This is an essay which I wrote for my Contemporary Theologies of Mission Module. Sorry, it is rather lengthy, but it might be of interest to some – it takes a different spin on the issue of the relationship between the growing church in the South and the Churches in the traditional Western homeland of Christianity. You will need the free Acrobat Reader to open this file. If nothing else, the bibliography might be of some interest.
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One reply on “Christian Centre of Gravity”
yep.
am very challenged by Garrisons ‘Church Planting Movement’ study (http://www.nextchurch.org/links/manuals.html), which highlights examples of huge indigenous church growth, with the Western contribution being strategic coaching and shaping (NOT leadership) by Western ex-pats (- if this study was better distributed it would help your good point about difficulties of field missionaries explaining the field back into Western donors).
and on your point about Southern church becoming more influential, I for one am hungry for their input – actually earlier today I e-mailed Gospel for Asia asking if I could buy the materials they use in their missionary training schools in India.
very, very good paper
please can you expand your last paragraph for your next paper