...................................
There has never been a time, or as conducive an environment, for mission agencies and institutions to engage the world like there is today. If it happens, mission agencies and institutions are going to have to:
1. see themselves as connectors of the whole body of Christ to the whole world.
2. release control or lose any control at all because people aren't going to sit around and wait.
3. train not just local culture and practices to a missionary but global culture and practices.
4. redefine how missionaries work, what they do and how they operate.
5. be a revolving door not just of sending western missionaries but of "global" missionaries from every society.
6. be a receiving entity for missionaries coming to America who feel called to work here . . .
7. value local churches and laymen beyond just seeing them as cows to milk for their institution (I'm convinced the key to raising funds is not asking for money but partnering and doing things together--there will be more money than they could ever imagine.
8. view themselves not as funders of people who want to be vocational missionaries but partners "gospel" seed planters of the kingdom throughout the world.
...People are going to work with people that are willing to work together and ignore those who aren't willing to partner. The days of a huge bureaucracy telling a church that is funding it what it can and can't do are numbered. Getting a bunch of young guys in a room and telling them "we want to hear from you" won't cut it. Getting a bunch of youngsters with a radical "newlight" missionary--saying there's a city, now take it, and the skies the limit. You empower them all, you infuse enthusiasm, and you learn from one another.
2 comments:
Most if not all of this, I think YWAM does. CCC too, probably. Also WEC.
Justin,
IMB does a lot of this as well, or are at least moving in this direction.
Post a Comment