Quotes of the Day
Growing up in South Korea, Chang-Soo Park formed a special attachment to Britain. He'd never visited the country, but as a member of the Korean Evangelical Holiness Church, which follows the teachings of John Wesley, the father of Methodism, he looked to Britain as a spiritual homeland. So he was shocked when he came to Birmingham to study theology in 1999 and discovered one of Britain's largest concentrations of Asians and Muslims. So many people had "committed themselves to Islam," he says sadly. "I used to think Britain was a Christian country. I was very disappointed." Worse, he says, was the lack of passion he saw among British Christians. "I began to pray for this country, and to consider how I could help revive the church," says Park.
Park is just one of a growing number of missionaries in Europe from countries — such as Brazil, Uganda and South Africa — that were once targeted by European missionaries. Unlike Europe — or "the prodigal continent," as Patrick Johnstone of Worldwide Evangelization for Christ describes it — Christianity is thriving back home. "Fifty years ago, the power base of the church was in the West," says Tim Jeffery, head of the international campaign of the Oasis Trust, a Christian charity. "Now, 60% of Christians live in the South." And missionaries from the developing world are doing their best to shore up the foundations of European Christianity. According to Johnstone's book Operation World, of the 1,600 missionaries in the U.K., more than 120 come from South Korea and around 50 are from Brazil (the majority hail from the U.S.).
Arnold Muwonge came from Uganda to serve, first in London, then in Manchester, five years ago. His ministry, he says, "targets first and foremost the British people as a gesture of thank-you for them coming to Africa and bringing us the gospel. Before they came, we were worshipping trees and demons." Last Friday, in a scene that saw the passion and exuberance of the church in the developing world transplanted back to the heart of the Church of England, Muwonge — who says that he and other missionaries are like "sons and daughters coming home" — led an all-night prayer vigil at Norwich Cathedral attended by hundreds of worshippers.
Muwonge, an ordained Pentecostal minister, does most of his work through white churches. In Birmingham, Park also works with an interdenominational assortment of churches. He is an assistant pastor at Newbridge Baptist Church, one of six East Birmingham congregations that have formed a loose grouping known as the Cole Valley Cluster. Together they and other congregations have linked with evangelical organizations in Brazil and Korea, and are preparing to bring dozens more missionaries to the U.K. Last week a Cluster team inspected a former dormitory at St. Peter's Urban Village Trust — a one-time Anglican teacher-training college that is now an inner-city community center. By January, Cole Valley's Christians hope to have those dorm rooms filled with foreign missionaries. Immigration officials accustomed to fielding applications from asylum seekers from the developing world may soon have to create a new visa category: soul seekers.
- AISHA LABI | Birmingham
- Religion is coming home