[30 Minute Read]

Introductory comments from the MC…

More than thirty years have passed since the term “managerial missiology” was introduced to the vocabulary of global missions. At the turn of the century, the concept was embraced and explored by the Mission Commission as we countered what we considered to be an unbalanced emphasis on human controls to achieve the Matthew 24:14 vision in obedience to Jesus’ Matthew 28:18-20 commission within a certain time constraint. A popular reading of these gospel texts promotes the former verse as a task for us to achieve based on the authority given in the latter passage. However, Matthew 24:14 is more accurately exegeted as a promise for God to fulfill, with us obediently participating as we follow the leading of the Holy Spirit in making disciples. Good statistical and data analysis was unfairly associated in the push back against task-orientated missions strategies. But, as a wise person once said, “God cannot lead you where to go with information you do not know” (anon.), and with this essay we aim to affirm the need for well researched missions information. It is well beyond time to address the denigration of missions research, statistics, data and other information that has evolved in some missions circles. We desperately need robust and well presented data to guide us as we ‘reimagine’ missions for the new era ahead. And, importantly, we need to steward that information with upmost integrity.

1. A Search For Support

Hello everyone, I am Chris Maynard, founder-member of the Community for Mission Information Workers (CMIW) and Mission Commission ‘Synergist’ for Mission Information. I work with data for missions. God sent me into this area in 2005 and it has been a privilege to serve my Lord Jesus in this way.

I often found myself serving specific decision-makers in missions who wanted to improve their decisions with reference to data. They knew that there were relevant facts that they did not have, and they would ask me to use data help find them out. So it happened that all the missions leaders that I served valued data and respected the work that I did. But I not only serve decision-makers. I also serve researchers and data people who support them. And, the more I do this, the more I take a wider view of what we are doing with information in missions, especially information that can be described as data. As I do so, I have encountered some missions people using strange words to describe what I do, words that I feel denigrate the very work that I have been sent to do.

Let me share one instance in detail. I have developed, with some colleagues, an outline for a book about data in the service of mission. I sent it to a respected missions thinker who had expressed an interest in what we were doing, and he soon sent me a short email back. He began, “I think my main comment is that a project and book like this needs significant mission theology input.” That was a great start and just what I was hoping for! That was one reason why I sent it to him—to get sound input. He went on, “I would encourage reflection on our theology of research, data gathering and expectations for impact.” That sounded good too. I am frequently reflecting on the theology of what we do with research, data and information, and I look for outside input. I asked about the significance of “our” in that sentence. “Do you have something that I can already access? That would be wonderful.” He then replied, “I confess I do not have much ready material to point you to that can be of assistance with what you are doing.” So, his encouragement would have been good, if he had something concrete for me to reflect on. With this clarification, it just became frustrating. However, it was my correspondent’s next comments that moved me beyond frustration to anger.

He went on, “If not [i.e. if you don’t reflect on the theology that I cannot point you to] this [proposed book about data] could easily slip into a way of reinforcing an understanding of mission as task with all the problems associated with ‘managerial missiology’. I think that would be a missed opportunity to shift the way we understand our collaboration with what God is doing from enlightenment assumptions to a more Biblical understanding of God and his work in the world. The other comment I would have is that your definition of mission (finding faith in Jesus) is too limiting for me and risks reinforcing reductionist views of mission that have plagued us for so long.” [1]

I am hearing that those of us who collect and use data to inform mission decisions are locked into enlightenment, non-biblical thinking and are necessarily (if unwittingly) binding the global church into unhealthy patterns of neo-colonialism.

 2. An Offence Against Data

My correspondent presented me with an impossible problem! In a few words he has outlined a vast and dreadful chasm into which I could easily slip, with no guide-ropes by which I could avoid it. This slippery chasm is can be identified by the following phrases: “understanding of mission as task”, “managerial missiology”, “enlightenment assumptions” (which are implied to be not necessarily biblical), and “reductionist views”.

This is not the first time that I have encountered these words and phrases. When this perspective is presented, often the words “Western”, “colonial”, “simplistic”, and “reductionistic” are also used in a derogatory way. The way I understand it, it seems like they think that those of us who collect and use data to inform mission decisions are locked into enlightenment, non-biblical thinking and are necessarily (if unwittingly) binding the global church into unhealthy patterns of neo-colonialism.

We are given no way out. Most of us global data people are still Western—check. Any application of data is a simplification of the real world, therefore our defence against the words “simplistic” or “reductionist” is weak—check. Data was used by colonists—check. There is no theology of numbers available to us (Western or non-Western) therefore “non-biblical” is hard to refute—check.

How would we counter the belief that the missions model today is still “from the West to the Rest” without data to prove that the Majority World now sends the majority of missionaries?

3. How Do We Know?

The basis of all knowledge is data. Every culture everywhere gathers data and uses it to form opinions about their reality. It is central to the human condition. Moreover we need data in missions. Not just any data, but well researched and verifiable data. Data helps us understand major aspects of our world. Without good data, missions would be guided by subjective opinion and conducted in ignorance of objective reality. The ways that data can be misinterpreted or misused can make it dangerous, but it is more dangerous if we rely on inadequate or obsolete data, filtered through our cultural biases, based on anecdotes, or through what our educators learned from their teachers fifty years ago.

Imagine if evangelicals in Sub-Saharan Africa did not know that they are now more numerous than those anywhere else. Good data subverts that danger. When a European says to me, “I was really disappointed that there are now only a couple of Europeans on the WEA governing body”, statistical data helps me show her why such a situation is entirely reasonable because of the smaller proportion of European evangelicals compared to those in the rest of the world. How would we counter the belief that the missions model today is still “from the West to the Rest” without data to prove that the Majority World now sends the majority of missionaries? Imagine if the debate about the reality of millions of believers in “disciple making movements” was based on hearsay or on one or two examples, without knowing what is really going on worldwide. Without robust data, we would be at an irreconcilable impasse.

Without good data we would not realise that while most evangelicals are outside of the USA, most evangelical income and financial resource for missions is still within that country. Without good data we would neglect millions of marginalised people—whether marginalised by cultural differences, religious difference, injustice, or poverty. We could be walking by on the other side of the road, ignoring their plight, without even realising it. The global Church may have broken out of “the West”, but the data shows that most Christians (non-Western as well as Western) still live in places where there are not many non-Christians! [2] So, most of us are on “the other side of the road” from most people without the gospel to start with. Whether we are in South Carolina, Brazil, Kenya or Western Samoa we can become very complacent and caught up with our own “Christian” problems, forgetting that millions of people still do not have access to the gospel. We need data to serve missions, to motivate the global church, to carry out our duty to make disciples of ALL nations.

4. Does Data Reduce or Illuminate?

Some of the antagonism toward data stems from its perceived role in what has been called “managerial missiology”, a “linear management-by-objectives process” (Taylor, W. D. 1999. Global Missiology for the 21st Century: The Iguassu Dialogue. IVP, p110). The critique against framing missions as a task to complete and subsequent management-style control of missions initiatives began in earnest in the late 1980s, emerging after the 1989 Lausanne II Consultation in Manila. Samuel Escobar was among the more public critics. He reportedly spoke for many other Majority World theologians when he called Lausanne II a “dialogue of the deaf” (Boletín Teológico, 1989. 36) and claimed that the ethos was dominated by a distinctly American “managerial missiology” and a Eurocentric “postcolonial missiology” (postcolonial as interpreted by the West) in contrast to the “critical missiology” from the Majority World theologian/missiologists (Escobar, S. in Transformation Vol 8, Oct. 1991).

Escobar was one of the leading influencers of the Mission Commission’s 1999 Global Consultation at Iguassu Falls in Brazil. Two of his papers and one of Chris Wright’s were distributed to participants prior to the event. In his paper, “Evangelical Missiology: Peering Into The Future” (Taylor, 1999. 101-122), an amplification of his 1991 article in Transformation, he was particularly critical of “managerial missiology”. [3] Escobar popularised the term within the Mission Commission and it has passed into general usage in some missions circles. He had several useful things to say in that lengthy essay, which my fellow information workers need to hear.[4] But a complex set of interconnected issues were caught up in Escobar’s strong critique, which feels to me like an attack.

…because figures help us to see some aspects of missions more clearly, they are leaving others in the dark.

To my knowledge, the useful things that he wrote have never been properly unpacked since the Mission Commission’s Iguassu Dialogue publication. Perhaps they were never unpacked because the ‘package’ was so distasteful. For example, he wrote, “…there are some aspects of missionary work that cannot be reduced to statistics. Managerial missiology has diminished those aspects of missionary work which cannot be measured or reduced to figures. In the same way, it has given predominance to that which can be reduced to a statistical chart” (Taylor, 1999. 110). Note that in each of the three successive sentences Escobar uses the word “reduced”. One by one he attacks the use of “statistics”, then “figures”, and then “statistical charts”. He states that each of them “reduces” missionary work. His choice of words seems to put those of us who create or use statistics, figures, and charts for missions into a “reductionist” camp.

What if we take these three important statements out of their ‘packaging’? Let me attempt it here, using mostly the same words… “There are some aspects of missionary work that cannot be illuminated by statistics. Managerial missiology has diminished those aspects of missionary work which cannot be measured or understood by figures. In the same way, it has given predominance to that which can be illustrated by a statistical chart.” All that I have changed are the three occurrences of the word “reduced”. But now we have a topic that could form the basis of a true dialogue. The problem he lays out is that statistics, figures and charts highlight only those things that can be counted, and so can effectively obscure those that cannot be counted. The problem does not seem to be that numbers are “reducing” anything, but rather the opposite. In fact, I could reasonably have used a phrase like “elevated by” in place of every “reduced to”. His complaint is that precisely because figures help us to see some aspects of missions more clearly, they are leaving others in the dark. In absolute terms these other aspects are no more obscure than before, but when set against what we have discovered, what we can count, they are now given less attention. That would be a helpful topic for data people and non-data people to discuss together.

5. A Serious Responsibility

I am part of a Community of Mission Information Workers. For a decade we have wanted “to become a community that lives up to its God-given responsibilities. [5]

“encouraging the godly use of information – with integrity
“prioritizing prayer – praying ourselves and facilitating prayer through our information
“developing a clear view of what we do with information – how does God see it?
“understanding why information is important – what are its limitations?”

But what help are we getting from the missiological establishment in understanding those “God-given responsibilities”? Where is the useful theology that we can draw upon? Who can help us to develop a clear understanding?

6. A Biblical Theology of Data

The value, use, and limits of data is just one of several issues that it might be helpful for missiologists and data people to explore together. Claiming that mission information workers are trapped in an obsolete, or even unbiblical, worldview does not promote healthy dialogue. Why not instead provide some robust biblical theology and missiology to guide us, which is properly contextualised and relevant to contemporary data management, analysis, and application?

I am not a professional theologian, but I can find a few clues even in the first few sentences of the Bible. Right from the beginning, God started counting (Gen 1:5,8 etc.), evaluating things (Gen 1:4,10,12 etc.), and separating things into categories—sometimes those with a different nature (Gen 1:4), sometimes those of the same nature (Gen 1:7). God named things (Gen 1:5,8), noted or defined boundary conditions (Gen 1:5,8,etc.), and identified different kinds of things (e.g. Gen 1:21). These are all regular activities for us who work in data. By Genesis chapter 11 God has used over a hundred numbers to help to communicate deep spiritual truths about our origins. Then, in chapter 11, God gives us the first table of nations—effectively a people group list. People group lists, despite their weaknesses and the misuse to which they are sometimes put, remain a cornerstone of missions data. Then there are the various biblical censuses and surveys that are precursors to our work. It would be good to examine them to see what we can learn about what is good and bad about data and its use for our participation in God’s mission.[6]

How can we value the messages that data gives us, without diminishing “those aspects of missionary work which cannot be measured or understood by figures”.

7. Better Questions?

I don’t think that there are just two options for missions—one mechanistic, managerial and data-driven, and the other relational, and spirit-led. It helps no one to suggest that there are, and it does us no good to be so binary about missions. Missions requires nuance: both/and, not either/or.

Let me offer some questions to kick off a healthy dialogue. Any of these can stimulate useful and constructive discussion. I will try to keep my frustration out of them, but even data people can get emotional!

• What are biblical reasons for using numbers and for not using numbers?
• How can data better support relationship-oriented, post-modern, non-colonial, holistic, polycentric missions?
• How does counting people value them or reduce them to abstract objects?
• What is it about the use of data that can justify the term “colonial”? How do we avoid that?
• A human-generated data model will always be simple compared with the surpassing complexity of God’s creation, and Jesus frequently made simple statements, often giving only two options rather than shades of grey. So, when does simple become “simplistic”?
• Where in our missions does task-orientation meet relationship-orientation, or must they be considered irreconcilable? Can we use data to encourage building relationships? Does some data discourage the building of relationships?
• What problems lie with the way data is used, and what problems might be inherent in the data itself?
• Missions data has become strongly associated with goal setting, especially setting goals to “finish” something and/or to do something by a certain time. Is that wrong? Are there better goals and worse goals? Can data play a role in nudging us towards better goals?
• What is the relative value (biblically and practically) that data plays in:
  Allowing us to understand what has been fruitful?
  Allowing us to monitor or evaluate our progress?
  Allowing us to realign our future actions guided by past fruitfulness and progress?
  Driving us to prayer?
  Allowing us to project into the future?
  Encouraging us to set direction (for ourselves and others)?
  Allowing us to set specific, realistic, and achievable goals?
  And what are the risks in using it for each?
• How can we value the messages that data gives us, without diminishing “those aspects of missionary work which cannot be measured or understood by figures” (my re-working of Escobar’s words above)?
• Data can give legitimacy and weight to our ministry of persuading and motivating others. What are the appropriate places for management, leadership, administration, strategy, and tactics in missions? Or is it for everyone to do what is right in their own eyes? This relates also to what we call mobilisation. In mobilisation we take it on ourselves to motivate others, and an important part of that motivation is often a presentation of data.
• Does all this mean that we should devote more resources to gathering, organising, interpreting, and publishing data, or fewer?

Furthermore, why is it that data people typically get good engagement from missions people who seem to value multiplying adherents to our faith, and almost no engagement from those seeking justice or mercy, or from those who favour a more holistic mission? I suspect that this is part of what leaves us open to charges of reductionism, but where, for example, is the missions data on widows and orphans? No one has ever asked me for any, but as I read the New Testament I wonder if it would be useful.

It will help to advance missions data if these questions are addressed. But which of these questions are the most crucial?

Father in heaven, guide our discussion towards those issues which you value most, and show us if there are even better questions to address at this time. Amen.

A Final Plea

Your brothers and sisters who work with data in missions information could do with a little more understanding and help. I do not suppose that (even with good dialogue) we will come to full agreement on answers to some of my questions, but if you do not have the time or inclination to help us wrestle with these complexities, I have but one plea left… Please do not consider or accuse all use of data in missions as being simplistic and reductionist. Give us grace to continue the work that God has sent us to do.

Thank you for prayerfully considering these words and concerns.

Pray

• For all the workers in missions information, who faithfully serve God’s mission by ensuring leaders and practicioners of missions are kept well informed about the needs, opportunities, challenges and breakthroughs in global missions.
• That the dialogue between missions information workers, missions strategists, reflective missions practicioners, and critical thinkers in missions will continue in a healthy way towards formulating a good biblical theology of information and data for application in missions contexts.
• The we would all keep ‘the main thing the main thing’, serve faithfully in the way we are gifted, and affirm others in their giftings, so that God’s promise of the gospel being preached to all nations will reach its fulfilment.

Footnotes

[1 ] To be fair to myself, I had described “finding faith in Jesus” not as a definition, but as a focus of mission. In my next sentence I had referenced “justice” and “mercy” as issues close to God’s heart. (I am profoundly influenced by Jesus’ words in Matthew 23:23). This misunderstanding illustrates how it is difficult for data people like me to be heard when we say, “I know there is a bigger picture, but my data is only dealing with this aspect.”

[2] It is true that the church is now established in every country of the world, but not yet evenly. More than half of all Christians live in a country where more than 70% of people are Christians. Many of those countries now are non-Western, praise God. But meanwhile, more than half of all non-Christians live in a country where less that 8% of people are Christians. To the average Christian (whether Western or non-Western), the world intuitively looks largely Christian. Only information from beyond her locality will open her eyes to the real state of the world. (And, yes, the “average Christian” is female).

[3] Editor’s note: While Samuel Escobar was a key proponent of the term, “managerial missions”, it extends back to Kenneth Cragg’s critique of the Evangelical missionary movement in his 1968 book Christianity in World Perspective (see pp26-27), where he discussed three significant consequences of the European & Christendom origins of the missionary movement. The three are “the fact of empire”, “the white factor”, and the “managerial”. (See also Rowan, Peter. 2023. “Should White People Be Missionaries Overseas?” in Mission Roundtable: The OMF Journal for Reflective Practitioners. Vol 18, Issue 1. 16-25. OMF. Available from: https://omf.org/resource/mrt-18-1-june-2023-race-ethnicity-bible-and-mission/ Accessed 25 August 2023.)

[4] This article does not attempt to unpack everything useful that Escobar says. Here, I just bring out one example.

[5] This is part of a more comprehensive vision. See globalCMIW.org/vision.

[6] I have found a book that does something like this for modern economics: “Economics of Good and Evil” by Tomas Sedlacek, Oxford University Press.

[30 Minute Read]

Jesus asks us to read the signs of the times (e.g. Luke 12:56) and elaborates on the end times and signs of his return in Matthew 24, asking us to be watchful and alert. Paul writes that we must walk in dependency on the Holy Spirit (e.g. Galatians 5:25). I participated in many prayer times as 2021 drew to a close, and we consistently asked together, “Lord, now what?” “Lord, where are you at work?” “Lord, what are you seeing and feeling that we might join in your Kingdom work?”

Corporate or group listening times are a powerful way of submitting our hearts and thoughts in unity before the Lord, asking Him to speak to us as a group. Often each person brings a piece of the ‘puzzle’ and together we are able to discern the bigger picture. It’s a time for grace as no one presents their listening piece as the definitive word from heaven, but humbly offers it to the group to weigh together, and test according to Scripture. We all agree that the Holy Spirit speaks today, and that the Father wants to share His heart with those who follow Jesus (see, Amos 3:7 & Ephesians 3:1-5).

As the Mission Commission reflects on what “the future of missions” will involve and require, I share here a few trends or areas that have been repeated in different prayer times with different groups.

In every hour of crisis, God calls people back to a love for the word of the Lord.

1. The Ancient Paths

We are to delight in the word of the Lord. Jeremiah 6:10 rebukes the people and says that the word of the Lord is not a delight to them. Then, a few verses later in 6:16, He calls them to stop at the point of decision/change (the crossroads), take a good look around at the situation, and ask for revelation: to be shown the ancient paths. The Lord highlighted the crisis of the hour and their inability to hear God, let alone correctly interpret the season. He notes that their suffering, uncertainty and confusion is due to the fact that they did not delight in His word. In every hour of crisis, God calls people back to a love for the word of the Lord; He calls them to silence the other voices in their lives and cultivate hearing hearts. And though it has been 2,500 years since the Lord cried out to a rebellious generation through Jeremiah, the ancient paths remain the clearest solution to the crisis of our day.

Through the pandemic crisis, and now a global-impacting war, it has been common to see headlines like “Getting Back to Basics; Pruning Off Excess; Going Deeper (into one’s purpose etc.)”, and so it is for our spiritual wellbeing. We need to return to the core aspects of our faith. In the midst of circumstances frustrating our activity and strategies, there is a call for us to return to basic spiritual disciplines as the norm for follower of Jesus, for dwelling, abiding, remaining rooted in, and drawing life from Jesus (see, John 15). These are all part of what we have been hearing as a fresh call to get serious and repent of our too frequent “lukewarm” approach to being Jesus’ followers (see, Revelation 3:16). The ideal picture is of the roots of a huge tree being so expansive so that the tree can grow to full maturity and reach the height it was designed for came to our minds as an illustration of the benefits of returning to the ancient ways.

2. A New Thing

Doing something new might seem contrary to returning to ancient paths, but verses from Isaiah have echoed through so many times of asking the Lord where and how He is at work today. For example, Isaiah 48:6-7, “From now on I will tell you of new things, of hidden things unknown to you. They are created now, and not long ago; you have not heard of them before today.” Together with Isaiah 42:9, “See, the former things have taken place, and new things I declare; before they spring into being I announce them to you.” And 43:19 “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” The connecting factor is the Lord Himself. He is the Ancient One (see, Daniel 7), and Jesus is the Way to the Father (who is also Truth and Life, John 14:6). The ancient paths lead us to God’s unchanging voice and therein we find new applications for our situations.

The call is to remain dependent on what God is saying to each of us, and all of us, in this moment, and not assume that a word for a previous season is still applicable. No longer able to follow fire and cloud, the leaders of Israel told the people about the new way God was leading them into a new context, “When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the Levitical priests carrying it, you are to move out from your positions and follow it. Then you will know which way to go, since you have never been this way before.” (Joshua 3:3-4).

This is a challenge and encouragement from the Lord to dependence on Him in the small decisions and the larger ones. We have much to learn from those involved in church planting movements in sensitive parts of the world who are in need of constant discernment. For their own protection, believers seek the Holy Spirit’s direction on which road to take from their home, or if a particular person they are speaking with is someone who can be trusted. When the stakes are not so high it is easy to rely on what we think we know rather than to depend on the Holy Spirit’s leading (God’s voice) in all that we do. As the wise man said, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths” (Proverbs 3:5-6 NRSV).

The Lord is calling His Bride to a greater heart connection of unity and mutual support and service together for His Kingdom purposes.

3. Collaboration

In our missions network ecosystems we keep hearing more and more about the need for greater degrees of partnership and collaboration. Networking is happening across denominations, between churches, mission agencies and mission networks. In the current Ukraine conflict, a sacrificial willingness to collaborate between interconnecting ministries, churches and believers is a wonderful case in point. There is a heightened desire to contribute and accept help from others.

The Lord is calling His Bride to a greater heart connection of unity and mutual support and service together for His Kingdom purposes. There is a tangible increase in multiple “strands” (be it agencies, churches, denominations, ministries, nations, cultures and languages) choosing to stand together and help one another for the Lord’s glory. Sometimes this is around a common goal or vision, like the collaboration we are seeing in Ukraine or in other crisis situations like Afghanistan, Myanmar or elsewhere. Other times it is simply an agreement that prayer unites us, or as “strands” join together on an ongoing basis to serve and work together, for example the Global Family prayer room (see, https://globalfamily24-7prayer.org/).

We are quite right to focus on the Great Commandment and Great Commission, but in recent days Jesus’ prayer for unity in John 17 is also coming into fresh focus as the Holy Spirit seems to be underlining the need for “great collaboration”. It is, after all, by our love for one another others will know that we are Jesus’ disciples (John 13:35).

We are also hearing a call for simplicity in our collaborations. Our efforts to mobilise people and resources need to start with simple, small, and scalable strategies for prayer that connect to missionaries and their activities. There is a temptation to produce in-depth resources or comprehensive prayer guides, but there is a danger that such details can be overwhelming, resulting in fewer people participating. This is further underlined by a desire to be more inclusive of all generations, all peoples and all languages. To have material that is accessible to a wide global audience, simplicity and storytelling are essential, with a wide range of mediums utilised for communication and distribution. For example, through social media, video presentations, podcasts, messenger apps, dedicated apps and, even still, print media. 

4. Glocal (Global/Local)

If you are reading this, you have access to the internet, and that means you are globally connected. Whether or not we are actively involved in missions, those of us with global reach have a responsibility to be both ambassadors for Christ globally and obedient praying and witnessing disciples of Jesus locally. We are ‘glocal’ ministers of the gospel.

This trend is not new but is being vocalised and practised in a greater measure. The Global Mobilisation Network (GMN), at their online conference at the beginning of March 2022, underlined this as a trend in missions awareness, recruitment, and sending, which is increasingly being owned by local churches. It was noted that, of course, there is still a very long way to go until all local communities of followers of Jesus increase their commitment to, and involvement in, evangelism, disciple making, and cross-cultural missions; nevertheless, there is still a discernible increase, especially in communities of believers from outside of traditional missionary sending nations (i.e., Western nations).

Another way to describe this is a decentralisation, from agencies or “professional experts in missions and theology”, to grassroots prayer and missions movements, as reflected in indigenous expressions of church, theology and participation in God’s mission.

Now more than ever, God’s people need to know who they can trust, where accurate information can be gleaned, and how to be a people who can be trusted.

5. Children

On a very frequent basis  God reminds me, “don’t forget the children”. I confess that I need reminding, but I am convinced that multigenerational prayer and missions engagement is God’s heart. He has put us in families or households (see, Ps 68:6, Gen 18:19, Acts 11:14, Acts 16:5,33 for some examples). Many ministries that are facilitating children in prayer and mission are seeing great fruitfulness. [1] We also know that a large percentage of believers choose to follow Jesus as children and 40% of the population across Africa are under 15 years old. These biblical precedents and contemporary facts alone make discipling and involving children in God’s mission a very strategic emphasis. [2]

6. Falsity & Lawlessness

In Matthew 24, and especially v10, Jesus speaks of siblings betraying each other and of not knowing who can be trusted. He compared the generation of the Lord’s return to “the days of Noah” (v37), where people do whatever they please and what seems right to them. I mention this as its seems to be a trend on the rise. Sin rampant and the love of many growing cold (v12) is a root cause for social unrest, wars, famine, persecution, and offense between ethnic and other social groups. Now more than ever, God’s people need to know who they can trust, where accurate information can be gleaned, and how to be a people who can be trusted. As we enter prayer rooms alone and together, we also need discernment, compassion, and humility, repentance of prejudice, pride, and selfish ambition, so that we can pray for our broken, distressed, and unpredictable world. Prayer releases power that yields wonderful results (see, James 5:16b).

7. Persecution

Persecution goes hand in hand with the trends already mentioned. There seems to be an increased awareness of the need to learn from those who are suffering, and a growing realisation across the Body of Christ that we are “standing in this together” in that suffering.  When one part of the body suffers we all suffer.

I have witnessed in the life of a good friend and colleague that by prayer God can work transformative miracles in the hearts of those who acknowledge their fears, prejudices, and weaknesses. The Holy Spirit can transform hearts to become more compassionate, loving, generous, and a witness to neighbours who were previously regarded as enemies. All of this was in the context of terror attacks, where authorities were watching out for those who confess and follow Jesus as Lord and Saviour.

One intercessor sensed from the Lord that 2022 would be a tumultuous year with increasing fear, and insecurity, and yet also supernatural connectivity. Another felt that it is a year of the Lord’s favour. These things are not mutually exclusive. In the toughest times we find the most unexpected blessings. The Apostle James (3:13-18) reminds us of what true wisdom looks like, “the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness” (James 3:17-18). These are the things we need to cling to as we go through trials and testings. As Jude encourages, we are to pray, encourage each other, and wait, “you, dear friends, must build each other up in your most holy faith, pray in the power of the Holy Spirit, and await the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will bring you eternal life. In this way, you will keep yourselves safe in God’s love” (Jude 1:20). For this affirms Jesus’ instruction to, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you” (Matt 6:33).

We need to remember and be encouraged that God is bringing people to Christ in large numbers. The harvest is happening.

8. Harvest

Seasons of harvest in God’s Kingdom often are accompanied by seasons of suffering, discouragement, displacement, and persecution. Jesus said the harvest was ripe while looking at people who were harassed and helpless (Matthew 9:36). Those involved in disciple making movements, where the pattern is to apply the principles that Jesus gave to his disciple in Luke 10 and Matthew 10, are seeing exponential growth and fruitfulness as people from other faith backgrounds turn to follow Jesus. David Garrison’s in his book “Winds in the House of Islam” and the reports from the 24:14 Movement [3] indicate that we are witnessing a global harvest in parts of the world among people groups that have historically had very few believers.

In the intensity of the spiritual battles that we face across the world, we need to remember and be encouraged that God is bringing people to Christ in large numbers. The harvest is happening. This is cause for celebration. Afterall, it is God’s JOY that will sustain us (Nehemiah 8:10) even as we are in a season of active waiting for the Lord’s return. This joy comes from our rootedness and intimacy in prayer with Him, celebrating the harvest that is happening but also looking ahead to the full victory and freedom we know, by faith, is to come. Our strength is renewed and restored as we wait on the Lord in this way (Isaiah 40:31). For so many of us who are weary and heavy laden, we must remember that it is being yoked to the Lord that will lift us (Matthew 11:28) and our zeal will be renewed as we fix our gaze upon Jesus, our beginning and end (Hebrews 12:2).

9. Tech

Since we ‘turned the page on 2022,’ I have increasingly been aware of the desire and enthusiasm from people from all across the world to use technology, social media and apps for God’s mission. Again, this is not new but there is an increase in pace and greater level of collaboration between those with these abilities. Using online tools to better connect, communicate and engage, particularly with unreached people groups, in prayer, for disciple making, and to encourage disciple making movements, is gaining momentum. Assuming the trend can continue (e.g., that the internet remains in place), we will only see these technologies increase our ability to connect with one another and provide digital resources that result in ‘real-world’ impact for Christ.

Conclusion

In Summary, the trends that I see emerging as we walk into 2022 , trends which will determine the future of missions, are prayer dependent. So, we need to be prayer devoted. Devotion to prayer takes us to a place of humility, vulnerability, soul searching, submission, obedience, and mutual accountability with others and before God. There our hearts are transformed and aligned with God’s ancient ways and God’s new plans. It is a moment in history to arise, to stand firm in our God-given authority against the strategies of deception, lies, destruction and death, which come from our great enemy, the Devil (1 Peter 5:8). As we stand firm and take our positions in the authority given to us, our light will shine ever brighter in the darkness. Our pace is established by the eternal pacesetter and our power comes from the Lord Almighty who is powerful in battle and will build his Church. All for God’s glory.

I began my walk with Jesus more than 40 years ago. Today I find myself taking books off my shelf that laid the foundations of my discipleship. David Watsons book Discipleship (1981) reminds us to take God at his word. You will find breath-taking, blockbusting, Bible-based simplicity on every page of this book. Who should read it? “Anyone who wants to be a simple follower of Jesus.” [4] I highly recommend the appendix in this book which has a summary from a Lausanne Occasional Paper written in 1980 [5] highlighting the trends of discernment at that moment in history. Also in 1980, Richard Foster’s book “The Celebration of Discipline” was a book that marked my journey as I discovered from him the basics of being a Christ-follower through spiritual disciplines (see, Addendum below). In 2022, I take a fresh look in the “mirror” and fall face down in repentance at the lack of basic spiritual disciplines applied in my life, having known them for over 40 years.

As I feel challenged, so I believe the Lord is calling His Body to repent, to go back to our first love (Revelation 2:4), and to get serious about what it means to be a follower of Jesus. To obey Him and be like the One who is gentle and humble in heart (Matthew 11:29).  As Leo Tolstoy said “everybody thinks of changing humanity and nobody thinks of changing themselves”. [6]

Pray

• For God’s revelation of the paths we are to walk in our day, that map well with the paths walked in ancient times because they are signposted by the everlasting love of the ever-living God.
• For an increased commitment to unity and a collaborative approach to our collective participation in the mission of God.
• That we would be a people who are sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit as we labour in God’s harvest fields.
• That we will be people of prayer, modelling pray to successive generations and utilising every means available to us to pray fervently and faithfully with the global Church.

Footnotes

[1] https://www.ipcprayer.org/ipc-connections/item/14731-africa-last-quarter-evangelism-children-s-prayer-covenant.html

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrV9NoxDAmc Aim Lower, Think Smaller, Give up and go have a cup of coffee.

[3] https://2414now.net/resources/

[4] Foreword from Discipleship- David Watson (1981).

[5] https://lausanne.org/content/lop/lop-20 : 1. Creation, 2. Stewardship, 3. Poverty and Wealth, 4. The New Community, 5. Personal Lifestyle, 6. International Development, 7. Justice and Politics, 8. Evangelism, 9. The Lord’s Return, and Our Resolve.

[6] Richard Foster “The Celebration of Discipline” (1980) p9 

Addendum

What Are Spiritual Disciplines?

The primary requirement is a longing for God (Ps 42: 1,2). Deep calls to Deep (Ps 42:7). They open a door to God’s power, love and grace (Gal 6:8). The Spiritual Disciplines are Lord’s way of getting us onto the ground; they put us where He can work within us and transform us. By themselves the spiritual disciplines can do nothing. They are a means of God’s grace. They bring the abundance of God into our lives.

[55 Minute Read]

The year has almost gone and we are on the cusp of our (Western) Christmas celebrations. It is an appropriate time to reflect on some trending issues and consider their affect on global missions. In short, from my perspective the global pandemic continues to frustrate the plans of missionaries and missions around the world. 2021 has been a year of great suffering and set-back in terms of health and well-being, with a resource crisis on the horizon. The stress created by the pandemic has amplified competing social and theological convictions, resulting in increased polarisation. Geopolitical instability is also growing, with potential to be an additional threat to missions strategies. And yet, God’s purposes prevail. The question remains: are we fulfilling or frustrating those purposes? To help us frame our answer, let us consider Mary’s song.

Prophesy

Mary declared that, by blessing her with child, God had fulfilled promises to Israel that the Lord would scatter the proud and haughty and bring down those who assume rulership. Simultaneously, He would promote the humble. God has ‘flipped the script’. To further illustrate the practicalities of the Lord’s actions, she sang that He would satiate with fine things those who are in want, but those with much will be left wanting. Presumably, the wealthy would retain what they have, but it would be unsatisfying and paltry compared to what the Lord promises to provide for people who look to Him for their deliverance. Mary may have declared these things in the present continuous tense, but the great inversion obviously did not happen immediately. For the most part, it is still not apparent today. As is common in the prophetic tradition, it is an ongoing process—fulfilled, being fulfilled and yet to be fulfilled.

The proud will be humbled, and the humble will be elevated. Those who “imagine in their hearts” (KJV) that they are in control and have control over others will see that they control nothing of eternal consequence. Conversely, those who are tossed around and weighed down by the whims of the wealthy, privileged, and powerful will receive eternal satisfaction and an inheritance of “good things”… if they hold to their dependence on God.

Contrary to the assumptions of some, the promise of God’s blessing is not for the poor as such. Mary’s song reiterates the perspective of the entire biblical canon—they are promises reserved for those whose desperate dependence is on God. Those in material need are certainly more susceptible to leaning on God, but the promise is specific to the covenant—to Abraham’s children. As we eventually find out in the New Testament, these are children of faith rather than bloodline, and everyone without exception is invited in.

We Christ-followers, most of us Gentiles, are included as children of Abraham (Romans 9:30). That in itself is evidence of a great inversion. Many of the powerful amongst the Jews, proud of their heritage and smugly confident of their inheritance (as evidenced by the teachers of the Law in Jesus’ time), were left behind in God’s purposes as God-seeking Gentiles believed in the resurrected Christ and received the promised and ever-present Wonderful Counsellor, God’s Holy Spirit.

Within Mary’s song is a warning to us all though. Christian leaders can become as smug as the teachers of the Law were. The Magnificat is a warning to all who would presume to rule over others. Church history records many inversion events that had the powerful and influential within the Church running, while the marginalised ascended. The Protestant movement is one such occurrence. However, after 500 years of ascendancy, the movement (which includes Evangelicals) appears to be being brought down, at least in its Global North form. Its primacy is being replaced by new expressions of faith that are emerging among the marginalised in the Majority World. Christianity is now a Majority World religion, growing in prominence amongst the poor across the earth who are desperate for God’s deliverance, even as the Western Church is struggling to stem its decline—its influence diminishing despite its best evangelistic and diplomatic efforts. This is not an opinion. The empirical data tells this story. We have reached the inflection point of another inversion

Inflection

An “inflection point” is a geometric term that marks the place on a chart where a data curve starts to take a significant change in direction (e.g., from growth to decline or stagnation to growth etc.). This is not to be confused with the business term “tipping point”, which is more related to finally getting an uptake or return on investment. We have also become accustomed to speaking of “paradigm shifts”, but they tend to be slow moving changes of perspective or frames of thinking that solidify over decades. An inflection point is not directly influenced by anything we do or the way we think, it is an evidence-based point where data shows that a shift has happened. It does not indicate why or what influenced the shift. When it comes to social shifts, the forces influencing changes are many and complexly interrelated. It is best left for social historians to ponder.

We live in an age where data is currency and its collection and analyses in real-time are big business. The missions ‘industry’ is woefully unprepared for the data economy, let alone adequately collecting and analysing data for God’s glory. Missions research tends to be narrowly focused, such as academic theses or specific internal investigations into a missions issue (as the Mission Commission has done in the past with Member Care and Missions Mobilisation). We should also look to analyses outside of the missions community to reveal what is happening in the wider world. As I do so, in keeping with Jesus’ warning to “first get rid of the log in your own eye” (Matthew 7:5), I will limit the scope and implications of this paper to the inflection point of inversion happening within the global missions community.

Across numerous metrics, COVID-19 is marking a global missions (indeed, a global Church) inflection point in history. It is not so much that the change has happened unexpectedly, but that the pandemic has both amplified and awakened us to the fact that things have changed. The data reveal significant changes to our shared global reality and global missions with it.

Purpose

As I reflect afresh upon Mary’s song at the end of 2021, in the context of the fresh COVID-19 Omicron surge, I echo the confession of many missions leaders in acknowledging that we have been and are being humbled by this global pandemic. It is forcing us to reorient the “imagination in our hearts” and renew our desperate dependence upon God in our world’s persistent unpredictability. Furthermore, God has done this, for God’s purposes.

I am not suggesting that God has orchestrated the plague, but as with all things, God uses crises for the good of those who love the Lord and are called according to His purposes (Romans 8:28). The key here is to discern what God’s purposes actually are, beyond the missions platitudes. In what ways is God’s great inversion in process as we pass the inflection point? Who are the proud being scattered and brought down and who are the needy being raised up in the global missions community to fulfil God’s purposes?

Lately, I find myself reflecting more on God’s purpose than God’s mission. Although it is subtle, there is a difference between the two. That is not to suggest mission is not important, but if we prioritise God’s mission without appreciating God’s purposes, we will fail to correctly discern our role and responsibilities in the new world ahead of us.

The word “mission” carries with it an implication that we are sent to do something. This is ἀποστέλλω apostellō in the biblical Greek, which is rendered in Latin as missio. In contrast, “purpose” suggests meaning more than method; that is, the reason why something is happening or will happen. In the biblical Greek this is πρόθεσις prothesis, the intention or determination that precedes action (e.g. as in Ephesians 3:10). I wonder if we read the Bible through the lens of purpose (why/intention) more than the lens of mission (what/action), could we better discern the next era of global witness for God’s people around the world? For example, circumstance may be forcing an inflection point change in our understanding of mission, but God’s purposes still prevail. So, what does the data suggest is changing?

Pressures

Through this period of humbling, traditional missions organisations and border-crossing missionaries are losing some of their agency, their ability to achieve the goals to which they aspire. We all know the frustrations. Borders have been raised, travel has been restricted, everyone now requires an additional passport—a valid vaccine passport—to help protect themselves and those they intend to visit from COVID-19, and permission for expatriates to dwell longer-term is being restricted in more nations. Furthermore, increasing national, indigenous, and sub-culture identity formation is escalating intolerance of the imposition of ideas from the ‘outside’.

We hoped access limitations were just temporary frustrations. After all, we adapted to the travel restrictions that emerged in the wake of the September 11, 2001, event in New York. Evangelical missions strategies, which grew out of the 1970’s and accelerated in the 1990’s, were soon back on track and, in certain cases, accelerated (e.g., ministry to Muslims).

In 2020, we hoped the world would open up again once the vaccine rollout was underway in 2021—plans for gatherings were locked in, missionaries remained or returned to their fields, and donations spiked for traditional missions organisations as people with means responded generously to the needs created by the pandemic. Giving money was at least something they could do, and missionaries were close to those who needed assistance. As often happens, a sudden crisis could be leveraged to gain missions resources.

Then came the Delta variant, and now Omicron, and the next, and the next, until we eventually get to the point where vaccines and therapeutic treatments prove to the health authorities that they can downgrade the pandemic to an endemic illness—one that we learn to live with and one that no longer causes severe ill health, for those who can afford treatment that is. Pfizer’s experts estimate that we will not reach an endemic phase globally until 2024. In the meantime, our missions strategies either stall and die or adapt to new realities.

On the theological front, we are experiencing a major shift as the democratisation of knowledge, facilitated by digital technologies, influences the global Church. For better or worse, individuals and groups can now emancipate themselves from dominant, imposed, and oppressive systems of ideas and their supporting structures. Authorities are undermined and people of all religions and other backgrounds are “deconstructing” their beliefs. In worst case scenarios, heresy and conspiracy theories multiply, but it also enables biblically authentic global theologies to flourish, no longer suffocated by a Euro-American Evangelical orthodox consensus. A new sense of biblically authentic theological freedom is emerging on the ‘margins’. Our historic inflection point is revealing an inversion.

Generationally, this inflection point has revealed a major shift in global concerns. Environmental sustainability and climate change have joined humanitarian justice and poverty alleviation as locations of systemic sin, which demand intentional theological, Church, and missions engagement. Inclusion and equitability are associated with these concerns, which can no longer be ignored.

We are ending 2021 with missions facing the possibility of further prolonged travel restrictions, increasing insurance costs, missionaries with significant trauma care needs, an economic downturn that will reverse the donor optimism of 2020, increasing resistance to imposition, challenges to narrow thinking about missions, and a desperate job market potentially luring expatriate ministers back home with attractive remuneration packages and work-life balance options. Is this not a significant inflection point for missions?

Perspective

The Lord is frustrating the plans we have “imagined in our hearts” and the strategies that global missions boards have invented and invested in to fulfil those plans. Proverbs 19:21(NLT) feels like an “I told you so”, from the Lord: “You can make many plans, but the Lord’s purpose will prevail.” The Lord’s purpose prevails, not the Lord’s mission. They are not mutually exclusive, but I fear our comprehension of God’s mission has become too defined in certain Evangelical circles and it will inhibit the innovation necessary for us to participate in God’s purposes more effectively (and biblically) in the new era ahead. Is it possible that we have dabbled in a little too much in eisegesis as the global missions community has been attempting to motivate God’s people to achieve a certain type of mission rather than equipping them as disciples to serve the Lord’s purposes?

For example, consider the way Evangelicals have understood “sentness” for the past 240+ years. The interpretation developed within its colonial expansionist context, such that we now too easily interpret apostellō to mean crossing a divide of significant difference—from “home” to “other”. This is implied by what we understand to be “cross-cultural” for instance. If our ability to cross borders or cultures continues to be hindered because of this pandemic and its long-term impact, are we no longer sent? In John 17:18, Jesus located the destination of his and our sentness as ‘into the cosmos’ or physical world. As He was sent from the Father’s place to the world, so ALL who follow Him are, by default, sent from our place with God and one another into the wider world—wherever the Spirit of God leads us to make our habitation. Sure, Paul and Jesus’ disciples travelled in fulfilment of their specific apostellō calling, but they are the exception in Scripture, not the rule. Those who received each of the epistles were multiple thousands of homebound disciples, dutiful citizens of the cities or regions in which they came to know and witness to Christ (e.g., Rome, Galatia, Corinth, Colossae, Philipi, Ephesus, Thessolonica, Laodicea, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and more).

The overwhelming evidence is that the vast majority of Christ’s followers throughout history and even today do not permanently leave their hometowns let alone their home nations. Does that indicate widespread disobedience to the Lord’s commission? Or could it be that Evangelical missions of the past 240+ years have imposed their Empire expansion assumptions onto the Father’s sending of the Son? Could we be locked into a particular interpretation that will hinder us from participating in God’s purposes during, and as we emerge from, this major turning point in human history? What if, as Jesus’ disciples, we were enacting our sentness whenever we interacted with wider society beyond the bounds of our covenantal communities in-Christ (churches)? How might that reorientation influence our participation in fulfilment of God’s purposes? What does God’s mission look like from that perspective and how might it allow for innovative methods to emerge as we navigate our way into the future of missions?

Innovation

‘Innovate’ has become one of those trendy terms over the past 20 months of the pandemic, like ‘pivot’, ‘unprecedented’ and ‘uncertainty’. Peter Drucker’s “innovate or die” adage is often quoted, but within missions and Christian ministries in general, rarely is it well understood. In his book, The Innovation Crisis, Ted Esler, leader of Missio Nexus, the missions alliance in the United States, laments that they have struggled “to find contemporary examples of innovative ministries.” (p16). He goes on to define innovation as, “the use of something new to create solutions. It can include invention, the creation of something new, or it can be a mixing of existing things to create something new.” (pp. 14-15).

While businesses that can afford to invest in complex research and development can adapt ahead of an inflection point, successful innovation is more often a happy accident. Another well-worn proverb is, “necessity is the mother of invention”. Innovation tends to emerge from a place of desperate need rather than intentional change. Motivation to make innovative shifts is not there until the way we have done “it” before no longer works. As we consider the implications of a coming inversion beyond this inflection point, missions leaders had better start looking for the new ways to do “it” (whatever their “it” is) if their organisation is going to continue to serve the purposes of God going forward.

Problems

Confronted by stories of people without Christ in newly colonised nations, sending organisations were created to send and support missionaries to bring those people the gospel and help them access its perceived benefits—usually “civilisation” as defined by the colonisers.
Confronted with a call to stop sending missionaries to nations with established churches, the Evangelical missions community discerned new “unreached” fields for which to raise missions resources.
Confronted with declining donor support (or a distaste for fundraising), missionaries started marketplace businesses in an attempt to generate funds to enable them to carry out their ‘mission’, or they found a professional job that puts them among the people they felt called to minister to.
Confronted with missionary trauma, missions organisations developed member care departments and other care services multiplied to meet demands.
Confronted with declining long-term missionary commitments, organisations restructured to manage short or medium-term missionary sending and remote/serial short-term missions service.
Confronted with rapidly growing indigenous movements to Christ in formerly unreached nations, cross-culturally trained expatriate missionaries positioned themselves as guides, coaches and, in more traditional settings, teachers and mentors.
These confrontations and their matching innovations are, of course, greatly simplified. There are complex social realities behind each of the illustrated responses, but the point is made—problems generate innovations (for better or worse).

At the Missio Nexus 2021 Missions Leaders Conference, “Innovate 2021”, Patrick Fung (OMF International Director and Mission Commission Executive Committee member) presented a biblical and historical reflection on innovation as it pertains to the purposes of God. He noted that, “Christian innovation ultimately is not so much about a new method, but rather gives a new insight, fresh meaning, a new way of seeing the world while embracing the unchanging gospel, God’s truth expressed by traditions.” (Patrick’s transcript notes, p1). COVID-19 should be opening our eyes to new ways of seeing a hurting, desperate, divided world and the gospel-led solutions required. Not from the perspective of the proud, “in the imagination of our hearts”, but from the perspective of the humble, whom the Lord calls and sends to serve His purposes, as God did with Mary. We are all containers of His grace.

Pioneers

If we dare to move on from our Evangelical missions paradigm of 240+ years, we will see that God’s purposes are being fulfilled in exciting new ways by people we would not expect to be considered “missionaries” in the traditional sense. For example, indigenous followers of Christ among formerly unreached people who have been instrumental in leading thousands of their countrymen and women come to know Christ from a different religious background. Justin Long, a missions researcher, calculates that 1% of the world’s population belongs to one of 1,350 relatively recent indigenous movements to Christ—that is, ~70 million new believers in fewer than two decades.

Migration is another locus of innovation that too few missions organisations are adapting to. In the late 2010s Majority World Christians migrating to the Global North were recognised as revitalising our faith in post-Christian nations. This has unfortunately been called ‘reverse missions’, but such terminology continues to privilege the Global North in the narrative and does this phenomenon a disservice. Those who are promoting their faith with a spiritual dynamism and confidence foreign to their new locations are effectively migrant missionaries, whether or not they serve in a recognised religious capacity.

It should be noted that this tends to be a one-way flow. People do not intentionally migrate toward discomfort unless there is sufficient motivation to do so. Traditionally-sent missionaries do not migrate permanently to the Majority World (unlike many missionaries of the colonial era). The new era of missions ahead of us will challenge our modern “expatriate” tradition of sending. But the question remains, if the only way to follow God’s leading to enter and minister in a foreign land is to migrate permanently, how readily will Westerners or the otherwise well-to-do answer such a call?

COVID-19 has greatly inhibited official migration for the time being but the refugee and asylum crisis has accelerated in 2021, affecting for instance the USA (1.7 million) and Europe (a 70% rise compared to 2020). It is estimated that 84 million people, including 35 million children, were forcibly displaced by mid 2021. With geopolitical tensions and power-posturing, civil wars and unrest, economic crises, and climate change impacts growing and likely to motivate more people to seek a better life for themselves and their children elsewhere, the opportunities and need for ministry among diaspora on the move is only going to increase.

Displaced people experience unfathomable tragedy and trauma, but among these marginalised ones are those fulfilling God’s purposes, even as they flee/relocate. Our traditional Evangelical missions lenses may have blinded us to them, but communities of displaced people already have missionaries among their number. What innovations can the global missions community create to equip these refugee servants of Christ and enable them to achieve the purposes to which God has called them even in such dire circumstances?

There is another type of destination that millions of people throughout the world are escaping to. This too is both a context for missions activity and a source of missionaries if we have eyes to see them. That place is the virtual world. JP Arceno, the Mission Commission’s Synergist (issues leader) for Tech, states that 61% of the world’s population is connected online in some form. That is 4.8 billion (let that number sink in) internet users. Outreach, evangelism, missions—whatever you wish to call it—is happening in online gathering points among a huge pool of human beings who are otherwise unreachable with the gospel, but this context is not yet recognised in mainstream missions consciousness beyond our static information sharing sites and apps.

Emerging virtual reality and holographic technologies are creating new opportunities for interactive access to millions (or billions even) with the gospel. Unless the tech we’re already using manages to keep pace, within 5 years we will look back and laugh at how we maintained some semblance of community in two-dimensional space via Zoom and live video feeds.

It is all very well identifying new vistas for missions service and innovating ways to meet new social and environmental problems being brought into focus by the emerging generation of leaders, but one of the biggest issues that illustrates our inflection point in history is that of reconciling difference and understanding unity in contexts of systemic imbalance. What does it mean to belong, and how does it relate to the future of missions?

Inclusion

Prior to our point of inflection, harmony meant something like “do not rock the boat”. A US American in a predominantly Australian and New Zealander missions group, may have experienced their complaints and suggestions falling on deaf ears (or, more likely, mercilessly ridiculed). A woman with leadership gifts would be restricted to sharing those among the locals and not presume to lead others within her missions group. If an organisation determined their international language was English, any non-English speaker seeking to join would need to learn it before they learned the language of the people they wished to minister to. These situations and the like, where majority rules or rules rule, are no longer acceptable.

Privilege

The pushback is related to the democratization of knowledge and the undermining of objective authority as the paradigm shift toward relativism is cemented. Today, whenever a system inhibits the flourishing of a person or group, according to that person or group’s standards, that system is open to be questioned. It is pointless lamenting this turn or trying to fight against it. It has happened. Adapt. Just as the Church has adapted at inflection points throughout Christian history.

Homogeneity (living with people of like mind) is not an option in cosmopolitan societies. Even people who live in communities with others like them are exposed to difference online or via other media. Withdrawal or retreat into ‘sameness’ leads to stagnation (or worse) not growth. As an example of how dangerous the lack of diversity can be, consider online echo chambers that are a well-known source of toxically antisocial behaviour.

Our new era is dominated by an attitude of ‘each to their own’, an attitude that is increasingly global due to our interconnectivity. This is led by the central core value of the individualistic ‘free world’: personal choice. Except, that does not work when people from diverse backgrounds, with diverse opinions are thrown together into a community—whether a neighbourhood or a missions group. As the COVID-19 vaccine campaigns have highlighted, there are necessary limits to the privilege of personal freedom when the wellbeing of an entire society or group is at stake. Sometimes it is necessary to relinquish one’s own preferences for the benefit of others or the whole. While many societies struggle to learn this, the New Testament writers believed that it should be habitual for followers of Christ.

A missions colleague once told me, “If you’re feeling comfortable in the group, that’s a problem.” It is a problem because you are likely to be enjoying privilege in the situation. It reveals that you are part of the dominant perspective and have the most to benefit from your easy participation. There is a disciple-growing case to be made for every participant in a group of believers to experience discomfort as part of their participation. Our exposure to difference matures us as believers.

Todd Johnson and Gina Zurlo confirm that, in 2021, 47 percent of the global missions force is from the Majority World. This is a dramatic rise from just 12 percent in 1970. This should not be surprising, since Christianity itself has been a Majority World religion from the turn of the century. If the Global North continues its trajectory of missionary decline, we will very soon see an inversion—missionaries from the Majority World in the majority. We could debate who Johnson and Zurlo count as a missionary, but to what end? Are we merely seeking to defend a position of dominance in the global missions community? Is there resistance to Majority World missionary inclusion? Or more to the point, could there be some fear of what might happen if Majority World leaders increasingly took control of the missions narrative… and resources?

Reinhold Titus, an international missions leader serving with OM, completed his Redcliffe College MA this year with a thesis entitled, Fostering Globally Inclusive Organisations: Exploring Inclusivity in Western Founded Global Mission Organisations through the experiences of senior African leaders serving in them. His analysis of qualitative interviews with 11 African missions leaders is a revelation… and an indictment.

As is usually the case, a thesis reveals merely the tip of the iceberg uncovered by the researcher. If a phrase makes the cut, it is significant and representative of all that cannot be said. Fortunately, I had the privilege of discussing the research with Reinhold and I also know the lived experience of many of his research participants. This phrase early in Chapter 5 summarises much, “One of the key barriers identified through this research was Western cultural superiority, tied to factors including the Enlightenment, colonialism, and others. The data reflected Western organisational members’ superiority mindset and Western dominance in leadership and decision-making, which led to silencing of (Majority World) voices.” In addition, “the concept of Western culture, practices, and standards being assumed as superior and normative (commonly now known as ‘whiteness’) frequently came up in the interviews.”

Early in the pandemic, issues of racial inequality arose afresh from a flashpoint series of events in the United States of America sparked off by the unjust deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd in police custody (March 12 and May 25, 2020 respectively). The ensuing protests sparked a chain reaction that spread “Black Lives Matter” protests around the world.

Prescription

F. Lionel Young III is another researcher who published findings this year. They included revelations of systemic and historic racial inequalities in missions organisations. His conclusions were published in book-form as, World Christianity and the Unfinished Task. An excerpt from the book was released this month as an article in Christianity Today. In the article, Lionel notes that “It is important for Western Christians who are engaged in world missions to understand that white supremacy in all its forms has been rejected by the non-Western world.” Furthermore, and this is worth quoting at length,

Christians in Africa, Asia, and Latin America want (and deserve) to work with the church in the Western world as coequals in the gospel for the cause of global missions. Church leaders in the non-Western world are keenly aware of the history of subjugation that they and their forefathers have endured. They do not want to be ignored, bypassed, looked down on, or patronized by the Western church—arriving in their country to carry out their work independently as though no African, Asian, or Latin American church actually exists. They want the Western church to serve with them in common witness. They also want Western church leaders to acknowledge them, respect them, and listen to them. They want Western Christians to first understand their needs and then come and serve alongside them.

At our inflection point in global history, Mary’s song must challenge missions organisations and missions leaders to seriously wonder if we are the proud that God is bringing down in our contexts. If we are the ones to be scattered as the great inversion affects Christian missions. There is one way to ensure that we are not. It is the prescription Dr Luke writes just two chapters after his record of Mary’s song. A prescription delivered in the voice of John the baptiser… repent! Let Luke 3:7-18 serve as a warning for those with eyes to see and ears to hear. As the crowds asked, “What should we do?” when they heard John’s rebuke, note carefully how John explained to them what repentance looks like. Repentance is a form of innovation. A problem is highlighted that demands a solution. The solutions John proposed are practical, just, and directed in favour of the marginalised who are oppressed by those being challenged by the prophet. Missions leaders, we need to “go and do likewise” (Luke 10:37).

Conclusion

I have never known Mary’s song to be as popular as it is right now. It seems to be the favoured passage in most end-of-year updates that I have received from believers, as well as featured in numerous social media posts. Perhaps it is a passage especially pertinent to Christmas time at an inflection point, when there is heightened attention on injustice. Whenever I see a concentrated cluster of interest like this, I cannot but conclude that the Spirit is saying something to the Church. Each commentator has a slightly different perspective of who is being pulled down and lifted up, but few identify themselves as the proud. Yet, the healthiest way to read the passage is with the fear of the Lord and a penitent heart. How is my privilege negatively affecting those to whom I am sent? Who are the poor and marginalised, relative to my social and economic standing and privilege (for there will always be people more disadvantaged than ourselves)? How can I sacrificially serve the purposes of God as the Lord continues His great inversion?

We ALL carry a sense of entitlement; it is part of sin’s influence in us. We must rid ourselves of it as we move beyond the inflection point into the future of missions. An inversion is happening. It is amplifying the need for greater inclusion. Only greater inclusion will help the global missions community and its subsets be successful in innovating for God’s glory and the world’s well-being in the days ahead. Our ministry in the world is one of reconciliation, after all (2 Corinthians 5:18). This is the purpose of God—to reconcile all things under Christ’s shalom. The inclusion research discussed above implies that there still exists a strong sense of entitlement by (‘white’) missionaries from Europe and its global diaspora. But the victims of exclusion carry just as much entitlement. It may be entitlement unfulfilled, but it is entitlement nonetheless. One of the first marks of a disciple is that the Holy Spirit tempers our sense of entitlement. This is grace. As we receive all that God offers us in Christ, we realise that we are not entitled to anything but God’s wrath (Romans 2:5-11), and yet… Christ.

We know we have been elevated in God’s great inversion when, with eyes opened to our state, we receive grace and the Holy Spirit’s empowering to love one another sacrificially, deeply valuing each other, and serving with the attitude of Christ (Philippians 2:1-11). The love of Christ in us, with us, and through us, will ensure we transition this inflection point onto the right side of our generation’s great inversion experience. With Mary we too will sing, “Oh, how my soul praises the Lord. How my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour!” (Luke 1:46-47 NLT).

Pray

• Father God, forgive us for presuming our privilege is something we can wield to fulfil Your purposes. Give us eyes to see and ears to hear. So that we will recognise when our privilege is negatively affecting others. And give us a heart to serve. So that we will sacrificially lay aside our privilege for the benefit of others. Empower us, as you empowered Your Son. So that we will endure suffering as necessary for the well-being of this world both now and forever. Amen.
• For safe spaces to hold courageous conversations that allow diverse voices to contribute towards biblically-informed innovative ways to navigate the great inversion beyond our current inflection point.
• For patience to endure the frustrations we are all facing, and strength of resolve to engage in practical solution-finding wherever God has placed us.
• For the next generation of called-out ones who are even now being equipped with the skills and gifts to help lead us into the new era ahead, in new contexts, with new tools, and new methods, as we all seek to participate with God in the ancient purpose that the risen Lord Jesus Christ is bringing to consummation. Maranatha, come Lord Jesus. Amen.

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[50 Minute Read]

This essay was originally published in Transformation: an International Journal of Holistic Mission Studies, November 2, 2020.[1] Reproduced here with permission for its COVID-19 information. The original publication can be found: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0265378820970225.

In this essay we affirm that missions[2] is shaped by the life and experience of the Church, both past and present, and this in turn is the function of both the work of the Spirit of God and the interaction of the people of God with their contexts. In line with this position, we examine the impact of COVID-19, highlighting some elements of the global context of missions, and trends in world Christianity and missions. We then explore how global missions is in a process of realignment that has the potential to be enhanced through embracing the conditions COVID-19 has imposed on us. Finally, we consider the need for deep reflection on our identity if we are to take the opportunity to bear faithful witness in this moment

The Spirit works in mysterious ways. We know from theoretical works that while crises like COVID-19 lead to much suffering, they can also lead to religious change and transformation.[3] In this sense, the locations of crises can be opportunities for local ministries and transboundary missions activities. This is an opportunity to take stock and envision global missions in ways that are, perhaps, more appropriate for this moment in history.

The first part of this essay, therefore, begins with a broad perspective on the global missions context, and trends in world Christianity and missions. Here, the pandemic is highlighted as a particular crisis facing humanity.

While the COVID pandemic has been global in extent, its impact and response have been experienced in widely differing ways that make the pandemic a profoundly local phenomenon.

1. The Context of Global Missions

That we talk about trends at all is an indication that ours is a globalised generation, aware of the big picture and able, to some degree, to reflect in global perspective. Thinking of trends can be helpful, as long as it does not obscure the reality that the local is always ‘exceptional’. There is a tension here: we seek to understand the global while at the same time learning to listen and pay attention to the uniqueness of the local. While the COVID pandemic has been global in extent, its impact and response have been experienced in widely differing ways that make the pandemic a profoundly local phenomenon.

It is important to hold this global-local tension if we are to avoid unhelpful confidence in analysis that can leads to a fixation with strategies that in turn undermine dependence on God and sensitive listening to the Spirit and the local context. At this moment, the world population stands at 7.8 billion people, of whom more than 50% are urban, middle class and older than 30.[4] An aging,[5] middle class[6] and urban population[7] are trends, but such data masks huge diversity in national and local contexts.

In terms of global issues, it is suggested that COVID-19 is but one of three major challenges dominating the landscape. Reflecting on missions, on what it means to bear faithful witness today, we need to recognise all three, since they are inextricably interwoven and mutually reinforcing in their impacts.

1.1 COVID-19 and Poverty

We have entered an era of pandemics—some new (SARS, MERS, Influenza H5N1, Swine flu, Ebola, Zika), while others are long known diseases like malaria, yellow fever, measles, and dengue. The uncertainty and restrictions caused by COVID are likely to be with us for the next 2-3 years, but it will not be the last novel virus to cause disruption. Most new epidemics have been zoonotic, that is, caused by a virus jump from an animal host. This is likely to continue and probably increase.[8] COVID-19 has been unusual in its spread and scale of disruption caused both by the disease and by attempts to contain it. COVID-19 is intensifying many of the major global issues threatening communities, including extreme poverty, the environmental impact of climate change, food and water insecurity and gender violence.

Between 1800 and 2017, extreme global poverty fell from 85% to 9%, with the biggest drop from 50% to current levels happening since 1966.[9] Much of the drop took place due to changes in China’s increasingly urban population and more recently to the rapid economic growth occurring in parts of West and East Africa. At the same time, average life expectancy has risen from 31 years in 1800 to 73.2 years in 2020.[10] Although extreme poverty has been falling, 2020 will mark the first year in decades when that trend is reversed.[11] The situation in Africa is particularly severe, where incredible economic growth in some contexts is now in reverse. It has been estimated that those suffering from acute hunger globally could double.[12] For fragile states and communities, COVID is simply another body blow.

The myth of limitless growth has been brought into sharp relief…

1.2 Environmental Disaster

Human beings do not respond well to slow onset disasters.[13] Unlike COVID-19, the climate crisis is a genuine existential threat to our world. Drought, fires, storms, flooding, rising sea levels and the relentless extinction of species combine to threaten global food and water security and habitable space.

The huge reduction in the global economy, ground and air travel reduced global CO2 has reduced global CO2 emissions by an estimated 7% for 2020 if some restrictions continue till the end of the year. Yet for global rise in temperature to stay under 1.5 degrees rise, we would need a similar reduction (7.6%) every year this decade.[14]

Climate change and the global economy are interconnected. Morgan Stanley estimated that 16 climate events cost the USA alone a staggering $309bn in 2017.[15] According to a Financial Times report, the then Bank of England governor, Mark Carney, warned in 2015 that ‘Once climate change becomes a defining issue for financial stability, it may already be too late’.[16]

Fundamental questions about the sustainability and stability of the global economy are not just driven by COVID-19 and climate change. The myth of limitless growth has been brought into sharp relief by events such as the 2008 financial crisis. As activists around the world urge their governments to ‘Build Back Better’[17] following COVID-19, it is clear that simply greening the economy will not be sufficient. We desperately need a new economic model that moves us from an economy of consumption to one of needs-based, sustainable production in which all benefit.[18]

The impact of colonialism lives deep in the psyche of oppressed communities fed by continuing daily realities of inequality.

1.3 Racism, Post-Colonialism and Neo-Colonialism

Global insecurities have fed the rise of populist, authoritarian regimes.[19] This in turn connects with a third global issue intersecting with COVID and the Climate Crisis; that of racism and the legacy of colonialism globally. The focus on systemic injustice and inequality has been heightened following George Floyd’s unlawful killing in the USA. This sparked global outrage from Brazil to Beirut, Syria to Singapore and generated solidarity among populations who feel oppressed by dictatorship, brutal policing and unaccountable political authorities.[20]

Forces of globalisation, whether economic or cultural, have generated a counter-narrative expressed in nationalism, frequently allied to religious radicalism. These forces need to be seen against a postcolonial backdrop where as recently as 1914, 85% of the earth’s landmass was controlled by European and, predominantly, British powers. One hundred years may seem a long time, but the impact of colonialism lives deep in the psyche of oppressed communities fed by continuing daily realities of inequality. Opposition to globalisation, experienced as a form of neo-colonialism, can be understood as a profound struggle for identity and belonging.

The comments above are a very brief commentary on three global trends that profoundly affect World Christianity and Christian missions. Space precludes any exploration of other equally important issues such as urbanization, migration and displacement of peoples, the changing nature of economic and military power with the rise of China, corruption, the impact of Artificial Intelligence and technology allied to fundamental questions of what it means to be human.

More than at any point in history, the church is faced with the opportunity to demonstrate the sign of the Kingdom through a united people sharing a common identity in Christ.

2. Trends in World Christianity

Following the comments above, it is worth pointing out that churches and Christian Non-Governmental and Faith-Based organisations continue to be central players in efforts at poverty reduction, education, and health care. This is not just true of those contexts in which state actors are unable or unwilling to provide basic services. In the UK, Christian groups have been at the forefront of the hospice care movement, food banks, and community initiatives to support young mothers and infants, the care of the elderly and so on. As state provision becomes increasingly costly, the space for Christian action grows. In Muslim contexts, Christian service, provided unconditionally, remains a central way to bear faithful witness to the grace and goodness of God.

Those who identify as Christian have never reached beyond a third of the world’s population and by 2050 this is set to fall to 31%. Islam, in contrast, estimated at 26% in 2010, is set to rise to 30% by 2050. As Andrew Walls famously reminded us many years ago, Christianity, unlike Islam, is not territorial. The shift in Global Christianity from North and West to South and East is well documented. The multiplication of Christian denominations reflects these demographic shifts within World Christianity. By 1984, in Africa alone there were over 7000 independent denominations in 43 African countries, representing new expressions of church that are unrelated to earlier mission efforts.[21]

While recognising the shifts in geographic locus, perhaps we have been slower to recognise the extraordinary growth in diversity of the church in the past 50 years. As recently as the 1990s there were numerous countries, including many majority Muslim nations in North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, in which there was no known indigenous church. Today we can rejoice in vibrant communities of Christ-followers in every nation. We will pick this up below but suffice it to say here that significant movements towards Christ have been documented from within Islam, Hinduism, various strands of Buddhism and ideological contexts of communism. Only secular materialism appears resistant to significant church growth.

The church has not only become more diverse through multiple movements to Christ within particular communities. Diversification has occurred through people on the move, whether that be those from Sumatran Muslim tribal groups finding Christ in Jakarta mega-churches, Afghan migrants in Germany, or Christians on the move such as Sudanese refugees in Cairo, Filipino maids in Hong Kong or Nigerian businesspeople in London. The UN estimates that at the end of 2019 there were 79.5 million displaced people, 85% of whom were hosted in developing world countries.[22] This does not include the millions who have migrated for economic reasons, studies or family connections. While we have tended to describe the Church by geography, ethnicity or religious background, these categories are increasingly inadequate descriptors in today’s world of kaleidoscopic movement. More than at any point in history, the church is faced with the opportunity to demonstrate the sign of the Kingdom through a united people sharing a common identity in Christ. Given the earlier comments about racism and post-colonialism, this sign is profoundly needed.

Two other trends are worth mentioning briefly. Firstly, we note the increasing persecution and the marginalisation of Christianity. Open Doors, in their 2019 report,[23] noted a number of major trends shaping persecution of Christians:

• Authoritarian states are clamping down and using legal regulations to control religion. Examples include China, North Korea and Vietnam.
• Ultra-nationalists are depicting Christians as ‘alien’ or ‘Western’ and trying to drive them out. Here examples include parts of India, Myanmar, Turkey, Nepal and Bhutan.
• Radical Islam has moved from the Middle East to sub-Saharan Africa and seen in armed insurgencies in Nigeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad and Niger as well as Somalia, Yemen and Libya.

If persecution reflects attack from outside, we should also note internal factors that render the Church vulnerable from within. Counting the number of adherents is no measure of strength, as demonstrated by those contexts where 25, 40 or even 80% of the population profess Christian faith and yet society does not remotely reflect the Kingdom of God. Kenyan scholar, George Kinoti laid the blame at the feet of Western missionaries who brought a ‘spiritual’ gospel that failed to integrate discipleship with every aspect of communal living and society.[24] There was a reduction of the gospel of the Kingdom in ways that separated the kingdom from the King. Kinoti does not blame those missionaries but points out that they failed to recognise how their worldview was shaped by their own culture.

This is not unique to Western missions in East Africa. The global Church consistently underestimates the degree to which context shapes us, resulting in failure to develop Biblically authentic, contextualised discipleship. Like woodworm that can eat the heart from a mighty tree, leaving it vulnerable to sudden and catastrophic collapse in storms, superficial expressions of discipleship are always deceptive. We may think the Church in a given location is healthy due to size when it is in fact vulnerable to rapid decline due to an inability to reflect theologically and act courageously in contextually appropriate ways. The historic North African church is an example of an apparently large church going into catastrophic decline, and most assessments today suggest internal factors as the cause rather than simply Islamic conquest.[25]

With this brief overview of trends in global context and world Christianity, we now consider how these are reflected in world missions.

Missions reduced to sending is increasingly ill-adapted to today’s very varied missions contexts and is increasingly out of step with our understanding of the nature of missions.

2. Trends in World Missions

3.1 The Prevailing Cross-Cultural Missions Paradigm

The prevailing missions paradigm is under pressure and COVID is accentuating fractures that have been there for some time. Within Protestant expressions of Church, the idea that missions is centred on sending developed in the late 18th century, flourished in the 19th and came under increasing pressure in the 20th. However, Dana Roberts comments, ‘By the end of the 20th century the most significant development in the structure of missions was not the end of the missionary movement but its transformation into a multi-cultural, multifaceted network.’[26] Missionary sending had moved from ‘West to rest’ to ‘from everywhere to everywhere’. Newer missions movements are now contributing tens of thousands of workers from Latin America, Africa and parts of Asia, notably South Korea and, more recently, the Philippines.

This movement has resulted in the formation of hundreds of new missionary sending agencies as well as the internationalisation of historic agencies who now generally function as multicultural organisations and teams. Newer expressions of sending are described as ‘reverse mission’, with those from the Global South and East moving to evangelise the post-Christian West.[27] As missions agencies have struggled for legitimacy in a global context, larger churches, mega-churches and networks have sent workers directly.

These realities might suggest that the modern missions paradigm, focused on sending and the cross-cultural missionary, is alive and well. While some hail these innovations as a new era of missions, we suggest these developments simply reflect modifications to an existing paradigm that is waning. This understanding of missions is faltering for numerous reasons, including:

• Unsustainable financial systems in both old and newer sending contexts.
• The proliferation of missions agencies and Christian Non-Governmental Organisations, too often doing their own thing without relationships with the Body of Christ locally.
• Visa restrictions arising from a range of circumstances, including suspicion of outsiders and the existence of locally trained professionals.
• An emphasis on short-term sending. Long-term is reduced to a few years, resulting in decreased cross-cultural ministry preparation, language and cultural acquisition.

More important than these issues, missions reduced to sending is increasingly ill-adapted to today’s very varied missions contexts and is increasingly out of step with our understanding of the nature of missions. The current system has shaped missions from historic sending contexts but also the new missions movements from Latin America, Africa and parts of Asia. It fundamentally fails to take account of the degree to which the sending model of missions reflects a Christendom view of the world.[28] Alan and Eleanor Kreider have shown that the ‘sending and going’ model fitted within a broader Christendom paradigm, in which four elements were tightly interwoven:[29]

I. Missions defined by geography, with parts of the world ‘Christian’ and parts ‘not yet Christian’.

The current paradigm of mission still maintains the importance of geography with phrases like ‘the 10/40 window’. However, in some parts of the Protestant missions movement, geography has largely been substituted with ethnicity, with the focus on ‘people groups’ coupled with anachronistic readings of the Greek term ‘ethnos’ in the New Testament. While for many this remains compelling, this approach increasingly fails to take into account the complexities of identity and movement that characterise the global context and especially the growth of the Church in all nations.

II. Missions as the responsibility of the Church.

Today we recognise that mission is God’s—the missio Dei—and that we are called to participate in God’s mission. None-the-less, the legacy of Christendom assumptions about missions are so strongly embedded in missions language, structures and systems that it is possible to affirm the missio Dei and at the same time take over the work of missions, ignoring what God is already doing and focusing on our statistics, strategies and resources.

III. The goal of missions as the establishment of the Church.

When missions is the responsibility of the Church as an institution then, naturally, institutional concerns will define the content of missions. When cross-cultural workers come from local church contexts shaped by Enlightenment thinking, church concerns may be reduced to ‘spiritual’ activities and all that flows from that in terms of a dichotomised gospel in which the Kingdom is separated from the King, as mentioned above. Our understanding of the work of missions continues to suffer from a reductionist view of the nature of God’s mission.

IV. Special agents are required for missions.

In 1974, the Lausanne Covenant noted that, ‘evangelization requires the whole church to take the whole gospel to the whole world’.[30] Nearly 50 years later, missions continues to be promoted and practiced as something done by Christians with a special calling, among particular kinds of people, focused on gathered church activities.

COVID, far from being a frustration to the mission of God, could be just the restraint to the global missions industry that we need if we are to reimagine how different parts of the Body of Christ act together to support faithful, holistic, local witness.

It may be that the perpetuation of a Christendom view of missions, where missions is primarily based on cross-cultural sending, is the single biggest obstacle to the whole people of God taking responsibility to step out and participate in the fullness of God’s mission. COVID, along with the climate crisis and post-colonial context, offers an unparalleled opportunity to realign our understanding and practice of missions. This realignment will grasp two key realities.

First, the centrality of the people of God in a locality as the primary human instrument for missions in that context. The growth of the Church in every nation over the past 30 years means that the primary witness to the gospel of the Kingdom is no longer dependent on individual cross-cultural servants but local worshiping communities of disciples. This is not to suggest that local churches exist in every community or ethnolinguistic group, but all these groups are accessible to near neighbours.

The call for a shift in focus from cross-cultural missions to local faithful witness is nothing new. It was Roland Allan’s challenge to the mission movement over 100 years ago, with the challenge to trust the Spirit of God at work in the new churches and let go control.[31] Dr Jay Matenga, Executive Director of the World Evangelical Alliance’s Mission Commission, has been listening to conversations of missions leaders globally through the COVID pandemic and sees a number of emerging themes including transformative collaboration, whole-of-life discipleship, and technical advancements in the service of missions. However, the strongest theme is the call to an indigenous future.[32] COVID, far from being a frustration to the mission of God, could be just the restraint to the global missions industry that we need if we are to reimagine how different parts of the Body of Christ act together to support faithful, holistic, local witness.

We should not underestimate the challenge. The legacy of Christendom missions remains deeply embedded in our churches, denominational structures, and agencies. If we are to ‘build back better’ in missions there is an urgent need to explore the assumptions and theological constructs that underpin over 200 years of Protestant missions. Key to discerning what God requires of us in ‘missions’ today is the development of new language. Missions itself is a term freighted with assumptions, wrapped up in its Latin origins (missio, ‘to send’). If missions is no longer conceived primarily as physical sending and going, then the label itself must change.[33]

This is not to suggest there is no place for cross-cultural going. Nor does it deny the Biblical theme of Trinitarian sending and going which in turn is to be reflected in the people of God. Rather, we believe it is time to disengage the sending of the whole church into the world (cf. John 17:18ff with 20:21) from the modern missions movement that has laid exclusive claim to its interpretation. This exclusive claim continues to marginalise large sections of the Body of Christ. Just as the COVID pandemic has reminded us of the locatedness of the experience and response to the pandemic, we are also reminded that faithful witness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ over everything and everyone (Ephesians 1:9,10) is borne out principally through indigenous witness.

This brings us to a second reality that must shape the faithful witness of the Church. The pandemic, impact of climate change and heightened awareness of racial injustice are powerful reminders of the brokenness of our world and the iniquitous inequalities and injustices that define countless lives globally. We are reminded that God’s mission is more than simply the rescue of lost souls from a disintegrating planet but the renewal of all things (Revelation 21:5) and healing of brokenness and alienation of all things in heaven and earth (Colossians 1:20). A narrow, reductionist, spiritualised understanding of missions fails to take into account the Biblical story, God’s self-revelation and God’s call on God’s people to faithful witness through life, word and transformed community from Genesis to Revelation. This moment provides a fresh invitation to the Body of Christ to join together what we have so often torn apart; being and doing, living and speaking, serving and prophetic proclaiming, abiding and going.

3.2 Embracing Identity

One of the obstacles to making deep change is the challenge it brings to our sense of identity. I was recently talking with a cross-cultural worker in Central Asia. He had left everything to become a church planter. He explained the struggle he felt as his role had become that of encourager and supporter to the indigenous leaders. He was undergoing a crisis of identity. Whether we believe it is theologically right or not, we cannot escape the reality that who we are is so often shaped by what we do. Disruptive times can be a gift in which we may discover anew our dependency on God in our engagement with God’s mission, and the Biblical narrative provides plenty of examples of how this can be so. Take Abraham and the story recorded in Genesis chapter 20:1-2,

Now Abraham journeyed from there to the region of the Negev and settled between Kadesh and Shur. While he was staying in Gerar, Abraham said of his wife Sarah, “She is my sister.” So Abimelech king of Gerar had Sarah brought to him.

Twenty-four years after the calling to leave country, household and family, now aged 99, the story of Abraham and Abimelech is sandwiched between a series of momentous encounters between Abraham and God. During his 99th year God appears to Abram and changes his name, reaffirms his covenant through circumcision (chapter 17), appears at his tent and again promises a son, reveals his plans to judge Sodom and Gomorrah precipitating a remarkable intercessory conversation (chapter 18), destroys the cities on the plain (chapter 19) and finally gives the heir of the promise (chapter 21).

Quite a year of encounters. Yet in the midst of them, we are reminded that Abraham is still a family of no fixed abode. Wandering in a land not his own, surrounded by those not his own, Abraham still lives with insecurity and fear. He was afraid for his life, for Sarah was beautiful and he was concerned that one stronger than he would overpower him and carry off his beautiful wife. This fear first surfaced years earlier on a visit to Egypt. Fear led to deception, ‘she is my sister’, and this became the protective mantra. Twenty-four years later, fear releases behaviour that has become the default.

The wanderer identity is a gift, pointing us to a place of vulnerability and dependence on God

The story unfolds with Abimelech taking Sarah but God intervening to protect both her and Abimelech. It is a remarkable narrative for students of missions, in which the pagan Abimelech turns out to fear God more that the man of God Abraham! However, what is of interest here is the way Abraham describes himself when confronted by Abimelech…

Abraham replied, “I said to myself, ‘There is surely no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.’ Besides, she really is my sister, the daughter of my father though not of my mother; and she became my wife. And when God had me wander from my father’s household, I said to her, ‘This is how you can show your love to me: Everywhere we go, say of me, “He is my brother.” (Gen 20:11-13).

‘When God had me wander from my father’s house…’ The Hebrew is literally ‘when God caused me to wander from my father’s house’. It is almost as if Abraham is blaming God for his predicament, his sense of insecurity and fear. After all these years, Abraham is still struggling with his identity. How might it have been different if Abraham had embraced the wanderer identity, uncomfortable though it is? Whatever Abraham’s struggles at this point, his identity as a wanderer becomes embedded in Israel’s identity: ‘you are to declare before the LORD your God, “My father was a wandering Aramean.’ (Deuteronomy 26:5)

The wanderer symbolised the insecurity and vulnerability of Israel’s origins. This is recalled by King David when he finally settles the Ark in Jerusalem, celebrating in song,

When they were but few in number, few indeed, and strangers in it, they wandered from nation to nation, from one kingdom to another. He allowed no one to oppress them; for their sake he rebuked kings: “Do not touch my anointed ones; do my prophets no harm.” (1 Chronicles 16:19-22).

The wanderer identity came to signify not only vulnerability but the faithfulness of God and his ability to provide and protect in the midst of insecurity. Here is the point for us today as we are faced with the suffering and loss and the disruption of cherished certainties: the wanderer identity is a gift, pointing us to a place of vulnerability and dependence on God.

The wanderer identity, of stranger and alien in a land not our own, is picked up in the New Testament in the epistle of 1 Peter. In his opening greeting, the writer addresses ‘God’s elect, strangers in the world and scattered in…’ Note the juxtaposition of identity: elect and stranger. Both are true. Peter, rather than holding the wanderer identity at arm’s length, as something imposed by God, urges his readers to embrace it. “I urge you to live as aliens and strangers in the world.” (1 Peter 2:11)

Insecurity and fear are powerful emotions, triggering behaviour that becomes ingrained over the years. The danger is that, rather than embrace the opportunity for change, we fall back on what we know, on that which soothes our sense of identity. Abraham’s story reminds us that fear is very rarely a healthy driver of behaviour. Instead, we are invited to embrace the identity of the wanderer, an identity that is not primarily about geography but a posture of dependence, vulnerability, and daily obedience.

Conclusion

We began by saying that missions is shaped by the life and experience of the Church, both past and present. COVID-19 is particularly noteworthy, in that for many around the world it represented a level of crisis this generation has not seen before. The experience of COVID-19 has been truly universal. For multitudes of others, it has multiplied the vulnerability, marginality, and suffering they already faced. For all of us it is a warning of the dire consequences that will inevitably follow if we do not take climate change seriously and radically alter the way we organise our work and relationships globally.

At the same time, we have sought to demonstrate the opportunity that this disruption provides to reimagine missions and realign the way we participate in God’s mission as our faith is nurtured through dependent on God. Whether we are willing to do this will be shaped by many factors, not least our sense of identity as followers, as those who bear faithful witness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ over everyone and everything.

Footnotes

1. This paper is part of a co-authored, longer paper eventually to be published by the journal of Torch Trinity Center for Islamic Studies, Seoul.
2. This version of the article alters the use of missions and mission for Mission Commission use. Our reference to missions (plural) follows missiological conventions developed by David Bosch (Bosch 1991), Christopher Wright (Wright 2006) and others who distinguish between mission (singular) as God’s loving self-revelation and engagement with the world, and missions (plural) as the missionary ventures of the Church, privileged to participate in the mission of God. The use of mission (singular) is rooted in the Latin term missio Dei, ‘mission of God’, from Karl Hartenstein who applied it to summarize Karl Barth’s intratrinitarian missiology (Hoedemaker and Spindler 1995).
3. See, for example, sociologist Rodney Stark’s work on the impact of pandemics on the growth of the early Christian movement. Rodney Stark, The rise of Christianity, Princetown University Press, 1996
4. H. Ritchie & M. Roser, 2019, ‘Age Structure’, retrieved from Our World In Data, https://ourworldindata.org/age-structure , accessed 11 July 2020
5. S. E. Vollset, S. Goren, C-W. Yuan, et al., 2020, ‘Fertility, mortality, migration, and population scenarios for 195 countries and territories from 2017 to 2100: a forecasting analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study,’ in The Lancet, 14 July in DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140- 6736(20)30677-2, accessed 15 July 2020
6. H. Kharas, 2017. ‘The Unprecedented Expansion” in Global Economic and Development at Brookings, February, https://www.brookings.edu/wp- content/uploads/2017/02/global_20170228_global-middle-class.pdf accessed 17 July 2020.
7. H. Ritchie, 2018, ‘Urbanization’, Our World In Data, September, https://ourworldindata.org/urbanization, accessed 17 July 2020
8. E.P.J. Gibbs, ‘Emerging zoonotic epidemics’ in Vet Record, 157 (22), https://veterinaryrecord.bmj.com/content/157/22/673.short, accessed 17 July 2020
9. H. Rosling, Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About The World – And Why Things Are Better Than You Think, London: Sceptre, 2019
10. ‘World Demographics,’ 2020, https://www.worldometers.info/demographics/world-demographics/, accessed 11 July 2020
11. ‘Understanding Poverty,’ in The World Bank, 16 April 2020, https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview accessed, 17 July 2020
12. P. Anthem, 2020, ‘Risk of hunger pandemic as coronavirus set to almost double acute hunger by end of 2020’, World Food Programme Insight, 16 April. https://insight.wfp.org/covid-19-will-almost- double-people-in-acute-hunger-by-end-of-2020-59df0c4a8072, accessed 17 July 2020
13. See ‘Key definitions’ 2020, Platform on Disaster Displacement, https://disasterdisplacement.org/the-platform/key-definitions accessed,13 July 2020
14. Quéré, Le et al., 2020, ‘Temporary Reduction in Daily Global CO2 Emissions,’ Nature Climate Change. 10, 647–653 (2020), https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-0797-x, accessed 17 July 2020
15. Morgan Stanley, 2018 Weathering the Storm: Integrating Climate resilience into real Assets Investing, 1-16, https://www.morganstanley.com/im/publication/insights/investment-insights/ii_weatheringthestorm_us.pdf, accessed 17 July 2020
16. C Figueres. & B. Zycher, 2020, ‘Can we tackle both climate change and Covid-19 recovery? 7 May, https://www.ft.com/content/9e832c8a-8961-11ea-a109-483c62d17528, accessed 17 July 2020
17. ‘Covid-19 can be an historic turning point in tackling the global climate change crisis’ 2020. 25 June, https://www.theccc.org.uk/2020/06/25/covid-19-can-be-an-historic-turning-point-in-tackling-the-global-climate-crisis/, accessed 17 July 2020
18. See, for example, K. Raworth 2017 on ‘Doughnut Economics’, https://www.kateraworth.com/doughnut/, accessed 13 July 2020
19. J. Muis & T. Immerzeel, ‘Causes and Consequences of the Rise of Populist Radical Right Parties and Movements in Europe’, Current Sociology 65 (1) October, 2017, p. 912
20. B. Daragahi, 2020, ‘Why the George Floyd protests went global’ Atlantic Council, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/george-floyd-protests-world-racism/, accessed 13 July 2020
21. D. Robert, Christian Mission: How Christianity became a world religion, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009, p.73
22. ‘Figures at a glance’, 2010. UNHCR, UK, https://www.unhcr.org/uk/figures-at-a-glance.html, accessed 17 July 2020
23. L. Laury, 2019, ‘5 Major Trends’ in Open Doors USA, 16 January, https://www.opendoorsusa.org/christian-persecution/stories/5-major-trends-influence-global- persecution-christians/, accessed 17 July 2020
24. George Kinoti, ‘Hope for Africa and what the Christian can do’ (AISRED, Nairobi, 1994). Quoted in Phil Dow, The School in the Clouds, Pasadena: William Carey Library, 2003, p. 208.
25. See R. Daniel, This Holy Seed, 2nd Revised edition, Chester: Tamarisk Publications, 2010
26. D. Robert, Christian Mission…., p.73
27. Israel Oluwole Olofinjana, ed., See World Christianity’s in Western Europe: Diasporic Identity, Narratives and Missiology, Oxford: Regnum Books, 2020
28. See M.W. Stroope, Transcending the Modern Mission Tradition, Oxford: Regnum Books, 2020
29. A. Kreider & E. Kreider, Worship and Mission after Christendom, Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2009, p. 16.
30. ‘The Lausanne Covenant,’ Lausanne Movement, Clause 6, https://www.lausanne.org/content/covenant/lausanne-covenant, accessed 03/08/20
31. Roland Allan, Missionary Methods: St Paul’s Or Ours?, London: Robert Scott, 1912
32. Leader’s Review 2020, No.2, https://weamc.global/lb2020-2/, accessed 09/10/20
33. Michael W Stroope, Transcending mission: The eclipse of a modern tradition, London: Apollos/IVP, 2017

Pray

• For missions practitioners, thinkers and leaders to consider afresh the arc of Christian history and the history of missions, to let go of that which is no longer fit for purpose, and seek Biblically authentic ways to adapt their missions activities and objectives to current contextual realities.
• That men and women involved in missions-related activities within their home nation would be strengthened and encouraged as they see the Kingdom of God emerge where it was not previously well represented.
• For the expatriate missionaries who remained ‘in-country’ during the COVID-19 crisis, that they will embrace the changes around them, adapt to ‘identity shifts’ as necessary, and find ways to help their local ministry partners to navigate the challenges that COVID-19 has presented them with.
• For fruitful transboundary relationships that will facilitate the sharing of resources to help with crises, particularly in parts of the world that are in most need of assistance, so that Jesus’ name will be glorified there.

[25 Minute Read]

The Church in Asia needs to be allowed to reinvent herself in order to flourish in Asian contexts.

1. Issues of Concern

This essay gleans from numerous dialogues among Christian leaders, including a research study involving 40 local pastors and missions workers in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand; a roundtable discussion between some of these regional leaders and about 60 Singapore church and missions leaders, followed by a series of 6 in-depth focus group discussions. In addition to these, SCGM organised four other forums with Asian thought leaders, from Japan to India, and also participated in regional meetings such as the Asia2020/21 Congress monthly webinars and a Lausanne Movement ‘Listening Call’ involving 50 Southeast Asian leaders.

The selection of issues mentioned here are really long- standing concerns for the Church in Asia, but during this time of crisis the problems, which were swept under the carpet or suppressed, re-surfaced and those that were already brewing, were exacerbated.

1.1 Unsustainable and Irreproducible Missions

From the research study among Southeast Asian pastors, one of the greatest worries, especially during this worldwide crisis, is their continued reliance on financial support from foreign sources.
A budget is a reflection of the way an organisation operates. It is apparent that the way many churches in these developing countries function—its structures, systems, and activities—are largely modelled after churches in developed countries and therefore cannot be sustained by local resources and are reliant on foreign aid. Foreign, resource-laden models of church planting are viable only for communities that are more affluent. We see a clear correlation between the problem of unsustainability and the adoption of methods that are not appropriate to the socio-economic reality of local churches in impoverished contexts.

A missions worker noted, “churches got shut down and Christianity stopped, but not Buddhism, because Buddhists don’t worship congregationally in large numbers.” It was also noted by a few local pastors that house churches or churches with healthy cell structures are not as affected by the pandemic restrictions. The life of these churches—worship, evangelism, and discipleship—is decentralised, organic, simple and in the hands of the laity. This contrasts with those that revolve around a centralised building, with organised high- budget activities led by a few skilled leaders trained to handle specialised programs that would not be manageable and reproducible by devoted lay Christians The saying ‘Don’t give them fish but teach them to fish’ may be true, but what fishing methods are we teaching?

The Church in Asia needs to be allowed to reinvent herself in order to flourish in Asian contexts. The Cambodian head of a denomination recognised that “the crisis has been a challenge, but at the same time, it is also an opportunity for the church to explore new ways of doing ministry.” These “new” ways are, ironically, ‘old’ customary ways of the local people that the church had never been given an opportunity to explore.

Discipleship is not Bible study. Jesus did not sit around with his disciples and read and analyse text.

1.2 Insular and Irrelevant Discipleship

Another key issue of local pastors from the research study, and also raised at the Lausanne Movement gathering, concerned inadequate discipleship. Pastors are anxious about the spiritual well-being of their members, especially during this crisis. However, the problem does not lie so much in the quantitative lack of discipleship as a qualitative mismatch of the mode of learning and the content of discipleship with the people’s ways of life.

A missionary in Laos spoke in a way that might seem radical to some, “the problem is that we think that discipleship is Bible study. Discipleship is not Bible study.” Jesus did not sit around with his disciples and read and analyse text; He was in the fishing boat, harvest fields, or at a well in the mid-afternoon sun, talking to others about faith and life, where they were and from what they were doing. Much of the current discipleship approaches employ literacy methods which are not suitable for oral learners, who instead ‘catch on’ and ‘absorb’ the essence of truth through song, chants, meditation, rituals, and various art forms.

Furthermore, much of the translated follow up and discipleship materials are largely theological and about doctrines and personal piety. A leader from Myanmar lamented, “Christianity… does not deal with the everyday, real-life problems of people and the problems of society. Religion and everyday life are two separate things.” The dissonance in understanding what faith is, and thus the kind of discipleship Asian Christians need, may be felt in this honest comment. One of our participants recalled speaking with a Buddhist monk.

When the monk was asked about what he found difficult to understand in Christianity, he replied that he struggled to understand the way Christians define sin. In his understanding, sin in Christianity was failing to believe in certain doctrinal beliefs. In Buddhism, sin is greed, ill-will and delusional pride—the wrong that is committed in thought, speech and actions. Conversion from sin is change of behaviour, unlike conversion in Christianity which is perceived to be a change from one religion to other simply by saying that one agrees with a different set of beliefs. In Asian mindsets, the locus of faith and discipleship is life. Religious teaching that revolves around abstract doctrines makes no sense.

This dissonance leads to a profound disconnect. Shallow discipleship results in syncretism and high turnover rates, and worrisomely, the abandonment of faith by young people, as pointed out in the next paragraph.

The older generations see themselves as guardians of doctrinal ‘Truth’ and tradition—both of which the young, particularly the Gen Zs, regard as ‘oppressive.’

1.3 Disengaged and Disenfranchised NextGen

This point was a main issue raised at the Lausanne Movement ‘Listening Call’. Several Christian leaders voiced our concern over the inability of the Church to engage and keep even our own Christian children, who are not being discipled as followers of Christ by the Church but as followers of the world through social media.

It was recognised that leaders had to make more effort in listening and understanding the young and the things they are concerned about. However, I think the stumbling block lies in Christian leaders’ obsessions about the supposed “pristine purity of the Christian faith” (a phrase used by an Indonesian leader). The older generations see themselves as guardians of doctrinal ‘Truth’ and tradition—both of which the young, particularly the Gen Zs, regard as ‘oppressive.’ So, the very thing that is cherished as sacred to one is deemed as evil to another.

Two Millennials who work closely with Gen Zs explained to me that the Gen Zs are children who were born into the Age of Social Media. They held onto devices from their early infancy, and they have been nurtured in a world of subtle but intense power-plays that affect their sense of security. They are thus particularly sensitive to the issues of imbalance and abuse of power and the plight of the marginalised and victimised. Ideals of liberalism and feminism resonate well with them. Therefore, the Church’s stand on issues such as LGBTQs or liberalising of certain laws, or rather the Church’s approach in dealing with such issues, comes across to the Gen Zs as hypocrisy, bigotry, abuse and oppression. To engage the Gen Zs, the church may need to appreciate what is noble and praiseworthy (Phil 4:8) in some of these postmodern ideologies, relate to them in that language and re- construct a more gracious and compassionate response.

Just as there is a great gulf between the older and younger generation, there is also a huge chasm between the world of Christians and the world of non-Christians of the same people group.

1.4 Foreign and Unamicable Christianity

This has been a perennial problem. Christianity in Asia has been considered for centuries as a ‘white man’s religion.’ Many authors have described the alienness of Christianity in cultural anthropological categories, and how Christian faith and practice needs to be expressed in culturally sensitive ways. The foreignness of Christianity and its socio-political implications deserves further discussion.

From our research study, it was noted that local churches with foreign connections tend to have weaker relations with their local communities and local authorities, and during times of crisis, it becomes a problem. The insecurities and fears arising from the current pandemic have precipitated more pronounced ethnic and religious tensions and heightened nationalistic sentiments. The Church is commonly perceived by the non-Christian community and authorities as a foreign entity on Asian soil, and in some places, an undesirous foreign element. Christianity is unhelpfully intertwined with certain mannerisms and politically-charged agendas that are not congruent with Asian identities, core values and philosophies of social order. It is thus seen through a xenophobic lens.

At two of the Asia2020/21 webinars, an Indian Christian thought-leader suggested that Hindunization, and possibly Sinicization as well, is a backlash from perceived antagonisms and threats to national identity, culture and social stability. Another speaker from Middle East/North Africa insightfully pointed out that Christianity is a minority group in many Asian countries, and we need a ‘theology of the minority’ to guide our relations with the majority. Asian Christians need to learn what it means to be good, patriotic, Christian citizens, living and behaving humbly and peaceably as minorities, in the places God has ordained for us to be. We should avoid contending imprudently against indigenous policies of social order, therefore unwittingly coming across as “minions of a Western agenda”. Can the Christian faith not transcend political ideologies? Jesus said, “Give unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar,” and “My Kingdom is not of this world,” to which, the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate, unthreatened by Jesus, found no fault in Him.

Models and methods of doing church need to be contextualized to local resources and methods.

2. A Way Forward

A profound change in the way Asian Christians view our own social, economic, and national cultures and a more nuanced approach of contextualization are seen as possible ways to resolve some of the issues. Models and methods of doing church need to be contextualized to local resources and methods. Discipleship needs to be relevant to local issues that people face, and it needs to be administered through local modes of learning. For the younger generation, a contextualised gospel could show how Christ liberates the imprisoned, frees the oppressed, protects the rights to life of the prostitute condemned by the religious institution. The church needs to be re-envisioned as an integral part, a cooperative partner and an agent of transformation within the socio-political framework of Asian societies.

How might Asian Christians do contextualization? Reading from Acts 15, at least four lessons may be drawn out from this classic example of contextualization.

2.1 Listen to and Empathise with the Other

The Jerusalem Council accepted that circumcision “troubled their [Gentile] minds” (vs 24) and made it “difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God” (vs 19). They had listened, appreciated and empathized with the non-Jews. Doing ‘critical’ contextualization and exegeting culture is more than intellectually analysing doctrinal meanings and functions of symbols, customs or rituals. We need to intuitively capture the affective meanings as well—the psychological, familial, social, and moral implications. Rather than coming with an evaluative mentality, assessing what is right and wrong, appreciating the culture of another needs to be approached with gentleness, humility and compassion.

2.2 Discern the Moving of the Holy Spirit

Barnabas and Paul could not deny the hand of God at work, through signs and wonders, among the Gentiles (vs 12). It was evident that God was willing to embrace the Gentiles as Gentiles, uncircumcised, and in all their cultural Gentile-ness. Peter validated this and recognised God’s initiative in reaching out to the Gentiles (vs 7-9). James, similarly, discerned the movement of the Holy Spirit among the Gentiles (vs 13, 15, 17, 28). See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland (Isa 43:19). Contextualization calls for prayerful discernment of God at work in unfamiliar yet creative and exciting new ways.

2.3 Renew Our Theological Interpretations

Paul, Barnabas, Peter and James saw that God was doing something new, and what they saw renewed their hermeneutical paradigm. Re-reading an old prophecy from Amos 9:11-12 in an illuminating new way, James radically redefined what ‘people of God’ meant—from one that was ethnocentric, exclusively referring to Israel as God’s chosen, to one that includes “the rest of mankind” and “all the Gentiles” (Acts 15:17). Similarly, Paul had a different theological interpretation of the Jewish doctrine of circumcision (Gal 1-2, 1 Cor 7:18-19, Phil 3:2-3). He emphasized on the spirit of the law, rather than its letter, censured the legalistic interpretation of the law of physical circumcision and preached about the circumcision of the heart by the Spirit (Rom 2:25-29). In both these cases, instead of imposing predetermined theological conceptions, the Jerusalem Church allowed God to transform their long- established theological ideas. The hermeneutical process that we see here is one that oscillates between text and context, one that is sensitive to the work of the Holy Spirit in the present and God’s continued authorship in writing history.

2.4 Safekeeping the Unity of the Body

The Council did not just ‘repeal’ the law of circumcision for the Gentiles, they negotiated a holistic response.

They recommended that the Gentiles continued to follow certain purity codes, so as to mark out their identity as followers of Christ and also to maintain the unity of fellowship between Jews and Gentiles. The Council exercised the principle of 1 Cor 10:32-33 of not being a stumbling block to anyone—Jews, Gentiles or the Church of God. Contextualization involves a complex negotiation among different parties. It is not just a theological exercise; it is a relational endeavour.

Reimagining Christian Practices In Asia

Contextualization of Christian faith and practice in Asian contexts cannot be tokenistic; it is not just donning of exotic externalities, or linguistically transposing theological compositions from a Western to an Asian key. A Korean theologian exhorts Asian Christians not to be “too enamoured by Western theologies,” instead, we should “read Scriptures through raw Asian eyes” and re-interpret the Bible through the paradigms of the great philosophical traditions of Asia.

Theologizing within Asian worldviews will lay the foundation for a more profound engagement with Asian core values and local wisdom, even those that underlie ideologies of social order, progress and polity, and this will allow for the re- imagination and re-creation of Christian practices that would make more sense to Asian minds and would tug Asian hearts. It will also strengthen the Church’s resilience in the midst of crisis and stimulate the growth of the Church across the generations and in all parts of society.

Pray

• For the leaders of churches and ministries throughout wider Asia, that the Lord will speak clearly, through the Spirit of God, revealing ways to adapt and strengthen the faith in their contexts.
• For those who would bring an ‘expatriate’ influence with them into Asian contexts, that they will have divine wisdom  and sensitivity to know how to appropriately engage and humbly allow a local Christian voices to lead initiatives, innovate solutions and establish strategies most appropriate to their contexts.
• Encouragement for all followers of Jesus in Asian contexts, where living one’s faith “out loud” can be subject to a negative response from those of another majority religion, resulting in persecution even. May the peace of Christ reign in their hearts and the Holy Spirit strengthen their spirits as they live faithfully together in-Christ.
• For more opportunities for theologies developed and lived out in wider Asia to be known and applied in other parts of the world, as a blessing to all nations.
• That the Spirit of God will keep reflective practitioners anchored to Holy Scripture even as they consider how God’s work in the past can be applied to their needs and witness in the present as followers of Christ.

[30 Minute Read]

In this article Dr Mary T. Lederleitner, a Mission Commission Deputy Leader, encourages church and ministry leaders to courageously engage in research projects to better understand the problems their ministries are facing. The global pandemic has re-set our ‘normals’ and there is much to be learned from the new environments that are emerging around us. Often we avoid research because we do not understand or value it or think we cannot afford to conduct it. Here, Mary helps us see how helpful it can be and how it can be conducted at relatively low cost, while leveraging resources that may already be within our grasp 

Sometimes when we are in the midst of challenging times it is hard to imagine how we can do something substantive—something that might make a lasting and strategic difference. We face many obstacles and new constraints as the pandemic marches on. It’s easy to wonder if we are simply stuck in a waiting area for it to end so we can do meaningful ministry again.

Thankfully that is not the narrative or reality that needs to guide our steps as we lead mission organizations and churches around the world. COVID-19 can provide us with a time to pause and deeply reflect upon what we’ve learned in the journey so far, where we sense God might like us to be 5-7 years from now, and what we need to understand and learn in order to grow into that calling.

What does it take to do cutting edge, excellent research?

1. Funding & Research

I had an unusual experience about a year ago. I left one meeting and, on my hurried walk to the get to the next one on time, a colleague told me I had just won the 2020 Christianity Today book-of-the-year award in the missions / global church category for Women in God’s Mission: Accepting the Invitation to Serve and Lead. The book was based on research I conducted with talented women from about thirty countries.

The news seemed surreal, and my mind had a hard time absorbing it. As soon as I got to the next meeting my boss, who had also just learned of the news, told a denominational leader we were meeting with that I had just won the award. The denominational leader asked a question that has stayed with me ever since. He said, “Mary which foundation did you partner with to pay for the research?”

I burst out laughing because at the time I did the project I was raising my own support. My salary was significantly lower than what most of my peers were earning and I had to cover the costs out of my rather small allotment of resources. However, what I did have turned out to be far more important. I had the kindness and goodwill of missions colleagues and gifted women who trusted me enough to share their stories and wisdom with me. The honor I received from Christianity Today was merely a reflection and credit to those remarkable women who participated in the project.

I’ve thought about that question so many times since then. What does it take to do cutting edge, excellent research? Does it require a wealthy patron or foundation? Sometimes their financial gifts can expand the scope of research, and their partnership can be quite significant. But are their gifts essential, to the point that we can do little unless we are the recipients of these types of grants? My experience with that recent book project, as well as research I did for my dissertation and for a prior book titled Cross-Cultural Partnerships reveal that meaningful and potent research do not need to be limited to people who are fortunate enough to receive large financial grants. But if these are not necessary, what is? And do the lessons I’ve learned have any applicability in light of the fact that people who read this blog are from so many diverse cultures and contexts? I guess that is for each person to determine, but here are some things that come to mind as I have pondered these questions.

2. Meaningful Research

What makes research meaningful and powerful? There are several reasons why research projects I have been able to do over the years have been fruitful, and these usually have little to do with outside funding. As I reflect on these different experiences, I think they are the same qualities and issues that, when they are present, make it ministry.

2.1 Let love motivate

The most basic issue behind meaningful and influential research is the motivation that is driving it. Why is that so important? I believe it is because underlying motivation tends to infuse and influence every action taken in the project, and it is frequently ‘felt’ or ‘experienced’ by those who participate in it.

Unfortunately, lots of people are doing research to build their CV’s or resumes, to get a job, or to compete in the world of higher education for promotion, tenure, etc. Since excellent research takes a great deal of perseverance, I have found that it requires a motivation deeper than self-interest. I believe love needs to be the root for something good to emerge from research. Love also ends up being the motivation for taking the following steps as well.

There are thousands of people working diligently in God’s Kingdom who would genuinely benefit from research addressing issues they are facing.

2.2 Tackle an important problem

The more experienced I get, the more I am surprised by how many years people spend researching things that no one really cares about, given that there are thousands of people working diligently in God’s Kingdom who would genuinely benefit from research addressing issues they are facing. It seems like a waste of talent and poor stewardship of time and resources to engage in research that is not developed in dialogue with ministry practitioners. Otherwise, what is the purpose? Furthermore, what is the opportunity cost from what is not happening in the Kingdom for all of those years spent doing work that hardly anyone will ever even read? Is it to get the privilege of having someone call you Dr.? If so, that seems like a profoundly shallow outcome.

But what happens when you turn your heart for research towards tangible problems that ministry leaders in global missions or churches are facing? Suddenly, deeply busy people perk up and start paying attention. That is when you will begin hearing, “You mean someone cares enough about what I am doing to want to research it so we can be more fruitful? I’m in!” It is at that place that collaboration begins to occur in a significant way, and it is far more valuable than money.

If you put yourself in other people’s shoes you start to think of research processes differently.

2.3 Develop a process with integrity

There is another critical aspect to conducting meaningful research: your reputation. How do you treat people? Are you a user or are you a blesser? Do you just care about your own success and effectiveness or do you care as much or more about the well-being of others? Can people trust you with their stories? Will you put yourself in their shoes so to speak, and care enough to see the world through their eyes? If so, that is the starting place for designing a research process that has integrity.

If you put yourself in other people’s shoes you start to think of research processes differently. For example, at that moment, you begin to not just consider the questions you want to ask but also the impact those questions will have on the people who will participate in the research. You begin to think about how much time is reasonable to ask of busy people. It also impacts the timelines you develop to collect data. Do you form those timelines based upon what is easy and convenient for you, or do you allow margin, realizing your research is not the center of everyone else’s universe? Do you realize and care that they have other tasks and responsibilities, and do you remember that it is for your privilege that they are willing to share their time, stories and insight with you and not something you are entitled to have?

Undertaking research in a variety of cultures and contexts means thinking through the implications, sensitivities, and risk people incur by participating. For example, how do the nuances of honor influence your research and how would questions and processes need to be crafted to protect people from being dishonored by their contribution? In other cultures it might be more appropriate to use appreciative inquiry, examining what is working well rather than focusing the research on what is going poorly and what isn’t working, so this would need to be sensitively considered.

Most of us have been in conversations and situations where people seemed to have had an agenda. They said they wanted to talk but they acted like they already knew the answers, or only wanted you to say what they wanted to hear. As a researcher, are you asking genuine questions and allowing people to answer in their own way, without creating leading questions or cutting off their responses? How are you ensuring their true answers are able to be heard? Or will you take their comments out of context to make points or come to conclusions that misinterpret what they meant?

2.4 Value everyone with dignity and respect

One aspect of research that has shocked me more than anything else is how much people have thanked me after they took time out of their busy schedules to participate in a research effort that I needed to accomplish. ‘Why in the world’, I’ve often thought, ‘are they thanking me when they are doing me such a huge favor?’

This kept puzzling me until I realized something very important. In life rarely does someone come to us and ask what we genuinely think about an issue that is deeply important to us—and then they actually listen. Maybe some get that experience in therapy, but they likely have to pay for it. When qualitative research is done well, with genuine open-ended questions designed to help people tell their stories and think through what is important to them, it is a deeply meaningful and respectful experience for those who participate in the process.

2.5 Translate findings for practitioners

Sadly, since so much research is done to fulfill academic requirements, like a capstone project for a Master’s Degree, a thesis for a D.Min., or a dissertation for a PhD, many people never go further to translate what they learned. To interpret it out of “academic lingo” into language and communication pieces that busy practitioners can relate to and understand.

I am concerned this is a significant reason missiological research frequently does not impact local church practice. Many missiological gatherings involve a person reading his or her paper for 20-30 minutes, there are a few moments for questions, and then on to the next paper. Most busy pastors and missions practitioners do not want to attend those types of gatherings, nor do many have time to sift through dense academic writing. Yet we researchers wonder why our work is not impacting how mission and ministry are done? It takes additional works to translate research into formats and platforms that busy people can absorb.

In this next era, let’s make excellent research a priority for our churches and ministries.

3. Research During & Post-Pandemic

In this next era, let’s make excellent research a priority for our churches and ministries. Here are a few ways to significantly move research forward in your context

3.1 Identify needs

What issues are tripping you up and hindering your ministry? What internal obstacles are you facing? For example, do you have a robust succession plan or is there an inadequate internal leader development pipeline? What is hindering people in your ministry from developing to their full potential? Are you struggling to be more effective at a certain type of ministry? Are you unclear if you are truly being effective at what you are trying to accomplish? Are there new areas of ministry God is calling you into that you have never engaged in the past? What are the biggest issues and concerns that you believe will hinder your ability to live into the next stage of your church’s or ministry’s calling? Get clear about what your most important issues and challenges are and focus your research there.

3.2 What is in your hand?

We can look at ministries that receive large grants and financial gifts and feel like we are lacking in what we need to accomplish God’s purposes. We can become so easily fixated on what we do not have that we begin to lose sight of what God has already given us. That mindset is more debilitating than almost anything else, so you need to work hard to switch your focus. As God asked Moses (Exodus 4:2), “what is in your hand?” Who could you talk to in order to learn more about these issues? Talk with your community to see if research has already been done about the issue, or a similar one. Are there books you and your colleagues could read together? If so, which ones might be most helpful?

New research usually requires you to go right to the source. For example, if you are struggling to find ways to share the gospel with a particular people, how might you be able to talk with them directly about the obstacles within the confines of a research project? Are there people you are working with who have insights in these areas, who can help move your ministry forward? If so, is it possible for them to come together and form a new task force with that focus?

Many churches and ministries have people on staff with advanced education, such as masters and doctoral degrees, that required them to undertake a research project. Tap their expertise. Many ministries enable those in their midst with a gift for research to set aside time to learn together and with others outside of the ministry. Some of these colleagues can set 10-20% of their time aside for research and others might even be able to devote 80-90% of their time to research. It is also possible to collaborate with research institutions like the one I work with at Wheaton College Billy Graham Center, seminaries in your region that have a research institute, communities like the WEA Mission Commission, Evangelical Missiological Societies, etc.

3.3 Maximize technology

A lot of quality research in global missions used to be so expensive because it often involved so much international travel. An unexpected but positive outcome of the pandemic is the accelerated use of technology. People who used to avoid using different forms of technology are now engaging them regularly. People are also becoming more and more creative about finding meaningful ways to connect. Capitalize on what we are all learning in these areas and build research strategies that utilize these new and helpful technologies to meet with people for conversations, interviews, focus groups, etc.

4. Accelerate Ministry Fruitfulness

Research, if done well, can profoundly accelerate the impact of your ministry. It can enable you to overcome obstacles, find new opportunities and become fruitful in your work much more quickly. It can help you to raise the ceiling of what your ministry can accomplish and empower your colleagues to make their best contribution for the sake of God’s kingdom. Consider making research a strategic priority as 2021 continues, during and after the pandemic, and you might be quite surprised at what even a small investment will yield in terms of ministry fruitfulness!

Pray

• For discernment with churches and missions concerning what areas of their ministry need to be investigated and what methods are best used to investigate it, as we move into the post-pandemic era.
• For wisdom to know who to include as participants in research and for favor, that they would be willing to participate at no cost so that the research can proceed and findings be published to bless a much wider sphere of ministry.
• For an openness to change in the global missions community as new evidence comes to light that suggests a need for significant shifts in missions strategy and objectives (while retaining biblical integrity).
• That we will see a growing among of research emerging that is of practical benefit, conducted by reflective practitioners, for missions (and church/local ministry) practitioners.

[10 Minute Read]

“…mission is the very being of the Church.”

In his inaugural address, Bishop Dr Thomas Schirrmacher, the new Secretary General of the World Evangelical Alliance, affirmed that God’s mission is central to the DNA of every major expression of the Christian Faith. During his speech he said,

Let us consider the document Christian Witness in a Multi-Religious World (crafted by the Vatican, the World Council of Churches and the World Evangelical Alliance). Evangelicals have always been about each believer preaching that Jesus died on the cross for us and that only in Him we find communion with God and eternal life. But now, this ecumenical document released in 2011 starts with, “…mission is the very being of the Church.” It speaks about every believer being obliged to witness to other people about the gospel.

Is this evangelical or is it Christian? It is Christian insofar as all churches agree now that mission is the very being of the church. This is the task that Jesus Christ handed to us. Not everybody is happy about it or puts it into action like evangelicals, but it is core to our faith. We have to be very careful if we say that as evangelicals we automatically do what Jesus said, because mission is not always the ‘being’ of our local churches. We often have to be reminded as evangelical churches that we have to put the witness of the gospel into the centre.

In this address, Bishop Dr Schirrmacher emphasized the DNA, the commonalities, we share between the major expressions of Christian faith around the world, particularly as represented by the Vatican, the World Council of Churches, the World Pentecostal Fellowship and the World Evangelical Alliance. In addition to common theological agreement, he noted there were many social issues we share in common, for which collaboration can make a significant impact. He specified advocacy for persecuted churches and religious liberty in general. We could add Creation Care, Nuclear Disarmament, Anti-Human Trafficking and myriad other justice-oriented causes to the list. Implied in Bishop Dr Schirrmacher’s emphasis was a caution to Evangelicals against the thought that we might have some unique perspective on theological and sociological matters. As he said, when it comes to our witness for Christ, we might be more activistic, but the call to mission is not unique to Evangelicals. Furthermore, we can too easily forget this call ourselves and must continue to “put the witness of the gospel into the centre” of all our churches. 

He was exposed to evangelical missions activity from his childhood…

Bishop Dr Schirrmacher does not speak from a position of Christian politics, divorced from complex realities on the ground. He is first and foremost a missiologist, the discipline of his first doctoral degree. His second doctorate is in World Cultures.

He was exposed to evangelical missions activity from his childhood, as his parents were supporters of international missions and regularly hosted missionaries in their home as well as other international evangelical leaders. While Bishop Dr Schirrmacher’s missions commitment took a more academic route, his older sister and brother were missionaries in Indonesia and South Africa respectively.

During his student years, he joined the late Dr Ralph Winter in a global collaboration to map the unreached peoples of the world. Working with WEC’s Patrick Johnstone, Schirmmacher translated several editions of Operation World into German, and participated in the global missions prayer movement promoted by Operation Mobilisation and Youth With A Mission in particular.

Helping with people group mapping helped him become familiar with all the major people groups of the world and the progress of the gospel among them. This interest continues as a motivating factor in his travels and diplomatic relationships with leaders of other major religious bodies as well as Christian leaders in other nations, particularly in areas where persecution against Christians is frequent. When he travels, he enjoys meeting as many ethnic and language groups as possible. Bishop Dr Schirrmacher’s wife, Christine, is a specialist on Muslim people groups around the world, so the people groups focus is a family affair.

Fascinated by God’s love of ethnic diversity

Bishop Dr Schirmaccher is fascinated by God’s love of ethnic diversity and quotes Revelation 7:9 as his favourite Bible verse, “After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.”

Just prior to the COVID-19 lockdown in March 2020, Bishop Dr Schirmaccher made an emergency trip to Gambia to assist with a crisis emerging over the rewriting of the national Constitution which was likely to negatively affect the country’s Christian population. He was able to help the Christian leaders understand, and appeal for, a broader interpretation of the concept of ‘sharia’ as it was to appear in the new version of the Constitution. The Christian leaders eventually saw ‘sharia’ in its broader terms as a more acceptable concept than ‘secular’ for the deeply religious nation. Their recommendations for a broadening of the meaning of the term in the new Constitution was accepted and strengthened relationships between the majority Muslims and the minority Christians. For the role he played in advising the Gambia Christian Council, as well as helping to improve relationships between Christian and Muslim leaders, he was gifted a first edition of the Mandinka Bible translation. Upon receiving it, he says, “I felt like coming home”.

From his time as a student, Bishop Dr Schirrmacher has been involved in advocacy for the persecuted church, beginning with visits to secretly train pastors in Communist East Germany prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall. He notes that the spirituality of persecuted Christians has shaped his to a large extent. It was his interest in religious liberty and human rights that first brought him into contact with the World Evangelical Alliance, where he helped to build up the International Institute for Religious Freedom, later adding leadership of Inter- and Intra-Faith Relations, and the Theological Commission.

Dr Schirrmacher’s title of Bishop comes from his participation in a movement called “Communio Messianica”, which reports more than 1 million adherents, spanning 75 nations, from another faith background. The Bishop title is a direct outcome of Schirrmacher’s engagement with the movement and the various advocacy roles he has played on the world stage for religious liberty in general and persecuted Christians specifically.

We welcome Bishop Dr Schirrmacher to the role of Secretary General and celebrate his interest, experience and passion for global missions. Bishop Dr Schirrmacher continues a strong history of commitment to missions from WEA senior leaders.

Introducing Rev Dr Brian Winslade

Rev Dr Brian Winslade is a New Zealander who has served in pastoral ministry since 1979, including senior pastor of five multiple staff churches (NZ and San Francisco). From 1989-1991 Rev Dr Winslade served in Bangladesh as a missionary, seconded to the National Christian Fellowship Bangladesh (NCFB) helping develop their relief and development arm, Koinonia.

From 2001 to 2006 he was National Leader (CEO) of the Baptist Union of New Zealand. From 2008 to 2011 he served as the National Director of the Baptist Union of Australia and also Director of Crossover – the evangelism and missional resourcing ministry of Australian Baptist churches. From 2005 to 2010 Rev Dr Winslade was Chair of the Church Leadership Commission for the Baptist World Alliance. He now serves the WEA as Deputy Secretary General for Ministries.

Rev Dr Winslade describes himself as an ecclesial missiologist with a passion for leadership, the local church, facilitating organisational reformation/effectiveness in reaching 21st century people with the gospel.

Pray

• Praise God for the excellent transition between Bishop Ef Tendero and Bishop Dr Thomas Schirrmacher, for the cooperation and joint decisions made during the transition period.
• For God’s wisdom, discernment and favour to be upon Bishop Dr Thomas Schirrmacher as he takes on the responsibility for leading the WEA, a role he says “is just too big for one human being”.
• For WEA department leaders and staff as they adjust to the organisational changes that accompany a leadership transition. Pray for a deepening collaboration and commitment to one another in the common cause of God’s mission, locally and globally.
• That the new Deputy Secretary Generals will quickly adapt to their new responsibilites and discover rhythms of working that will help them thrive in their new roles, as challenging as they could be.
• For God to strengthen the global Body of Christ around what we can all agree on, and give us all grace regarding issues about which we have different perspectives and passions… that God will be glorified through us witnessing to the world that our God reigns by our integrated unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace in-Christ.

[15 Minute Read]

Looking back at 2020 and how the world has been dramatically affected by COVID-19, there is one word I will take into 2021 and it is “community”. In many positive ways, community has stepped in and helped people affected by the pandemic, directly or indirectly. Believers of all sorts have been looking out for their neighbours, shared their goods, their time and even sometimes their lives. I believe, community will be even more important as we face 2021 with all the unknowns, where leaders are asked to lead into the fog. No one of us can face the pandemic on our own. We need each other in the missions community to discern the fog and lead into the future courageously.

Community is not a building, institution or an organisation. It is both a feeling and a set of relationships…

1. What Is Community?

Community, according to various definitions, it is a group of men and women who lead a common life according to a rule where members share common cultural and historical heritage. It can be very local but also the community can be found in a nation or across nations where a group shares common characteristics or interests and perceives themselves to be distinct in some respect from the larger society within which they exist.

Community is not a building, institution or an organisation. It is both a feeling and a set of relationships that the members of the community form and maintain to meet common needs. The sense of community comes from shared experiences and shared history.

In the Biblical sense, it is a community of believers who follow Jesus. Their following has direct outcomes and impact in the wider communities the live amongst. First, they share a sense of responsibility for each other and then for the wider community they are part of.

A thriving community of believers is one where we work towards being united in mind and thought (1 Cor 1:10). Together we walk in the light and have fellowship with one another and together experience Jesus cleansing us from all sin (1 John 1:7). We bear each with other and forgive one another (Col 3:13) and carry each other’s burdens (Gal 6:2).

Prayer is an important element, and we pray for each other so that we may be healed. Especially in these COVID-19 times when so many people are struggling.

It is this community of fellow believers who out of love for one another share their means with anyone who has need. See Acts 2:44-47, where we also read that God added to their numbers daily.

Everyone is invited to participate, contributing their own skills, giftings, and resources such that, in the end, each member feels a sense of reward.

2. Engaging In Community

In my reading on community building and how to go about it best, I found two diagrams very useful and I would like to introduce them to you…

The Community Engagement Cycle starts with the identity and leads to reward. To belong to a community, you need to identify key core members who together will form the identity of the community.

The community initiator (or core group) needs to then earn the trust of the wider group and get the members to buy-in into the larger vision. This is where values play a critical role.
Everyone then is invited to participate, contributing their own skills, giftings, and resources such that, in the end, each member feels a sense of reward. They want to feel appreciated, strengthening a sense of belonging. From there, people will be encouraged to invite others into the community.

Applying this to communities of believers, our identity is based on a common foundation: Jesus Christ (1 Cor 3:11). As believers we start trusting him and each other. In our Christ-centred communities there is space to be, to believe and to belong. As discipleship develops, people will become active participants and know that they, together, are building the Kingdom of God. The rewards are many, including appreciation from our brothers and sisters, but our real reward is eternal, with Jesus reserving a place for each of us.

The second diagram, The Commitment Curve, highlights the journey of entering the community and moving from being passive, becoming more active to the point where it is possible also take on increasing responsibilities. This all happens over time.

For people to grow into greater responsibility in a growing community, and not fall off into inactivity, members of the community must keep moving through the four stages of the Community Engagement Cycle: being reminded of their identity, reinforcing trust, permitted to participate and rewarded for their contributions, which reminds them of their identity, and so on it goes.

Communities of believers need to keep people as our priority when we do missions in this new year ahead of us.

3. Why Is Community Important For Missions?

3.1 It is about people

Whatever we have done in the pandemic, and will do in 2021 and beyond, it will have direct impact on us personally and as mission partners. Foremost, it is about people.

Though Christmas looked very different for most people in 2020, it was also used as the most creative and evangelistic opportunity that some regions have seen for many years. For example, I know of situations where many churches were closed for Christmas. So, Christians got together in their communities to bring church to the people. From Christmas alleys decorated as drive throughs across a whole town in the UK, to devotions on a playground attended by people who had never entered a church in Germany, to friends inviting their 100 neighbours to attend a Christmas carol service with a 5-minute devotion held by the local neighbour and youth pastor to which 80 people came while observing appropriate physical distancing.

Christian communities in Africa and Asia collected food to distribute during Christmas, sharing God´s love among the most needy. Health workers received care packages from churches to thank them. Churches raised food packages for thousands in the UK. Some decorated advent windows each of the 24 days in December and invited all for a Christmas stroll around the town or neighbourhood. This was taken up by many people from whom it had been a very long time (if ever) since entering a church building.

Jesus is out to save people. People matter. People matter most to God. And communities of believers need to keep people as our priority when we do missions in this new year ahead of us.

3.2 It is about building God’s kingdom

The stronger a community is, the more connections it will have between each member, and the more impact it will have. As Christians engage in their local communities and build relationships, the more opportunities they will have to share and be the Gospel to people who otherwise would never hear about Jesus.

A community of believers never seeks to simply meet their own needs but is commissioned by God (Mt 28:18-20) to go into the world to be the salt and light (Mt 5:13-16) wherever they are located.
A lot of countries have reported a new open door to share the Gospel as people are asking more faith questions during this pandemic period. The vaccine is on the horizon, and people are getting vaccinated, yet the pandemic continues to shake the securities of many people. Where churches and missions agencies have creatively shared the Gospel online and offline, people have responded. Globally, we do see and hear that God is daily adding people into His Kingdom.

Though we rejoice with churches getting more clicks and views on their Sunday service stream, we rejoice even more when people decide to follow Jesus. We are not into building our own little kingdoms, but as collective communities of the body of Christ, we are his hand and feet.
If we really want to know our local communities, it is important to know who the main players are. Who are the leaders? The official and informal leaders? Where are the faith communities? What are the current needs? Where can a church make a difference? Where can churches unite together, bridge divides and bring peace?

Jesus’ first friends and disciples did exactly that. They stepped out in faith and left behind the things they were comfortable with. They became more like Jesus every day and spread the Gospel wherever they went.

Let’s become community builders like never before…

4. Lessons For The Missions Community

Let’s become uncomfortable in 2021 and share the Good News in ways we have never done before, expecting God to walk with us and reveal the power of the gospel. Let’s become community builders like never before, building communities online and offline, within and outside.

Some incredible missions conferences have taken place online in 2020 which were fantastically led, were inspiring and created community. It is possible to build a sense of community online. Churches have created some amazing events over the past few months as well, experimenting with what it means to share the Good News within an online community. Let’s be innovative and think even more out of the box, for His name’s sake. And once we can have in-house, in-person meetings again, and meet people face to face, let’s keep online activities going to reach even further.

Finally, another lesson is that community drives retention. People interested in faith will explore your community when they feel wanted and welcomed. Let’s make sure everyone is made welcome and integrated, online as well as offline.

Together, let’s make the year ahead of us count, where our communities flourish and grow in God.

Pray

• For leaders of churches, ministries and missions as they seek to build flourishing organisations by building great communities in-Christ.
• For all those who feel like they do not belong to a community such as is described above. Pray that they would find a place among fellow followers of Christ, where they are welcomed and able to contribute God’s best gifts toward the wellbeing of that community of faith in-Christ. May all Christ-followers find a communal space where they can grow into greater responsibility and positive influence for the benefit of the Kingdom of God and the public good.
• That our witness as communities of Christ-followers would radiate loving kindness and wellbeing to a world where relationships are too easily destroyed. In this way, all over the world, with our publicly manifest unity reinforcing our explanation of the gospel, we stay on mission and glorify God.

Starter Resources

https://cmxhub.com/build-a-thriving-community-from-scratch/
https://cmxhub.com/the-cmx-community-engagement-cycle/
https://www.thnk.org/insights/building-a-community/

[30 Minute Read]

     English

   Português

So, during the December 31st ‘cross-over’ night, ritually observed to mark the end of the passing year and usher in the coming ‘new’ year, wishes are made of better prospects ahead. In the coming year, strategic plans for better and more effective outcomes are launched. Paths and roadmaps towards more impactful ministries are outlined. Slogans, ‘rhema revelations’, mission statements, and new year resolutions are rolled out. Of course, a number of prophetic declarations about several aspects of the moment-defining events and futuristic phenomena are churned out by various ‘oracles’, most of which claim to be speaking from the Lord.

Introduction

The same annual New Year ritual of projections and prophesies marked the end of the year 2019 and the beginning of 2020. The permutation conjured by the apparently mystical form of the number ‘2020’ made the predictions, the rhemas, the slogans, the mission statements, and prophetic declarations all the more attractive. Unfortunately, none of those ‘crystal ball’ gazes captured the ‘rising storm from the East’ that was already gathering strength and swirling towards the ‘West’… and inevitably flowed towards our corner of the world around the first quarter of the year 2020—to West Africa. We are experiencing this ritual again as we leave 2020, but this time something has changed. We are less certain.

“Africa has recorded fewer COVID-19 cases and deaths than other parts of the world.”

1. False Predictions

When the COVID-19 wind arrived on the African horizon, there was palpable fear in the hearts of the African people concerning how our corrupt governments, underdeveloped economies, poor health facilities, and battered social structures could survive in the face of the pandemic power of COVID-19. After all, it was causing the supposedly super economic powers, well advanced in their technological prowess, with well-developed health facilities, and well nurtured social systems, to buckle!

Predictions about the calamitous impact of COVID-19 on Africa and the African people came from very authoritative sources. For example, The United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) predicted in April that, “Anywhere between 300,000 and 3.3 million African people could lose their lives as a direct result of COVID-19″. [1] The World Health Organisation (WHO) warned African countries to “prepare for the worst” [2], while Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in a CNN interview on April 10, said: “It’s going to be horrible in the developing world. And part of the reason you’re seeing that case numbers don’t look very bad is because they don’t have access to very many tests… Look at Ecuador. Look at what’s going on in Ecuador. They’re putting bodies out on the street. You’re going to see that in countries in Africa.” [3]

The situation, however, proved far different from the predicted outcomes. “But Africa has recorded fewer COVID-19 cases and deaths than other parts of the world. Despite the poor quality of health systems across the African continent, the case fatality rate (CFR) in Africa is among the longest [sic] globally, hovering around 2% against Europe’s 6.3%, South America’s 3.4%, North America (3.9%), and a global CFR of 3.7% as at August 7.” [4]

Several factors have been presented as the reasons why the predictions have not happened at the scale feared. Also, some measures that were taken by governments, individuals, organizations, communities within Africa in different ways and forms, were identified as having contributed to the exciting songs of relief that are being sung across Africa. Just as the pandemic itself impacted the Church and her missionary enterprises, the factors and measures which have disproved the predictions have also served very advantageous purposes for the Church and her missions.

Michal Shalem & Michal Lebenthal Andreson, in their article in The Jerusalem Post of March 14, 2020, highlighted various factors necessary in turning the corner in moments of such unprecedented emergencies like the ones thrown up by COVID-19: “Overcoming crises of this sort require the ability to quickly adapt to a new reality, to decentralize authority, to think differently, and to implement creative tools and strategies. Facing a new and unexpected challenge requires operating different tools and developing a new implementable modus vivendi (way of life).” [5]

In this essay we will explore the underlying measures in terms of how they played out as undertaken by the different constituencies and entities in Africa that have accounted for the commendable outcomes being highlighted in the stories about how Africa has prevailed against the COVID-19 pandemic so far.

The same characteristics and a few other measures identified in the efforts of the sections of the African Church and mission communities in Africa are explored in the following two examples: the Movement for African National Initiatives (MANI), and one of the oldest Western Missions that has worked in Africa for nearly a century.

First, for clarity, let me list the measures Shalem and Co. identified in the quote above:

1. Quick adaptation
2. Decentralization of authority
3. Thinking differently
4. Implementing creative tools and strategies
5. Operating different tools
6. Developing a new implementable way of living, a working arrangement that allows for peaceful co-existence despite perceived differences. [6]

…the common experience of the whole world: ‘disruption of the normal’ and the ‘imposition of the new-normal’ in all spheres of life, activity, ministry, relationships, and societal functions!

2. Discerning Times and Ordering Steps in Missions

2.1 Missions in and from Africa

When it became obvious in the Movement for African National Initiatives (MANI) that all the plans that we had made for this year (2020) and for our pending 4th quinquennial Continental Consultation (scheduled for March 2021) were under serious threat due to the pandemic, we had to pause to listen to God and to one another under the theme: “what are we hearing or learning from God in our regions and contexts in times like these?” [7] The following questions were drawn and distributed among the various regional and ministry network coordinators for reflections and investigations concerning the impact of COVID-19 in our regions and contexts:

1. What has changed very drastically in our contexts as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic?
2. What are the challenges, constraints, and limitations the Church, individuals, and the society in general now face in our contexts because of the pandemic?
3. What should we be doing differently now?
4. How should we adjust, jettison, or innovate our past approaches to still fulfil the Great Commission mandate from now onwards?

Responses to questions 1 and 2 were obvious and consistent with what has become the common experience of the whole world: ‘disruption of the normal’ and the ‘imposition of the new-normal’ in all spheres of life, activity, ministry, relationships, and societal functions!

The responses to questions 3 and 4 presented us the ways and means that now dictate and direct the “Next Steps” measures that we are adopting in remaining committed to the fulfilment of our understanding of the Great Commission mandate in times like these.

From the summary of the responses, here are what we gleaned, which have reshaped our ministry focus and approaches…

Q3. What we should be doing differently now?

• Improve awareness of the changing dynamics of the context and paradigms of missions, the concept of the UPGs, and the need for more creative and strategic approaches to doing missions.
• Be more strategic, innovative, and embrace more efficient use of resources, time and technology in our ministry efforts.
• Re-examine and reorder our priorities.
• Find new and appropriate ways of doing missions as well as new giving models to finance missions.
• Look afresh at what it means to be a church, including emphasis on really being a loving and sharing community.
• Explore new training and outreach techniques to do missions that allow disciples to grow without the need of physical buildings.
• Move away from large, in-person consultations, to smaller, networked gatherings with more consistent engagement online.

Q4. How should we adjust, jettison, or innovate our past approaches to still fulfil the Great Commission mandate from now onwards? 

• Embrace new technologies for ministry purposes.
• Look at new ways of gospel transmission in unreached communities.
• Train our members on new and creative ways of fund raising and financial investments.
• Focus on raising, training, equipping and empowering local/national believers.
• Proactive research on and promotion of new categories of harvest-fields, harvest-forces, and best approaches of engaging each.
• Promote household churches; train more small group family heads and leaders, in the expectation that small group churches will become especially important.
• Strategic, healthy partnering is more crucial than ever.
• Exercise more intentionality in regular online networking platforms while maintaining disciplined and strategic use of the digital space.
• Promote ‘prayer evangelism’ and prayers for frontline workers.
• Every believer should be equipped to understand and be carrying out their role in the fulfilment of the Great Commission ensuring that the whole Body of Christ is mobilized and being a witness for Christ wherever and in whatever condition they find themselves.

2.2 Missions from Outside to Africa

One of the oldest missions from the West that has been working in Africa for almost a century also had a reflection and a resetting retreat at the onset of COVID-19 involving all their global stakeholders. The intent was to identify how they will remain relevant and more strategic in their ministry efforts in the ‘new-normal’ world. By the end of the retreat they concluded that they needed to continue to ‘be’ and ‘build’ a “truly global missions community”. The following are gleaned from the resolutions:

• Be intentionally innovative.
• Equip, strengthen, and work with local churches in our receiving contexts for missions.
• Identify and develop local workers and leaders.
• Engage local beneficiaries in all aspects of missions.
• Be rooted and invested in our communities.
• Regionalize services. [8]

The two examples of MANI and the older mission from the West working in Africa underscore what Shalem & Co. also emphasized in their article in The Jerusalem Post:

In emergencies, decentralization of powers and transfer of control to the ‘field’ is a necessity. Relying on local factors accustomed to work in routine situations will ensure better results and in fact allow to continue business as usual at times of crisis. Managers at the local level see what needs to be done firsthand and when given the freedom to manage and manoeuvre are able to control the situation. [9]

Africans had to reach into their innate capabilities to draw strength and inspiration to tackle the pandemic.

3. Creativity, Innovation, Contextuality, Adaptability

Sustainability of the missions enterprise in terms of general welfare of the missions force and the resourcing of missions programs and projects became a far-fetched imagination in a situation where the economies of countries have been battered, scarcity of provisions is prevalent everywhere, where individuals and organisations (including churches) have slid into survival mode and generosity has become a secondary consideration in peoples’ bid to plod through life.

3.1 Opportunities Born Out of Crisis

The economies of the majority of African countries are import-dependent. When it comes to social services regarding health, etc., African countries tend to look to the West for help to provide support facilities and aid packages for the citizens. But due to the universal impact of the pandemic, which has been more pronounced in the donor-countries of Europe and North America, there was not much assistance coming from those traditional bases of aid to Africa. So, Africans had to reach into their innate capabilities to draw strength and inspiration to tackle the pandemic.

One of the leaders of the missions movement in Nigeria released a statement in which he advised Nigerian missionaries to take up the practice of cottage farming, backyard horticultural practice, including other innovative farming methods like growing vegetables in pots hoisted onto tree trunks, and making use of every available space to produce whatever type of foodstuffs than can grow in such places. The purpose was for missionaries not to suffer malnutrition or hunger and to avoid spending the scarce finance they had on awfully expensive foodstuffs during this period. Many missionaries who took that advice seriously and practiced what was suggested are progressively becoming self-sufficient in raising their own foodstuffs for their sustenance and more—a means of generating extra income.

During lockdown periods when movement was restricted, offices and factories closed, the markets were not regular, businesses clamped down, and sources of income were jeopardized, the government tried to provide and distribute palliative measures. However, missionaries did not qualify as beneficiaries of such assistance. But thanks be to the Lord that some missions support agencies took up the challenge to provide missionaries with support in cash, materials, and even visits. One family provided for 25 missionary-wives in the Christian Missionary Foundation (CMF) fields, with about five million naira (N5 million = $10,500US) to set up various empowerment (income generating) projects in their locations. These happened in June at the peak of the pandemic here in Nigeria. It was also during this period that another Christian support group continued to provide several missionaries in Nigeria and other African countries with regular monthly support (including about US$570 per month for 10 missionaries in CMF), plus the purchase of five motorcycles for five other missionaries of CMF. Two other local churches in Nigeria have been regularly supporting numerous missionaries (including 7 & 11 CMF missionaries respectively). We now have a greater level of local support for our missionaries and the field projects during this crisis period than ever before.

Apart from helping individuals to minimize the risk of being infected, many people (including missionaries) became involved in processing and supplying those alternative ingredients for preventive and curative therapies.

3.2 Resilience & Adaptability

Further in their Jerusalem Post article, Shalem & Co. stated, “The basis for national and civil resilience, among other things, is to foster local government’s internal capacity to cope and be able to act independently in an emergency.” [10]

Being aware of the scarcity of personal protective equipment (PPE), testing kits, and other medical supplies needed by frontline health workers, as well as for treatment and caring for patients, “Tens of thousands of health workers fanned out across the continent, taking temperatures and screening for the disease. In research labs and businesses of every size, people got to work. Scientists in Senegal developed a $1 COVID-19 testing kit and used 3D printing to make ventilators. In Nigeria, tailors sewed masks and personal protective equipment.” [11]

3.3 Creativity, Innovation and Improvisation

“In other places across the continent, people readily adopted non-pharmaceutical interventions despite PPE shortages, which people in Western countries were slow to do.” [12]

The Governor of our state in Nigeria was among the government officials that contracted COVID-19. When he recovered, he shared the measures that were put in place to ensure his recovery, the kind of treatment he received, and what constituted the efficacy of such treatments that accelerated his recovery. He brought together a team medical, nutritionists, etc., to assemble the local equivalents of the conventional treatments he received and translated them into the local languages. They pointed to alternative, available and affordable ingredients for such treatments and ran a series of TV, radio, and public hearing sessions in which the people were educated on the best prevention measures (the washing of hands, social distancing, and mask-wearing as well as what to take to boost the immune system), and the curative measures if one tested positive.

Apart from helping individuals to minimize the risk of being infected, many people (including missionaries) became involved in processing and supplying those alternative ingredients for preventive and curative therapies. One missionary wife I know of has been producing, processing, packaging and distributing alternative ingredients such as turmeric, garlic, ginger, black seed, flax seed, black pepper, cinnamon powder, etc., which are immune-system boosters, antioxidants, along with Vitamin C & D supplements.

3.4 Leveraging Technology

“In Ghana, the COVID -19 pandemic spurred people to adopt innovations in health care, from apps that help diagnose corona-virus symptoms to drones transporting blood samples.” [13]

Training, meetings (seminars, consultations), communications and regular contacts, church services (including holy communion and payment of offerings and tithes) have been going on quite regularly, with minimal costs, and in most cases attracting more participants that would have ordinarily participated during in person gatherings. Technology has proven a vital tool in accomplishing more with minimal logistics and financial investments. In fact, this new normal might become a permanent normal even when the pandemic inhibitions go away.

More people would have died from COVID-19 in (Nigeria) were it not for the mercy of God.

5. The God Factor

The African Church is regarded as a praying church. Because of the numerous economic, political, social and natural challenges and crisis the African continent and people face, we do not have any other alternative than put our trust in the Lord and beseech His Throne of Grace for help in our times of need. We believe very strongly in and appropriate this special covenant relationship with God as declared in Isaiah 19:19-25: 

In that day there will be an altar to the LORD in the heart of Egypt, and a monument to the LORD at its border. It will be a sign and witness to the LORD Almighty in the land of Egypt. When they cry out to the LORD because of their oppressors, he will send them a saviour and defender, and he will rescue them. So the LORD will make himself known to the Egyptians, and in that day they will acknowledge the LORD. They will worship with sacrifices and grain offerings; they will make vows to the LORD and keep them. The LORD will strike Egypt with a plague; he will strike them and heal them. They will turn to the LORD, and he will respond to their pleas and heal them.

As many people search for and seek to explain why the predictions about how COVID-19 was going to devastate Africa have so far not happened as expected, there is the divine angle that must be considered. Solomon Zewdu stated as follows: “There is a lot, the argument goes, that we still don’t know. Here’s my sense of the issue: What we don’t know about Africa and COVID-19 is far less important than what we do know. Because the things we do know are amazing and important and have surely contributed to Africa’s overall success in weathering this disease.” [^14]

That which we still do not know belongs to the divine realm. As stated in the following lines from Isaiah’s prophecy in Chapter 19, God hears and answers our prayers: “When they cry out to the LORD because of their oppressors, he will send them a saviour and defender, and he will rescue them… The LORD will strike Egypt with a plague; he will strike them and heal them. They will turn to the LORD, and he will respond to their pleas and heal them.” The following examples attest to this fact:

1. The General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) Pastor Adeboye, said that “more people would have died from COVID-19 in the country were it not for the mercy of God.” He submitted that “the prayers of Nigerian saints saved the country from recording high COVID-19 deaths. Even Melinda Gates’ prediction that African streets could be littered with coronavirus-laden corpses has failed to materialise, it appears, that was God protecting the continent”. He narrated how a friend of his asked him, “what is it that you people did in Nigeria? I told him our secret is we cried to God for mercy. God showed us mercy. God looked down from heaven and saw that we had nothing, no resources and we prayed”. [15]
2. “COVID-19 is a passing phase and as a people of faith, we seek God’s intervention daily on our knees asking Him to help our world and to help Africa overcome this deadly virus. We declare collectively and we believe so that there will be no dead bodies littering the streets of Africa.” [16]
3. “But my own gut feeling is that God has a role to play in all of this. At the beginning of this pandemic, I used to pray for God to heal the land until it occurred to me that God was actually healing the land.” [17]

Footnotes

1. https://www.uneca.org/covid-19-africa-protecting-lives-and-economies.
2. https://apnews.com/article/caa613fb8004d3cd2ecae13201d7b745
3. Chukwuma Muanya, Why Africa is Least Affected by Deaths From Covid-19, The Guardian Nigeria, May 19, 2020.
4. Paul Adepoju, Covid-19: The Sky Hasn’t Fallen Yet in Africa, Health Policy Watch, August 15, 2020.
5. Michal Shalem & Michal Lebenthal Andreson, Corona: Crisis Or Opportunity, The Jerusalem Post, March 14, 2020.
6. Shalem et al, Ibid.
7. MANI paper, What are we Learning/Hearing from God in Our Regions & Contexts in Times Like These?
8. Kenya Commitment (SIM International).
9. Shalem et al, Ibid.
10. Shalem et al, Ibid.
11. Solomon Zewdu, Africa: In the Fight Against COVID-19, an Unsung Continent (Deputy Director for Global Development in Ethiopia and Africa, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation).
12. Zewdu, Ibid.
13. Stacey Knott, COVID-19 Drives Health Care Tech Innovation in Ghana, VOA News, May 23, 2020.
14. Zewdu, Ibid.
15. Pastor Adeboye, COVID-19: Our Prayers Saved Nigeria From Coronavirus. The Realm News, November 1, 2020.
16. Bishop Seun Adeoye, A Statement Issued in Nigeria by World Bishops Council Spokesman in Africa, Wednesday, April 15, 2020.
17. Muyiwa Adetiba, Covid-19: Why Africa is Not Picking Dead Bodies on the Streets, Vanguard Nigeria, August 2020.

Pray

• For the merciful hand of God to respond to the cries of God’s people and continue to be with all of Africa as the pandemic mutates and spreads.
• Especially for South Africa, possibly the hardest hit of the African nations.
• Prayers of praise and thanksgiving for the gifts of innovation and creativity emerging from within Africa, may the Spirit of God continue to inspire new initiatives that will bless Africans and be a blessing to all nations.
• For miraculous supply for African pastors and missionaries who are dependent on the generosity of others to support them to minister; also for the capacity to generate their own supplies under God’s guidance.
• For fresh revelation about how best to conduct missions in contexts of great suffering and need, that Christ will be known and God will be glorified among all people.

[6 Minute Read]

Keynote speakers for the opening day included David Garrison, David Lim, and Craig Ott. Seven additional keynote speakers and 14 breakout speakers with discussion filled out two additional days of interaction. These sessions introduced topics slated to become chapters in a book from William Carey Publishing, targeted for publication in the second quarter of 2021. The final day of interaction included strategic work group sessions on topics including Training of Apostolic Leaders Academic Qualitative Study of Movements, Metrics and Reporting, Sociological-Contextual Dynamics, Biblical Theology of Movements, and Common Good and Social Justice.

The movement paradigm has become a hot topic in the evangelical missions community.

The movement paradigm has become a hot topic in the evangelical missions community. In contrast to traditional methods, movement approaches are more group-oriented and tend to facilitate discipleship of others within their contexts. This yields greater potential for growth, both quantitative (more disciples of Jesus) and qualitative (more mature churches).

Researchers have documented the existence of more than 1300 discipleship movements to Christ, the vast majority happening among unreached peoples. Some evangelical mission agencies are energetically pressing ahead with movement paradigms. Yet the deeper work of missiology (understanding these movements from a theological, sociological, and practical perspective), can still greatly benefit from additional research and development.

Both the complexity of the issues involved and the sheer numbers of movements being reported call for multiple researchers, institutions, and agencies partnering together to meet this task. Theology, social sciences, and mission practice offer invaluable tools and perspectives to help us understand God’s work in birthing church-planting movements today which transform lives and communities.

We look forward to seeing the Lord increase our understanding of how movements are happening and how they can be fostered more effectively.

As a member of the Facilitation Team, I personally found it stimulating to hear a wide range of perspectives on movements from so many diverse contexts and diverse researchers around the world. The symposium offered an excellent launch into ongoing discussion about crucial issues related to discipleship movements. Among other things, we discerned together that to improve relationships and mutual comprehension, we need more nuanced understanding of some commonly used terms. We also noted great value in better observing the ways movements are transforming their broader communities, and the importance of improved relationships and understanding between longer-established churches and emerging kingdom movements.

Within the next month we hope to launch a website so that interested others can join us in grappling with these and related issues. For now you can see a bit more on the Motus Dei blog.

The Motus Dei Research Symposium has made a good start toward presenting in-depth descriptions of movements that will bear sustained examination from robust academic critique. We look forward to seeing the Lord increase our understanding of how movements are happening and how they can be fostered more effectively.