The very survival of Christianity in Europe and America depends upon the emergence of men and women able to think new thoughts and devise new strategies at the real frontiers of mission today. But such people, whether innovative church planting missionaries or Christian intellectuals seeking to move beyond the timeworn habits of thought in order to rethink the relationship of Christianity and Western Culture from the perspective of mission, are likely to face misunderstanding, criticism and serious opposition.
Kouyanet
Mission | Bible | Languages
Tag: mission (page 1 of 38)
Dynamic, independent, driven Christians can be a huge pain in the neck. They want to do things their own way, they don’t fit in with established traditions or structures and they make everyone else feel very uncomfortable. On the other hand, they can see solutions to things that other people hadn’t even realised were problems and can achieve things that your normal, everyday people just miss.
A personal call to missionary work is not necessary, can be rooted in Western individualism and reflect a low view of the role of the Church. It is also something which God has used powerfully in history to motivate and encourage people. Who said theology was easy?
Imagine it’s your third day in an isolated African village. You are expected to treat a sick child in the afternoon and to preach in church in the evening; despite having no medical training and not being able to speak the local language (at least not so as people could understand, anyway).
Union Theology have posted an updated overview of missiology on their website. It is well worth a read.
If western missionaries still approach mission from the perspective that their way of doing things is the right way or the best way they risk being guilty of a kind of ecclesiastical colonialism. One of Bosch’s main emphasises is that mission will be practiced in partnership. In essence, mission can no longer be thought of as “from the West to the rest” but rather as being “from everywhere to everywhere”.
Blog posts about the relationships between churches and missionaries can be informative, but they are rarely a bundle of laughs. However, Rollin Grams has pulled off the seemingly impossible feat of finding humour in this situation with his letter from the Church at Antioch explaining why they can no longer support Paul, Silas and Timothy. Greetings from Antioch. We trust you are well and that your ministry in Corinth is also continuing well. Our mission committee met last week to discuss your work, and we have decided to discontinue the…
I have been following the launch of the Union Theology website with interest over the past couple of weeks and today, I finally had a chance to glance at it. From the quick look that I’ve taken, it seems to be a very worthwhile resource. Those who are students of theology either by profession or interest should bookmark it in their browser. I was a little disappointed, though not surprised to see that there is no section in the resources section devoted to mission. However, I did a quick search…
In what ways should the ‘shift of gravity’ of the Church impact the thinking of traditional mission agencies?
In the UK mission world, we are living in a rather paradoxical situation; the British Church is ageing and shrinking but, despite this, the number of denominations and mission agencies is increasing.
Mission agencies need to take into account Biblical and theological considerations when they shape their strategies and goals. This is not a case of providing ‘proof texts’ to give a justification for what we are doing, but to consider our activities in the light of the broad message of Scripture. When there is an apparent conflict between a Scriptural position and ‘conventional wisdom’ or accepted ‘best practice’, we must be prepared to be guided by our Scriptural convictions, even though that might be counter-cultural or counter-intuitive.
