| 8 September 2010 |
| APCCS on the way, outside the gate |
By Lee Hong Jung
After opting to end my ‘unfinished’ ministry in the Christian Conference of Asia (CCA) as a Joint Executive Secretary of Justice, International Affairs, Development and Service, when the Hong Kong Office relocated to Chiang Mai in 2006, I was called to serve as ‘president’ of the Manila Presbyterian Theological Seminary (MPTS), a Korean Presbyterian missionary-founded theological institute in Manila. Ironically speaking, when it was established nineteen years ago, I had criticized its establishment because of its irrelevance to local churches in the Philippines, particularly to the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) in which many reformed churches were costly united for the visible unity of churches; and because of its 19th century colonial enlightenment structure in a post-mission era. Since then it has been a missionary-centered, Korean denomination-bound, theological-ecclesiological ghetto.
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After I assumed office in November 2006, the name of MPTS was changed to the Asia-Pacific Christian College and Seminary (APCCS), making a rather ‘radical’
paradigm shift in its formation with an ecumenical vision and evangelistic passion in the Asia-Pacific context.
First, this meant moving from a denomination bound
missionary-centered structure to an ecumenically interdependent one, in cooperation with the mainline churches in the Philippines.
Second, this meant developing an integrative urban-rural field-centered, culture/context-bound theological education system for Gospel centered orthopraxis with an integrative interdisciplinary hermeneutical praxis-centered curriculum.
Third, this meant establishing an urban-rural ecological full boarding international community in Montalban, Rizal as “the Church of Christ Outside the Gate,” where uprooted
people’s communities with diverse socio-economic, religio-cultural, ethnic-environmental
backgrounds are relocated.
Fourth, developing a new recruitment system on the basis of responsible recommendations from local networks of church and/or mission in the Philippines and other Asia-Pacific countries, on the promise that after graduation students will return to their local networks to serve their churches and people.
Fifth, this meant establishing an Asia-Pacific network for
praxis-centered theological education movement, an ecumenical-evangelical consortium of locally-rooted theological institutes in the Asia-Pacific region for
the program on Asia-Pacific Graduate School for Integrative Practical Theology for Healing and Reconciliation.
The APCCS develops and practices a circle of three-interrelated spirituality as a manifested Christian lifestyle: first, the spirituality of Kenosis (self-emptying)under the cross of Jesus Christ (Philippians 2:5-11) as a process of metanoia; second,the spirituality of just interdependence as a process of costly koinonia (Acts 2:43-47); and third, the spirituality of compassion for our neighbors as a process of mission in diakonia
(Hebrews 13:12-16).
The APCCS particularly emphasizes the healing and reconciliation ministry of Jesus Christ toward the fullness of life for all (Colossians 1:14-23) through a three-interrelated mission task: first, evangelization by spreading God’s word (John 3:16); second, humanization by
responding to the concerns of the poor, deprived and oppressed (Luke 4: 18-19),and third, ecological integration by being good stewards of God’s creation and
protectors of the sanctity of the oikoumene Genesis 1:31; Revelation 21:1-5).
Through an inter-cultural/contextual praxis-centered education, APCCS motivates and empowers students to participate in God’s mission in Asia-Pacific by promoting
healing and reconciliation through kenotic mission; enhancing a visible unity among local churches and societies in Christ; enforcing an ecumenically sustainable
local church growth by empowering the inter-local global web of life; enhancing people’s security and sovereignty for life and peace; and integrating ecology and
health for wholeness.
On the way outside the gate, APCCS as a theological community of the poor has kept on praying the Lord’s Prayer, struggling for our right to life and education
in the midst of a situation where millions of people are virtually dying and being deprived of their right to education due to the lack of just distribution and sharing
in our extremely polarized and globalized world. In the context of the denomination-bound missionary-centered tribalism, a theological cold war consciousness, and
the financial captivity of Korean churches and mission societies, it has been proven as one of the most unachievable tasks for APCCS to become a praxis-centered Asia-Pacific ecumenical theological institute.
Mission should not be monopolized by some people with financial power and for their social privileges. Missionaries, including myself,should not be a hindrance but a stepping stone to open a narrow but authentic
way to the land of promise. Local church leaders need to more carefully watch out what missionaries are doing in their garden and creatively interrupt their
ministries so that the integrity of local churches in mission and partnership in mission will be strengthened. The authenticity of missionaries’ work should
be proved by promoting the visible unity of local churches. Therefore not only missionaries but also local church leaders should return the ownership of mission to
God by doing a kenotic mission, starting from and returning to the people’s reality, respecting local congregations, going beyond our boundaries, emptying
selves of human desires and hegemonic interests.
The other side of God’s mission is always expressed through people’s mission to missionaries and churches. The Good News is initially heralded not from missionaries and churches but from the poor, the have-nots, the marginalized,as God’s people. This is precisely the reason why we confess that God comes to the people before missionaries and churches come to them. Missionaries and
churches should first and always learn what God has been doing among God’s people, while they are participating in a global-local mission today. In this case, today a
participatory process should be the way of doing mission, in partnership with the people.
On the way to Montalban, and outside of the gate, I believe, God call us out of our comfortable ghettos of ‘us’ and ‘them’ to risk discipleship without walls. God keeps on beckoning us out of our safe havens into God’s transformative fellowship of challenge and reconciliation, faith and hope. I dream of APCCS in Montalban
weaving, locally and inter-locally at global level, a pattern of peace and justice, a pattern of healing and reconciliation, a pattern of hope and joy among people in
different situations.
In the process of developing a new paradigm of APCCS in Montalban, I always confess the Lordship of God as the Latin American martyr Archbishop Oscar Romero once beautifully described, “God’s kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise, that is God’s work. God’s kingdom always lies beyond us….” That is what we human beings are all about. We are all limited. As he continued, “We only plant the seeds that one day will grow. We faithfully water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We humbly lay foundations that will need further development. We carefully provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities…. What we can do may
be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that
is precisely the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders, ministers not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.”
Rev. Dr. Lee Hong Jung is a people/ praxis-centered ecumenical missiologist, who identifies himself as a migrant worker, rather than an ordained minister
or missionary, for restoring God’s broken and wounded web of Life, promoting a mission strategy of weaving inter-locally interdependent web of life at regional
and global levels. He served as Director of the former Center for North East Asian Mission Studies in Birmingham University, as Director of Planning and Ecumenical Relations in the Presbyterian Church of Korea, as a Commissioner of the Commission on World Mission and Evangelism of the World Council of Churches, and as Joint Executive Secretary of Justice, International Affairs, Development and Service, of the CCA. Living out a voluntary poverty in the Philippines, he is currently working on developing an Asia-Pacific Ecumenical
Institute which includes the APCCS, the Asia-Pacific Graduate School of Integrative Practical Theology, and other relevant centers.
Dr. Lee firmly believes that by doing praxis-centered inter-cultural/contextual theological education, the world churches can restore the transformative power of the
Gospel in their local contexts.
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