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Problems with “pioneering” mission: 
Ref lections on the term “pioneer” from 
Germany, South Africa and the UK

Ben Aldous (Corresponding author contact: ben.aldous@cte.org.uk)

Principal officer for Mission and Evangelism at Churches Together in England, the 
national ecumenical instrument. Previously he was an Anglican Priest in Cape Town 
(2013–19), Durban (2010–13) and a church planter in Cambodia (2004–10). Ben is 
a missiologist and passionate about intercultural church. He has published widely on 
fresh expressions and contextual theology. He is currently writing a book for SCM 
Press on the missiology of Kosuke Koyama.

Luke Larner
Anglican priest and ordained pioneer minister, having served as a lay pioneer for 
some years before ordination. He is currently studying for a professional doctorate in 
Practical Theology at the University of Roehampton, researching Anglican Missional 
Pneumatology through action research with Anglicans involved in community 
organizing. Formerly a bricklayer, Luke is interested in intersectional approaches to 
theology which engage social class.

Adrian Schleifenbaum
Studied theology in Oberursel, Marburg, Nottingham and Heidelberg. In his disser-
tation, he analysed the relationship between church and civil society. Currently he 
lives with his family in Gießen, Germany where he works as a pastor.



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Rajiv Sidhu
An Anglican deacon currently studying for a professional doctorate in Practical 
Theology at the University of Roehampton, researching the relationship between 
Christofascism and racism within the Church of England through Action Research 
with Anglicans who have experienced racism. Previously a teacher of geography, 
rising to Assistant Principal before embarking on ordination training. He continues 
to be passionate about issues of exclusion, geographical space, class, culture and faith.

Abstract

This paper brings together four voices in an autoethnographic manner to 
ask questions about power, and missionary imperialism in the birthing of new 
contextual churches. These narratives come from three nations, each with a 
history and inheritance of cultural and missiological imperialism. The narra-
tives explore our own wrestling with being men in ecclesial settings, inhabiting 
spaces of power, while seeking to do so critically. The paper opens up a con-
versation about the term “pioneer” as default language in many of the historic 
denominations in the UK, Germany and South Africa. It explores the use of the 
term and also asks how the language can be problematic. Finally, it offers the 
term “pilgrim” as an alternative word which we believe will be more sustainable.

Keywords: pioneer, imperialism, colonialism, mission, power, liberation

Introduction

This paper brings together reflections from South Africa, Germany and the 
United Kingdom on the use of the word “pioneer” in the birthing of new con-
textual churches. Ben draws on experience as a priest in the province of South-
ern Africa. Adrian reflects on his visit to the UK ten years ago and questions 
the helpfulness of the term in his own German context. Finally, Luke and Rajiv 
write together considering their work in the UK. We ask if the word “pioneer” 
has simply been adopted without any real critical appraisal.

The paper sets out the problems inherent in the term before briefly explain-
ing the autoethnographic research method we employ. We move on to address 
the issues of the language in the South African and German contexts before 



Ben Aldous—Problems with “pioneering” mission

7

returning to the UK and finally offering an alternative term we think may be 
more effective.

Pioneering: a term inherent with problems

“Pioneering” and “pioneer ministry” is finding increasing currency in his-
toric denominations in the UK, especially the Church of England and other 
mainstream church bodies. Increasingly those putting themselves forward to 
ordained ministry are being offered the opportunity to train as a pioneer via 
a special training pathway. Lay people too are inhabiting roles allowing them 
space and freedom to start new initiatives in places where the church has strug-
gled or failed to connect with people. The Church of England defines pioneers 
as “people called by God who are the first to see and creatively respond to the 
Holy Spirit’s initiatives with those outside the church; gathering others around 
them as they seek to establish new contextual Christian community”.1

The Oxford Dictionary’s first definition of the term pioneer is, ‘a person 
who is among the first to explore or settle a new country or area’ (2020). That 
this is the primary definition of the word raises a major issue in view of the 
Church’s history of corroboration and even involvement in the colonising of 
the Majority World. For us, this is not a distant history, but one that we are in 
danger of repeating in the present day. Perhaps we already are. If a pioneer is 
someone who becomes the “first to settle” a new area, and who opens it up for 
“occupation and development by others”, what might this mean for the inhabit-
ants of the spaces the Church seeks to reach through pioneering mission?

The ongoing discourse between pioneering, fresh expressions and church 
planting within the Church of England is a crucible within which these com-
plications become red hot. Jonny Baker points out that, ‘the word pioneer is a 
metaphor and therefore laced with possibility and ambiguity’ (Baker & Ross 
2014:2). Going further, he questions whether the term, ‘once used at the edge is 
now used at the centre has become uncomfortable or shifted its meaning over 
time.’ But there is unfortunately little to no wrestling with the negative notions 
of exploitation, subjugation, power, colonialism and residual imperialism in the 
word pioneer and therefore its negative effects. We suggest that this word needs 
to be rigorously scrutinised and made redundant.

1  https://www.churchofengland.org/life-events/vocations/vocations-pioneer-ministry.



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Both of the contexts in which I (Luke) have exercised ‘pioneer ministry’ 
have been ethnically diverse and economically disparate. As a working-class 
person, I see a great danger in the Church of England, often characterised as 
dominated by white middle-class people seeking to occupy community spaces 
which belong to ethnically, culturally, socio-economically and even religiously 
diverse communities. Anglican theologian Tim Gorringe suggests that to “so 
easily forget the church’s collusion with imperialism, patriarchy and racism 
today borders on indecency” (2004:20). I have personally witnessed the way that 
well-meaning but potentially misguided ‘pioneers’ entered into a space, without 
paying due attention to their own situatedness, and have ignored and patron-
ised local people who are already doing many good things for the community.

However, we all recognise that there is a danger here of getting bogged 
down in semantics. Much of the literature on pioneering takes context very 
seriously, and often emphasises discerning the work that God is already doing 
in a context before the pioneer arrives (Male 2016:20; Baker & Ross 2014:22). 
Some of us have written previously on contextual and pioneering mission 
(Aldous 2019, 2021, Larner 2016, Schleifenbaum 2021) and the vital necessity 
to understand that God is already at work before we arrive.

Pioneer ministry emerged in the Church of England as a response to the 
Mission Shaped Church Report published in 2004 (2004:6-7). Mission Shaped 
Church proposed new contextual forms of Church for a changing cultural 
landscape, often called Fresh Expressions of Church (2004). The document 
recognised two ways to do this, “progression” planting and “pioneer” planting. 
Progression planting builds on a significant existing presence of Christians in a 
network or area, whereas “pioneer” planting is aimed at planting in ‘places and 
cultures in which at present there are few, if any, known Christians’ (2004:110). 
This is interesting language given that the document is focussed on the English 
context. It is hard to imagine a place in England where there are few if any 
known Christians, one wonders if some ‘particular’ form of Christian is being 
sought? The report wisely recognises that pioneer teams should work with 
smaller resources and numbers of people because “large groups might appear 
to be like an invasion of do-gooders to the present inhabitants” (2004:111). 
Instead, a small number of “gifted, resilient and visionary people” is seen as 
essential (2004:111). The parallels to the colonial use of the word pioneer bear 
a close resemblance. Indeed, the theological underpinnings of Mission Shaped 
Church share this problem, drawing from the creation mandate, and seeking a 
Church which can “reproduce” and “fill all creation” (2004:93). The implications 
of this for people of other denominations and especially other faiths is alarm-
ing. Mission Shaped Pioneers, it would seem, really are the first to settle and 



Ben Aldous—Problems with “pioneering” mission

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prepare a place for occupation and development by the Church. The expecta-
tion of finding communities with few or no known Christians feels dangerously 
close to the ‘doctrine of discovery’ – a “set of legal principles that governed the 
European colonising powers” which “emerged from a series of fifteenth century 
papal bulls” and allowed European Catholic nations to “expand their dominion 
over ‘discovered’ land” (Charles and Rah, 2019:15). The problem with the doc-
trine of discovery is, “you cannot discover lands already inhabited” (2019:13). 
For Luke, indeed for all of us as authors of this paper, this is a major problem 
with pioneer ministry – it too often sees new places as areas of potential dis-
covery and colonisation, not as places where God is already at work among the 
indigenous people.

Linked to the doctrine of discovery, we also acknowledge Anthony Red-
die’s (2018:12) challenge to White theologians (like some of us writing this 
paper) to take a critical look at their Whiteness and to reflect upon the ways in 
which White supremacist thought and action has exerted a profound and cor-
rosive influence upon the Christianity faith. The historical thought forms that 
have arisen from White normativity have not only advantaged White people, 
but also exerted unimagined pressures and negative traits upon Black people.

In many ways, therefore, this is an autoethnographic and confessional 
piece of writing reflecting back on our journeys in ministry and detecting the 
fissures and ruptures of our own privilege and superiority complexes in other 
intersections of identity.

Additionally, Reddie (2018:11) reminds us that,

White Practical theologians may reflect on the fluid complexities 
of what it means to be a human being, but they rarely foreground 
their own embodied reality as a White person as they do so. For 
too long now, many White theologians have written as if their 
very Whiteness (or maleness) carried no ethical or epistemologi-
cal weight in their attempts to undertake constructive God-talk.

There appears to be a new willingness in the UK context at least to begin some 
of this work, evidenced by the substantial number of people who attended the 
#DismantlingWhiteness webinar hosted by Oxford Centre for Religion and 
Culture.2 But this point is important. One of the fundamental problems of 

2  http://www.rpc.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Dismantling-Whiteness-
symposium.pdf.

http://www.rpc.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Dismantling-Whiteness-symposium.pdf
http://www.rpc.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Dismantling-Whiteness-symposium.pdf


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Whiteness is that it has been rarely interrogated, turned over or questioned. 
For Reddie (2018) Whiteness has been epistemologically weighed, measured 
and found wanting.’ The assumption is that as White people we will/should/can 
occupy the centre of gravity. Whiteness according to Willie James Jennings is 
more than simply a skin pigment issue but rather an ontological issue – a way 
of being in the world. Jennings (2020:9) says that the, “use of the term ‘white-
ness’ does not refer to people of European descent but to a way of being in the 
world and seeing the world that forms cognitive and affective structures able to 
seduce people into its habitation and its meaning making.” Moreover, he clearly 
articulates that the ideology of Whiteness leads to a formation predicated on, 
“the image of a white self-sufficient man, his self-sufficiency defined by posses-
sion, control and mastery” (Jennings 2020:9). Whiteness above all else desires 
control and tends to make love secondary. Whilst this may seem tangential to 
pioneering we wondered about the extent to which well-meaning pioneers have 
been complicit in this way of being.

Given the site of existential anxiety that most historical denominations 
operate from it is hardly surprising that the gift and potential of pioneering has 
at times been co-opted or appropriated by the centrifugal force of the institu-
tion. The institution has a tendency to manipulate and coerce the fragile things 
at the edges and propel them towards the centre by their institutional gravity. 
As ‘pioneering’ becomes more acceptable as a term, in the Church of England 
for example, it is embedded into the strategies and structures of the organisa-
tional language of the institution most readily seen in the recent vision for the 
C of E in the 2020s which claims to want to be a simpler, humbler and bolder 
church and where the mixed ecology is the norm.

Research method: A word on autoethnography

In this paper we have loosely employed an autoethnographic method. ‘Auto-
ethnography connects the autobiographical and personal to the cultural, social, 
and political. In autoethnography, the life of the researcher becomes a conscious 
part of what is studied’ (Ellis 2008:48). Autoethnography brings into play both 
the internal, personal reflections of the researcher and the cultural context that 
they inhabit. By recalling snippets or fragments of interactions and conversa-
tions in a setting these can act as key moments in self-conscious reflections 
on practice. Heather Walton (2019) has reminded us that autoethnography 
has become gradually more important for theology and theological reflection. 
Drawing from Walton (2019:6) we wish to write ourselves into a deeper critical 



Ben Aldous—Problems with “pioneering” mission

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understanding of the ways in which our lives intersect with larger sociocultural 
pains and privileges. Taking these seriously, we each reflect on how we have 
inhabited privileges and witnessed pain, sometimes of our making, however 
inadvertently.

This is what Ellis and Bochner (2003:213) call ‘epiphanies’. These are, 
‘remembered moments perceived to have significantly impacted the trajectory 
of a person’s life...times of existential crises that forced a person to attend to and 
analyse lived experience.’ Therefore the ‘epiphanies’ that follow act as a way of 
bringing into focus a particular issue or problem we have encountered in the 
use of the language of pioneering and fresh expressions during our ministries. 
Each of us have lived in different cultural contexts (whether Cape Town, East 
London, Frankfurt or Luton) each with its own set of complexities. By reflect-
ing on particular moments from our own stories we believe we are, ‘disclosing 
our location and assumptions upfront, in order to contribute with humility and 
responsibility’ (Vellem 2017:1).

South Africa: Simply neo-colonialism and the import 
of British ideas?

In 2011, whilst still a new priest in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa 
(ACSA) in the diocese of Natal I (Ben) was offered an opportunity by the then 
Bishop to speak off the cuff on fresh expressions during a clergy gathering. I was 
ill prepared as I was asked 20 minutes before I was due to speak. On the hoof I 
tried to give a simple account of the shifts in culture and the church’s sometimes 
inadequate response to those changes whilst explaining the missional impe-
tus of fresh expressions of church and potential in a nation in a place of flux 
in a post-Apartheid, post-colonial, dying-embers-of-Christendom context. I 
asked if any of the clergy had a response. Right from the back of the Cathedral’s 
Colenso Hall a senior Zulu priest in his mid 60s stood up and said, ‘This sounds 
like neo-colonialism to me. It’s just the import of British ideas.’ I mumbled an 
insubstantial reply and sat down probably looking as bemused as I felt. And 
so began a journey of research around fresh expressions and whether it was 
an authentic missiological process or tool for a Southern African context. Is it 
simply a form of missiological imperialism? When the main protagonists of the 
movement in South Africa were initially White middle class heterosexual evan-
gelical men what does the movement have to say, with any cultural and ecclesial 
sensitivity to the largely black, poor, high Anglo-Catholic Anglican church? 
From my experience in South Africa for 10 years, usually not very much.



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But more than the external implications of this priest’s terse comments 
began a reflection of my own role as a white, middle class, English (Cornish) 
man occupying a central space of power in the oldest and one of the largest 
Evangelical Anglican churches in South Africa. What right did I have to be 
there? Was my advocating for fresh expressions in a province largely shaped by 
high church Anglo-Catholic spirituality actually a form of evangelical imperial-
ism when evangelicals were almost always white and of English descent? In 
South Africa the still lingering wounds of apartheid continue to fester in racial 
tensions and ongoing disparity. The #Rhodesmustfall movement, continued 
issues around service delivery and mistrust and scapegoating across the racial 
boundaries all reveal problems that mean language is always loaded and poten-
tially problematic. Perhaps rather than being a healing balm my presence and 
advocacy for pioneer ministry was, in fact, more like prickly heat; annoying and 
certainly not to be welcomed.

As I reflect on the fresh expressions movement and pioneering mission 
in South Africa I think it has had minimal impact on the ASCA for several 
reasons which I outline below. Firstly, whilst it is rooted in contextual theology 
and is by and large committed to a process of listening, loving, serving, creat-
ing disciples and seeing church emerge it has had ecclesiological assumptions 
that in many ways were as brittle as the ecclesiology of the inherited church it 
often criticised. Too often examples of fresh expressions being lauded looked 
like what Martyn Percy calls “evangelical playthings” – made up of people who 
were bored of Sunday morning and would prefer to sip a Latte3 in ‘café church’. 
Whilst that may well be contextually appropriate for post Christendom white 
middle class 40-somethings it looks confusingly irreligious and un-Anglican to 
90% of clergy and lay people in the South African context. My suspicion is that 
the first parts of the ‘Loving-first’ cycle, namely listening, loving and serving 
were not really embedded into the posture and practices of those advocating 
for the movement especially in truly navigating intercultural or majority black 
spaces. Often those beginning the journey of establishing a new church already 
had the end result in mind. In black working class communities, which make 
up 80% of the country’s population, fresh expressions and pioneer ministry 
look alien, bizarre and simply out of step with indigenous culture and notions 
of spirituality.

3  As the Twitter handle “Star of Bethel” so beautifully points out https://twitter.com/
StarofBethel1/status/1411282108182564866.



Ben Aldous—Problems with “pioneering” mission

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Secondly the language of “fresh expressions” my first Bishop told me, with 
a smirk on his face, sounds like a bakery product. But it’s more than just mere 
flippancy or cynicism. The term ‘pioneer’ in the South African context cannot 
be uncoupled from its translated equivalent in the Afrikaans language of voor-
trekker.4 The term is impossible to use without listeners immediately thinking 
of the great trek beginning in 1836 by the Dutch speaking people of the Cape 
Colony to the interior of the country. As O’Brian (2013:29) states, ‘The journey 
of the Voortrekkers who escaped British rule into the interior would become an 
important focal point of Afrikaner nationalism, and the single most important 
event in Afrikaner history and mythology.’ D F Malan used the image of the 
voortrekker to create a powerful myth for Afrikaner identity during the 1930’s, 
a time when it was in great crisis. This image and its polyvalent sub themes 
connected to chosen people, the volk, and the need for separation to preserve 
cultural and racial purity were all the antecedents for the Nationalist Party’s 
Apartheid policy fully instituted in 1948. The term pioneer is very closely 
aligned with Afrikaner ideology.

Thirdly, disentangling this history from the term ‘pioneer’ from its danger-
ous past, I would argue, is almost impossible. Therefore, it is perhaps unsur-
prising that those belonging to historic mainline churches like the Anglican 
Church of Southern Africa, which is now largely Black and poor, would find the 
language of pioneer repellent. Whiteness, superiority, violence and imperial-
ism are bound together in an almost impenetrable knot, each strand wrapped 
tightly into the other. In the late 1970’s at the height of tensions caused by apart-
heid laws and in the shadow of the Soweto uprising, claims of innocence were 
to be bid farewell. Allan Boesak (1977:4) writes,

it is a farewell to innocence for white people. In order to main-
tain the status quo, it is necessary for them to believe and keep 
on believing, that they are innocent. They are innocent because 
they “just happen to have the superior position in the world,” 
or in some mysterious way they have been placed in a position 
of leader ship over blacks by nature, by virtue of their “superior” 
culture.

4  Voortrekkers were the ‘pioneers’ or ‘pathfinders’ who took part in the great trek from 
1836 seeking to settle beyond the control of British administration. Ironically, they were 
seeking a freedom from the tyranny of British colonialism but also contributed to the decline 
and collapse of the Zulu kingdom. 



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But Boesak (1977:6) notes that is also necessary for black people to dismantle 
innocence since, ‘an affirmation of personhood is a powerful act that constitutes 
a farewell to innocence.’ Building in a way on Boesak, Vuyani Vellem (2017) 
suggests that a Black Theology of Liberation does not simply affirm person-
hood and dignity of black people but in fact has to participate in un-thinking 
the West as an epistemological process, ‘rejecting the architecture of Western 
knowledge as the final norm for life’ (2017:1). But Vellem says this is not simply 
an academic exercise but a spiritual one. Vellum in his critique of the West 
starkly points out that, ‘Western civilisation is no longer helpful to make any 
meaningful contribution to black life, especially when one interrogates growing 
fascism in the West, ostensibly in defence of the supremacy and superiority of 
one race against all others in the world’ (Vellum 2017:3).

Is it any wondered that the senior Zulu clergyman stood up and so vehe-
mently opposed what he saw as cultural imperialism embodied in a white baby-
faced priest like me!

Germany: Pioneering like it’s 1989

When “Mission shaped church” was published in the UK in 2004, it didn’t go 
unnoticed within the German church. Pastors, theologians and other church-
enthusiasts visited our neighbours in the UK in search of ideas and concepts 
they could apply to a German context (e.g. Baer-Henney 2015). As a student 
of theology, I (Adrian) made my trip to Nottingham in 2011 and volunteered 
at St. Saviour’s Church.5 Here I met a church that listened to a neighborhood 
and put the information to good use. In this case, St. Saviour’s transformed 
a traditional church into a soft-play ground that cares for social and spiritual 
needs. As German visitors to the UK we found something worth considering. 
A church style that inspired many of us. Some left the island with a sense of 
doubt (Koll 2012: 219-236), some were convinced they had found a set of best 
practices and others were inspired to rethink church in Germany (Bils 2015). 
Overall, there was a lot of enthusiasm which made us eager to copy and paste 
what we saw.

Over the last ten years, this inspiration manifested in publications, meet-
ings, networks, jobs and sometimes even fresh expressions of church. A small 

5  http://www.churchinthemeadows.uk.



Ben Aldous—Problems with “pioneering” mission

15

and diverse movement came into being, trying to pass on those ideas and con-
cepts that were worth considering.

Many of our role models in the UK put “mission” at the center of its 
church-life. This is somewhat alien to church as it takes place within the EKD 
(Protestant Church of Germany). In my context mission feels like it’s something 
to be suspicious of. It is for some a practice that belongs to the core of colonial-
ism. Maybe it can be accepted in theory, when it’s viewed as the missio Dei i.e. 
a dynamic God is responsible for. But mission as a practice, something that 
shapes the identity of our church? That was essentially unheard of.

Being slightly awe struck by the missional church movement I found 
in Nottingham, I grew frustrated with the slow tempo in which this mindset 
was being worked out in Germany. The structurally and financially dominant 
Protestant EKD has old traditions and a management that was slow to react. 
Therefore, it sometimes seemed unwelcoming towards innovation.

However, looking back a decade later, I am convinced that part of the rea-
son for this slow-to-arrive concept is not only a slow reacting German church. 
The missional church movement is also something that cannot simply be cop-
ied and pasted. Because the concepts we came across as visitors have their faults 
and down sides. Some elements of the movement shouldn’t be copied, really. 
And when these ideas didn’t gain much traction within a mission-suspicious 
EKD, there may be good reasons.

Copy and paste pioneer missioning

It is my understanding that passing on inspiration is successful only by trans-
forming the original concepts and ideas. These ideas need to fit into the narra-
tives that shape their destination. A copy and paste approach does not work: at 
least not completely. Copy and paste hasn’t worked for the Church Plant move-
ment in the 1990s and it hasn’t for the fresh expressions of church movement in 
the 2010s. Part of the reason is that the original narrative we tried to copy has 
its own logic. It works best in the environment it is derived from. The narrative 
of pioneering is a good example for that. Even within the Anglican context, 
pioneering has its flaws and limits (see the perspectives of Luke, Rajiv and Ben). 
In the German context, pioneering has a political and ideological ring to it.

In Germany, whenever one talks about pioneers (Pioniere in the German), 
one would not think of an incarnational style of mission. Most assuredly before 
1989, one would think of young boys and girls in multi-colored uniforms, 
standing in front of a flag pole, saluting socialism. “Junge Pioniere” was the 



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16

name of the Socialist Party’s youth organization in the German Democratic 
Republic. Most children were part of that organization. It was meant to shape 
generations by promoting Marxist–Leninist ideology among East Germany’s 
young people. Through this youth organisation children were meant to dismiss 
political, religious and cultural ideas of the past, now deemed outdated, and 
instead of these old values, they were meant to embrace the graces of socialism.

This association of young boys and girls standing in front of a flag pole, 
shouting “Für Friede und Sozialismus – immer bereit!” (“For peace and social-
ism – always ready”) is not simply a bizarre image. To me, it reveals a telling 
parallel, that shows the flaws and limits of a pioneer missioning approach, gone 
wrong. Pioneers can often be seen as those who want to change people’s con-
cepts and ideas from the wrong outdated ones to the new shiny mission shaped 
ones. Or put in terms of the “Junge Pioniere”, to change the invalid outfit for 
their set of blue colored neck-ties and uniforms. It wants people to stand in 
front of a flag pole, saluting the right concepts and ideas.

As I said this is my idea of pioneer mission, gone wrong. Sometimes pio-
neering mission is not actually interested in the people and neighborhoods the 
church interacts with. It is interested in expanding the intellectual territory of 
their concepts and ideas, however just and holy one believes them to be. This 
however is not necessarily the idea of mission that people have in mind when 
using the term pioneering. One may use it with an intention that is quite dif-
ferent from the one I have just described. Still, this is the effect which the term 
“pioneering” has on me. Moreover, whenever I discussed the term ‘pioneer’ 
with other German people, I usually get a set of raised eyebrows and a dismis-
sive shaking of the head. Further, in German theological discourse, “mission” 
itself is a highly controversial term, often dismissed for its violent history and 
the negative effects it has had on people. Adding a “pioneering” to “mission” 
it only adds fuel to the fire. It will simply be viewed as another attempt to gain 
intellectual territory rather than being fundamentally about serving and loving 
communities.

Looking into the missional literature in Germany, however I find that 
this is a perspective not commonly shared. People within the German Fresh 
Expressions of Church movement use the term “Pionier” quite normally (e.g. 
Henney, 2017, 141-158). I believe this is a result of a copy and paste approach. 
However, there are alternatives which Sandra Bils and Maria Hermann have 
demonstrated. Instead of speaking of a “mixed economy”, an ecclesial term 
derived from an economic logic, they speak of “Mischwald” (mixed forest). 
With this metaphor they describe the variety within God’s kingdom as a grow-
ing, flourishing and healthy forest. I find that much more fitting than speaking 



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of God’s kingdom in terms of a profit driven competition. Maybe we can find a 
term, that fits a missional style, interested in the social and spiritual wellbeing 
of the people and neighborhoods we interact with as church. I find some of 
these ideas resonating in the term “peace-seeking-mission”. Because as church, 
we are looking for peace on earth as much as we are looking for the peace of 
Jesus Christ. And in this endeavor, we are not alone. We can find allies within 
the community we live in.

United Kingdom

Luke and Rajiv say ‘our skin makes us different.’ Whether tattoos, or skin 
tone, who we are stands out from the crowd within the church communities 
we serve. My (Rajiv) first in-depth grappling with “pioneer ministry” came as 
I approached the application for ordination training. I had to demonstrate if, 
and why, I was pioneering. I could not articulate if I was pioneering. I am a 
second-generation Christian migrant, born and raised in the East End of Lon-
don, with a working-class outlook on life. My multiple identities born of my 
ethnicity, cultural heritage, and geographical location, should mean that I fulfil 
the criteria for being “a pioneering presence” by the Church of England’s own 
definition, at the outside of the traditional Church of England congregation. 
South Asia may be my heritage, but “Arrivals” at Heathrow airport is when I 
am home. But the conversation surrounding pioneer ministry made pioneering 
sound like cool coffee machines, a good haircut, and a really snazzy Instagram 
profile. The three case studies in the Church of England website only reinforce 
this image.6 The implicit assumption of “pioneering” is of a white middle-class 
cis gendered world, in which people resource and equip each other before going 
out on mission into the wilderness of the world. This wilderness defined by 
cultures and communities outside the predominant culture of the pioneer can 
be a one-way process. Successful pioneering is demonstrated when these com-
munities reflect the culture of the pioneer. Such cultural imperialism has no 
space for someone outside the dominant community. Iris Marion Young out-
lines cultural imperialism as one of the five faces of oppression (Young: 1988). 
This is the reason I found it difficult to self-identify as a pioneer.

6  https://www.churchofengland.org/life-events/vocations/vocations-pioneer-ministry#na.



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18

The first time I (Luke) ever heard of a ‘pioneer minister’ was when I showed up 
for a college open day for the Church Mission Society ‘Pioneer Mission Leader-
ship Training’course in Oxford. At the time I was about 9 years into a career as 
a bricklayer and general builder. A mate from the motorcycle club I belonged to 
suggested the course to me. The term ‘pioneer’ was new to me, but I liked what 
the speakers said about “the gift of not fitting in” and “dreamers who do” (Baker, 
2014:1). This resonated with me as someone who has always felt outside the 
‘inside circle’ of Church – which I have later come to realise is largely down to 
my social class. But through the years during which I cut my teeth as a lay pio-
neer minister in Luton, once voted the worst place to live in Britain, I’ve begun 
to question the term ‘pioneer’, especially in relation to the kind of relationship 
this suggests to the land and to the indigenous people.

Deacons within the Church of England are called “to serve as heralds of 
Christ’s kingdom” (the Ordinal). Faith in action seeks to actively serve the com-
munity, and to meet the needs of God’s people here and now. In that way, there is 
little difference between the call of a deacon, and the work of pioneers. And yet 
the concept remains problematic, not least due to underpinning assumptions 
surrounding privilege, class, and cultural imperialism. Mission Shaped Church 
embraces the call to “remember the poor” as “incumbent upon all churches 
exploring church planting or fresh expressions” (2004:7). It notes the influential 
legacy of Base Ecclesial Communities which emerged among poor communi-
ties in Latin America (2004:47). But this may not have been a good legacy to 
draw from. Argentinian liberation theologian Marcella Althaus-Reid saw in the 
BECs the continued legacy of western domination and exploitation. Privileged 
male leaders training in European universities, and visiting European bishops 
saw something strange and exotic in these new forms of Church which emerged 
among the poor (2004:34). Had Marcella Althaus-Reid lived to see the days of 
pioneer ministry, I suspect she would have seen something of the coloniser in 
this language too. There is good reason to ask what sort of person the would-be 
pioneer minister is being formed into through their training. This is certainly 
something I have considered in my own journey. What kind of heritage do the 
terms “gifted, resilient and visionary” carry? As already noted above I can’t help 
but think of Willie James Jennings image of the end product envisaged in much 
of Christian formation – the “white self-sufficient man, his self-mastery defined 
by possession, control, and mastery” the son of the plantation master ready to 
take mastery of his inheritance (2020:102).

A key problem with the term “pioneer” is that it is only used of one per-
son in the Biblical cannon – Jesus (Hebrews 12:2). The danger of the Christian 
minister or missionary over-identifying with Jesus the Father’s son, is that those 



Ben Aldous—Problems with “pioneering” mission

19

shaped and formed in the western academic tradition that Jennings critiques, 
bear more resemblance to the son of the master than the Son of Man. In this 
sense, I have recognised my over-identification with the male redeemer who 
in submitting to the father seems to lose it all, but in reality gains a heavenly 
reward (Tonstad, 2017:261).

Christianity’s radicalism is this: it serves those who are in need. Cornell 
West affirms that, no matter how much we fail at this, the message of Christian-
ity has always been “to serve the least of these” (West 2020). We are yet to hear 
of an invading or occupying group whose actions serve the marginalised in this 
way. Archbishop Tutu celebrates the concept of Ubuntu-of your humanity being 
wrapped up in mine, together we are human. This understanding is beyond 
binary limitations. And this understanding is at the heart of Christian theology. 
We are all called to partake in the Eucharist. Whether we term it communion 
(Jennings, 2010) or the Mass (Leech, 1988); Jesus’ actions at the heart of the 
gospel, in the last supper, are a pilgrim presence: that sees and acknowledges 
and loves the other without question. It is a love that breaks bread and shares 
with Judas. It is a love that defies death, breaks through all social boundaries, 
and brings heaven and earth together. Such love does not need sales agents; 
just witnesses – pilgrim witnesses of God’s love. That is how Christianity first 
spread, how it continues to spread, and how it continues to serve the poor, the 
lost, the oppressed, and the marginalised. As it was in the beginning, is now, 
and ever shall be; world without end. We wonder sometimes whether this fun-
damental ‘being with’ and breaking bread together can get lost in the pioneer 
mantra of taking the land.

A suggestion for the way forward – Pilgrim not pioneer

We have sought to show that a search for language and terminology that rejects 
a narrative around territory, exploitation, power and subjugation is very impor-
tant if the underlying assumptions inherent in pioneering language are going 
to be addressed. We propose the metaphor of pilgrim over pioneer. Where 
pioneering has difficult engagements with mission, imperialism, and domina-
tion of culture, we suggest adopting Stroope’s call towards “pilgrim witness” 
(Stroope, 2017:355). This is not simply as a resolution to the issues named 
above; but as a liberation of the imago Dei in us all. It is only by laying aside 
the binary understandings of the world that one can fully engage with each 
individual and community, wholly and holistically. Current conversation sur-
rounding pioneer ministry, with inherent cultural imperialism and dominant 



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20

narratives are thus limited by their binary foundation. pilgrim witness poten-
tially allows an engagement with communities as they are; building on the les-
sons of postcolonial missiology. Sanneh is correct, translating the message is 
key (Sanneh, 1989).

It’s our understanding that Christians are not primarily invited to be pio-
neers but to be “aliens and exiles” (NRSV) or “strangers and pilgrims” (KJV). 
What would it look like to see the Christian missionary minister in the western 
context not as a pioneer, but as a stranger and pilgrim? A pilgrim has a very 
different relationship to the land and to the indigenous people than a pioneer. 
A pilgrim does not come to prepare for domination, but rather to discover what 
God is already doing. Dutch missiologist Stefan Pass believes that the use of 
the terms “aliens and exiles” in 1 Peter 2 means that Christians are “different” 
and “without power” (2019:169). He argues that a ‘pilgrim’ denotes a positive 
meaning of being a stranger, it is a rediscovery of true Christian identity, and it 
is a “clear warning against all missionary dreams of ‘culture change’ and ‘church 
growth’” (2019:170).

We acknowledge that ‘Pilgrim’ is itself not without problems and was also 
used in the context of North American occupation of indigenous lands. In its 
Christian usage, however, it is a chance to see mission as a journey – where God 
is met in the stranger on the way and at work in already-holy lands to which one 
travels. It is language that reminds us of its potential misuse, but which offers 
us a different way – to travel lightly. We suggest this shift from “pioneer” to 
“pilgrim” may be a powerful contribution to this ongoing debate.

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	Editorial
	Nigel Rooms

	Problems with “pioneering” mission: Reflections on the term “pioneer” from Germany, South Africa and the UK
	Setting God’s pioneers free? The need to release lay pioneers from the Church of England’s narrative of resourcing and equipping
	James Butler

	Discipleship, mentorship and training which empowers African women for ministry in the diaspora
	Naar M’fundisi-Holloway

	Communal maturation and missional discipleship: A congregational study
	Nick Ladd

	Joyful disciples: A study of a missing link in considering spiritual disciplines and corporate missional habits
	Mike Harrison

	We want the good life now: Insights from lived religion for a whole person and communal approach to salvation in the twenty-first century
	Dejan Aždajić
	BOOK REVIEWS
	Kwiyani, Harvey. 2020.
	Multicultural Kingdom: Ethnic Diversity, Mission and the Church.
	London: SCM Press.


	Reviewed by Sabrina Müller
	Roxburgh, Alan J. 2021.
	Joining God in the Great Unraveling: Where We Are & What I’ve Learned.
	Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books.


	Reviewed by Steen Olson
	Susan Lucas (ed.). 2020.
	God’s Church in The World: The Gift of Catholic Mission.
	Norwich: Canterbury Press.

	Reviewed by Luke Larner
	Olsen, Steen, 2020.
	Jacob’s Ladder: Missional Church in the 1970s.
	St. Marys, Australia: SA & RL Olsen.

	Reviewed by Patrick R. Keifert





