Mission – Ministry – Life
Strangely some of the hardest parts of the New Testament are those parts that were designed to be the most practical. Often based on household codes they were to help the new communities of Jesus followers to be communities of character and to be seen to be living Godly lives. Why? Because the character of... Continue Reading →
I’m a poor host but I’m learning to be a better guest. Nothing has struck me as forcefully about the need to rethink how we approach mission than the idea of the missionary as a guest. Perhaps it’s my western hero complex that wants to go to another country to ‘make a difference’ but going... Continue Reading →
Another short series of blog posts before we return to Perú next week (and Nugget gets back to blogging) this time looking at a couple of things I believe we need to grapple with if we are to be effective global witnesses. First up, how much the world is changing. If you live in the... Continue Reading →
We can’t talk about global mission without talking about the local church. When all the paraphernalia of mission agencies is removed the call to share the good news and make disciples is a call to the church. I’ve blogged before (here) about some practical steps churches can take to get involved in global mission but wanted... Continue Reading →
Global mission is in a time of change; while most of the resources are still held in the west the dynamic mission movements are increasingly non-western. We might anticipate that over the next decade sending from the UK will continue to reduce (except for short term visits), incoming mission into the UK will increase and... Continue Reading →
Do we still need to send people overseas? Isn’t it a bad use of resources to send expensive western missionaries when others are able to manage it much more cheaply. Isn’t it a model that better suited a colonial approach to the world? Isn’t it time to let other sending countries like Brazil and South... Continue Reading →
Part of my time recently has been thinking about ‘the western mission movement’ and how it needs to change. These next few posts are some thoughts around that. First up: some of the issues we need to grapple with as we look to the future: Who calls the shots? The western mission movement has a... Continue Reading →
Recently I had the opportunity to spend a bit of time at an event put on by a team from the US. It was a fascinating experience on lots of levels, the team and I come from very different cultures and styles of church and yet we are all guests in a third culture. The... Continue Reading →
I read Jane Vella “Learning to listen, learning to teach” (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass 2002) earlier in the summer in which she sets out 12 principles of effective learning. Vella’s book and the principles it sets out (which are part of a trajectory which includes ‘Training for Transformation’ and Paulo Freire) have played a key... Continue Reading →
Over the last week we’ve been reading “The Very Worst Missionary” a memoir by Jamie Wright who was a missionary in Costa Rica for 5 years. It’s a really readable book (warning: it uses some colourful language) and raises many questions about the whole way that global missions are done. There are three things that... Continue Reading →
Distinct Reflections 