Kabaddi as Mission

Kabaddi is a game which originated in the Indian sub-continent. Any readers familiar with the TV program Trans World Sports will already be familiar with it. The game consists of two teams of seven players occupying opposite halves of a field, roughly half the size of a basketball court.

The teams take turns sending a "raider" across to the opposite team's half, where the goal is to tag or wrestle ("confine") members of the opposite team before returning to the home half. Tagged members are "out" and are sent off the field. Whilst on a 'raid', the raider has to hold his breath and mutter the word 'kabaddi' to show that he is not cheating by breathing.

I think this is exactly how the church conducts almost all of its mission/evangelism.

We leave our ground and cross the sacred/secular dividing line, a line totally of our own imagining. We carefully move onto the world's territory, whilst holding our breath so that we don't catch anything nasty. We then isolate the weakest member of the pack and return to our side with the spoils. Once on our territory the prey will learn to talk, walk and think just like us. We call this success.

This is completely the opposite of the message of the incarnation. Jesus didn't hold his breath when he came to us. Instead he was at pains to associate with the dirtiest and lowest, probably the smelliest too. He was born in a manger after all. He died in poverty and disgrace. How often, I wonder, did he get to wash?

We have to find new ways to be in the midst of the world daily as the church. Only when we can do this will we be able to transform the evil we see there. We can't export it to our ground and nullify it. We have to do this work in the midst of the world. I think this calls for a completely different organisation of what we know as church, moving away from the Sunday gathering. I am suggesting something a lot more like a virus is necessary.

I will explain this more in my next posts.