Partnerships

Every year more than 1.6 million people from the U.S. participate in short-term mission trips which normally last from 5-15 days. As growing numbers of people go to minister with Christians in other parts of the world, many are working to make this type of ministry more effective through greater cultural awareness and recognition of the wisdom that can be found in mutually edifying relationships. One of the ways that large churches, inparticular are exploring is that of congregation to field partnerships in which the local church focuses on one particular area of the world over an extended period of time. Instead of a local church sending teams to as many different places as possible, the partnership model sends short-term mission teams to a focused area of the world in order to foster a sustained, collaborative work. The following clip is from a worship service at Bethany, Oklahoma First Church of the Nazarene. This church has made a ten year commitment to work in partnership with Swaziland. This clip is interesting because it demonstrates a partnership in worship and also gives a glipse into some of the partnership initiatives in Swaziland. True partnership in this type of relationship is difficult at best and I am sure that there are many shortcomings in this particular example. It is, however, an interesting move on the part of a local church and the church in Swaziland.

Amazing, horrifying as well as incredible stories keep coming out from Haiti. One particular scene was on CNN which I saw this morning. A group of people, with faces covered in soot and standing in the midst of their crumbled life where singing a song in Creole. I recognized the tune to the hymn:

“Jesus knows all about our struggles, He will guide till the day is done; There's not a friend like the lowly Jesus, No, not one! No, not one!
“There's not an hour that He is not near us, No, not one! no, not one!
No night so dark, but His love can cheer us, No, not one! no, not one!”

Several things come to mind when looking at this. First is that there is a lot that I can learn from amazing people like this who have learned to live by faith in ways that show trust beyond what is seen. I also thought of Dr. Paul Orjala who was a missionary and linguist in Haiti. Paul loved music and a major part of his ministry was teaching Hymns to people. I don’t know if the legacy of missionaries like Paul Orjala was the source of these brave Haitian’s song, but due to the high influence that missionaries had in introducing hymns, there is a good change that the gift of music gave these Haitians reason to hope that Jesus not only knows, but he is with us.

There is no way to make sense of all that is happening in Haiti, but I lift up my brothers and sisters today who are bearing unfathomable pain.

Searching for Authenticity (Conclusion)

So what? After the series of three posts, a natural question surfaces; “so what?” or what are the implications to all of this? I originally wrote this as I was working through some ideas about short-term missions, and so the following are implications for short-term missions.

“If short-term missions are so costly and seem to have very few actual benefits (and may even have adverse results); “why do so many people feel compelled to participate in short-term missions?”
There are a variety of answers that can be given to this question which go beyond short-term mission simply being a new and passing fad of the church, or a simply a well marketed business.

The first indicator is the sociological ambience out of which short-term missions has emerged. Christianity (as well as other faiths) has historically expanded or adapted in movement with historical or sociological shifts. The expansion of Europe which came into being through newly discovered navigation technology, and which resulted in each expanding nation to establish ‘ownership’ of new territories in varied ways (Seed) also was the ambience in which Christianity expanded.

Similar to the Celtic Christians whose pilgrimages focus on a spiritual benefit for themselves, short-term missions is a shift in missions giving and participation. Although the findings of Priest, VerBeek, and others are that the benefits of short-term missions appear to be different than the “urban legends”, and although findings in tourism anthropological studies, such as Hutnyk indicate that the orientalistic perceptions that people carry with them are often a type of consumerism of the poor, there is consistent findings that there is greater benefit for those who participate in going on a short-term mission trip than those who host short-term missions teams. If this assumption is true, then it would appear that much of the motivation for continued short-term missions emerges from self gratification or even the capital which is gained from acts of charity.

Beyond the underlying sociological and even ethnocentric motivations behind short-term missions, I would argue that there is an element in which short-term missions as Christian pilgrimage is not only a natural expression of the missio Dei, but provides a basis for missions that engages the whole church in the whole mission of God. A balanced aspect of the practice of short-term mission is found in Miriam Adeney’s work (2003,2006). Her aspect of the shalom tourist, is an expression of Christian pilgrimage which takes into account the needed respect and care for host locations of short-term missions. A difficult question was raised by Oscar Muriu, pastor of the Calvary Church in Nairobi, Kenya at a conference on short-term missions at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (July,2009). Muriu asked, “how does short-term missions follow the example of Christ, giving up power?” Continuing, Muriu stated that the problem is that we model mission only on the great commission – the “go and do passage” and don’t take into consideration the Philippians 2 passage which state that Christ went—not because of resources that He had, but because of His humility. Jesus chose to be incarnate into poverty. In Matt. 10, Jesus gave the same call to His disciples. True Christian pilgrimage should be transformational for those who go, but should also reflect that their going is not an expression of their resources, but rather a reflection of their Christianity.

Perhaps, the phrase “short-term missions” is not the best description of this phenomenon. A major problem that has emerged in the recent literature on short-term missions is that people perceive their trip as a short-term participation in mission which begins when they board a plane and ends when they return home. In this sense, mission is strictly defined by location. Perhaps a better aspect of this phenomenon is to find ways to make short-term missions more than just a short project, but rather, a continuous way to live. I would argue that a good descriptor of this which is consistent with a scripture and which is in harmony with much of the Christian tradition is that of pilgrimage which is not defined by crossing salt water or by boarding a plane, but rather pilgrimage in the sense of a centered set in which the focus of the Christian pilgrim is Christ and His mission. Another way to describe this would be to use Lamin Sanneh’s articulation of mission by translation. With this understanding, short-term mission trips become a pilgrimage which begins long before a person boards a plane and continues long after they return home. The activities of those who participate in short-term missions in this light are activities which are incarnation in nature and which partner with a long term perspective of God’s mission.

Whereas the reading for this study focused on describing the context which fosters the phenomenon of short-term mission, further research which focuses on the relationships between pilgrimage and short-term missions connected with research related missionary ecclesiology could give a framework for constructive development of short-term mission practice in the future.

Searching for Authenticity (Part III)

This is the third (and I think the last) part of this three part saga.

Similar to the Celtic peregrini was the early Jesuits of the 15th century. John O’Malley (1993) gives an interesting perspective of how the early Jesuits, primarily between 1540 and 1590 viewed themselves and their purpose which, in many ways is not unlike that of the Celtic Christians. Later Jesuits (after 1590) became intertwined in the political and social power struggles of the Roman Catholic Church. These Jesuits became identified with ministry of “location” such as educational efforts which required them to remain in one place over a long period of time. The Jesuits of the 16th century (1540-1590) however, saw themselves primarily as pilgrims or apostles who like Paul moved from place to place with the urgency to spread the Gospel as they went. In these examples, the Celtic Christians were not unlike much of the contemporary short-term mission movement which does not focus primarily on evangelism, but rather on what earlier Christians would call works of piety.

One clarification, I believe is necessary at this point. Definition of “place” and “journey” are broader than simple locations of a building or a trip. A primary difference between many aspects of historic pilgrimage and pilgrimage as I am describing it is that historically, the primary motivation for pilgrimage was to go to sacred spaces, and it was therefore very focused on “place”. The shift that I am describing and which is articulated by the sources that I am referencing is that pilgrimage has become something other than a focus on “place”, it is a movement toward community (social bonding capital) and a movement toward authentic faith. This type of pilgrimage is often expressed in physical journeys, but the physical journey itself does not make it pilgrimage as I am describing.

Similar aspects of a focus away from location to a focus on journey or pilgrimage are evident in the writings of mission theology which builds on an understanding of the missio Dei as the central identity of Christianity. (Newbigin 1978, Bosch 1991, Guder 1998, Goheen 2000). The focus of these writings is a move away from an ecclesiology of location toward what Michael Goheen calls missionary ecclesiology.
In his book, The Open Secret, Lesslie Newbigin develops a missionary ecclesiology out of a Trinitarian approach to missions. “Newbigin’s approach to the theology of mission underwent a significant change of emphasis in the 1960’s, particularly as a result of the WCC’s New Delhi assembly in 1961.”(Weston 2006, 81) Before this time, Newbigin (as well as most others) saw the Church as the primary ‘agent’ in the work of world mission, or to use Wuthnow and Putnam term, “location”. During the New Delhi assembly, however, he began to understand that a Trinitarian approach which set the work of the trinity instead of the Church as the primary agent of mission as an understanding that would do justice to what the Bible said related to God’s Mission. This development can be seen in The Open Secret in which Newbigin argues that “a Trinitarian approach to mission holds together three facets of the work of God in a dynamic and creative tension: the ‘proclamation’ of the Kingdom (in the authority of the Father), the ‘presence’ of the Kingdom (in and through the Son), and the ‘prevenience’ of the Kingdom (through the ministry of the Spirit who ‘goes before’ the Church in its missionary work)” (Newbigin 1978,72). This core Trinitarian understanding of mission is not particularly new in Newbigin, David Bosch builds on the ecclesiology of Karl Barth in a more explicit way than does Newbigin and comes to many of the same conclusions that mission is not an activity of the church, but rather the very nature of the Triune God reflected in the church (Bosch 1991, 373-380). Church and mission are interdependent elements in Bosch as well as Newbigin. This is clearly seen in the words of David Bosch; “It has become impossible to talk about the church without at the same time talking about mission. One can no longer talk about church and mission, only about the mission of the church…A church without mission or a mission without church are both contradictions.” (1991, 372).

A trinitarian or missional hermeneutic points out that scripture does not particularly give a foundation for developing missions, but that the missio Dei is foundational for understanding all of scripture since mission is God’s nature (Wright 2006). In the New Testament, the Church sends apostles to people of varied ethnic groups. The church, however, did not limit mission to sending missionaries to “the ends of the earth.”As the body of Christ which reflects Gods nature of mission, The Church didn’t just have missionaries; the Church itself was the missionary in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria as well as to the ends of the earth. Another way to state this perspective is to say that the church is not just a sending church; rather it is a “sent” church (Guder 1998). The emphasis is not on church as “location”, but rather on church as a people who are reflecting the mission nature of God.

Seminal work which describes this shift in postmodern culture was done by Paul Hiebert (1994) who described epistemological shifts in terms of bounded and centered sets. Heibert describes a bounded set, as a grouping with well defined bounds. A centred set groups things on the basis of how they relate to other things. For the sake of this study, a church that is defined by location could be defined in terms of a bounded set. The primary boundaries would be church membership and focus on identity with the location or structure. The societal as well as theological shift, however, that is defined, not according to identity with location, but rather pilgrimage, could be defined in terms of what Heibert calls a centered set since the church would be defined by its center, the Triune God of Scripture. The trouble with the former, writes Hiebert, is that this may become too exacting and exclusive, while an advantage of the latter is that Jesus Christ becomes the focus of all that the Church is and does.

Interestingly, this theological shift which defines the church in relation to the missio Dei instead of location is parallel with sociological movements in the U.S. which reflect a general movement of society toward meaning or reality that is discovered in pilgrimage or to use Heiberts terms, a centered set. These are also parallels to the phenomenon of short-term missions which is a move away from a professionalization of missions in which mission activity is professionalized through structures and organizations which prepare, send and filter missionaries toward what Ralph Winter has called “re-amateurization of missions” similar to that of the Student Volunteer Movement (1996). Although there are similarities in short-term missions and the Student Volunteer Movement, I would argue that there is more dissimilarity which flows out of the socio ecclesiological context which has fostered short-term missions and which is quite different than the context out of which the Student Volunteer Movement emerged.

Although it is evident that the phenomenon of short-term missions has occurred within the atmosphere of social change, it is debatable if this shift away from a focus on location to a focus on pilgrimage is a shift that is contrary to the essence of the Christian Church. Perhaps it could more safely be argued that it is unnatural for the church to focus primarily on location and consider mission as something that is above and beyond the normality of the church.
If it is within the nature of God and in turn, within the nature of the church to be translated from one context to another, this would indicate obstacles as the Gospel is carried from societies which are perceived as societies of power. Some have stated that it is inevitable that movement from cultures which have been “colonializers” to other parts of the world is by nature oppressive and racist (Said 1978). In this understanding, Christianity would by nature be bound to location or would inevitably be colonialistic as they carry the gospel from one location to another.

Similar to the thesis of Edward Said is the work of anthropologist, John Hutnyk (1996). In his book, The rumour of Calcutta: Tourism, charity and the poverty of representations, instead of exploring the people of Calcutta as a normal approach for anthropologists, his study is focused on those who visit Calcutta. There is a wealth of parallel theory and implications to short-term missions since Hutnyk focuses on people who travel to Calcutta on a budget, mostly from North America, Europe and Australia. Like short-term mission travelers, budget travelers (or backpack travelers) come not to bask in the glory of the Raj, but to explore the underbelly of Asia and to do some volunteer work in order to alleviate their guilt. Hutnyk explains that although these travelers (like short-term mission travelers) have the best of motives, like short-term mission travelers, they do not question the way they frame their exposure to Calcutta. They frame or represent what they see, based on what Hutnyk calls “the rumours of Calcutta”. He states, “they have heard the ‘rumour of Calcutta, the imagery by which the city is known. For them the city is already enframed” (Hutnyk 1996, 163). This framing is similar to Edward Said’s argument that the colonializers often ‘orientalize’ the other based on ‘the rumour’. In a similar vein is Robert Priest’s article, Missionary Positions: Christian, Modernist, Postmodernist (Priest, 2001) which questions the ‘rumour’ related to the origins of term ‘missionary position’ as a means of orientalism or a way of enframing a ‘rumoured’ perception of missionaries. In the case of Calcutta, Hutnyk points out that budget travelers, have a perception before they arrive (the rumour) which provides the framework by which they will experience the city. Similar to John Urry’s (2002) perception of the ‘tourist gaze’, Hutnyk says that this ‘enframing’ leads to a problematic aspect in which Third World tourism participates in a voyeuristic consumption of poverty (1996,11). This consumption by what Hutnyk calls budget travelers of backpack travelers, which are parallel to short-term mission travelers includes photographs and souvenirs, but also entails ‘good works’ experiences and cultural capital. The ties between Hutnyk’s work and short-term missions are unmistakable and disturbing. The interesting connection related to this study is that this class of tourist which Hutnyk describes are people who are critical of what he calls “modern lodge” tourists who are explicitly seeking their own comfort and a sense of similarity to their home. He also points out that these backpacking travelers are also in search for ‘authentic experiences’ (1996,9), and a ‘once in a lifetime experience’, which, is often warped by ‘enframing’, but which is similar to Wuthnow’s and Putnam’s theory of a search for authenticity.

Contrary to the theories of Said and Hutnyk, Lamin Sanneh (Sanneh), defines a distinct position for Christianity as the gospel is carried from one culture to another. Sanneh defines the difference between what he calls mission by diffusion and mission by translation. Mission by diffusion is related to religion which expands from its initial cultural base and is implanted in other societies primarily as a matter of cultural identity. This would be consistent with the observations of Said and Hutnyk. Mission by translation, however, carries with it a deep theological vocation, which arises as an inevitable stage in the process of reception and adaptation. These two ways are not always easy to separate. “Mission by diffusion (, however,) is unquestionably the stronger strand of Islam, whereas mission as translation is the vintage mark of Christianity”(Sanneh 1990,29). A central theme for Sanneh is that “mission as translation makes the bold, fundamental assertion that the recipient culture is the authentic destination of God’s salvific promise ...it is the missio Dei that allowed translation to enlarge the boundaries of the proclamation”(1990,31). The understanding of Sanneh is that Christianity is fundamentally not a faith of location, but rather is by nature, a faith that finds its purpose as well as its identity as it moves beyond location.
In Paul D. Hanson’s biblical theology (Hanson), a common thread of the nature of the people of God is “community”. An interesting concomitant to community found in Hanson’s research is the theme of pilgrimage. Reflective of Paul Hieberts centered sets in which we move toward a center, Hanson indicates that the person of faith remains a pilgrim in this world, who looks yet “to the things that are unseen” (2 Cor. 4:18). And since that pilgrim shares with fellow believers an important role in God’s plan for the redemption of creation, Paul’s eschatological paradox lies at the heart of his understanding of the community of faith (Hanson 2001,444). In this sense, Hanson moves away from an individualistic approach to apostolic calling and is indicating that the church is apostolic in nature, as it is called of God. Another key component of Hanson’s thesis is the forward-looking, eschatological nature of biblical community which leans forward toward the fullness of the Kingdom of God. The community of faith was thus a pilgrim community. It oriented its life toward God’s future, as the people called to participate in the in breaking of a divine order of shalom (2001, 13). This emphasis on pilgrimage being an essential part of the Christian identity is found throughout Hanson’s research as he states that “the true community of faith is thus a pilgrim people, seeing its forms and structures as provisional within a world being transformed from brokenness to wholeness” (2001,493).

Searching for Authenticity (Part II)

To those who are reading along in this series of articles, this is the second post. This post fundamentally asks where or how we search for authenticity. It includes some elements which you may not agree with or which you would like to dialog further about. I invite your observations.

In literature related to spirituality, this duality of dwelling and seeking can be seen as a phenomenon that goes beyond contemporary social trends. Philip Sheldrake describes this duality between the spirituality in place and spirituality that is found in journey (1996) as he describes the early Celtic traditions before 700 which describe primarily a faith of transition between the fixed stable life and the more unstable life-styles of what he calls the holy wanderers. Perhaps the recent social shifts described by Putnam and Wuthnow help to explain the present fascination with Celtic Christianity. Sheldrake points out that many of the current perceptions of Celtic Christianity are not all together accurate. The “myth”, however, that has developed about Celtic Christianity resonates deeply with societal shifts away from a spirituality of place to a spirituality of journey. Celtic Christianity seems to embrace a more contextual, grounded, varied yet uncomplicated, messy, even chaotic faith and spirituality than the conventional, institutional forms (Sheldrake 1996, 3). According to Sheldrake, The importance of pilgrimage and journey in the Celtic tradition, balanced with a strong sense of place, are sentiments that are very much in tune with the experience and temper of our own age (1996, 3) and are perhaps a clue to the connection in short-term missions to expressions of “finding reality” when people travel for short-term missions. A physical journey that acts out an inner journey, therefore, may be understood as one factor that differentiates this type of travel from many forms of modern tourism outside of what has been called niche tourism.

In the introduction of Tourism: Between Place and Performance, Coleman and Crang (2004) describe a form of moving away from location and toward discovery. Their focus is somewhat distinct from that of Wuthnow and Putnam as they describe various modes of tourism. One particular mode that they describe draws from George Ritzer’s foundational “McDonaldization Theory” (2008). This particular mode of tourism, according to Coleman and Crang is about expanding the space of home rather than visiting the other (2008, 2). In this sense, they are moving toward a type of location, but in reality they may just be taking their own location on a trip. Reflective of many short-term missions trips, this form of tourism is associated with the McDonaldization of travel in which tourists seek out tourist space such as a McDonalds where they will find familiar surroundings and predictable food, those who bring food from home along with them, or those who chose to stay in tourists hotels which reflect surroundings reflective of their home surroundings. This form of tourism, according to Coleman and Crang insulates tourists rather than allowing them to experience the culture of the location as they seek more of the same. A twist to this search for sameness is the search for an experience of others which is staged or which is in some way reflective of similarity. Goffman’s theory of front and back regions (Hughes-Freeland 1998) describe how the front or that which is experienced by the tourist is the staged show, while the back regions contain the authentic experience. MacCannell (1976) argues that as people seek the authentic, the back stage is put on show and in the process, authenticity is lost or threatened. An example of this in short-term missions are missionaries who receive requests from short-term mission teams who want to come and be a part of a Jesus Film showing or they want to come and ‘do evangelism’. Because these were people who donate money and want to see where there donations were going, missionaries scurry to get a group of people from a local church who will set up the film in a park so that the visitors can experience an ‘authentic’ experience. In this sense, the back stage had been moved to the front stage.

A second mode of tourism described by Coleman and Crang which has linkage to short-term missions and which is contrasted with those who seek more of the same, is what they describe in terms of ‘romantic’ (as opposed to ‘mass which is used to describe those who seek sameness). This mode of tourism includes those who seek for places which carry symbolic capital and which are measured by the adventure, difficulty, cost, or exotic nature of the trip. Coleman and Crang point out that since this type of tourism is always just beyond the reach of tourists, it is driven by type of loss of authentic place (2004, 4). This understanding of a search for location can be found in tourism literature from the mid to early 1970’s. Dean MacCannell (1976) is cited by Coleman and Craig as he noted tourism as an existential quest for ‘authentic’ experiences.

Brent Plate (2009) describes contemporary pilgrimages (which could be classified as niche tourism) to places such as the Trinity Atomic Test Site in New Mexico, the gravesite of Elvis Presley, and ground zero in New York as places that people visit because a kind of sacred power has been invested in the particular place. Plate argues that although some would call this just “tourism” instead of “real pilgrimages”, that there are many similarities in the two and that there is very little if any real distinction. According to Plate, both are born from a desire to travel, to head into an unknown, foreign place where one might experience new sights and sounds and tastes and smells, and ultimately to be corporeally inspired by some transcendent locale. There is something about the quest itself, whether for noble, pious, pure, impure, or just plain curious reasons, that make the journey potentially transformative…pilgrimage is tightly bound to our sense of identity, and sometimes the best way to find ourselves is to get lost. (Plate 2009, 263)
The lines between tourism and pilgrimage therefore are not as clearly delineated as would appear since contemporary tourism has aspects of pilgrimage. The distinction between pilgrimage and missions also present a challenge when considering short-term missions.

In the case of Celtic pilgrimage or other Christian pilgrimage, some would debate whether one would call this missions and whether the participants would be considered missionaries since the primary focus was spiritual or ascetical (Sheldrade 1996, 67). Another way to state this is that the primary objective of pilgrimage is normally the person who is on the spiritual journey, as opposed to the focus of missions which is normally on the host location and the salvation of others. Sheldrake (1996,67) points out that some have described the Celtic Church as a mission church rather than a missionary one. The primary reason for this is the fact that the wondering ascetics did little explicit conversion work, but rather found ways to work out their own salvation as they journeyed.

Searching for Authenticity (Part I)

This posting is the first of three to four posts that I will make related to some concepts that I am working with related to some social and theological shifts that are happening in western society. I would welcome any input or further thoughts that you may have.

Although the popularity of short-term missions from the U.S. has come into focus in primarily the past ten to fifteen years, the social and global shifts which foster an environment conducive to such a pervasive phenomenon have been in formation for much longer. Robert Wuthnow gives a sociological interpretation out of extensive research related to spiritual journeys and spiritual practices in his book After Heaven: Spirituality in America since the 1950s. (1998). Wuthnow’s finding is that since the 1950s, Americans have shifted in their expression of spirituality from a focus on dwelling to a focus on seeking. According to Wuthnow, in the past, people primarily identified their faith by membership in a church that had a specific location. Because of social economic shifts, however, this general perception has changed somewhat. An example of this shift is that people produce less durable goods, and to a larger degree they produce a network of communication or serve as brokers of goods or information. This shift from a focus on dwelling to a focus on seeking can also be seen in how people perceive institutions. The older pattern, according to Wuthnow (8) was tightly bounded and hierarchical. Institutions were literally the building blocks of society. The newer pattern, however, emphasizes looser connections, diversity, and negotiation; practical activity takes precedence over organizational positions. Sociologist Robert Putnam makes a similar observation in his seminal book Bowling Alone (2000). Putnam describes the social shift in the United States away from membership in social organizations and away from what he describes as physical capital.

This shift has produced confusion in measuring progress of success of institutions such as a local church. There have been several notable studies conducted which wrestle with the complexity of measuring church vitality in the U.S. and how that is measured. Many of the popular studies have focused primarily on measuring Spiritual vitality in relation to church attendance. A prominent example of this is the Barna Group. Although Barna recognizes that measuring church vitality is changing, they primarily use measures of location (to use Wuthnow’s term). The following is an example from an article of the Barna Group:

With Americans pursuing a growing number of "church" options, some of the traditional measures of church health are being redefined. According to a new study released by The Barna Group, which has been studying church participation patterns since 1984, popular measures such as the percentage of people who are "unchurched" - based on attendance at a conventional church service - are out of date. Various new forms of faith community and experience, such as house churches, marketplace ministries and cyberchurches, must be figured into the mix - and make calculating the percentage of Americans who can be counted as "unchurched" more complicated. The fact that millions of people are now involved in multiple faith communities - for instance, attending a conventional church one week, a house church the next, and interacting with an online faith community in-between - has rendered the standard measures of "churched" and "unchurched" much less precise.

Although this article recognizes the same phenomenon of people moving away from spiritual identity based on location, studies like these which measure the decline in church membership and a lack of consistent attendance to events in the church building conclude that spirituality is declining in the United States. Putnam, however, indicates that the younger generation is not less engaged than their predecessors, but engaged in new ways (2000,26). Similar to the proposal of Wuthnow, Putnam acknowledges the move away from dwelling or physical capital and toward seeking or social capital. A similar argument is made by Wuthnow in his more recent book, Boundless Faith (2009) in which he disputes arguments of Jenkins (2007) and other common assumptions which assert Christianity is flourishing in many parts of the world beyond the United States, and therefore, Christian churches in the U.S. are drawing inward, and are withdrawing involvement from global activity. Wuthnow also disputes the assumption that local churches in the United States focus inwardly with little or no interest in their communities or the global context. Wuthnow’s primary thesis in Boundless Faith is concomitant with the thesis of Putnam that instead of a move away from spirituality, there is a younger generation that is seeking new and different ways to express their faith. This new and different expression flows directly from the theories of spirituality moving from identification with location to an expression of seeking which can be seen in the phenomenon of short-term missions as well as increase in niche tourism which focuses on a type of spiritual pilgrimage.

The Changing Face of Mission

I am currently working on developing a few interviews with key people who work in missions related to the changes that are occuring in missions due to changed financial realities as well as changing shifts in the perspectives of the current generation of youth. I hope to be posting these on this blog in a few weeks. My personal perspective is that although demoninational organizations are having to readjust how they approach the financing of missions, there is a very large interest in missions on the part of youth and college students. The interesting dynamic is that the current generation seems to have a passion for people and for living as a Christian witness to parts of society previously marginalized by many Christians. The following clip is an interesting overview of Urbana 2009 which is currently underway that reflects this shift.

Invictus

Last night I got free tickets to see the preshowing of Invictus. Although I know nothing about rugby, the story line of Nelson Mandela and the incredible spirit of forgiveness that he demonstrated is overwhelming. The following is a piece from the movie:

Invictus Poem – 1867 By William Ernest Henley (was also the poem kept by President Nelson Mandela in his cell) Invictus is Latin and means unconquered.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank God for
my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.


Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

The Law of Love

One of the greatest experiences of my life was my friendship with the late Bruno Radi. What made it great was not that we agreed about everything. In reality, there were probably more things that we disagreed about than what we agreed on. I remember on one occasion Bruno was introducing me at a conference in South America and he said, “I have never known someone with whom I disagree more, and yet is one of my best friends”. The reason for that friendship was that we both were driven by a common, Christian love which overrode any possible disagreement.
There is a well known story about when John Wesley and one of his preachers were once taking lunch with a gentleman whose daughter had been greatly impressed by Wesley's preaching. The itinerant, a man of very plain manners and little tact, was conversing with the young lady, who was remarkable for her beauty. He noticed that she wore a number of rings, and taking hold of her hand, he raised it, and called Wesley's attention to the sparkling gems. "What do you think of this, sir," said he, "for a Methodist's hand?" The girl turned crimson, and the question was awkward for Wesley, whose aversion to all display of jewelry was so well known. But the aged evangelist showed a tact Chesterfield might have envied. With a quiet, benevolent smile he looked up, and simply said, "The hand is very beautiful."
Bruno often told me that it was possible to be right about something and yet not be in the right (it works better in Spanish). What he meant by that was very similar to what Wesley expressed. The law of love always overrides the law.
We live in a time in which people try to prove that they are right by being hateful toward other people that they disagree with. In my opinion, this is a case of being right, and yet not being in the right. Those who engage in this are not from just one part of society, but include the spectrum of atheists to fundamentalists from Muslims to Christians, and every sector of society. Perhaps, we could learn from my friend Bruno and from Wesley. The law of love is what distinguishes us more than anything else. I never thought that I would use Mormons as an example, but after discussion in class related to the missio Dei and homosexuality, a student sent me an article from USA Today that gives a good example of people who are trying to find a balance between the law of love and their faith in addressing the complex issue of homosexuality. I do not know if this is the right answer to a complex issue, and I do not know if the Mormon’s motives are pure motives. I do know, however, that we live in a time in which love which reflects the nature of God is in short supply. The following is the article:
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The Mormon church for the first time has announced its support of gay rights legislation, an endorsement that helped gain unanimous approval for Salt Lake City laws banning discrimination against gays in housing and employment.
The Utah-based church's support ahead of Tuesday night's vote came despite its steadfast opposition to gay marriage, reflected in the high-profile role it played last year in California's ballot measure that barred such unions.
"The church supports these ordinances because they are fair and reasonable and do not do violence to the institution of marriage," Michael Otterson, the director of public affairs for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said.
Passage made Salt Lake City the first Utah community to prohibit bias based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Under the two new ordinances, it is illegal to fire someone from their job or evict someone from their residence because they are lesbian, bisexual, gay or transgender.
Utah lawmakers tend to quickly fall in line when the influential church makes a rare foray into legislative politics. So Tuesday's action could have broad reaching effects in this highly conservative state where more than 80% of lawmakers and the governor are church members.
"What happened here tonight I do believe is a historic event," said Brandie Balken, director of the gay rights advocacy group Equality Utah. "I think it establishes that we can stand together on common ground that we don't have to agree on everything, but there are lot of things that we can work on and be allies."
But the church has pointed out an inherent dispute it has with the gay lifestyle. Mormonism considers traditional marriages central to God's plan. Gays are welcome in church, but must remain celibate to retain church callings and full membership.
It's strong support for Proposition 8 in California last year drew a sharp reaction from gay rights supporters nationwide, with many protesting outside temples that singled out Mormons as the key culprits in restricting the rights of gay couples.
Since then, however, Utah's gay community has sought to engage church leaders in quiet conversations to help foster better understanding, said Valerie Larabee, executive director of the Utah Pride Center.
"I thought this conversation would never come to be while I was here in Salt Lake City," said Larabee, adding that the discussions have "shifted her perspective of what's possible" and could foreshadow a different relationship between the two sides.
But addressing the council on Tuesday, Otterson said the endorsement is not a shift in the church's position on gay rights and stressed it "remains unequivocally committed to defending the bedrock foundation of marriage between a man and a woman."
Church support for the ordinances is due in part to the way the legislation was drafted to protect those rights. Exceptions in the legislation allow churches to maintain, without penalty, religious principles and religion-based codes of conduct or rules.
"In drafting these ordinances, the city has granted common-sense rights that should be available to everyone, while safeguarding the crucial rights of religious organizations," Otterson said Tuesday .
Previous Utah legislation that sought statewide protections for the gay community did not contain those exceptions.
And although this was the church's first public endorsement of specific legislation, it is not the first time the church has voiced support for some gay rights. In August 2008 the church issued a statement saying it supports gay rights related to hospitalization, medical care, employment, housing or probate as long as they "do not infringe on the integrity of the traditional family or the constitutional rights of churches."
Last year, church leaders were silent on a package of gay rights bills known as the Common Ground Initiative, dooming them from the start.
*to see this article in context go to: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-11-11-utah-gayrights_N.htm?csp=34#uslPageReturn

The Majority World and the missio Dei

What difference does it make if we live into the missio Dei?

This weekend as I finished a presentation in Washington State about what would mean for the church to share God’s missional DNA, I opened the time for discussion, which is always interesting because it is the real test of whether you are communicating what you hope to communicate. A man raised his hand to make a comment, and after pausing he said, “This is so much harder than just giving money to a mission purpose in the church.” He was right, it is harder because it demands that we enter into real relationship with those whom God has chosen to serve. For some reason, those real relationships are always more difficult than giving to an organization that in turn sends someone else to do it. I believe that we are called to give and support those who are going, but living into the missio Dei does not stop there, it means that the whole body of Christ is sent. The following is a clip that brings that reality into focus and just as the clip related to the missio Dei and homosexuality brought difficult issues to the surface which cannot be resolved with reductionist answers, this clip is equally difficult to wrestle with. I would enjoy your open discussion with me about how the realities of the majority world affect how the Church lives into the missio Dei.

Statistic Lust

An article written by Christian Smith and published in Christianity Today (Jan.2007) expresses a concern that I have had for some time. The opening paragraph of his article is:
American evangelicals, who profess to be committed to Truth, are among the worst abusers of simple descriptive statistics, which claim to represent the truth about reality, of any group I have ever seen. At stake in this misuse are evangelicals' own integrity, credibility with outsiders, and effectiveness in the world.

Statistics are too often crafted to raise support, or to show a partial truth to gain support of donors for other causes. As long as I can remember, people have joked about how pastors count people on Sunday morning, or how a DS tells a prospective pastor the statistics of a church. I have often wondered what is really gained by inflating statistics. A good friend of mine made the observation that in reality most people in the world don’t notice and don’t really care about the statistics. He asked “Why are we so afraid of revealing more accurate numbers? Who do we imagine we will upset? It seems the administrative 'in-group' (and those intimately connected to them by power) would be the only ones who would see the difference. And, funny enough, most of them already know the lies! So, again, who are we protecting?”

As a missionary I often was involved in areas where there had been a time of rapid growth and then an equally rapid decline. I remember one particular district that showed statistics of about 5000 members and a large number of churches. In the district, however, I could only find three small churches with about 15-20 people each since there had been considerable decline after the initial growth. The people on the district told me that they felt “dirty” to report such statistics every year, but since the church (general church) would only allow them to take off a maximum of 10% per year, it would be a long time before the statistics met reality. There was always great fear of showing statistics that indicated a decline in numbers. Again, what did we really have to gain by inflating statistics? Other statistics in the church are just “slippery”. An example is found on the website for the Jesus Film Partnership which relies heavily on donor support. The page that states the statistics and goals of JFP says the following at the top: “These numbers reflect the ministry of JESUS Film Harvest Partners”, at the bottom of the page it says “*JESUS Film and other tools”. In other words, one would think the statistics are all about the Jesus Film, but in reality, these statistics are for all of the ministries (even those that have nothing to do with the Jesus Film) in all of the regions. Before I sound like the Grinch of the church, anyone who knows me knows that I am deeply committed to the church and I am deeply committed to God’s mission of restoring broken lives that have been devastated by sin, and giving people a reason for hope. I do not think, however, that using methods of an immoral society in order to gain statistical goals is consistent with the Gospel that has transformed our lives and in which we live.

On the flip side of this, are the alarmists who use statistics to show the darkest side of reality. Many have stated that the Christian church in the U.S. is dead, based on some research that has been done counting church membership and people who sit on pews. An interesting argument to much of this is by sociologist, Robert Wuthnow in his book Boundless Faith (see book of the month a couple of months ago). Wuthnow points out that we use the same statistical methods of years ago (measuring church membership, Sunday morning statistics, etc) to measure a church which is very different. He points out that the church in the U.S. is very interested in global ministry, but in ways that are very different than earlier generations. My own observations are that in many places, churches seem to lack a vibrant life. In other places, however, I see students and people in churches who are hungry for an authentic expression of faith, rather than building a bigger machine. If the students that I interact with daily are any indication of the future of the church, the future will not be driven by bigger buildings and inflated statistics, but rather by people who are in search of an authentic faith that is expressed in community more than bricks and numbers. This is exciting! This also means that Christianity in the U.S. is not as dead as some would claim. Rather, an authentic expression of faith is emerging that cannot (or should not) be measured with the old statistical methods.

I have probably gotten myself into “deep doo” with this post, but let me just say that I believe that the church should be about the mission of God and about being a people who live the mission of God as they interact with broken society. We should use appropriate means in order to do that. If raising funds to support those methods means operating in a way that is contrary to our nature, however, we have become hypocritical and our actions deny the very faith we profess. Our primary calling is not to make a bigger machine in which the ends justify the means. Our vocation is to BE a missional people and to BE Christian. To do so, we will have to sacrifice our lust for statistics in order for God to do something new in us as well as through us. What do we really have to lose?

Missional Leadership

Ed Stetzer does a very good job in this video of presenting missional leadership. This has many things in common with the perspectives of GOCN (Gospel in our Culture Network), and yet has some different nuances as well. There are very few things that have the potential of awakening the church to it's true nature as a clear understanding of our identity as a missional church. I would enjoy dialoging with you about this video.

Missional Leadership from Ed Stetzer on Vimeo.

"No Man is an Island"

This morning I spoke at a church for a mission emphasis Sunday. Besides being a mission emphasis Sunday, November 1st also has significance in the church calendar. Although not a tradition normally recognized in churches that I have been a part of, I was also reminded in an email I received from my pastor that yesterday was a day western Christianity celebrates what is called “all saints day”. My first exposure to All Saints Day was when we lived in Costa Rica and the Catholic Churches would always shoot off what sounded like cannons on this day. There is, however, a much deeper significance to this day that I have been thinking about this weekend.

If you have ever seen the movie Amistad, there is a very moving scene where the principle character who has endured incredible hardship is facing trial that will determine the freedom of him and others who have been taken as slaves from Africa. After months of not understanding what is being said in the court, the primary character stands and says that he has summoned the spirit of his ancestors. He states that his life was not his own but rather the culmination of generation after generation of his ancestors. “My life” said the actor, “is the reason for their existence”.

All Saints Day remembers those generations who have gone before us, and who have--in scriptural language--fought the good fight and finished the race (II Timothy 4:7). We also remember that we are not isolated islands but that we are the summation of those who have gone before us.

In relation to missions, we often find ourselves criticizing mission methods of the past that were too colonialisitic or paternalistic in nature. While this is true in many cases, we must also realize that the reason that we are now seeing worldwide expansion of the Gospel is because there were generations of missionaries who were willing to leave everything, many even packed their belongings in coffins, indicating that they were planning on staying on the mission field until they died. I have seen some of the graves of these missionaries, and I am awed at their complete trust in God. I am also reminded of generation after generation of Christians who have sacrificed incredibly to live as an authentic witness to the Gospel.

The following are the words of my pastor, Glen Shoup:
Sometimes, we're inclined to forget that this business of living Christian didn't start with us (or our parents or grandparents). For 2000 years fellow human beings have been walking and leaving footprints as they followed after the Christ. And while occasionally we're inclined to think that those who lived 1000 or 1500 years ago were so much less sophisticated and informed than we are with our laptops and IPhones, upon closer review and investigation we most often find quite the opposite is true. Those who lived closer to the time of Jesus, often give us perspective that is far more clarified and uncluttered than our own. So when we re-member (meaning "put back together again") the awareness of those who have walked the path of Christ-following before us, we gain encouragement, definition and correction for us to continue to walk the path of discipleship faithfully

I am soberly reminded that the faith that I confess is not just my personal confession. I confess my faith with the community of believers with whom I worship, but I am also joined with those who have gone before me and who have formed a chain of which I am but one of the links.

The following is from A Diary of Private Prayer by John Baille:
God of my forefathers... I thank Thee
that this Christian way whereon I walk
is not untried or uncharted road,
but a road beaten hard by the footsteps
of saints, apostles, prophets, and martyrs.
I thank Thee for the finger-posts and danger-signals
with which it is marked at every turning.

Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith...Consider Him, who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart (Hebrews 12:1-3).

The missio Dei and Homosexuality

A couple of months ago I watched the movie “Milk”. If you saw the movie, you will probably agree with me that it is not an easy movie to watch. Even though some of the explicit homosexual scenes were awkward for me to watch, the most difficult part for me to watch was the reaction of the “Christian community.” I was fairly young when all of this happened, but I recall Anita Bryant and other who didn’t know how to react to homosexuality, so they just decided to attack. Evangelical churches as a whole had the same reaction. More recently we have seen other prominant Evangelicals declaring that HIV/AIDS is God's punishment for homosexuality. As a result, nearly anyone could go into a church and find acceptance and healing. For the homosexual, however, there was nothing more than condemnation.

I struggle with this. I have friends who are homosexual and I know that the last place they think that they could find love is in a church. If the church is to live into the missio Dei, we have to ask ourselves some difficult questions about the nature of the church and how it reacts to people who have differing perspectives and even lifestyles. I know what scripture says about homosexuality, and I am not trying to make light of that. I wish I had some easy answers to this, but I do not have easy answers to this discussion. I do know that we are to be the body of Christ and I know that the church is meant to be a redemptive community. I have attached an interesting video clip from a conservative Christian who struggles with these same issues. This clip is primarily a promotion for his book, but I invite you to watch it and give me your constructive ideas about the Church, the missio Dei, and ‘others’.

Photo Sensitivity

This has been R&R week at NTS. For some R&R means rest and relaxation, for others it means reading and research. I am in the latter group. I have spent this week trying to get caught up on PhD projects (the key word here is “trying”).
Some of the reading that I have been doing is related to short-term missions. Many of the initial research initiatives related to short-term missions have evaluated the growing phenomenon in relation to the self perceived outcomes of STM from the perspective of the short-termer them self. There is a very interesting body of literature which deals with how people experience short-term mission trips.

Interestingly, most people buy tickets and spend considerable money to go across the world, and then spend a high percentage of their time experiencing the new location through the lens of a camera or on the computer, blogging about the location. Many people find that the picture represents reality more than reality itself. The end result is that people have great pictures and great blog sites, but have very few real relationships with people since they have been treated like objects to be observed instead of people to know. The following are a few guidelines that may help those who want to experience real people and who also want to get good pictures:

1) Take time to see people as friends and not as objects to be photographed. Make it a point to learn about families, and culture before even using a camera. As this relationship builds, you may find it more natural to take pictures just as you would take pictures of your own family.

2) Find a way to ask if it is alright to take pictures that gives people the opportunity to say “no”. This may be tricky in some places since saying “no” is seen as offensive. A good rule of thumb is to ask a missionary or person who understands the culture well. Normally, however, if you have built a real friendship, people enjoy having pictures taken.

3) If you have to choose between taking pictures and spending time with people, there is no choice. Forget the pictures. If a camera can be used in a way that builds friendships, then go for it. At the end of the day, God’s mission is people, and respecting them as individuals created in God’s image.

Missional Church and Global Missions

The comments on Stetzer’s article were interesting and I would just like to make a few comments of my own. Several of you who commented noted the problems of imbalance in seeing missions as either global or local, and I would completely agree with those comments. Stetzer’s critique of emergent and missional movements is a concern that I share and a concern that we must address. As a Wesleyan, there are some nuances of Stetzer’s proposal, however, that I would not share.
In an earlier post, I wrote about the church as missionary or a missional ecclesiology. If we understand the church as those who are a sent community to be the people of the triune God who are primarily identified by mission, our very nature reflects the missio Dei (God’s mission). With this understanding, the missio Dei is not geographically limited. Throughout scripture, God is a missionary God who is concerned for “the nations” or “ethne”. He is constantly moving to restore the broken relationships in humanity as well as creation. If we are those “who reflect God’s glory”, then we too must share God’s desire for transformation, justice and restoration (wherever that may be). My understanding of a missional ecclesiology is that the entire church body is sent. As a body we all have different gifts and callings within that “sentness”, but we all are sent. Some are sent to be a Christian witness to cultures which require language learning and lifelong study of culture, others are sent to be a Christian witness and learn cultures of post modern friends and neighbors. I believe that God gives the church people who have gifts in each of these areas. The fallacy is when we assume that some are sent and others send. We all are sent and we all are involved in sending. Within the body of Christ, there has never been a category for spectators. We are mission or we are not the Church.
As Wesleyans, we find ourselves in the “via media”. We cannot say that we are primarily concerned about evangelism or only that which leads to evangelism. We can say that our Christian vocation is to be a holy people who reflect God’s holiness and God’s nature of mission. We are called to BE a Christian witness.
I know that this is thinking completely outside of some of our normal boxes of understanding, and is radical if correctly understood. I hear many people say that the U.S. should start receiving missionaries from other places, and to a degree that is already happening. If, however, the church in the U.S. grasped hold of the idea that we are the missionary, and if the members of congregations began to function as missionaries who are the church in our communities instead of waiting for communities to come into the church building, we would see a movement of God which is not measured by church growth statistics, but rather by relationship in the life of the Triune God.

Why Missional Churches Don't Do Global Missions

David Wesley

An interesting characteristic of the missional and emerging church is that there is very little if any emphasis on global missions. This is surprising to me since the primary understanding of missio Dei is for the church to share God's passion for redemptive change in the world. The following is an article written by Ed Stetzer which addresses this same issue. I must say that I don't agree with all of Stetzer's perspctives related to missional church, but this particular article raises an issue that we must engage. I invite your comments/reactions:

I am writing this post from Taiwan. As I have been working with both local leaders and American pastors, I have been struck by a few things and thought I would share them with you.
First, I have traveled to Taiwan as a part of the Upstream Collective. The reason is to accompany American pastors with a desire to be missional on a cross-cultural, international encounter. (You can scroll down the last few posts to learn what we are doing in Taiwan.)
Each person on the trip has the missional impulse as part of their DNA, and they are here to consider how they might join God on his mission globally. While I admire the faithfulness of these men, I must admit my surprise to see that there is not a bigger interest in such global concerns among American pastors in general. My fellow travelers seem to be rare of a breed in ministry.
Second, when I blogged about this on Sunday, two readers contacted my hosts-- one working with the Presbyterian Church in America and one from the Oversee Missionary Fellowship (OMF). Why? Well, according to one email, the author explained, "I'm particularly interested in attracting young missional church planters here."
Third, I was recently told by a pastor who called himself "missional" that his church needed to pull back on their global mission support to help their people "be missionaries right here."
All this provokes me to ask, "Why are so many missional Christians uninvolved in God's global mission?" As the missional conversation continues and deepens, what has occurred that has led to our blindness to the lost world around us?
There are five reasons I think this has happened:
1) In rediscovering God's mission, many have only discovered its personal dimensions.
I don't mean they have somehow localized mission into their interior, "private" life-- that would make little sense. Rather, the encouragement for each person to be on mission (to be "missional") has trended toward a personal obligation to personal settings, rather than toward a global obligation to advance God's kingdom among all the nations.
"Missional" has merged with privatized Christianity to serve as the reason for personal projects carried out in personal spheres. This is not bad, necessarily. But when the missional impulse is not expanded to include God's global mission, it results in believers moved only to minister in their own Jerusalems with no mind toward their Judeas, Samarias, and uttermost parts of the earth (Acts 1:8).
2) In responding to God's mission, many have wanted to be more mission-shaped and have therefore made everything "mission."

Missions historian Stephen Neil, responding to a similar surge in mission interest (the missio dei movement of the 1950s and following), explained it this way: "If everything is mission then nothing is mission." Neil's fear was that the focus would shift from global evangelization (often called "missions") to societal transformation (often called "mission"). He was right.
Recently John Piper echoed these same concerns, differentiating between evangelism and missions. He reminded us that when "Every Christian is a missionary" equals "missional," then we have diluted the need for and specialness of missionaries to foreign lands. (Although I would want to nuance John's language a bit, I agree with his point.)
One American church's website recently identified their ministry as missional, which they proceeded to define as "reaching out to the community to invite them to come" see what is happening in the church. Another's young adult community service project consisted of landscaping the church grounds. Inviting people to church and cleaning up the church are noble endeavors, but passing them for "missional" and "service" is ministerial naïveté at best. It demonstrates the fuzziness that creeps in when labels become catch-alls. And as the outer edges of the missional label gets fuzzy so does mission to the outer edges of the world.
3) In relating God's mission, the message increasingly includes the hurting but less frequently includes the global lost.
One only needs to watch the videos to see the emphases: global orphan projects, eradicating AIDS, Christmas shoeboxes, etc. All of these causes now have advocacy groups, and rightly so, as they are important. However, their vocabulary and frames of reference do not frequently make room for evangelizing the very people they touch. The message of world evangelism, actually, seems more common in legacy/traditional churches than in missional churches. Missional churches seem to speak more of unserved peoples rather than unreached peoples. As we engage to deliver justice, we must also deliver the gospel regardless of anyone's status in a culture.
4) In refocusing on God's mission, many are focusing on being good news rather than telling good news.
St. Francis allegedly said,"Preach the gospel at all times; when necessary, use words." Interestingly enough, Francis never actually said this, nor would he have done so due to his membership in a preaching order. But it is a pithy quote tossed into mission statements and vision sermons in missional churches all around my country. Why? It seems that many in the missional conversation place a higher value on serving the global hurting rather than evangelizing the global lost. Or perhaps it is just easier.
I am not urging a dichotomy here, only noting that one already exists. It is ironic, though, that as many missional Christians have sought to "embody" the gospel, they have chosen to forsake one member of Christ's body; the mouth.
5) In reiterating God's mission, many lose the context of the church's global mission and needed global presence.
For whatever reason-- the admirable one of commitment to the local church or the ignoble one of commitment to personalized consumeristic Christianity-- we have lost the grand scope of the entire family of God. While Christ calls people from all tongues, tribes, and nations, we have become content with our own tongue, tribe, and nation. Many churches are wonderfully embracing the missional imperative, but as they seek to "own" the mission by adapting their church into a missional movement in their local community, some inadvertently localize God's mission itself and lose the vital connection all believers share together. A hyper-focus on our own community results in a, have lost vision for the communion of the saints.
So how do we fully embrace missional without losing the mission? The Mission Exchange (formerly the Evangelical Foreign Mission Society) asked me to talk to their global leaders on the topic "How to Put 'Missions' Back into Missional." In my talk, I proposed four principles we needed to consider:
First, recognize it is God's mission, and we need to be passionate about the mission as He describes it. We don't own mission and it is not ours to define. A church vision statement is fine, but God's mission is better and bigger. Our first task is to submit to God's mission.
Secondly, evangelicals have understated the call to serve the poor and the hurting and need a stronger engagement in social justice. This sounds counterintuitive if we are seeking to remedy the loss of concern for articulated evangelism. But social engagement entails relational engagement, and relational engagement entails opportunities to share the gospel. The successes and experiences in our communities should awaken hearts and minds to global needs. We just need to maintain the reason for social justice: the glory of God in the worship of Jesus.
Third, share God's deep concern about His mission to the nations-- that His name be praised from the lips of men and women from every corner of the globe. Feel the Great Commission in your bones. Ask God to turn your heart to those you cannot see. As Paul did, develop ways to "struggle personally" (Colossians 2:1) for those far away.
Fourthly, churches that are serious about joining God on his mission will obey his commands to disciple the nations. The end product of missional endeavors should be a thriving Christian ready to produce more thriving Christians.

It appears to me that many missional churches are missing the Great Commission in the name of being missional. That makes zero sense. It is a huge (but historically common) mistake.
If we are truly interested in being missional-- in joining God on His mission-- our efforts should actually reflect His stated mission. We are bound to the Great Commandment as the fullest human expression of God's love. But the Commandment is not hermetically sealed off from the Great Commission. Rather, the Great Commission provides the what of mission, while the Great Commandment provides part of the how. Answering the age-old question of "Who is my neighbor?" should result in the desire to "make disciples of all nations."
- note: the source for Stetzer's article is
http://blogs.lifeway.com/blog/edstetzer/2009/09/five-reasons-missional-churche.html

Something to think about....

::: Washington, DC Metro Station on a cold January morning in 2007. The man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time approximately two thousand people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

After 3 minutes:
A middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried to meet his schedule.

4 minutes later:
The violinist received his first dollar: a woman threw the money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk.

6 minutes:
A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.

10 minutes:
A 3-year old boy stopped but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children.. Every parent, without exception, forced their children to move on quickly.

45 minutes:
The musician played continuously. Only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while. About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace. The man collected a total of $32.

1 hour:
He finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before, Joshua Bell sold out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.

This is a true story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people's priorities. The questions raised: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?

One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be this: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made..... How many other things are we missing?

The Spiritual State of Taiwan

This is a fascinating video with Phil Nickolson, OMF Director and Ed Stetzer who share about the spiritual state of Taiwan.

Book of the Month

I am beginning a new part of this blog in which I will post a "book of the month" which will be a book that I am either reading at the moment, or a book that I have read and want to share with others. If you read the same book and would like to dialog about the book on this site, I would enjoy it. Right now the bulk of my reading is in the area of globalization, short-term missions and related bodies of literature. The first book that I am including is a book which came out about three months ago. The author of the book is renowned American sociologist, Robert Wuthnow who teaches at Princeton. In this book, Robert Wuthnow challenges three common assumptions about American Christianity that are prevalent in non-religious as well as religious literature and understanding. The first assumption is that since Christianity is flourishing in many parts of the world beyond the United States, Christian churches in the U.S. are drawing inward, and are withdrawing involvement from global activity. The second assumption that Wuthnow challenges is that local churches in the U.S. focus inwardly with little or no interest in their communities or the global context. The third assumption is that churches in the U.S. influence U.S. policies related to military action and free trade.