Papua Perspective

I’ve just completed four days of very special time with my daughter’s family in Meruake, Indonesia, located on the far south coast of the island of Papua. When you’re grandkids live 7500 miles away from you and it takes four days and six airline flights to get there, you can understand why every minute together is so special. From building rocket darts and having toy tea parties to watching Winnie the Pooh and reading bedtime stories, I did my best to cram as much grandpa experience as possible into this short time with Juile, Tom and their three kids, Christopher, Elizabeth and Brennan.

As I now wing my way homeward from these two weeks in Indonesia, I can’t help but wonder, however, about the current state of the church in Papua reported to me during my visit. Without question, the “hot button” of the mission world these days is CPM—Church Planting Movements. These rapidly multiplying  communities of churches are indeed exciting trends to witness in various areas of the least-Christian world.  But what happens to these CPM areas 20, 30 or even 60 years later?  Is Papua a possible example of one answer to that question?

Before 1960, Papua (then known as Irian Jaya) was a wild, untouched land with hardly a single Christian among its indigenous tribal populations. But within a few short years, missionary endeavor produced one of the most dramatic church planting movements in recorded history.  By the end of the 1980s, churches of multiple denominations could be found everywhere and the last remaining untouched of the island were being systematically reached by the first generation of indigenous missionaries. So successful was this evangelistic effort that by 2000 most Western missionaries felt their job was done and were leaving Papua to be guided by new national leadership.

(Curtesy of Google Maps)

However, what I’ve learned now is how much of a reversal  this positive trend has taken in the past few years. Sadly, the Papuan church today is known more for its materialism, infighting, lack of strong leadership and inability to positively reach out to non-Christian neighbors. Thanks in part to a large gold mine that has flooded the economy with wealth and a huge number of Islamic-background transmigrants moving in from Java, Papua today seems once again more defined as a mission field than a mission force.

One example of this was hearing about several Bible schools and seminaries with student bodies that included many who had never made a profession of faith before let alone understood what it meant to lead others to Christ. An even sadder story was learning about the rampant pornography now flooding the local culture. A friend who has lived in Papua for years said she was shocked to discover how much porn is normal TV content in most homes, even for housewives and young girls. Most people now want to buy their cell phone already pre-loaded with “the stuff” as porn is called in the local shops.

My perception is that many mission groups have been somewhat blindsided by this turn of events in Papua and are now scrambling to find meaningful ways to help their national church partners regain the solid ground they had twenty-some years ago.

 Does every CPM need to have this sort of future? Of course not. But what is today being experienced in Papua should be a sober reminder that Christ’s Great Commission to disciple the nations must be a life-long commitment and not just a flash-in-the-pan missional strategy.