Category Archives: Events

by | February 12, 2013 · 2:07 am

Global Congress on Business as Mission, 25-28 April, 2013

Bertil Ekstrom, Executive Director of the Mission Commission writes:  ”I recommend the Business as Mission Global Think Tank as an important and viable process for deepening the knowledge about and the use of this God-given tool for advancing His Kingdom.”

The Global Congress on Business as Mission (BAM), will be held in Chiang Mai, Thailand – April 25-28, 2013 –a unique gathering of leaders and practitioners from all continents that will address key strategic issues related to Business as Mission. The BAM ThinkTank is announcing this congress as the culmination of a yearlong process in which they have engaged hundreds people from all over the world.  Over 30 national, regional and international working groups will present cutting edge BAM practices and models and bring strategic recommendations during the Congress. The global Congress will provide a unique ‘one-stop shop’ to meet and interact with BAM leaders from all over the world, on an unprecedented scale.

Visit http://bamthinktank.org/congress to find out more.

Quotes from key leaders in business, church and missions endorse the BAM Think Tank & Congress: http://bamthinktank.org/about/endorsements/

A digital post card and sample social media posts can be found here: http://bamthinktank.org/congress-media/

Mats Tunehag
Co-Chair | Business as Mission Global Think Tank

More information: http://bamthinktank.org/congress

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by | December 9, 2012 · 2:40 am

Ethne to Ethne conference encourages faith that more people will hear the gospel

I was encouraged by Ethne to Ethne meet at Seoul, Korea. November 27-30, 2012.  People will hear the Gospel through these efforts!

Nearly 325 participants were there (100 from Korea plus 225 from about 45 other nationalities).  We met to think about the unreached, unevangelised and unenegaged peoples of the world.  Since Ethne to Ethne began building momentum 10 years ago, the efforts have born fruit in terms of new communities of Christ believers in places where, before, there were no followers of Christ.

The meeting was organized by steering committee that is thinking and active in mission leadership.  It took place Hallelujah Church whose former senior pastor Rev. Dr. Sang-Bok David Kim is the Chairman of WEA. My respect for Korean missions and churches increased. It was my privilege to visit Dr. David Lee, the former Chairman of WEA MC. His vision is sharply focused on training Koreans for mission work through Global Mission Training Centre and Global Professional Training Centre.

The plenaries were reports on the progress of the Gospel in several parts of the world.  The meeting was always bi-lingual with Korean translations. When  participants made reports in their own mother languages with interpretation, one could feel the global nature of people who followed and took the Great Commission of Jesus seriously.

  • 12 Ephesus strategic working groups discussed definite church planting issues for 12 different clusters of people groups. Each cluster had similar cultural affinities or languages or regional closeness–the 300m Bengali speaking peoples, Cushites 57 million, NE Africa, etc.
  • Some WEA Mission Commission networks were represented:  Vision 5: 9, Tent-makers, MemberCare.  But I would have liked to see more networks and more Mission Commission Associates.

An important issue was raised, and I hope some will comment here about it:   About 30 years back, 29% peoples of the world were unreached. Even after 30 years still there are 29% unreached peoples. Why? With all that we have done why is it that the world is still unreached? What would be our price to pay?

I came back very exhausted but encouraged in spirit. Jesus is at work.

K. Rajendran
Associate Director

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by | November 5, 2012 · 7:03 pm

This week: COMIBAM General Assembly and Leadership Conference

I am in the Dominican Republic this week.  COMIBAM is holding mportant meetings involving missions movements from around Latin America.   COMIBAM, the Ibero American Mission Cooperation, is having their General Assembly in Santo Domingo.  It has now been 25 years since the seminal conference in Sao Paulo in 1987 when missions from Latin America became a movement.  Time to celebrate!

I was reminded that Sweden is indeed not the centre of the world.  It took me 30 hours of travel until I landed in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. It takes a long time to get from Sweden to nice places like the Caribbean. Even at 2 AM,  the hospitality of the region was evident.  They picked me up at the airport and took me to the hotel where I will stay during this week.

This week will be dedicated to COMIBAM.  I will come back with brief reports from what are actually two events.

First, there is the General Assembly, in which new leadership and new directions for COMIBAM will be discussed and decided.

The general Assembly will be followed by a leadership conference.

The Dominican Republic is significant for me about when remember being president of COMIBAM.  It was outside Santo Domingo that I led my first board meeting in 1998. Together with David Ruiz we started to re-structure the way COMIBAM was functioning. We had just come out of the second COMIBAM Congress in Acapulco, Mexico, 1997.  Rudy Giron had stepped down as president after some excellent years of leadership. Inspired and strengthen by the conference, it was time to consider a more active involvement of national leaders in the structure of COMIBAM itself and to facilitate the formation of national mission associations and alliances in many of the 25 Ibero American countries. That work was carried out primarily by David during his years as Executive Director of COMIBAM.

For those who read Spanish there are a couple of places on the web where you can get information about what is going on with COMIBAM in the Dominican Republic this week.  A temporary website has all the information about the Leadership Summit that includes information about the General Assembly. And more information about the General Assembly is on the COMIBAM site itself.

I am really looking forward to these days, meeting good friends and listening to what God has prepared for the future of the movement.

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by | November 1, 2012 · 3:03 pm

GlobalShift– a unique consultation in Budapest

The leadership of ReachGlobal, Evangelical Free Church of America’s missionary arm, convened their missionaries and mission leaders from several of their partner organisations to GlobalShift a unique consultation in Budapest, Hungary, from 15 to 18 of October.  

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 They worked together on strategic changes related to mission in Europe in light of global issues affecting mission today.  Participants expressed appreciation for the importance of the theme. David Ruiz, who is partially seconded by ReachGlobal to the MC led the consultation together with his European leadership team. Dr K Rajendran, also member of the MC leadership team, was one of the main speakers, together with Dr Rene Padilla from Argentina. On behalf of the MC we express our gratitude to ReachGlobal and its Executive Director Gary Hunter, for the privilege of being part of the event and for the seminal example of convening such a consultation.

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by | · 5:50 am

Tentmakers International plans their VI Congress

Tentmakers International (TI) is a Member network of the MIssion Commission.

TI VIth Congress, August 1-4, 2013, Dar Es Salam, Tanzania
Venue:  Tanzania Episcopal Conference
Registration fees, Single Room & meals: Euros 111
Registration fees, Double Room & meals: Euros 96

Registration cost, Triple Room & meals: Euros 93
The Congress is a triennial worldwide meeting of Tentmakers International. The event is gathers tentmakers practitioners, church and mission leaders.
It will be a platform for a sound theological reflection on the foundation for tentmaking, it will seek avenues of mutual enrichment between  the global tentmaking movements and the church planting movements in Africa; there will be a celebration of the Lord about what he is performing through tentmakers practitioners in Africa, the Middle East and the rest of the World.
For further information about the schedule and registration, go the TI web site: http://www.tentmakersinternational.info
or contact “All Africa Regions Coordination Tentmakers International” <africati.regionscoordination@gmail.com>, “Jackson Mwasanga” <jacksonusweghe53@gmail.com>

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Leadership Team Meetings

Piggybacking on the ShiftGlobal consultation in Budapest the Mission Commission Leadership Team have been meeting during this weekend. On the agenda are issues such as communication strategy, strengthening of national mission movements in Francophone Africa and Central Europe, strategic plan for the coming four years and MC events in 2013 and 2014. More information will be available soon.

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by | October 20, 2012 · 3:45 pm
by | October 19, 2012 · 7:52 am

GlobalSHIFT and MC Leadership Team

The MC Leadership Team is meeting in Budapest over the weekend.  We are grateful for new team member Adriaan Adams from South Africa.
In the days prior to the Team Meeting, several of us were involved in the GlobalSHIFT conference.  The conference was put together by our own David Ruiz and his team at ReachGlobal.

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ETHNE’12 A global gathering of UPG-focused leaders will be in Seoul, South Korea

 27th – 30th November 2012 … Seoul, South Korea

Dear Leaders,

ETHNE is a global movement that serves to keep the eyes of The Church focused on the Forgotten Fourth of the world (almost 28%) who have little or no access to The Gospel (unreached or least reached peoples). The majority of these peoples have never even met a follower of Jesus. As a global movement, we stand on the shoulders of many efforts that have gone before us (e.g. AD2000, Great Commission Roundtable) as well as complementing current global movements such as the World Evangelical Alliance and Lausanne. Following successful meetings in Bali, Indonesia, in March 2006 hosted by SEALINK (the South East Asia UPG network) and in Bogota, Colombia in November 2009 hosted by COMIBAM,

THE NEXT ETHNE GATHERING WILL BE HOSTED BY THE KOREAN WORLD MISSION ASSOCIATION AND HELD IN SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA FROM THE 27th -30TH OF NOVEMBER 2012.

As we anticipate this next “family gathering” of people and ministries focused on least-reached peoples, WE INVITE YOU TO JOIN US to:

(i) ASSESS & CELEBRATE what GOD is doing in the Nations, through reports from each

region of the world on what is happening among the least-reached.

(ii) ACCELERATE effective ministry to those who are still unreached. Various Strategy Groups will focus on issues such as Prayer for the Unreached, Holistic Gospel Movements (church-planting movements leading to community transformation), Member-care for workers, Crisis Response (connecting short-term relief to long-term church-planting movements), Ethno-Arts (using non-print media to communicate Christ), and Youth Missions Movement (raising the next generation of UPG workers and leaders). More than anything, ETHNE’12 is about coming together to seek GOD, acknowledging our need for one another in the Body of Christ…. SO THAT THIS GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM WILL BE

PREACHED AMONG ALL PEOPLES. Our goal is to build relationships between leaders, ministries and churches involved in UPG ministry and regional networks, so that the wealth of ideas, information, personnel, finances, resources and most importantly, vision and relationships can flow more effectively for His glory in reaching the least reached.

Will you prayerfully consider joining us in Seoul, South Korea? We are inviting you because we believe your presence will contribute to a fruitful gathering in ETHNE’12.

The meeting starts on the 27th of November at 6pm with dinner and ends on the 30th of November (night) with the final plenary. (IMPORTANT: Due to a strict limitation of places and quota given for each region, we request all delegates to be present for the entire duration of the meeting, arriving by the early afternoon of the 27th of November and departing the 1st of December.)

Attendance is By Invitation Only. Kindly do not forward this Invitation to anyone. If you feel someone you know needs to be invited, especially a younger leader you know, please inform your Regional Leader or send an email to ethne12@ethne.net. (For ETHNE to continue to be a vital, sustainable movement, we need the involvement of younger men and women.) Registration Forms will be sent in due course, but if you wish to register your interest to attend ETHNE’12, kindly send an email to ethne12@ethne.net or inform the Regional Leader who sent you this invitation. We are still finalizing the costs for ETHNE’12, but for your budgeting purpose, we suggest you use a figure of US$500 for the in-country costs (transport to/from airport, conference materials, accommodation on twin-share and meals).

As we finalise plans for our time together in Seoul, we request your prayers for us.

Until all have had a chance to hear and experience the Good News!

Paul Han, Executive Director Korean World Mission Association

Henry Lee, Director Frontiers, Korea

S. Kent Parks, President, Mission to Unreached Peoples & Co-Facilitator, Ethne

On Behalf of the ETHNE’12 Steering Committee

http://www.ethne.net

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by | September 29, 2012 · 7:12 am
by | September 25, 2012 · 7:14 am

THE STUDENT VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT 2 ANNOUNCES THE 21 DAYS FOR GLOBAL HARVET

The SVM2 Alliance announces the upcoming “21 Days for Global Harvest” prayer campaign to pursue God for spiritual awakening and global harvest. This campaign will take place from September 30 – October 20, 2012 with the theme “Let My People Go!”based on Exodus 8. Small groups of young adults from student ministries related to campus ministry organizations, Christian colleges/ Bible schools and local churches will participate from many nations.

Very few prayer campaigns exist connecting the emerging generation of believers together with one purpose. “21 Days for Global Harvest” targets this age group with a united prayer emphasis for awakening across the student generation and becoming ignited with passion for global harvest.

It is important to have as many student ministries from as many nations involved in this prayer campaign. It is our hope to see 1,000 prayer groups praying for 387 unengaged, unreached people groups during the 21 days.

For more information – http://21daysofprayer.net/get-involved/stakeholder-networks/

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by | November 12, 2011 · 6:18 am

11th Global Consultation. Stuttgart, Germany

The Mission Commission of the WEA, conducted its 11th Global Consultation, from November 6 to 11, with 203 mission practitioners from 42 countries at Schonblick Conference Center near Stuttgart, Germany. The theme, God’s Disturbing Mission, emphasized the developing complexity and diversity in the practice of global mission today. At the same time it recognized that mission belongs to God (Missio Dei). The thought that God himself might be behind disturbances in the mission agenda proved to be an invitation to seek God, read His word, strengthen relationships across diversity, and bow in worship.

The reality of constantly renewing leadership was enacted as younger leaders led the Consultation from the platform. Their perspective drew attention to what is next. Speakers from India, Lithuania, Russia, Brazil, USA, Sri Lanka, Rwanda, Kenya, S. Korea, South Africa and the UK took part, reflecting the broad range of global perspectives.

Table groups met all week to discuss, pray and commit to paths of obedience as God spoke a fresh to move forward in mission. Afternoon “post-it” sessions identified and focused on shared concerns and explored ways of cooperation in mission practice.

The event ended around the Lord’s Table, an enactment of the global missional community gathered by Jesus from every nation, generation by generation, and sent out as the fruit of His sacrifice.

Certain themes emerged: the challenge of developing adequate mission practice in and from contexts of complexity, uncertainty and change; and the reality of multiple approaches to mission and its practice.

A palpable sense of mutuality and interdependence reminded all that any redefinition of ourselves and our mission must take place in a context of discipleship–of following Christ together.

The consultation was designed to shape the future of the MC itself. The MC is guided in its work by a Global Leadership Council (GLC), formed from its constituency. Peter Tarantal of South Africa was elected as the new Chair. The GLC will meet in May 2012 and consider implications from the consultation for what comes next. Whatever the outcome, the consultation stands as a reminder that mission depends on God’s initiative and that he will use new and old senders to shape the future of Christian mission.

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