{"id":7539,"date":"2023-11-20T17:34:02","date_gmt":"2023-11-20T17:34:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.luthersem.edu\/story\/?p=7539"},"modified":"2023-12-05T15:56:01","modified_gmt":"2023-12-05T15:56:01","slug":"i-am-what-i-am-because-of-who-we-all-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.luthersem.edu\/story\/2023\/11\/20\/i-am-what-i-am-because-of-who-we-all-are\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I am what I am because of who we all are\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
Luther alumnus leads global efforts to embrace multicultural expressions of faith and mission in a postcolonial world.<\/h2>\n
Growing up in Magomero, Malawi, Harvey Kwiyani \u201912 Ph.D.<\/strong> was surrounded by spirited music and prayer alongside stories of British colonialism in his village.<\/p>\n
Magomero housed Malawi\u2019s first British mission station, and Kwiyani\u2019s great-great-grandfather was one of the first two Malawians to study in Scotland, back in 1885.<\/p>\n
As a teen, Kwiyani read missional biographies and contemplated knotty questions like: Did God only call wealthy nations to this inherently costly work of mission? What does congregational life look like when all nations bring their gifts to worship?<\/p>\n
After four generations in the Presbyterian church, Kwiyani\u2019s family joined a Pentecostal church. He left Africa to study and serve, primarily in the United States and Europe. Kwiyani honed his focus as part of the congregational mission and leadership (CML) concentration in the Ph.D. program at Luther Seminary.<\/p>\n
Now, as the CEO of Global Connections in the United Kingdom, Kwiyani leads an international movement to embrace multicultural expressions of faith and to imagine mission in a postcolonial world. His work is an example of how Luther Seminary lifts up its graduates to lead faithful innovation around the world.<\/p>\n
Through books, blogs, and podcasts, Kwiyani empowers non-Western Christians to bring their faith practices, music, and beliefs to the world. He also urges Western Christians to open themselves up to global perspectives.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo community has everything it needs. God designed us that way, giving us a small portion of what we need and giving the rest to our neighbors, as stated in Ephesians 4:16: \u2018the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies,\u2019\u201d Kwiyani said, adding that \u201cthe vitality of the body depends on the mutual exchange between its members.\u201d<\/p>\n
But our humanness gets in the way, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany Western churches say they are inclusive, but diversity never comes, and Sunday morning remains the most segregated hour of the week,\u201d Kwiyani said. \u201cWesterners have a difficult time being hosted (by other cultures). It can be uncomfortable, but the story of Christianity is not one of comfort. To realize the fullness of the Holy Spirit, we must come together in spaces and communities that allow people to bring their authentic gifts and to celebrate expressions of faith that reach across our differences.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mosaics of faithful expression<\/h2>\nKwiyani (middle) with Ghanaian students in Birmingham, England (courtesy photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Kwiyani works with migrant congregations that want to be multicultural. He teaches them how to draw people of all backgrounds to their churches, and then he supports them through the complex work of blending their faithful expressions. He also counsels Western pastors and congregational leaders who wish to welcome and embrace African immigrants in their cities and churches.<\/p>\n
\u201cGod works in us through community, and that community is the church. As a human gathering, it will not be perfect, but there is no better place than in the house of God, with our global brothers and sisters, to enjoy the fellowship of the Holy Spirit,\u201d said Kwiyani, who founded and pastored a congregation in St. Paul during his time at Luther Seminary. \u201cMy mission is to help ensure these spaces invite people to bring their authentic selves. If Africans stop being African at church, then what they bring doesn\u2019t reflect who they are. Like we see in Acts 2, the Spirit speaks all our languages. This is how mission will happen in a postcolonial manner in the 21st century.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pat Keifert<\/strong>, professor emeritus and Olin S. and Amanda Fjelstad Reigstad Chair of Systematic Theology at Luther Seminary, said Kwiyani\u2019s work\u2014outlined in his doctoral thesis-turned-book, \u201cSent Forth: African Missionary Work in the West\u201d\u2014was a \u201cbreakthrough\u201d that ignited conversations about the role of African missionaries as catalysts for change.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis thesis went straight into publication, which doesn\u2019t happen often,\u201d said Keifert. \u201cHarvey blended his lived truth with extensive research that supports a massive reconception of our usual patterns to create church with those like us. He demonstrates that truly multicultural congregations flourish.\u201d<\/p>\n
Keifert celebrated the book\u2019s style and tone. \u201cHarvey\u2019s spirit moves through the book, and it\u2019s beautiful. He has an entire chapter on \u2018umunthu\u2019 to explain most Africans\u2019 embrace of communal engagement, not just with other humans but with all creation,\u201d Keifert recalled. \u201cHis spiritual reality oozes through the pages. It showcases what we can gain through an embrace of new and different interpretations of faith”<\/p>\n
Living \u2018umunthu\u2019<\/h2>\n
The cultural philosophy of umunthu is a driving force in Kwiyani\u2019s life and work. It translates to \u201cI am what I am because of who we all are,\u201d underscoring the importance of community.<\/p>\n
\u201cUmunthu is contrary to the more individualistic mindset of Western Christianity, which is not wrong, but, in my opinion, could benefit from the spirituality, communality, and generosity of this philosophy,\u201d Kwiyani said.<\/p>\n
To this conviction, Kwiyani often fields questions about Africa\u2019s contributions to the global landscape of Christianity. He points to Nathaniel\u2019s question in the first chapter of John, \u201cCan anything good come out of Nazareth?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJesus Christ grew up in Nazareth, and nevertheless, went on to change history as the Son of God,\u201d he added. \u201cFurther, if Jesus\u2019 mission needed the help of the Roman Empire, he would have grown up in Rome. So, despite the overwhelming problems that seem never to give Africa a break, God\u2019s work among Africans is a part of God\u2019s comprehensive message to the continent and to the rest of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sharing the Word of God<\/h2>\nKwiyani with John Mbiti (third and fourth from left), a Kenyan Christian philosopher and writer, and students in Oxford, England (courtesy photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
The church, Kwiyani said, should educate and invest in African Christians as missionaries.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe decline of Christianity is a Western problem,\u201d Kwiyani said. \u201cAfrican Christianity is exploding. Its unprecedented growth during the last quarter of the 20th century is one of the most exciting stories in the world right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is data to support Kwiyani\u2019s assertion. Together, Africa, Latin America, and parts of Asia are home to almost 70% of Christians in the world, according to the World Christian Database. By 2050, it is estimated that Africa alone will be home to more than 40% of Christians.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd what is more exciting,\u201d Kwiyani said, \u201cis that Africans traveling to and living in other countries are eager to share the Word of God in new and engaging ways.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kwiyani offered an example from his work leading a master\u2019s program about African Christianity at Church Mission Society in Oxford, England. One of his students, a Nigerian pastor, struggled to connect with the local community\u2014so, Kwiyani told him to visit the town\u2019s pub.<\/p>\n
The student followed Kwiyani\u2019s advice and was able to make several friends who still seek him out for faith-filled counsel. These community connections even helped the pastor obtain a church building after a local church closed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe pastor called to tell me this and to thank me for my lecture about mission in daily life,\u201d Kwiyani said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe best part of the story,\u201d Kwiyani laughed, \u201cis that his wife initially told him he couldn\u2019t go to the pub. \u2018But my tutor told me to go,\u2019 he responded. She asked for my number and called me: \u2018Why are you telling my husband to go to the pub?\u2019 Oh, was I in trouble. But after our talk, she finally let him go.\u201d<\/p>\n
A model of mixed ecology<\/h2>\n
To encourage pastors and congregations to share these stories and resources, Kwiyani established Missio Africanus in 2014. This learning community strives to release the missional potential of African and other non-Western Christians living in Britain.<\/p>\n
Kwiyani\u2019s work falls within the larger movement of mixed ecology, a term used to describe how traditional parishes co-exist with fresh expressions of faith, church plants, and pioneer ministries. Luther Seminary continues to explore and promote fresh expressions, often shared through the seminary\u2019s \u201cPivot\u201d podcast and Faith+Lead initiative.<\/p>\n
Another CML graduate, Dwight Zscheile \u201908 Ph.D.<\/strong>, leads Luther Seminary\u2019s efforts to reimagine church. As vice president of innovation, Zscheile said his team guides congregations in lending traditional church with innovative expressions of faith developed to reach the 60% of Americans absent from worship services (many of whom say they believe in God, according to a 2020 Gallup Poll).<\/p>\n
\u201cDiverse ecosystems thrive when different kinds of organisms share life and energy together in a particular place,\u201d said Zscheile, also a professor of congregational mission and leadership at the seminary. \u201cRather than assume a one-size-fits-all approach for what Christian community should look like, we emphasize a variety of different forms that meet people where they are.\u201d<\/p>\n
Keifert said he is beyond proud of Zscheile, Kwiyani, and their peers. Each of the CML graduates, he said, have emerged as unique and valuable voices in the future of the church: \u201cIt\u2019s quite amazing that a little program at Luther Seminary in Minnesota has produced such influential leaders in a range of denominations, across the globe. It\u2019s hopeful and inspiring.\u201d<\/p>\n
Graduates include Imliwabang Jamir \u201913 Ph.D.<\/strong>, an assistant professor of systematic theology at Oriental Theological Seminary in Nagaland, India. After eight years at Luther Seminary, Jamir returned to his home country with an entire library of children\u2019s books to create the Nagaland Children\u2019s Library. The doctoral student partnered with two churches in Minnesota to fund the only library in the region.<\/p>\n
Jannie Swart \u201910 Ph.D.<\/strong> belonged to South Africa\u2019s Dutch Reformed Church, which for many years was known as the \u201cchurch of apartheid\u201d for justifying legal racial segregation. Swart went on to lead one of South Africa\u2019s largest churches in transforming from a homogeneous congregation into a multilingual, multicultural ministry.<\/p>\n
Mark Love \u201914 Ph.D.<\/strong> serves as director of the master\u2019s in missional leadership and professor of theology and ministry at Rochester University.<\/p>\n
Scott Hagley \u201910 Ph.D.<\/strong> is the W. Don McClure Associate Professor of World Missions and Evangelism at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. He said the conversations he had with Kwiyani and others at Luther continue to shape his work and thinking.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs an ecumenical learning community, we learned as much from one another as from our classes and research,\u201d Hagley said. \u201cI\u2019m grateful for the hours of conversation with Harvey and my other colleagues during that time. As a minister and in his research agenda, Harvey represents an important shift in world Christianity. His church planting activities in Germany, the U.K., and the U.S. bridge non-Western forms of Christian expression with increasingly secular Western contexts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Craig Van Gelder<\/strong>, professor emeritus at Luther Seminary, said Kwiyani\u2019s work and that of his peers reflects the CML concentration\u2019s emphasis on cultural context: \u201cThe gospel is always conveyed in and through cultural and contextual realities. Understanding congregations in relation to the everchanging dynamics of contextualization is, then, a necessity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Van Gelder added that Kwiyani\u2019s work, in particular, reflects a commitment to the mission of God. Instead of the church having a mission in the world, God\u2019s mission has a church that is missionary by nature, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis focus on God\u2019s mission helps us understand our inherent interrelatedness to other Christians, churches, and mission organizations, where we seek to function in relational mutuality,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n
The idea is that church must open up spaces for theological and missiological cross-pollination. This may decenter but will not dismiss Western missiology as it pushes to engage with voices from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Kwiyani references Scripture and stories that testify to the limits of homogeneous church communities. God\u2019s Word, Kwiyani added, was meant to be shared and received in multicultural settings.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are all foreigners\u2014immigrants, sojourners, and strangers\u2014on a common mission in Christ,\u201d Kwiyani wrote in \u201cSent Forth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kwiyani explores these ideas and other probing thoughts about mission on his podcast. Every week, he shares one thought he \u201ccan\u2019t shake,\u201d two helpful resources, and three quotes about mission. His latest book, \u201cMulticultural Kingdom: Ethnic Diversity, Mission and the Church\u201d dives into multicultural missiology for the U.K. church. Among his other popular titles, Kwiyani authored \u201cOur Children Need Roots and Wings: Equipping and Empowering Young Diaspora Africans for Life and Mission.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI find my inspiration in prayer and in stories of men and women who have followed Christ to foreign lands to make disciples for Christ,\u201d Kwiyani wrote in \u201cSent Forth.\u201d \u201cI am always optimistic about what God can do with the little gifts we place in God\u2019s hands.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Featured Image Top:<\/strong> \nHarvey Kwiyani receives his Ph.D. from Luther Seminary in 2012 (courtesy photo)<\/p>\n\n
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