A “New Breed of Missionaries”: Assessing Attitudes toward Western Missions at the Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology

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International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 36, No. 2 F. Lionel Young III is Senior Pastor of Calvary Church in Valparaiso, Indiana, and a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Stirling, Scotland. He has also served as a lecturer in church history and theology in India, Kenya, and the Philippines. —lionel@calvaryweb.net A we were passing through the town of Nyeri, some 150 kilometers north of Nairobi, our Kikuyu driver turned and said something that sounded strange to me, an American pastor spending his sabbatical serving as a missionary professor: “See that hotel. Oldest hotel in Kenya’s Central Province. Built during missionary days.” I peered out the window of our minibus and saw a British-colonial-style guest house partially obscured by a neatly trimmed row of hedges. “When was it built?” I asked. “Not sure. Maybe 1800s—back in missionary days.” Our Kikuyu guide knew this country well. At every checkpoint on the road through Thika, across the River Tana on our drive to the Aberdare Mountains, he chatted with local police as if they were old pals. His local knowledge made us feel comfortable in the unfamiliar beauty of East Africa. He also knew something that many in the West have yet to learn: to some people, the “missionary days” are ancient history. During the past century a shift of epic proportions has A “New Breed of Missionaries”: Assessing Attitudes Toward Western Missions at the Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology