July 2024 Issue 13:4 Overview

Affirming Our Common Calling: Interdependence for polycentric mission
There was a point in time when mission was understood as the divine right of certain people from certain places to convert some people living in some places to Christianity. The target of mission then was the so-called heathens living in distant lands afar who had no sense of the Divine nor authentic religion. The major focus of mission during the 19th century was winning souls and planting churches while overlooking the social ills of the time that distorted the gospel of Christ. However, with the birth of the 20th century and its emphasis on ecumenism, and the 21st century that features world Christianity, the dynamics have changed. No longer is mission understood in parochial terms nor the gospel as lacking in power for social change. The 21st century missional trends have created a context that makes networking the desirable path for world mission.
- The Context for Mission
- Missional Koinonia as Framework for Mission Networking
  . . . missional koinonia connotes the idea of God’s people in partnership together with God and with one another for the holistic transformation of God’s creation that is groaning for restoration.
  ‘[Missional koinonia ] is a call for partnership and collaboration among equals with diverse giftedness, resources, and numbers; all working with a common purpose and mission to the glory of God.’
Collaboration not Control: Rethinking the international agency model in the pursuit of mutual mission sending partnerships with the majority world
- ‘We Want to Work with You, Not for You’
  This was the entirely understandable summary from three Indonesian mission agency leaders as they reflected on the interactions between their own organizations and those with an international structure.
- The Challenges of the International Model
  For all the talk of polycentrism in mission circles today, in international mission organizations, it is often the multinational structure that persists. Internationalization strategies that added sending bases in other Western nations have in more recent years simply expanded to include countries across the Majority World.
- Stepping Back Before Stepping Forward: Passing on our structures in Brazil
  For driven mission practitioners, the development of structures is usually more appealing than closing them down or stepping away. But if there really is a time for everything under the sun, then we must hold more lightly to our organizations.
- Partnership not Paternalism: Revisiting our relationships in Côte d’Ivoire
  One of the key strategic oversights of international mission organizations appears to be a tendency to neglect the mission sending structures that God has already set up across the world—namely local churches and their leaders.
- Collaboration not Control: A new network promoting mutuality in mission sending

This product was added to our catalog on Monday 23 September, 2024.

Home