Growing Your Church

Christian Mission And Social Justice

Christian mission as primarily Evangelism in its traditional understanding as solely winning souls is becoming a thing of the past. Today’s church is becoming more and more aware that Christian mission and evangelistic outreach cannot ignore social justice issues.

The understanding of Christian mission in relation to social justice varies within the Christian community. This is going to be the subject of our discussions as time goes by.

Christian Missions From The Other Side

We will also be looking at missions from generally under-represented positions. We will share ideas from the perspective of the contexts that missionaries generally go to. We usually read or hear stories about them. You know the people of the Caribbean, Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. We need to hear them tell their stories too.

We will also be presenting ideas from the perspective of women missionaries who are largely unmentioned, except for those stories that could not be ignored. Stories of women like Lottie Moon from USA are mostly told by women among women groups. We will be sharing more on this as well.

Christian Mission As Partnership

Patronage as still being practiced by some mission agencies where they fund all aspects of the mission is on its last legs. It has led to a kind of dependency and underdevelopment of Christian stewardship in too many parts of the world to be ignored much longer.

It is a controversial issue and we will return to it repeatedly, as it is a recurring theme in many other issues we will discuss.

This is the age of mission partnerships. As the word partnership suggests, there is the understanding of mutuality in the mission arrangement. The missionary or missioner is not just the bearer of gifts. (S)he also receives something from the context (s)he serves.

Sometimes, the aspect of receiving is overshadowed by the giving. That is slowly but surely being corrected. Unfortunately though, the push for its correction is coming from the receiving context and not from the sending one.

Mission Trips or Holiday Tours

As the excitement and demand for Christian mission trips increase, the real purpose becomes blurred. I have met some hardworking committed Christians who are passionate about service. I have also met some individuals who take short-term mission trips as opportunities to visit an ‘exotic’ location.

They arrive in the tropics to save the natives. Those are the ones who want to stay somewhere around here:

You wouldn’t catch them setting foot here…….

Culture Shock or Attack

How missioners engage or dismiss culture is another area fraught with controversies. Of course we will be diving right in. We will explore how Christian missioners either engage or attack local culture and how this impedes or advance mission.

Join us and share your thoughts on these hot topics. I am sure you will not want to miss any of these upcoming discussions.

Marvia

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