Welcome Home

"Welcome Home..see I made a space for you now."
May this be our response to those who have come to belong in our land.
May we also be prepared to be the stranger going to other shores, seeking the hospitality of others that we might share the love of Christ from the botton of our hearts, from a place of humility and weakness not of coersion and strength

see real hospitality: their place not ours Steve Taylor

key documents to go deeper:
Position Paper on Migration (NZ Christian Network)
Christian Witness in a multi-religious world (WEA/WCC/PCID)

The Vanishing Middle

How does the vanishing middle affect missions, churches and other non-profits? Watch and listen

The Vanishing Middle

View more webinars from mark sayers.

Mashup

What is a mashup?

In developing the Wii, Miyamoto “had ‘mashed up’ two seemingly unrelated things…to create something new. And in our revolutionary age, the mashup is a sign of a different landscape of power… …mashup logic demands that we look at the world as multiple objects mixed in multiple—unpredictable—ways to create totally new objects or situations.” (126) “…mashups have the weird effect of making the unimaginable not only possible but inevitable. Mash up authoritarian rule and capitalism, previously thought to be incompatible, and you get China.” We must learn to understand and use mashup energy. “Our policies, dreams, and ideas can be combined to release new and unexpected power.” (128-29)

See David Mays Book notes on JC Rambo, The Age of the Unthinkable


So what could a missions mashup look like?

• Tranzsend partnering with 9 other agencies in MISSIONWORLD to inspire, resource and mobilize NZ Baptists in mission
• Justice as an integrator of what we do (breaking down that false dichotomy of spiritual/social gospel)
  

What kind of a missions mashup would you like to see?

The Call - teaser

Register for the Call

Turning Japanese

100 years ago, the leaders of every major mission agency gathered in Edinburgh to ask “What is it going to take to complete world evangelization in our generation?” In 1980, the Vapours had a hit song called Turning Japanese. In May 2010, I had the privilege of participating in the “From Edinburgh 1910 to Tokyo 2010 Global Mission Consultation”, held in Tokyo.



In the last hundred years God has done amazing things with the percentage of people groups without an indigenous church reducing from 90% to less than 25%. Here are some other interesting statistics:











This huge growth of the church in the Majority world has also led to a change in the missionary sending demographic. In 1910, the evangelical church was sending out around 25,000 cross-cultural missionaries, 99% of which were from the Western world. Today, the evangelical church sends out over 220,000 cross-cultural missionaries, 78% of which are from the Majority world. But we’re not done yet. Our family is not yet complete. There are still 3,700 unreached peoples with no known missionary activity. Our missionary God is still calling New Zealanders alongside missionaries from all nations to continue to take the good news to places where it has yet to be heard. Not only that, there is a boomerang challenge for nations such as ours to give a Macedonian call to our fellow workers from the Majority world to “come over and help us” recontextualize the gospel for our current generation who are largely immunized to modern Christendom.

Here are some random comments from the conference that I hope will spark our thinking as we continue to be involved in what God is doing around the world:

• How should we respond to the fact that God is moving : live, love, lead.
• Is the internet the roman road of our day? - Steve Douglass
• We serve a tenure and there is the limitedness of our lives and times. Who are you raising to replace you? A living dog is better than a dead lion - Gbile Akanni
• The Kingdom of God spreads in and through social networks. It is like yeast in the dough. As such we can and should expect that in many situations, men & women & families & friends will come into the Kingdom together, as "pre-existing webs of relationships" - Kevin Higgins
• We have to stop making decisions about who is open & who is not open to the gospel… There is no secret outside being friends and caring - Paul Eshlemann
• Innovative church: church on a bus, church on the ocean, church in a chinese restaurant…
• Every human being has a “filter” in his or her mind. This filter distills the knowledge and the message, so that he or she can accept it or refuse it. Every Muslim has a filter working, like a water filter. To communicate the gospel effectively, we have to consider the Muslim’s filter. - Hisham Kamel
• God still needs workers: willing to obey and risk all. Now at the 11th hour we need not be concerned about who is first or last but be sure that the Lord will pay all of us the same way: we need to work together and be boarderless, using new models of training, finances, evangelization, partnership. – Obed Alvarez

Also see these posts:
Discipling in an M Context
Making Disciples
Diaspora Missiology

Lord Jesus, help us to recognize you in the face of the stranger and welcome your presence among us. You have graced us with the gifts of many cultures and nations. Free us from the fear of those from other lands. Teach us to share our gifts with newcomers in return, so that you may say, "I was a stranger and you welcomed me. Come now...

When I left for Japan, one of my sons asked me to bring him back a samurai sword and a life-sized statue of Hiro Nakamura, a character in Heroes. Unfortunately I didn’t meet Hiro or the Vapors in Tokyo, but I still have that silly song running around in my brain as well as the heartbeat for participating in God’s mission beating stronger for having seeing a glimpse of what God is doing beyond the boarders of our tiny nation.



For more information see: Tokyo2010

tokyo 2010 from U.S. Center for World Mission on Vimeo.

Find video of conference sessions here