big, robust, confident, dynamic, fun loving, kind of culture, and when it becomes Christianized, it holds on to a lot of those values, its surplus, so drunkenness, and debauchery, but there's still this kind of incredibly robust sense of, of joy and confidence in their faith. And so peacemaking for the kilts was very much about moving back into Europe, which had fallen into chaos and was now like, overwhelmed by intertribal warfare. Well, so even before I get to that, the crystallization of those parts of of the UK as we call it today, was actually about uniting tribes within kind of Ireland and Scotland, standing against the oppressive power of the Druids, so the prudish kind of leadership of that time, bringing hope and freedom into those contexts, and then training up missionaries in that place and then moving down, as I said before, into Europe where intertribal warfare superstition darkness of it, it was oppressive, oppressive, horrible talk. And these guys just strive to show in France and and Holland Germany and just bring this incredible robustness. It's just like, God is great. Jesus is good. Hello, will you stop fighting let's come together and and, and unite together around these common values of the gospel. So one of my favorite kilts, I don't know if people like St. Patrick, and although there are so many myths and legends about him trying to find out the truth of St. Patrick is a lot more difficult than most people realize. But I liked St. Oliver's who actually was an Augustinian rather than a classic kilt, but he was from the north of England. He turns up and in freesia, kind of northern Germany, and they tell him, oh, we can't follow Jesus, because like we worship at this tree, there's this massive oak tree, which they claim this is where Thor came to earth, he landed right there. And where his feet touched the ground, this tree sprung up. So we worship Him, and we worship at that tree, and anyone who touches that tree will show him die. And he's like, he pulls out an axe and says, let's, let's just test that. And this is sort of classically Celtic mission. It's just like, you're living under this fear this, this terror, that if you were to offend the gods, or this God in particular, that somehow great sickness will come upon you or Greg goblins, or girls would overcome you, or the darkness of the forest would crush you, or sickness or disease would sweep through you. No, no, no, that's not how it works. And so he walks up to the tree, everyone follows him like, oh my gosh, this crazy foreigner is going to, you know, be struck down by by Thor's hammer or something. And he just starts laying this axe into the tree. And he doesn't die. People are astonished. According to the story. Huge wind blows up and like knocks the tree out of us and God kind of helps. helps both of us in the end and everyone's like, Oh, yeah, yeah, you know, you must be telling us the truth. And then he says, cut up this word will turn it into a church built a church building out of the woods from the, from the donor oak as it was called the kind of Thor's, Thor's tree. That to me that story is like classic, where it's sort of it's confrontational. But there's something about bolivars, which is just like so garrulous and, and muscular sorry to sound Ultra masculine about this, but it was this kind of sense like come on, guys. Let's give it a shot. You reckon this tree is gonna kill you? Well, let's just test it out. And I thought something yeah, as I said garrulous, and and joyous about that, and as a result of that, they there's incredible strength of like, striding into chieftains, you know, Ted's or homes or huts, and saying, right, let's work this out, you're at war with that tribe. This can't happen. But it to bring freedom and joy to this community. So let's bring these two chiefs together. And you know, somehow, these tribal chieftains have sort of somewhat overwhelmed by the charisma of these Celtic missionaries. They're like, wow, okay, and it brings them to the table. And they make peace, they bring, like, literally break treaties throughout Northern Europe, which then opens the possibility for the gospel to seep in. And ultimately, they re Christianize you know, Western or Northern Europe. I mean, it's a remarkable story. They were remarkable. I sent a remarkable guys, because mainly, they were men who were doing this at that time.
Joshua Johnson:What a great story. There's so many incredible stories. I wish I had about five hours to talk about all these things, but we don't have that much time. So I'm just gonna just pick a few more to talk about before we get into what mission like looks like today. And moving forward. I really want to talk about the Moravians and the Moravian movement. The church that I go to, I'm an elder at is affiliated with 24/7 Prayer International, started by Pete Gregg. So Pete Greg has been really influential, or the mustard seed and all of that, which we get a lot of inspiration from the Moravian movement on the prayer movement there. What did you see with were Avians and count Zinzendorf. And one of the first Protestant missions movements? Yeah,
Michael Frost:well, I mean, firstly, I don't know if it's as Baptists or as Protestants generally, but they always say William Carey was the the father of the modern missions movement. And William Carey was getting started in the in the 1790s. And no disrespect to William Carey because he was definitely an innovator within the British Baptist Church. But But yeah, among missions, as we will understand it happened much earlier than that and through the work of We have Nicolas von Zinzendorf and the Moravians. And so yeah, I don't know how many people would would know or don't know this story but Kansans and dwarf was his name makes him sound like he's a vampire, but actually is a part of the heat of European aristocracy. And, but he was part of the PYtest movement. And sometimes we think of the word pirate ism as not a very good word these days, but the pirates were the really kind of devout Lutheran Christians. So Lutheranism had kind of fallen into kind of cold intellectualism, to become a very, very cold or dead kind of faith, people will lose, ultimately, more than anything else. And yet, within within that area of Europe, though, there are Lutherans who actually became what we might say today is filled with the Spirit and energized by their faith, and devoutly in love with Christ and committed to prayer and Bible study and care for the poor. And since the dwarf was born into a family of artists, and he becomes deeply touched by Christ, so much so that he wants to give up his his work as a part of the landed aristocracy and become a mission become a minister. And his family who obviously were very sympathetic to this because they shared his same devotion to Christ. We're also like, whoa, you be you can't like step out of the family line. Like that's, that's your destiny. And you will take all the the leadership of this family and so this the way God works in this guy's life, because he's told me what tween wanting to fulfill his obligations to his family of the estate, and to wanting to preach the gospel is early life. It's a real rich instance, a lot of be going to the coronations of Keynes and sitting around with other counseling oils, he wants to go out and preach the Bible. And then God answers this prayer is the mean, who could I mean, you could write this like, this bunch of Moravian refugees from your Moravia would be like what we would today call the Czech Republic or Slovakia, escaping persecution themselves travel onto his estate. And it was standard practice in those days for the landed aristocracy who had huge tracts of land that if refugees landed on your estate, and asked permission to kind of squat there, it's like, well, of course, that's what we Christian royalty do. So they build a village in this in the old his own estate, he's huge, vast tracts of land. And then he starts hanging out with them, and they are full of the Spirit. They love Jesus, they'd be prosecuted back in Moravia, and they've come here for freedom of religion, but they are a hot mess, Joshua, like they are just as inter arguments between the leadership is like at war with other people. I mean, they're just like, they love Jesus, but one of this and he realizes they don't really know their Bibles terribly well. And so this is how this conundrum between I want to be, you know, member of the aristocracy and I want to teach the Bible as to how it's resolved. He becomes essentially the pastor to this village on his own property. So he maintains his his position as the count of Zinzendorf. But he also essentially becomes the pastor essentially, effectively, he ends up as the full time pastor of the Moravian community. He's teaching the Bible and piety is applied to Stickler principles, they are infecting him with this extraordinary garrulous, love of Christ. And then there is a color Moravian Pentecost that happens in this village one time, where after, you know, he's teaching and after worship, there's this just combustible experience of the presence of God, where people are overwhelmed. Some people like like, fall down, but there's incredible sense of God's presence and deep, deep connection to Christ and each other, and it transforms the Moravian community, it sets off what becomes like 100 year prayer meeting, I mean, they devote themselves to prayer, this this refreshment, this renewal, all the old enmity, or the code squabbles that were happening are all washed away. Zinzendorf himself was overwhelmed by this and as a result of it, part ism was often a bad kind of personal devotion, but this becomes communal devotion. And the communal devotion then results in this sense, I will This should, we should take this elsewhere. We should we should go out into the world and share this. And this was not like the way a lot of people were thinking at that time, it becomes a spiritual A missionary movement and in the end Moravians end up traveling all around the world Zinzendorf himself travels overseas to preach the gospel. In fact, the way that coalition movement from Moravian start is that centered off his app, the coronation of the of the king, and he meets a freed Caribbean slave is converted to Christianity, and has come to this event and says to Zinzendorf actually a community of spirit filled people could you send some of them our way. And so away they go, like to the West Indies and places like that. And then beyond, even to my country with strange Moravians have come here and establish missions. And I've been in the book, I point out a whole bunch of kind of principles of Moravian mission, which were, you know, beautiful spirit led mission, devotion to Christ, they had no interest in setting up their own denomination or their own kind of churches, they would often land somewhere, convert people that had them over to the Presbyterians or the methods, so the Anglicans or whatever the case may be, they weren't empire building, they were kind of like, like they were like water, they were seeping into every nook and cranny of a particular context and bringing life and hope. And as you just pointed out earlier in the question with Pete Gregg, in the 24/7, prayer meeting, inspiring people to this day to reconnect this idea of of participant, although we don't often call it that these days of prayer and a mission and concern for the poor. But it's just an extraordinary story.
Joshua Johnson:Looking over their values and what you learned, I think, one is first fruits, who are the people that are open and hungry, when Jesus says I'm trying to send missionaries out, one of the things that we teach is that we're looking for people that the Father is already drawing. Our job is to walk alongside God as he's bringing people to Himself. And so we're finding those people, the Moravians did that indigenous leadership, they were trying to raise up local leaders. It wasn't about them. The Moravians are an inspiration to me, and many others. And now as we take the spirit with us that we can be spirit led, and not just have a box and said, This is the way that we do things, put this box somewhere else, I think is really important for us going forward. Since we've talked a lot about about men. Let's look at because there's a wonderful, wonderful women that have been in this missions movement, you highlight a lot of them in the freedom fighting shape that you have. And one of the things as you talk about these women, you say this, this, and I laughed out loud, their extraordinary achievement was not simply in being female, but in courageously obeying Christ call to spread the gospel. So these are amazing women, but there are amazing people of God that would go out and do that. Can you talk a little bit about Mary Slessor? Think Mary Slessor is pretty inspirational. Yeah, to me. Yeah. And
Michael Frost:that, that quote about that their, their achievement wasn't being women was that at that time, people started to trial, a trumpet this kind of, oh, the single woman missionary. Mary Slessor is an example of that. Lilias Trotter, and Lottie moon, there's a whole bunch of them. And it was kind of like, Whoa, that's a thing to be a single woman missionary. It's like, hold on, they weren't being a woman missionary. They were women being missionaries. But yeah, Mary Slessor was mad she was like a force of nature that would have been she. She was a very inspired by she was a Scottish woman, very inspired by another Scott. Medical, David Livingstone. And David Livingstone, I think is probably one of the world's worst missionaries. I mean, he wasn't much of a missionary to be quite honest. And, but and yet somehow, God used him to inspire a whole generation of people. That's a whole other story, Joshua, I'd been the way stock history gets written and who gets loaded and get some air God still uses that even though it's not strictly true. Mary Slessor heard all about it thought I want to do that. Went to, I guess, called modern day Nigeria, and was told, I mean, don't go up that river, like don't go inland there. I mean, stick to the coast, even there's no place for a single woman but definitely don't go inland. And I admit she was just indefatigable. It's like, I think I will go up that river and I mean, she was known for the certain peculiarities, she had red hair. She didn't wear shoes where she went. So people would look at this and think, Who is this like colonial women were like dressed to the nines and, and well presented. I'm not saying she wasn't well presented, but seeing a pale skinned redheaded woman with no shoes, striding through the jungle, it was like, What is this. And one of the things she ends up inadvertently doing I mean, she's there to preach the gospel. But she ends up discovering that there's a practice in this part of, of Africa, where twins are considered to be a curse. So the ancient gods or certain spirits or ancestor spirits have promised this, this woman by putting two children her and so twins were left out into the jungle, I mean, they'll just put in the jungle to die, be less, they bring the curse upon the village. So she happens upon this and is astonished by it, and so collects them. And yet still continues to a missionary work. And so in the book, I said, just trying to imagine this pale skin, redheaded woman rowing a boat to the upper reaches of these, like completely unreached parts of Africa unbreached, by, by by colonial Europeans, with a boat full of kids in tow. And like, this is how people would describe it should come with a baby on one hip and another kid by the hand, followed by two or three or four other children. I mean, just because it's like, I'm not building a family, like, what else am I to do? I mean, these children need to be cared for. And then in the end, of course, she collects so many that she ends up building what we would today call an orphanage, and one of the things I say in the book is that we often kind of look at Barry Slessor. And people like Amy cavaco, in India did something similar with terms of rescuing young girls, and then lady go boys, is will be obsessed with the orphanage. It's like, oh, let's do that. Let's go start orphanages. I mean, the best place for children is to be raised, if not in their, their immediate family, but in their extended family, to maintain a sense of story, a sense of identity, a sense of history, language, all of those things, then pull kids out and put them in orphanages, that would be the absolutely last resort. And yet, because of Mary Slessor, they become awkward when people are that the West became obsessed with the orphanage, even up until now well into the 20th and 21st centuries. It's like, oh, build an orphanage take photos of that all the happy kids and send them back. And it's like, no, no, no, the only reason Mary Slessor did this is that they were abandoned in the jungle to be eaten by wild animals. I mean, she does it as an emergency activity, and she doesn't take them out of their contexts. She's living right there in the context, just protecting and caring for these children. I mean, she was astonishing. And I think that I mean, as were those other women that I mentioned to, I mean, another one I really love is not a single woman. But in that book, I tell the story of Alice Seeley Harris, who takes a camera to the Congo, I find that story. Extraordinary. I mean, somebody in the late 1800s Somebody says to Oh, you're going to the Congo as a missionary Here, take this newfangled thing. It's called a personal camera. I mean, there are cameras around but you know, I'm sure you've seen pictures where the cameraman has like a camera on a tripod with a big sheet over him and a huge flash, but he never was carrying those things around. But But someone had come across like a portable or personal camera. And how innovative is this? They say to a Why don't you take some photos of mission life and send them back and be Joshua. That's what everybody should read does now. This was like innovative, like Wow, crazy, like take some photos and said the back. And so she does and yet she gets drawn into Amin L on Earth. When they get there her husband John, they discovered that in the Belgian part of the Congo, there's a genocide going on, being perpetrated by a private Arby of the king of Belgium. I mean, it's just one of the most despicable horrible stories of of rapid colonialism at the beginning of the 20th century. I mean, we don't even know how many millions of people died. As a result of this. One of the things that this private army would do is that if the Congo leaves didn't collect enough rubber, they had to make up their quota by having a lid removed and added to the white and so she started countering people with you know, one hand or one more, and then discovers this is what's going on and this intrepid missionary woman, and there are pictures of her that are taken on her camera. She's She's the classic missionary woman with the hat and the full dressed in white, you know, with high heels tramping around in the jungle. I mean, she's the stereotype of the colonial missionary woman, but she decides someone has to document this, and so she regularly goes into the Belgian area of the car go against the law, if she were to be caught by the force public, this private army, she would be all sorts of trouble. But she is taking portraits of people with one arm or one leg, terrible scarring. And then her husband take these, these photos back to the UK and eventually to America. They give public lectures and they create such outrage. It's one of the first kind of viral human rights movements, that eventually the public, the Parliament of Belgium shuts the whole thing down and, and King Leopold is forced to end his nefarious activities there, and then dies of natural causes shortly after, I mean, that guy should have been tried as as a war criminal. So we're not even a war criminal as a career as a criminal. But I love this story. She just went there to preach the gospel. And the shape of mission for her ends up becoming determined by the genocide that she finds herself on the doorstep of and she doesn't say, well, that's not my business. I'm here to kind of teach the Bible to people here on the ngala River. No, she decides, this is God's shape for me. And for some reason, someone gave me this newfangled thing, I'm going to use it to actually bring about freedom and peace in this particular community. I mean, I love her story, she just isn't a remarkable hero, actually,
Joshua Johnson:she is, she's pretty incredible. You know, I highly recommend people to go out and get missions is the shape of water, read through all of the shapes that that Michael frost writes about in his book. And so go do that. And I love that you, you highlight people and have inspiration and story, but also caution of what what we have done poorly, and how we can do better moving forward. But I'd love to talk a little bit about today. And today's mission, as you read the history of mission, if you wrote this book, what did you find for us today, as we're moving mission forward, and we are continuing to partner with God and what he's doing around the world?
Michael Frost:Yeah, thanks for that question. That's essentially the whole point of the book is what I mean, some people love history, and they love stories. And so it's like, oh, I just love hearing about all that. But really, the point of studying history is in order to look at patterns, and not to repeat them, and not to get back and say, Oh, I wish we were back in the days of this or that, but rather to say, having viewed how different Christians throughout different eras of history have been shaped by their contexts, and have been faithful to the gospel. What is our current context? What What, what's the container into which we're pouring Michigan, and Christians are used to thinking about all the terrible things that are happening in the world. And there are themes and trends in society today that we need to resist and be concerned about. There's no question about that. But in what ways? Are we on the doorstep of genocide in the Belgian Congo? To what degree? are we engaging with the issue of slavery? or to what degree? Are we actually responding to an agrarian society in southern Africa, which is being attacked by the borders of the Zulus? Like, let's observe the context? And then what challenge are we be called into? And I think that there are lots of interesting trends and themes. I outlined them toward the end of the book, where I feel like there's incredible movement towards the democratization of leadership. What we're seeing now is this kind of emergence of, of very young people leaving leading global movements like Malala, say, like Greta tunberg, people like that, whether you like you know, everything that they say or do is not the point. The point is, actually what we're now seeing is grassroots movements bubbling up, often led by very young, passionate people. And this is offering us a shake. This is asking us, this the gospel have something to say to this. And I definitely think it does that. In fact, what we've discovered throughout history is this is the way the gospel moves, not from the top down, but from the powerful not for those with, with lots of autonomy and access, but actually from listening to the voices of the macho or the poor or the young, and from recognizing actually movements emerge this way and really significant way. So I think that church is a method that Christians ought to see that mission ought to have something to say about creation care and about issues to do with climate change or to have concerns about the role of women under the protection of women, and I know that this is a triggering kind of phrase for a lot of people, but a toxic kind of masculinity, which does orient men toward control and combat and even violence. And I feel like I'm not saying all men are violent, I am saying that actually, he'll listen to things like the metoo movement or Black Lives Matter. These words, you don't have to join the whole movement or agree with everything that these movements are about. They are shaping our world. And if we ask ourselves, does the gospel have anything to say about racial reconciliation? And justice? Of course it does. has anything to say about the valuing of women as equal Tibet? Of course, it does anything to say about care for the environment? Of course it does. It's about us being willing to listen to the context as it's demanding a new world and a better world. There are lots of very positive things that are emerging could leaderless movements happening all around the world? I mean, we saw it as Bri with the recent Ken Asprey revival it was, if it's a revival, or awakening, or whatever we call it. I mean, when people ask the students of Asbury like, who's in charge, it looks like like this organization here, you're wheeling in whiteboards, and you're writing prayer requests, all of their bad, the bad the worship band is being replenished by new people. And it's like, there's organization here. So who's in charge? And the answer was no luck. Like, this is how movements occur these days. There isn't a big kahuna in charge of this. It's not a band, who's running this thing. It is like a Gallic, it's like water bubbling up. And so again, we need to look at this shape. There's something really interesting going on here, which is asking us to reconsider what mission might look like. There are a lot of command and control men who are used to the old days back in the late 20th century where men started organizations with top down leadership, they had objectives and goals, and they proceeded forward to facilitate them. Well, that was the shape back then. But I don't think that's what the shape will look like. In our current day or moving forward. I think a rediscovery of the power of, of prayer and of the kind of chaotic organic movements that we see happening would emerge out of those kinds of things, a rediscovery of the fullness of the gospel, as I said, the beginning of this conversation, it's not just good news about how Jesus died for your sins, not to minimize that as part of the good news. But it is also about the reign of God, which is about joy and justice and healing and peacemaking. And the renewed sense of family or community and the very presence of God, to discover the fullness of that, and all the ethics related to that. I think our world is demanding, imperfectly, no question, but demanding a world of equality and justice, creation care, respect for the marginalized, respect for other cultures, multi generational, multi ethnic community, they are not getting it, right. They're getting it wrong in all sorts of ways. But that yearning there is actually a yearning for the fairy feeds with the kingdom is all about and we need to take that seriously. And shape mission accordingly.
Joshua Johnson:Amen. Incredible thoughts. There at the end, I would love to sit and talk with you for a long time about this. But we are out of time. But I would love for, for you to tell people, how can they get your book mission as the shape of water, and connect with you. And anything else you'd like to say to people?
Michael Frost:Well, you could get this book at amazon, both on Kindle and as a paperback by website is Mike frost.net. And there is a free you could read the prologue to the book for free there if you want and then there's a link from that to the Amazon page. Yeah, I'd love it if, if people grabbed ahold of this book. I mean, I when I was writing this book, Joshua, somewhat of colleagues, and to be honest, what's this book is like, this book is about mission and about history. And the other two things most people don't want to read books about. It's if anyone's ever going to read this book. And so as you said, that you're hearing lots of people are really I've just been delighted, just how people have really taken to this book, so I was not expecting it to be super popular. So it's been a great surprise to breed.
Joshua Johnson:It is absolutely fantastic. And we've already had conversations about putting it into our training program and our internship for new missionaries as well. So we'll be referring back to this quite a bit going forward. So I just want to say thank you for Your work and this and thank you for your voice of saying, let's bring that the kingdom to know that the kingdom of God is here. It's available and we could join God in his mission as he unveils it and brings all peoples to himself. So thank you so much. Thank
Michael Frost:you, Joshua for your support. I really appreciate it.
