The Deep Sea Canoe Movement

In God's providence, one opportunity for ministry is often used to enrich another.
My wife and I were on our way to visit the Tertiary Students Christian Fellowship in Papua New Guinea and Pacific Students for Christ in Fiji (both IFES-related movements like the British UCCF, but in countries we had never visited before, and about which we knew we were ignorant).
On the way we visited two other IFES-related fellowships in Australia and New Zealand. This was significant because the principals, both of the Bible College of Victoria and of New Zealand, happen to be past principals of the Christian Workers Training College in Papua New Guinea, and were happy to brief us on mistakes to avoid. John Hitchen, in particular, had researched and written extensively about mission in the South Pacific. They opened our eyes to some forgotten church history.

Great new fact

There has been much missiological enthusiasm about the 'great new fact of the second half of the 20th century-two-thirds world missions', and we were actually on our way to celebrate in Japan 30 years of sending out Japanese as missionaries with OMF. Imagine our amusement therefore to discover that this 'great new fact' was entirely dwarfed by the mission of Pacific islanders in the first half of the 19th century! We are, hopefully, aware of the three British mission outreaches from New South Wales (Samuel Marsden another of Charles Simeon's proteges from Holy Trinity, Cambridge was involved in all three): the London Missionary Society to Tahiti in 1796; the Church Missionary Society to New Zealand starting in 1814; and the Wesleyan Missionary Society to New South Wales in 1815, and then on to New Zealand and in 1826 to Tonga. Thus far it seems like conventional western missionary outreach (though we should notice it all happens much earlier than in most of Africa and much of mainland Asia). The South Pacific is where these missions made their first mistakes and, learning, were able to apply that experience elsewhere. The first three English (i.e. non-German) members of CMS all went to New Zealand.

Island Christians

What were later thought to be innovative, indigenous policies attributed to people like John Livingstone Nevius, (the veteran China missionary who visited Korea in 1890 and (superbly argued) by Roland Allen who served with SPG in China), had been developed and practised long before in the South Pacific. A significant pioneer was the remarkable John Williams, born in Tottenham in 1796, who arrived in 1817 at the age of 21 with a bride of 20, and opened a new centre in Raiatea in 1818. His famous comment was: 'I cannot content myself within the limits of a single reef,' and on one occasion transported some of the earliest of the Polynesian missionaries. In fact, much of the westward expansion was initiated and spearheaded by committed island Christians, who established bridgeheads over several years before the Westerners arrived. They travelled in what were called deep sea canoes: you will find specimens in museums in Port Moresby and Suva, and a superbly photogenic one at Nandi Airport departure lounge. These early Christian Polynesians were bi-vocational ('tentmaker') teachers, who had been subsistence farmers on their own islands and emigrated for the sake of the gospel to other islands where (like the Moravians a century earlier still) they supported themselves by growing their own food, and starting Christian schools. Making the deep sea journeys, accompanied by their courageous wives, was itself a perilous adventure, but the inhabitants of the heathen islands were cannibals, and many of these men and women lost their lives in taking the gospel to other islands to the west.

Rotting canoes

This happened between 1821 and 1871. John Williams went in 1821 from Tahiti to the Cook Islands with Papeiha and Vahapata, while the following year other islander missionaries went from Tahiti to Tonga. Then in 1830-1832, Teava went to Samoa from Rarotonga (Cook Islands), and in 1836-1843 there was further outreach from Samoa and the Cook Islands to the New Hebrides (Vanuatu). Indeed, throughout the 1840's and 1850's, a succession of Samoans, Tongans and Cook Islanders went to the Loyalty Islands (New Caledonia). Finally, in 1871-1872, Loyalty and Cook Islanders advanced to Papua New Guinea. It was sometimes said that the deep sea canoes rotted on the beaches of Papua New Guinea (by far the largest island in the area), because a country with more than 800 languages does take some time to evangelise!
We discovered there is a fresh initiative within many of the Pacific islands, and particularly in Papua New Guinea (with its four million people, 96% of whom claim to be Christian today), to send out missionaries in what they are actually calling the Deep Sea Canoe Movement. The wife of our host in Moresby, the General Secretary of TSCF, worked for several years arranging for young people to travel with the Operation Mobilisation ships (though the cost for one short-termer for a year is equivalent to a Papua New Guinea pastor's salary), and this has opened the eyes of some to the outside world.

Avoid the same mistake

Incidentally, we also discovered that in the University of Papua New Guinea in Moresby, which has 1,800 students, there are no less than 19 different evangelical organisations, as all the different Pentecostal denominations (largely from Australia and the States) want to run their own! This may be an ad absurdum example of division of student work (initiated by non-students!) but has something to say to the proposed moves in our own country. And that all goes to prove my original thesis that, by the Lord's grace, you can learn things in one place that help you to avoid making the same mistake somewhere else.

Some reflections on the history of mission outreach in the Pacific islands and the current situation in that area

Great new fact

Island Christians

Rotting canoes

Avoid the same mistake

Dr Michael Griffiths

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