Partnership is something we long for but often have a difficult time defining. North American churches and organizations are seeking to partner with the global community in ever increasing degrees, yet partnership is often a broad elusive term that can be defined very differently depending on the context.
By Patrick Kingsley. Reviewed by Jamie N. Sanchez, PhD, Assistant Professor and Program Director of PhD Intercultural Studies, Cook School of Intercultural Studies, Biola University, La Mirada, California.
Some time ago I read in the pages of a mission magazine that came to my desk an amazing statement. The writer was emphasizing his “conviction that the church, not the mission board, is the sending agency.” He added that according to the book of Acts, “the church at Antioch accepted responsibility for the Apostle Paul.” Then he went on to say that “in the 11th chapter of Acts Barnabas heard of Paul, sought him out, brought him to Antioch and helped him serve an internship in that church of not less than one year.”
Ultimately it is the church on the ground, the local community of believers, that is the critical expression of Christ’s love and power in the world. Made up of individuals who have personally placed their faith in Him, this bride of Christ must be the final basis for evaluating our efforts in evangelism. Scripture, early church history, examples of explosive growth of the church elsewhere, and often neglected media case histories all point to the fact that it is the local body of believers—living, working, and testifying together—that has been critical to the growth and multiplication of the Church.
Gener L. Green, Stephen T. Pardue, and K.K. Yeo, eds. Reviewed by A. Sue Russell, Professor of Mission and Contextual Studies, Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky.
Information is powerful. We’ve all experienced moments where the discovery of a particular piece of information has radically shifted the direction of our lives. Many of us in the mission community had our lives transformed when we discovered the theme of God’s global mission that runs from Genesis to Revelation. The realization that God has always been a missionary God continues to challenge countless Christians to consider the direction and purpose of their lives. Or maybe it was the discovery of the unreached, that millions of souls lived beyond the reach of the local church and had little to no access to the gospel that was the watershed moment in your life. State of the World talks that educate and inspire Christians are a regular feature of mission conferences. Thankfully, God has raised up hard-working men and women who dedicate themselves to helping transform Christian worldviews through powerful and up-to-date information.
Uber, iPhones, Airbnb, Netflix, and Amazon. The list goes on. Disruptive innovations are taking over traditional North American industries. The missions realm also needs consistent creative effective new ways for how we activate, recruit, and onboard new workers. The environment is ripe for unprecedented breakthroughs in mobilization collaborations in the North American missions’ enterprise.
In 1900, Andrew Murray tackled the key question to the missionary problem as to why there were so few missionaries. In his report to the ecumenical missionary conference held in New York in April, he thought the answer was simple; it was the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Though I totally agree, I think there is much more to it than simply a Lordship question. I believe it is in how we, the church, view the cross.
This edition of EMQ is devoted to the critical topic of mission mobilization, and for good reason. It is said that if one generation of believers fails to wholeheartedly engage in missions, the link to the next will be broken, and eventually the entire movement could collapse. However, the reality is more pressing than a missed generation. With the accelerated speed of changing interest in our information-laden world, if we miss just two to three years of rallying new workers, we could lose not just a generation, but the entire future of engagement in God’s global mission.
The Global Mobilization Network (GMN) believes mobilization is essential to calling the whole Church to committed participation in reaching the whole world.
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