[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.

Follow

Click here for Jays’ personal blog. Jay can also be followed on Facebook here.

[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.

[30 Minute Read]

1. Introduction

This essay summarises the findings of that consultation by understanding the impact of COVID on ISM globally, recognising what the Lord Jesus is doing. Finally, there are some suggestions for best practices and areas for strengthening ISM to the glory of God.

Our world has been irrevocably changed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Beginning with international students in China unable to leave campus since late January 2020, the epidemic-now-pandemic impacted ministries all over the world. From every angle, this has been a year of uncertainty and disruption. As 2020 draws to a close, the pandemic continues in second and third waves; the socio-political landscape reveals growing fault lines and fears. No wonder ISM leaders are struggling with the mismatch between old models and new realities, while organisations wonder if ISM is still a viable or meaningful ministry in a COVID-19 world.

How will organisations get out of the foggy, unpredictable and ambiguous context of a multiplicity of losses?

2. Global Fellowship

In a time of turmoil Jesus comforted his disoriented disciples, “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me” (John 14:1). In the unity of the Spirit and under the lordship of Jesus Christ, the consultation participants enjoyed and expressed their biblical fellowship to love international students with the transforming gospel. Much was shared between ISM leaders regarding gaps in their ministries and wisdom gained. The consultation was valuable for hearing what was happening with ministry on the ground, appreciating the diverse issues in each context, and how leaders and organisations were wrestling with new realities.

3. New Normal

COVID-19 has thrust us into a VUCA environment which stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity (sometimes also called Assumptions).[3] Not only does the pandemic keep hidden its future trajectory, but populations and policies impacting international students are changing in unanticipated and unpredictable ways. This essay will not address trends in international education per se, but trends in ministry amongst international students. The new (but evolving) normal is, frustratingly, not static. We don’t even know what we are adjusting to! It is a time of change, but the missio Dei remains unchanged.

The new normal necessitates a high reliance on digital technology not only for connecting and ministry with students but as the platform for team activities and ISM staff and volunteer training. How will volunteers and staff meet new students and establish connections in an online world? Ministries are faced with the online vs in-person tension. By necessity, or for convenience, some gravitate towards online modes of interaction, while others feel the human craving for real-life contact. How can ministries operate in this dual reality: technology being used effectively to bring people close who remain physically separate?

Throughout 2020 we have witnessed a decrease in globalisation together with a rise in nationalism, racism and social unrest. International students either live “always on” in the online world, or self-isolate behind the no-camera Zoom screen because of fear or fatigue. But underneath lurks the longing for human togetherness, community and in-person acceptance. Simultaneously the pervasive uncertainties appear to be driving students to ask even more the big questions of life.

The new normal—lower student numbers and less contact—begs the question, Is ISM still viable? Complicating the picture is the shift in international student population numbers and makeup, which is dynamic across regions, with some locations reporting more students year-on-year.[4] One person commented on scale and resources, saying that current models and systems will engage only up to 20% in any city in their region. So, even with reduced student numbers, there is still much gospel work to do! Therefore, ISM is indeed still a viable and meaningful ministry area.

How will organisations get out of the foggy, unpredictable and ambiguous context of a multiplicity of losses? Or can they? Is this temporary? When will we return to “normal”? COVID-19 prevention regulations, which restrict movement or contact, keep changing and governments continue to adjust visa requirements. Furthermore, a whole new category of international students is emerging: those studying online at a foreign university while residing in their home country. Should we consider these “international students” and how will we minister to them? Some organisations are still going through a phase of grieving the comfort and familiarity of tried-and-true ministry models. They are yet to enter the acceptance stage of healthily stepping into new uncharted waters. It’s just plain hard. These tensions take their emotional toll on leaders, staff, volunteers and Christian international students.

For the global Church to faithfully fulfil the God-given privilege of loving the stranger in our midst, the worldwide ISM movement must recognise and engage with this new changing normal.

Ministries will do well to create a culture of innovation where leaders and workers are trained to be innovative.

4. Agility

To adapt successfully to the new dynamic normal, which is the VUCA environment, ISM leaders and organisations must be agile. “VUCA Prime” (pictured) is a four-part behavioural leadership response to counteract each of the four VUCA elements with a different VUCA: increased Vision, Understanding, Clarity and Agility.

Understanding the realities and opportunities is also essential. We are seeing “ISM without borders”—old boundaries now fallen thanks to the on-ramping of digital ministry. The geographical “border” of ministering to students in one city or area has disappeared for one can now reach any student anywhere. Ministries that focused on one ethnic group which have seen those student numbers evaporate could diversify right where they are. Or they could keep their ethnic focus but expand to include students in other cities or countries, even non-transient students in the sending country. The ‘onlining’ of ministry can be exciting, but it can also blur the vision. Organisations must be clear on their vision and they must work in harmony with others.

Ministries will do well to create a culture of innovation where leaders and workers are trained to be innovative. One participant wrote, “The complexity of the current situation may have revealed our outdated structure in our ministry and there are gaps in leadership readiness, dynamic resources allocation, and the need for smaller agile teams.” The dynamic environment demands new ideas, new ways of thinking, new paradigms. We need to be amphibians working in “hybrid” ministries, comfortable with the changing landscape and tensions of an online world. The pandemic crisis is a gift from God to spur on wise changes, to help people think in new ways. The demand for innovation means identifying those in an organisation who are gifted in that way and bringing them to the table, re-training for innovation and recruiting those naturally inclined to think outside the box.

Innovation is not only for ministry structures and models but also for cross-organisational networking and strategies. Thankfully in the ISM space, we have seen more leaders connecting, a significant increase in prayer and renewed passion for integral mission. Silos within organisations slow innovation, because silos isolate leaders and teams from one another, such that they function exclusively within their own boundaries. Cross-silo leadership and mutuality will build meaningful and rewarding connections within and between organisations.[5]

The pandemic has only exacerbated the us/them divide, the distance between locals and foreigners.

Before this year, we had already witnessed the emergence of non-Western destinations for international education. China has been on the rise for some time, and other contexts such as Malaysia, India and the Philippines have seen growth. Cultural homogeneity, non-English speaking context, students’ expectations of non-Christian host countries and non-Judeo-Christian cultural heritages have meant that even before COVID-19, different sets of issues arise when it comes to the establishment and indigenisation of ISM outside the West. The pandemic has only exacerbated the us/them divide, the distance between locals and foreigners. Unlike established ISMs in the West, ministries in new regions are not only establishing themselves but also now dealing with pandemic-related pressures.

The global ISM movement will do well to be sensitive to the unique challenges in non-Western contexts, including the complex path of local church involvement. In Latin America we have seen both a need but also a growing collaboration between churches and para-church organisations in the ISM field. Conversely, in some Asian contexts it is sensitive, even illegal, to invite churches to participate in ISM. So, some assumptions about collaboration as the key paradigm and model for ISM work are questionable and even uncomfortable in some parts of Asia. How can theology and contextualised missiology provide sound models for ISM where church involvement is not straightforward? We must leverage new efficiencies and connectedness within the ISM global community to support new ministries in these challenging contexts. The consultation called for regular interactions for ISM workers to exchange best practices from various contexts and suggested the idea of regional ISM consultations.

If nothing else, the pandemic has reminded us of our frailty as creatures in a sin-sick world.

5. Care

If nothing else, the pandemic has reminded us of our frailty as creatures in a sin-sick world. Under “caring for people” the consultation identified needs and responses appropriate to this season of weakness. Addressing the pastoral care of international students is both a great need and a great opportunity.

The economic, social and emotional needs of international students and their dependents have spiked. Mental health challenges have become all too common and isolation leads to loneliness and depression in some students. Health and hygiene issues compound the fear of the foreigner, resulting in new personal boundaries. This means some modes of in-person ministry, previously open to ISM workers, are now sadly not permitted. Similarly, the spread of COVID-19 outside of Asia means that non-Asians in Asia are seen with suspicion as potential spreaders to be avoided, feeding the pre-existing xenophobia so prevalent already. Studying online, perhaps even in a time zone different from their place of enrolment, disrupts normal habits of sleeping and eating. Under the sovereignty of God, the pandemic in 2020 has come hand-in-hand with destabilising racial tensions, geopolitical aggression, terrorism in Europe, and notable unrest in Nigeria and Ethiopia. Any ministry among international students must recognise and attend to these felt needs because they are pathways to deeper questions and meaningful relationships.

Many of the difficulties mentioned above also impact ISM workers, and member care was highlighted in the consultation as a critical need. By “ISM workers” we mean paid staff or volunteers ministering amongst international students. These face the stressful uncertainty of employment, the effects of “Zoom fatigue”, the refusal to meet from previously friendly students, fragmentation of teams and the questioning of the whole enterprise. ISM leaders need to care for their people by understanding these pressures and accommodating them. In late October, ACMI in North America organised a virtual retreat specifically to care for ISM workers.

ISM leaders also require this care, as they face the additional burden of being brokers of information, the nexus between organisations, and most importantly leaders who champion the inspiration of a sound vision. There is a need for higher-end organisational support, which in our new online-capable and borderless world can happen much easier. The informal exchange of ideas between ISM innovators and thought leaders will be mutually enriching and yield long term benefits.

The familiar and effective methods of eye contact and smile have been stripped away. Investing time and money in social media to reach new students has yielded poor results.

6. Ministry Models

The courage and agility to reassess and reinvent ministry models was a clear theme at the global consultation. At the head of this challenge was the simple question, How can new students be met and welcomed in a context of social distancing, mask-wearing and often fully-online registration and orientation? The familiar and effective methods of eye contact and smile have been stripped away. Investing time and money in social media to reach new students has yielded poor results. In response to all this, some organisations have focused on establishing contact with new students through existing networks and relationships—via the still present international students or departed returnees. This indirect contact facilitated through trust may end up being more fruitful.

Another emerging idea was to experiment with “scrappy” ways of connecting. One example is to host small gatherings by word-of-mouth in parking lots next to student residences, where social distancing is honoured but students can still receive a welcoming smile in person. This notes a shift more generally toward small group equipping and small-scale community.

Again, on the topic of local church mobilisation, some ISMs are looking to more intentionally involve churches from the same ethnic background as new students, both to advise on strategic ways to connect and to actually do that by reaching out themselves. These locally present and culturally familiar relationships may help international students to have “both feet on the ground” in their new educational context, rather than being torn by a heart always at home, tethered there by an always-on social media stream.

As ministries gain a deeper understanding of students’ needs, they’ll be better equipped to meaningfully and sensitively connect with new students. This will have a direct flow-on effect of helping ministries to establish or increase their legitimacy in the eyes of the educational system. Imagine, “Your organisation has something valuable to offer our international students, so we invite you to the table to discuss and execute practical and pastoral care to them.” What an invitation!

Fewer numbers of students, plus this holistic engagement, facilitates pastoral care and provides a context for deeper discipleship of students already known. Christian formation and ministry training for international students can perhaps go to new heights with more ministry energy across fewer relationships.

In the messy rush to establish effective means (often digital) to connect with international students, the consultation voiced the need to “stick to the basics” of ministry. That means relying on the Bible as the bread and butter of discipleship ministry with constant prayer, both done and modelled. ISMs must not just “hold out until it’s all back to normal” and bury their heads in the sand but must embrace the challenges and the opportunities within the digitisation of relationships.

Utilising digital technologies can help ISMs to streamline ministry training, conquering the distance, through mentoring, coaching and training on Zoom. Students and their families have become comfortable with digital communication which also opens the door to powerful and effective relationships with students’ parents and families back home. The vital work of returnee ministry, which involves both equipping international students for re-entry and aiding with (re)integration in a Christian community, also benefits from the ease of online communication.

We come back to prayer again and the bedrock of daily dependence on the Lord Christ.

7. Foundations

In the tumult of a COVID-19 ravaged 2020, the consultation participants noted the essential need to strengthen our foundations as a movement. Even prior to now, we have witnessed a healthy uptake in prayer within this movement. This makes explicit our commitment to the Lord of the Harvest who does the will of his Father, who receives all who come to him, who establishes and brings down kingdoms, who cares for the broken-hearted and builds his church. Ministry to international students must not, on any account, come loose from our joyful obedience to Christ Jesus who gave himself up for us and commands us to share the gospel with every person in every place.

Indeed, the Lord God Almighty is still sovereign and at work. And international student ministries could do well to reflect on the theology of hope. In the face of discouragement and disillusionment, unprecedented change, disruptive and patternless situations, what does the gospel of hope have to say to ISM leaders, workers and volunteers? In the face of racial fear and fragmentation, how does the gospel of peace touch our ministry area? How does a theology of diversity address racism and xenophobia biblically? In a world sick and dying from this new virus, what is the biblical interplay between safety, risk mitigation, courage, sacrificial self-giving love and picking up one’s cross daily? As climate change continues unabated, and global poverty worsens, where is a theology of creation care and integral mission? International students themselves will be asking these questions. Such questions open the door to much deeper discipleship from outward-facing Christians in host countries.

We come back to prayer again and the bedrock of daily dependence on the Lord Christ. Ministry to, with and beyond the diaspora of international students can only bear fruit if ISM workers lean into the leadership of the Spirit as we are “struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within [us]” (Col. 1:29).

8. Future Action

The following suggestions are offered for future action to support ISM globally.

1. A series of theological and practical papers on ISM in a COVID world.
2. An annual online global ISM consultation, perhaps in person every 3 years, for fellowship, networking at the global level, and sharing of wisdom and best practices.
3. A consultation at the Asia regional level, or for emerging non-traditional ISM contexts. This will aid the regionalisation of ISM for mutual support.
4. Workshops based around common issues and needs in ISM. A clear distinction should be drawn between training/webinar (content delivery with minimal interaction), workshop (some content but mostly facilitated and directed co-learning), and consultation (minimal content, mostly seeking input from attendees).

Footnotes

1. WIN stands for Worldwide ISM Network which is an issue group within the Lausanne Movement. The WIN Catalysts are Yaw Perbi, Francina de Pater, and Phil Jones.
2. Representatives from Tanzania, Argentina, Mexico, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, Malaysia, Japan, China, Singapore, UK, Germany, Netherlands. The WEA Mission Commission (WEA MC) Executive Director was able to participate, as WIN is a “docked network” with WEA MC.
3. From Kirk Lawrence, Developing Leaders in a VUCA Environment, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School. https://www.emergingrnleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/developing-leaders-in-a-vuca-environment.pdf (2013).
4. One example is the University of Amsterdam reporting a 22% increase on new international student enrolments this academic year. Bijl, Hanna “Fors meer inschrijvingen Amsterdamse universiteiten”, https://www.parool.nl/amsterdam/fors-meer-inschrijvingen-amsterdamse-universiteiten~bb2263d2/
   (30 October 2020).
5. Tiziana Casciaro , Amy C. Edmondson and Sujin Jang, “Cross-Silo Leadership” Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2019/05/cross-silo-leadership (May-June 2019).

Pray

• For international students’ emotional and mental well-being, especially for those locked-down in foreign lands with only distance communication with home available. Pray that their prayers for help will be answered by Christ-followers nearby. Pray God’s protection around those frightened by xenophobia and that the peace of Christ will calm trauma.
• For international student ministry staff and volunteers as they reach out to encourage and bless international students in innovative ways in spite of the difficulties and distancing. Pray for supernatural connections online between believers and students seeking friendship and meaning through this crisis.
• For wisdom for the Worldwide ISM Network leaders as they champion ISM as a strategic opportunity to bring people from many nations into God’s holy community in Christ.
• That churches will release people into ISM outreach and welcome international students into their families and church community.
• For funding required to support ISM ministers and ministries, for resources to learn and use new technologies and surplus funds to invest in the lives of international students.

[50 Minute Read]

It is already well into August 2020, so time for something of a “Leaders Forecast” update for the year. Quite frankly, it feels like we have alreadty travelled for an eternity this year, but gone nowhere. Between the lock-downs and online forums, civil unrest and worsening poverty, increased vulnerability and decreased access, political divisions and accelerating infections, missionaries and ministers of the gospel can be forgiven for feeling emotionally and spiritually, if not also physically, exhausted.
I am Jay Matenga and this is my leader’s forecast for 2020 — 1987 years after Jesus’ resurrection.

So, rejoice with me brothers and sisters engaged in God’s mission, because God is doing something in our day that the prophets longed to see. It is shrouded in the mystery of suffering, yet it will be revealed. The Church will emerge from this trial on every side refined for a new era of history. Right now, in the crucible, we need to prepare for whatever that new era will require of us. The old ways in which we had so much confidence are being dissolved, something new is emerging—new, yet rooted in an ancient story.

Online Missions Conversations

Over the past five months I have been privileged to participate in numerous Zoom discussions and contribute to a few webinars. The Mission Commission hosted our own Virtual Roundtable on May 22nd with about 28 missions leaders in attendance. It took some time to process the input shared in that forum, but a report is now available to read or download here: https://weamc.global/2020roundtable/.

Where possible I have kept track of English-language medium missions discussions that have been put online. Sometimes I have attended in real-time (often in the middle of the night in New Zealand), for others I have viewed the event after the fact via the weblink provided. There are some very important discussions happening within organisations and among various networks. I only get to see the ones I’m invited to or that are made public. There are many more happening within missions associations, networks and organisations that Mission Commission leaders and I may not be aware of. Over time, I’m sure the outcomes of those conversations will emerge as future missions practice. Let us pray for one another unceasingly, that the Spirit of God would guide all our conversations and that the mind of Christ will be revealed whenever two or more gather online.

The Mission Commission has sought to add value to missions conversations by posting weekly blogs on the missions impact of COVID-19 with regard to different issues. Some of those I wrote to get the ball rolling but recently we have welcomed submissions from other contributors on subjects of their interest or expertise. We will continue to do that as we’re able. There are many more missions issues affected by COVID-19 to consider. This season is too precious to let the opportunity pass us by to explore implications for the new era of missions ahead.

COVID-19 Global Issues

Before reviewing some of the major themes emerging in missions conversations that I’m aware of, here are some significant COVID-19 (or related) impacts that are giving rise to these themes…

Interpersonal

The infection itself is driving a wedge into our interpersonal day-to-day relationships, forcing a low- or no-contact environment for most, in many parts of the world. This can heighten our suspicion of those we don’t know or trust.

The lack of face to face connections outside of the family are proving emotionally stressful and negatively affecting the mental health of many, especially young people.

General anxiety and lack of a sense of safety has increased for most.

Pressure on families has seen major increases in domestic abuse and intra-family violence around the world.

We have seen a rapid uptake of online gatherings, but the enthusiasm for them quickly dropped off for all but the most necessary and functional of meetings—e.g. the transmission of information or the sharing of ideas. It is COVID-19 necessary, cost-effective, good for the environment and convenient, but virtuality has its drawbacks.

On the positive side, more people are (potentially) able to participate in conferences and forums with easy access at low cost, especially with regard to global gatherings. But there still remains a “digital divide” and we must remember to ensure the views of those without access to necessary technology are included somehow—and their access to tech improved if possible.

Business supply chains have been interrupted to the point where global trade may be permanently affected in favour of regional hubs and local stockpile solutions.

Unemployment is rapidly rising in formal economies, threatening the livelihoods of many workers unable to quickly redeploy to other industries. This will impact low- and middle-income earners the most—reducing discretionary surplus they may have used for charitable donations.

Digital technologies are booming, particularly in the social interface space. Innovators are aware of the limitations of video conferencing and large online event hosting, and it is a ‘goldrush’ to find swift solutions and grab some of Zoom’s market share. Global digital interaction promises to become easier, more accessible and more ‘natural’ in the months and years ahead.

Civil Liberties

The virus has returned power to most governments after a period of declining confidence.
Restricted freedoms, economic disparity, and harsh law-enforcement has amplified civil unrest within nations. The emotional toll taken by virus response measures has eroded tolerance toward inequities and injustice, resulting in public protests and stronger attempts at governmental control.

Government surveillance technologies have advanced rapidly in an attempt to track contagion contacts. These will likely continue to be used by governments in ways that potentially affect civil and religious liberties.

In some parts of the world, the chaos caused by the virus has provided opportunities to increase persecution of groups perceived to be a threat to those in power, usually because of competing beliefs and moral convictions.

In the pursuit of certainty, and a growing distrust of traditional authorities, conspiracy theories that seem plausible are being created, embraced and promoted widely, even when faced with broadly validated research that provides evidence to the contrary but does not promise stability.

Emerging Missions Themes

It is impossible to capture the entire gamut of discussion happening with regard to the pandemic’s impact on missions. There are simply too many aspects of missions being affected (not to mention many different interpretations about what counts or does not count as ‘missions’ activity). Nevertheless, here are some insights grouped under themes that I am regularly encountering and have considered. The points below represent my reflections on what I have been hearing.

Aside from access difficulties, indigenous missions engagement is urgently needed because the margin of tolerance toward the imposition of one world’s ideas onto another world’s reality has reached zero. Many will claim this is the relativisation of truth, but it is actually the minimisation of power. Truth does not simply translate wholesale across cultural divides. It can, however, be seeded and allowed to grow uniquely within another context. Missiologists and historians of the global church note that it is typically the indigenous church that grows rapidly, not the missionary controlled church. This should give us confidence that the church will grow globally outside of the borders of traditional Christendom (the Industrialised Global North) in spite of the disruption to foreign missionary services. 

For a long time, minorities in missions were content to “go along to get along” and endured being pushed to the edges of organisations. We are now seeing previously marginalised people push back against the dominant organisational culture’s priorities and privileges and challenge the majority view’s unconscious assumptions (usually assumed to be ‘superior’). Inferiority complexes are dropping away in favour of a growing confidence that other cultures’ ways of knowing are valid and valuable. This tends to be particularly evident in the tension between Industrial (Global North/Individualist) and Indigenous (Majority World/Collectivist) perspectives.

Previously, where foreign experts and their methods were accepted because they were accompanied by education and money, border closures and desperation for local innovative solutions has dislodged this dependency.

These issues are accelerating a shift in the balance of power toward the host and off of the would-be visitor/guest. Alongside increasing national pride and necessary self-sufficiency, people indigenous (or local) to a context are regaining their authority to decide what is or is not acceptable to their context.

In sum, this shift toward “centring” the indigenous/local perspective makes the imposition of knowledge from the outside less acceptable. The indigenous/local believers become the guardians of the gospel for their context. It places fresh emphasis on the need for the foreigner to take the subordinate posture of a guest who is invited to participate in the (co)creation of knowledge, or truth, in the host culture.

Transformative Collaboration

As I listen to Majority World and intergenerational missions perspectives, I hear that we need to move away from partnership (which emphasizes “parts” in contractual arrangement) and lip-service connections, toward a relational collaboration that looks more like fellowship/koinonia in the deeply interconnected covenantal sense. Match the need to better support indigenous missions initiatives on their terms with intentional covenantal collaboration, and you have a potent recipe for effective witness to a world that is pulling in the opposite direction: becoming increasingly separated and self-serving.

Similarly, integrating the participation, perspectives, and priorities of younger generations in missions thought, practice and decision-making processes, will help us discern the direction of missions for a post-pandemic world. As explored in our blogpost on youth, COVID-19 is having a huge impact on the younger generations and therefore the future of the Church and missions.

The desirable mutual transformation developed through the relationship becomes its most valuable outcome. Any other reason for forming a relationship—a project, objective, product, or purpose—should be subordinated to the relationship itself.

I am convinced that John 17:18-25 (the Great Commitment) is better suited as a central missions text for the new era ahead of us than Matthew 28:18-20 (the Great Commission). The Johannine reference focuses better on the outcome that will result in the world believing and knowing that the Father loving sent the Son: our loving unity. It also articulates how the Father sent the Son: in loving unity. The Matthew passage shows us the scope (all the earth) and what to do when moving beyond Israel (make disciples), but it is too easily interpreted in an individualistic and formulaic way. Whereas Jesus’ prayer in John fills out the covenantal/collaborative intention of what becoming a disciple means: a full participant in the integrally unified, ethnically-diverse and prophetic shalom-Kingdom of God. The meaning of which is developed throughout the epistles where the writers speak of what it means to live together in-Christ as followers of Christ.

The emerging focus on transformative collaboration, a testament to the world of the power of God to reconcile differences, can be illustrated in many New Testament passages and themes. I quite like Romans 12:1-2ff at the moment. John Piper has said, “missions exists because worship doesn’t”. When we read Romans 12 with a “Great Commitment” mindset, we see that our self-sacrificing unity in fellowship with each other in-Christ is our acceptable act of worship. Because it is our interpersonal and intercultural, self-denying interaction with one another, our preferring each other, that transforms our minds away from conforming to the divisive patterns of this world. With reference back to the unity emphasised in John 17:18-25 (see also Psalm 133), this is God’s good, pleasing and perfect will and our greatest gospel witness to the world. As Romans 12 progresses, Paul goes on to explain the types of interpersonal behaviour expected of God-worshippers in-Christ. Everyone has a place and a part to play. As we play ours, we need to lovingly allow others to play theirs and value each other’s participation. In this, God is worshipped and will be glorified throughout the earth.

If the global missions community was to invest in and practice transformative collaboration with indigenous missionaries and missions initiatives we should expect dynamic results. We should expect our sending churches to embrace differences and collaborate similarly. The world will look on with amazement and God will be glorified by our loving example of transformative collaboration made possible because of our Great Commitment to unity in-Christ.

Whole-of-Life Orientation

There is therefore now no separation between the demonstration and explanation of the gospel. The crisis created by COVID-19 will not permit us to merely speak of the goodness of God and Christ the Lord, we need to show that Christ is our Lord by demonstrating the goodness of God. Enough talk about prioritisation or polarisation. It is all one—an indivisible and interrelated whole: spiritual, material, and psychological. Most of the world understands this. It is the Industrialised Global North than fragments it. The world in the state it is in today needs to see such a compelling demonstration of the Kingdom that they will beg us for an explanation.

For too long the global missions community has been caught up in debates over definitions and prioritizations. We might as well be asking, “Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?” As our Latino elders have been saying for decades, our approach should be one of “Misión Integral”. Micah Global and Chris J. H. Wright (among many others) have adopted this in English as “Integral Mission” in attempt to reintegrate parts of a whole so that they’re not treated as separate components as “holistic mission” tends to treat them. In a time of COVID-19 crisis, prioritization debates become pitifully academic and disconnected from reality. 

Creation care is an aspect of our lived reality that is now unable to be ignored as integral to our missions responsibility. COVID-19 has been a tipping point for creation care and missions. It is rare now when a conversation around missions praxis does not include a positive discussion about engaging creation care issues. God’s people live in God’s environment with a Genesis 1:28 mandate to steward it well. The climate change narrative has merely spotlighted this afresh, demanding an Evangelical response. The Mission Commission is now working closely with the WEA’s Creation Care Task Force and Sustainability Centre to draw their expertise into the MC and keep the MC community aware of developments in Evangelical thinking about creation care to inform Evangelical missions practice.

Another issue that I place in this category is the plight and potential of people on the move—displaced people, refugees and diaspora. These broad categories of people have found themselves outside of their historic habitats at a time when the world shut has them in and xenophobia has increased around them. Reframing missions in a “whole-of-life” way must appreciate how life in limbo or permanent resettlement in a foreign culture makes people particularly vulnerable. Conversely, it cannot be denied that Christian migrants are revitalising the faith in formerly Christian nations. Herein lies ongoing potential for people on the move to be both recipients of the gospel and missionaries of the gospel.

In a similar way, we are aware that the expatriate servants of Jesus who have remained in foreign lands, or lockdown in their sending nations, have faced their own crises during the international travel hiatus. This has created new Member Care challenges for sending organisations and churches, on top of wrestling with what COVID-19 might mean for their viability as organisations. Harry Hoffman and the Global Member Care Network are to be commended for the way they are wrestling with these issues together.

Technological Advancements

One of the biggest accelerations caused by COVID-19 is the uptake of digital forms of communication and interaction (see our early blog about digital impacts). The technology industry estimates that we are now at least a decade ahead of the new-tech adoption curve and innovators are racing to cash in on the opportunities. The most noticeable impact on missions has been the availability of reliable, low-bandwidth, communications technology in the form of Zoom. Many missions were already using it as a secondary form of connection across borders (the first and far more preferred being in-person meetings). With the advent of COVID-19 and the impossibility of easy travel, Zoom has become the preferred conduit of missions communications.

The shift to digital communications has not only helped keep international communications alive, it has also become the lifeline for formal and non-formal missions education (see our blog about training) and the sharing of missions ideas in online-conferences and discussion forums. We are watching with interest how large national and global conferences have adapted to the online space with positive results. The ability for more people to access the event and the lowering of costs for them to do so (when travel and hospitality costs are removed from the mix) is compelling, as is the lessening impact on the environment.

I continue to wonder about the push-back against continuing online once travel is possible again. Some leaders maintain that face-to-face will be crucial even if travel carries greater cost and more complexity. But how many of our beliefs about the importance of in-person interaction are fuelled by other motivations? I have seen indicators of “travel-withdrawal” from missions leaders who have lived life constantly on the move. There is now no doubt in my mind that travel and conference attendance can be unhealthily addictive, even idolatrous. We are seeing similar effects with entertainment and sports stars who are diminished by the lack of audience enthusiasm to feed off. Missions leaders and conference speakers are prone to the same malady—needing to be celebrated for their expertise and insights. It is an identity-challenging time for some leaders, more so if conferences continue to be shifted online for the foreseeable future.

A major issue not mentioned yet but is related to all of the above is the demise of Short-Term Trips. The pandemic has had a devastating impact on the business model of Global North missions organisations that rely on short-termers and the whole industry that specialised in short term “voluntourism”. Indicators from the airline industry suggest the global transport systems will not return to pre-COVID levels for years, neither in availability nor affordability. The long delay in getting (wealthy) people moving around the globe again has crippled the Short-Term Trip model, with the exception perhaps of geographically close trips. I have heard talk of technology bridging the gap with “virtual short-term trips” being proposed, but I doubt that these will be of interest to the ‘target market’ who are looking for self-actualising experiences that look good on their CVs and may prompt some consideration of more formal engagement with missions. While there will be some cost from the loss of short-termers, missions as a whole will not be critically harmed.

The Motivation Problem

In light of all of the COVID-19 challenges and changes, I see one significant factor that has missions organisations locked in stasis: motivation for missions. The global missions community (as it is usually defined by post-1800s missionary sending models) is so heavily invested in a type of missiology formed over the past 220+ years of industrial colonial expansion that it struggles to conceive of how it can be any different.

Every era in the history of the Church has been marked by a particular missions emphasis or motivation. These were influenced by the challenges and opportunities the Church faced at the time and the needs of societies they were exposed to. Socio-economic factors both enabled and constrained ministry beyond the influence of the local church (i.e. missions). Monastic movements, wandering teachers, educational and health care institutes, social welfare programmes, Church diplomacy, trading and commerce, religious wars and conquests, were all formed out of the priorities of the Church and perceived needs beyond its parishes. The European colonial era widened awareness of the world dramatically, and also a sense of responsibility to address problems viewed from the perspective of Christendom. The modern missions movement was no different and it is not the evolutionary pinnacle of missions engagement with the world. A new age requires new missions.

Conclusion, Or Not

My cards are on the table as it were. From what I am hearing and perceiving of the “new normal” ahead of us, I am all the more convinced that the future of missions is indigenous. We will continue to need missions organisations that are able to develop and provide support for indigenous or near-culture missionaries to minister a whole-of-life gospel to people beyond the influence/reach of a local church. I contend that we should especially promote and prioritise support for missionaries from cultures closest to people with least access to the gospel, if for no other reason than because Christ is not yet known and worshipped in those places.

What then remains in missions for the people of God from traditional sending nations?

• Harvest Prayer—continuous, passionate, informed prayer for global missions via all means in all places.
• Missions Education—not necessarily teaching specific (Global North) missions methods, but Biblically-rooted missions principles with practical applications for the development of missionaries, the making of disciples, the planting of churches and the nurturing of deep in-Christ unity.
• Resource Sharing—indigenous missionaries need to be financially freed and equipped to minister effectively according to their contexts.
• Diaspora Ministry—working alongside migrant believers to reach your nation and ministering to non-believers from unreached peoples finding refuge in your nation.
• Distance Co-Discipling—creating long-term covenant relationships with indigenous missionaries/missionary families to journey together, share life together, and support one another as you grow in the Lord while living in different places.
• Fellowship Visits—when travel resumes, relationships can be greatly enhanced and missionaries encouraged by in-person visits by supportive expatriate friends (not as superiors or experts).
• Local Missions—in every nation there are groups in society that lack gospel awareness if not access. Minister there. I contend that missions activity is ministry beyond the influence of a local church (with evangelism a subset of missions). Missions should not be constrained to a cross-cultural endeavour only; this would invalidate indigenous missionaries. Attempts to restrict missions to cross-cultural engagement could be seen as a woeful attempt by cross-cultural sending agencies to protect their business model.

Am I suggesting a moratorium on long-term expatriate missionary service? Absolutely not. People are still ‘going’ and will continue to do so. Every nation has gospel-blessings to share with all nations. I am, however, detecting a trend that would see the sending of missionaries internationally become more difficult and less welcome, with decreasing motivational, moral and financial support in traditional sending nations—and therefore less able to sustain traditional sending organisations.

Yet God’s mission continues, so our involvement in missions needs to adapt. God will continue to call people to serve in missions, but as we detected in our research for the book “Mission In Motion: Speaking Frankly of Mobilisation”, a calling to missions is usually nascent and shaped by the context in which one is called. A new context has been thrust on us. Missions may become more indigenous out of necessity but that should not absolve any of us from responsibility. The global gospel demands global collaboration so that the whole world will know and believe that the Father lovingly sent the Son. So, let us pursue the Great Commitment and #stayonmission.

Pray

• For wisdom for all Christian leaders who are seeking to navigate their way through the crisis caused by the global pandemic. For a spirit of discernment to effectively understand the times and know how God’s people under their care should respond to the challenges they are facing.
• For courage for missions leaders especially; that they will listen carefully to the people they are responsible for and accountable to, and make the changes that are necessary for their missions organisations and personnel to thrive in the new normal ahead of us.
• For indigenous or local-culture innovators called of God to take the gospel to those beyond the influence of a local church who have little access to, or understanding of, the gospel. That God will supply all their needs according to Christ Jesus’ riches, and the obedient generosity God’s people.
• For revelation from God for all of us to know how to prepare, collaborate and resource missions activities so that the gospel will continue to spread unhindered in its fullest expression, and that the Kingdom of God would be made even more apparent to the world around us—especially among people with least access to the knowledge of God in Christ.

Follow

Click here for Jays’ personal blog. Jay can also be followed on Facebook here.