CMS-Africa’s New International Director Speaks
The Rev Canon Moses Bushendich, affectionately known as
Canon Bush, is the new international director of CMS-Africa. Here is his interview with our sister Organization Church Mission Society.
WHAT EXCITES YOU ABOUT CMS-Africa
Its contextual to Africa. We are trying to answer the question, “Why is Africa highly Christian but the evidence of Christian lifestyle so minimal?”
CMS-Africa has the approach, it has the tools, it has the programmes that can actually be an answer to the situation. And I think now CMS-Africa can take on the next phase of making Christianity not only a mile wide and an inch deep, but having it remain a mile wide and also be a mile deep.
WHAT MADE YOU WANT TO LEAD CMS-AFRICA?
I was looking for an opportunity in which I could influence mission even beyond the Church of Uganda and an advert for the international director for CMS-Africa came. It resonated very well with what I had learned about Church Mission Society sending missionaries to Uganda in the 1870s and 1880s. The testimony of the first missionaries and the testimony of the first converts who were martyred actually gave me even more courage to apply, so that I could carry on in this generation the work that Church Mission Society has done over the years.
HOW DID GOD FIRST CALL YOU INTO MISSIONS
In the year 1989, when I was a high school student, I had a personal encounter with Christ. My lifestyle actually changed, my attitude, my mind changed, my practices. I didn’t imagine I would be a priest in the church. But then, God has a unique plan.
While I led the youth in one of my local churches, my pastor would lead the services using language that we the youth could not understand. And the youth came to me asking if we could talk to the pastor to allow them to pray prayers that are not necessarily in the prayer book.
We asked for an appointment and he said: “It’s not possible for this.
Anglican Church to change their tradition: we are a church that is set, traditional and that’s how we do things. If you are not comfortable with us, maybe you don’t fit here.”
Unfortunately, the next Sunday many of them did not come back. Even I thought of leaving. But I feel
that God spoke to me in a very personal way and the message was: Moses, you can be a leader in this church.
HOW DID THAT CALLING DEVELOP?
About five years later, the bishop spoke to me about going for theological training, which I
did. Even before training I was involved in a lot of mission work within and sometimes outside the
diocese. As a secondary school teacher I was in charge of the Scripture Union at the school.
After ordination I was appointed the mission coordinator for the diocese as well as a parish priest
and that responsibility kept growing until I got to the provincial level.
I mobilised my church to do not just spiritual work, because I could see how the Bible clearly
speaks about the whole of life.
Then the other thing I would do was to go beyond the borders of the Anglican Church. We would do
community work irrespective of whether the person we are working with is an Anglican or even Muslim– we would work with them because the message of Christ goes beyond borders and actually the church should exist more for the community than for its members.
WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO SAY TO WESTERN CHRISTIANS?
I would say to the church in the West: we would
like to be partners in mission. And in such a way that it’s sustainable rather than a way that makes us more dependent on things that come from outside.
To us in Africa mission is relational. Relating with people, spending time with them, working with
them, beginning from where they are, makes a big difference. I’m sure even in the West there are those who still need people to share with – but it’s rare to find people who have the time to share with them because everyone is running around. In Africa we have time to build relationships.
WHAT IS MISSION?
I would say mission involves carrying a message across… a message of good news, a message of salvation. And it doesn’t begin with CMS-Africa.
Mission is God’s mission. God sends us and partners with us in mission. What we do, we do it on God’s behalf and God receives the glory for what is done.
WHAT IS YOUR VISION FOR THE NEXT 10 YEARS?
I would like to see a CMS-Africa that is able to sustain its mission programmes in terms of
funding. I would like to see a CMS-Africa that is catalysing and enabling mission across Africa within individual churches and congregations and across denominations. And a CMS-Africa programme that goes beyond the walls of the church: transforming people, individuals and communities and even transforming nations.
Pray for Canon Moses and CMS-Africa’s progress towards sustainability and transformation of individuals, churches and communities.