Category Archives: Streams under an oak… Musings

A time will come when is no need for missions anymore.  One day people in every nation, people, tribe and language will worship God because they have experienced saving transformation in Jesus Christ (Revelation 5:9-10; 7:9-17).  John Piper is right: “Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man” (Piper, John, Let the Nations be Glad – The Supremacy of God in Missions, Baker Books, 1993:11).

Apparently, that time is not now.  Until that time comes, it is important for us to think about the ways we describe what the work is that he gave us to do, just as it is important to examine the way we do it.    Jesus told his disciples that they should not worry too much about the time.  Rather, they were to focus on being His witnesses in Jerusalem, all of Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:7-8).

Over the years, in the MC, we have worked hard at developing an honest critique about how we are doing with the task.  We also need to work hard in our critique of how we describe the task.

Right now, some churches–at least in the West–are stuck in old ways of thinking about missions that are paralysing their willingness to send and threatening their fruitfulness.   Missional faith is dimmed by discouraging descriptions that Christianity is losing its vitality in some places and is overwhelmed by descriptions multiple thousands of “unreached” groups in others.   We run the risk of reducing Christ’s mission into a statistical problem to be solved.

In another example from my own country.  We Swedes have worked conscientiously to engage and understand followers of other religions in dialogue and witness.  In the process, though, many churches have adopted pluralistic views that “all roads lead to Rome.”  That may have been true in the Roman Empire but it misses the point when it comes to understanding the work of Christ as the crucified Messiah, his resurrection and call to gospel faithfulness.

When we think about the mission Christ gave us, we do it with God.  And he seems to be working to keep the mission from getting stuck and to keep his people from missing the point.  At the moment, his solution seems to be new leaders in new places.  The fruit that these new leaders are producing is not only that new missionaries are sent from new places. God is also using them, and the missionaries they send, to talk about what the calling requires, and sometimes they are describing the mission in new ways.

Can we think out loud, together, about new ways in which Christ’s mission is being described?  How do you feel about what you see?

Bertil

All kinds of ships sail the missional seas of today. Some really big vessels have powerful engines.  Others small boats navigate with just a couple of oars. Just as in commercial transport by sea, the flags of some northern countries once dominated the practice of Christian mission.  In shipping, the flags of a few “free-states” allowed some to give less importance to security, maintenance and labour laws, with negative consequences.

The worldwide missional scene has seen in the last three decades the launching of many “mission vessels” with an unseen diversity of flags from all the continents. Without forcing the comparison, the spreading of the Good News requires all sorts of boats, both those that can navigate the big seas and those that can enter the smaller rivers and berth at local harbours.

The size of the boat does not matter, neither the port of origin. Some are built for deeper water, others are fragile for navigating streams but not the dangers of unknown seas. When big vessels try to enter small rivers or when rowboats go out to deep waters, catastrophe is eminent. Both “Titanics” and rowing boats have shipwrecked.

Both the numbers of injured sailors and of lost missionaries has been a big concern for some time.

The missional challenge is to understand and acknowledge the distinctive functions and seek co-operation between missional initiatives of all sizes, flags, and destinations. We look for partner-ships to be inclusive, respectful and strategic. As sea-routes go today from everywhere to everywhere, our missional co-operation should reflect the reality of the Holy Spirit’s initiative to move God’s people into His mission.

A good model for partnership is seen among Jesus’ disciples: “…they signalled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats…” (Luke 5:7).

The WEA Mission Commission considers itself to be a missional community — a fleet of many diverse boats, if you will.   The MC Leadership Team does not aspire for the MC to be a big vessel.  Rather, we want to be a catalyst for many partner-ships that include both the big and the small. In the worldwide trouble waters we believe that a safer and more productive journey can be done when we know each other, share our navigation journals and unite our efforts.

What experiences have you had with mission partnerships? Feel free to post your comments.

Bertil Ekström

The WEA Mission Commission Leadership Team wishes you all

A Blessed New Year!

On my recent visit to Mozambique and South Africa, I was reminded again about the importance of the mission legacy from the West. Churches have been planted and grown. In some cases large denominations have been formed. Some things should have been done differently. The ecclesiastical models, the doctrinal imposition and the Western culture as normative for the new believers have caused significant delays in the contextualisation of the Christian faith in many places. The search for cultural roots and relevant expressions for the faith in local contexts creates unnecessary tensions between leaders and generations. The supposed superiority of written books over oral transmission causes a deficient understanding of academia and the overestimation of formal studies in detriment of practical experience and popular wisdom. Leadership development and discipleship are in shortage.   Could this be the result of foreign models that are not suitable to African realities?

It is extremely important that mission efforts today seriously consider the local culture and its history and allow local Christians to form their contextualised structures for the church and find their appropriate expressions for the faith. Outsiders can and should collaborate with the dynamic and spontaneous churches in Africa, but the dancing rhythm and the singing tune have to come from the African leaders.

The Danish Mission Council (DMC) is marking 100 years of ministry by focusing this year on the theme, ‘Partnership in Mission.’ Last week they held seminar on their centennial theme in the city of Odense, and I was privileged to participate.  Denmark, along with the rest of Scandinavia, is unique for good ecumenical relationships that result in rich and helpful dialogue between the different expressions of the Christian faith.   Perhaps this is one reason why churches of Denmark are treated by the Danish government with high confidence.  As a result, an increasing amount of resources is channelled through the churches and mission organisations for community development around the globe.   Valuable documents, fruit of the Danish experience can be found on their website (two of them are in English, for those who don’t read Danish!).

As you will see, the partnership vision of the DMC comes from themes that are important expressions of Christian discipleship:  “the vision for a good and fruitful co-operation (partnership) in mission is relational and person-focused partnerships, centred around Christ, unity in faith and common values, characterised by trust, openness and transparency”.

Between denominations and mission agencies, the 36 organisations in the DMC represent the breadth of the Christian Church in Denmark.

We were all challenged by the importance of radical discipleship as a lifestyle from which we must teach and mentor a younger generation. The perception is that Evangelicals in Latin America have grown in number but not always in maturity and influence in the surrounding society. The mission movements has grown although, but there is much more potential in churches for and even stronger involvement in world missions.

The week was full of fellowship, new friendships, challenges from God and reaffirmation of the commitment to serve His kingdom through the Ibero-American mission movement.  Jose Luis Ramirez of Mexico was elected the seventh president of COMIBAM.   He will provide leadership for the movement together with the Executive Director Decio de Carvalho for the next three years.

The strategic plan of COMIBAM includes concrete actions that will promote deeper commitment by God’s people in Ibero America and will support that commitment by walking together with the very diverse missional initiatives.

As part of the Silver Jubilee of COMIBAM several of the former leaders were present. Here the new elected president (to the left) together with five of the six former presidents of COMIBAM.

As Latin American evangelicals continue to become effective in missionary outreach, the realities in which COMIBAM does its work have also changed.  At its General Assembly this week, COMIBAM announced initiatives that continue to mark it as a pioneer in a new phase of global missions based on south-south partnerships.

Victor Ibagon de Colombia, outgoing President of COMIBAM, opened the assembly by challenging participants to listen to God together to understand the future of the movement.

The daily themes were

• Together in the Word
• Together in Prayer
• Together in Fellowship
• Together in the Task.

Each theme was applied to the administrative challenges of COMIBAM. I had the privilege to share about the Centrality of the Word of God in the first evening.

Victor Ibagon spoke about Prayer in the morning session of the second day.

In his Presidential report, Victor Ibagón described recent changes in COMIBAM,  In the past, COMIBAM saw its primary task to be challenging national movements to become mission minded. These efforts have been largely successful.  In each country of Latin America there is now a national movement with sufficient maturity to develop their own plans.

The new focus is on mobilization toward unreached people groups.  And it is this new focus that has led COMIBAM to turn to partnerships with non-Western initiatives.   COMIBAM announced plans to participate in the Ethne to Ethne Network.  COMIBAM has also worked out a co-operation with MANI in Africa.

We look forward to hearing from you about how the MC can encourage even more of these kinds south-south connections.

The Mission Commission is about relationships more than anything else.

From time to time we convene global opportunities for people to meet, focusing on fellowship, mutual sharing and strategic reflection.

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The MC recognizes the value of adapting our communications style to take advantage of new tools that are available to us.   Technology is changing the way people around the world relate to each other and changing the rules of communication and cooperation.
That is why our internal communication with MC Associates will be through this new  Agora Newsletter reborn as a blog.  This blog is the first step in a journey for the MC to be more intentional, constant and flexible in our communication. Compare it with the old Agora Newsletters, if you want. We will find new ways to make the bulletin Agora more frequent and interactive.  MCA’s will get e-mail alerts whenever new content is posted on Agora.

We have decided to stop producing the magazine Connections.  There is a treasure of excellent thinking about the missionary task in past issues of Connections.  We are making sure that they will be available to you soon in a more useful format. This is just the beginning of rethinking and re-designing our communication strategy.

The current Mission Commission websites are being closed and redirected to the WEA/MC page.  From now on you can find us by going to www.worldevangelicals.org.  Look under “What we do” and there you will find the Mission Commission.  There is still some updating to do on that page.  It would have been done by now, except for the weather damage in New York City.   The electricity is still off at the WEA office as it was affected by Hurricane Sandy.  Please pray for WEA staff and their families.  And, if you want updates, you can look at Geoff Tunnicliff’s Twitter feed.

But most of your news will be right here at agoraweamc.com 

Our desire is also that communication in the MC will be multi-directional.  Eventually there will be a place where who are connected with the MC can post their own messages and participate in a global dialogue regarding missional issues. More information about that will be available in a near future.

This is where MCA’s (Mission Commission Associates) can keep up with the news of the MC, as I see it.  From now on, this blog will take the place of the Agora Newsletter

The Mission Commission envisions the proactive, synergetic, enabling of the global mission community to fully live, proclaim and extend to all peoples the transforming message of the kingdom of God in Christ Jesus through the power of the Spirit.

Bertil Ekstrom

What are the main issues for mission today? During the meetings of the Mission Commission Global Leadership Council several trends impacting the Church and its mission were detected and discussed. Out of a larger number, four of them were chosen as particularly crucial and strategic for the MC and needing urgent response from the Evangelical mission movements:

1. The messiness in mission will continue to increase

This trend is the product of a whole lot of factors including: individualism, a multiplicity of definitions; structures and methods; accessibility of information; generational and cultural divides; and brokenness.

2. Continuous power shifts

Power will continue to shift in our complex, globalised, interconnected, interdependent world, following the control of finances, skills, information flows and as economies grow and decline in different parts of the world. This will create neo-colonialism and a new kind of control in different parts of the world.

3. Religious persecution will intensify and diversify

There is a need to establish a grass root effort to network those who have suffered persecution/are suffering persecution to speak to the global church how to prepare to follow Christ faithfully and missionally in the midst of suffering and how to care of those who at present are suffering.

4. Global resources will continue to decline.

Consequence: world mission and our churches will be impacted all over the world in a variety of ways, along with all other social/human structures.

For each of these trends there are significant consequences for mission movements and the MC is planning specific action points for reflection and production of materials related to these themes.

The question in my mind is, what are the specific challenges that you face in your life and ministry and how these mega trends affect your particular situation? Our desire as MC is to continue highlighting relevant issues that may be important for us all. The latest production of the MC, the book Sorrow & Blood – Christian Mission in Context of Suffering, Persecution and Martyrdom, is certainly one good example that we take these trends seriously.

Welcome with your thoughts and suggestions!

Bertil Ekstrom