Mission List

Andrew Jones (Tall Skinny Kiwi) writes in a recent blog post:

The challenge of missions and how we are responding has radically changed. There is a greater need for storying the gospel, utilizing the new media, recognizing the next generation is doing things differently, understanding world religions, appreciating the holistic nature of the task at hand and providing some holistic metrics for measuring our progress that go beyond bums on a pew or churches in a network.

One of the biggest changes we have experienced is the need for a more streamlined way of doing mission overseas with less wastage - that means a focus on social enterprise, micro-business and a sacrificial lifestyle that is more sustainable and more incarnational among the people.

As you'll note from the second paragraph, he appears to be talking about 'overseas' mission. However the first paragraph in particular is very pertinent to local mission as much as overseas. Here are the various points again, in list form:

Storying the Gospel
Utilizing new media
Recognizing the next generation is doing things differently
Understanding world religions
Appreciating the holistic nature of the task
Providing holistic measures for measuring progress beyond bums on seats

That should be enough of a task to get on with for today....

The Missional Channel

Nope, this isn't an addition to Sky; sorry to raise your hopes.

Instead it's a site on Vimeo, where there are about ten videos from mission-focused speakers, including some whom we've often named in this blog for various reasons: David Fitch, Alan Hirsch, Ed Stetzer, Graham Cray (the Fresh Expressions man), Andrew Jones, Alan Roxburgh.

The videos vary considerably in length, the longest being around half an hour and the shortest just under two minutes (the length shows up down the bottom left of the screen before you start running the video). The titles aren't terribly helpful ('Missional Conversation', 'an interview with..', 'cultivate gathering' and so on) so it's a matter of opening up one of the videos and seeing what it has to say.

Recommended for those short patches when you just need to stop and listen for a while....

GloboChrist

GloboChrist: The Great Commission Takes a Postmodern Turn (The Church and Postmodern Culture) by Carl Rashke.
Here's what the blurb on the book says:

The rise of the Internet and the proliferation of digital technologies have profoundly affected the world; it is not only smaller but also more interconnected. What role does the church play in this multimedia-dominated globe?

In GloboChrist, Carl Raschke tackles the subjects of globalization, postmodernism, and information technology and their impact on missions and evangelism. In addition, he addresses the role that Christianity plays in an increasingly pluralistic world, providing concrete strategies for confronting the challenges. In short, GloboChrist helps Christians respond to the tectonic shifts of the twenty-first century.

"GloboChrist is the unconventional title of an intriguing inquiry into postmodern patterns and ideas and the challenge to mission. The book is a confident statement for these uncertain times, a troubling of the waters that will stir complacent Christians in their assumption."--Lamin Sanneh, Yale University

"For those who have tried to follow the intricacies (and vagaries) of postmodern thought to find out what it can tell us of the night, this vigorously discerning volume offers a glimpse of the global dawn. Drawing on many resources and a focused evangelical faith, Raschke lays out a case for a Christian perspective on globalization as a dynamic development that opens reconstructive (post-deconstructive) possibilities for pursuing the Great Commission. Globalization is not essentially an economic issue. The 'GloboChrist' is sweeping the world in a post-postmodern way in spite of militant Islamism, Christian fundamentalism, modernist liberalism, and secular economism. This is the best book on globalization I have read by an overtly Christian thinker. It complements and challenges my own efforts to discern theologically what is at stake in globalization."--Max L. Stackhouse, Princeton Theological Seminary; author, Globalization and Grace

"I'd hoped to give GloboChrist a quick read, but after picking it up I simply couldn't put it down; it is elegant, clear, and provocative. Raschke not only helps us see Christ and mission afresh in our hi-tech, pluralistic, postmodern, and global context but also equips us with engagement strategies."--Dwight J. Friesen, Mars Hill Graduate School, Seattle

Andrew Jones writes very positively about it on his blog - he's planning on using it at a missional entrepreneurs meeting he's holding in Europe next week.

Wasting money on short term missions?

Andrew Jones on Tall Skinny Kiwi tackles the issue: Are Short Term Missions a Waste of Money?

I've been inclined to think they are, but Andrew makes ten points mostly in favour of short term missions, obviously feeling that the gains outweigh the losses. I've just given the beginnings of each point. You'll find the rest on his site.

1. Short term missions might be an expensive past-time but if they are a far better alternative to overseas vacations and holidays.

2. A cross cultural experience, even if only for a week, is good training for a career in overseas social enterprise or preparation for long term missions.

3. The fall in number of long term missionaries worries me but I am encouraged by the number of missionaries being sent out by the global south.

4. We should send out young people for longer periods of time.

5. Short term mission should be more relational.

6. Missions today is multi-directional and it is a mistake to talk about missions only in terms of our country sending missionaries to others.

7. Pilgrimages and self-guided mission experiences sometimes offer a better posture of learning and receiving hospitality than traditional short term missions.

8. Churches must stay involved in both sending overseas missionaries or they will lose their vision within one generation.

9. Partnering with an established mission organization is a good way to get some cross-cultural sensitivity training for the team.

10. And lets not forget the massive resource we have with retired missionaries now living back home.

Wikinomics

In a recent post on the blog, Tall Skinny Kiwi, Andrew Jones writes about the changes that are taking place in Mission.
...In my travels over the past 2 weeks I have talked to mission leaders in Norway, Netherlands, England and Scotland about the relentless change going on in their worlds. I have been in missions and social enterprise for more than two decades and I really can't remember a time when things were changing so quickly and so radically. There is a dramatic reshuffling of priorities, a flattening of hierarchies, a giving away of the farm, and a greater openness to collaboration with each other. A lot of this change in priorities and thinking is reflected in and/or stimulated by the change of media from print-based to web-based aggregation, retrieval and distribution of new media .

That last sentence is the essential point he's making, and he goes on to recommend some books related to the topic, plus the way in which the giving away of information, or of "losing your life in order to gain it, and I was reminded of other passages in the Scriptures that call for transparency, generosity and trust rather than secrecy, hoarding and self-interest."

One book he recommends is Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams. It's not particularly focused on mission in the Church sense, but does talk about the way the worldview is changing in the light of the Web and all the implications that go with that.

Jones' Top Five

Back at the beginning of June, ex-pat Kiwi, Andrew Jones, who hosts the Tall Skinny Kiwi blog, wrote a list of five books that he regards as the top five for reporters, writers and researchers investigating ,or interested in, the Emerging Church movement. For his comments on these, check out the relevant post.

1. Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures, by Ryan Bolger and Eddie Gibbs.
2. The New Conspirators, Creating the Future One Mustard Seed at a Time, by Tom Sine.
3. The Emerging Church, by Dan Kimball.
4. The Church on the Other Side, by Brian McLaren,
and several contenders for 5th place:
The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier, by Tony Jones
Revolution, by George Barna
The Irresistible Revolution, by Shane Claibourne
The Great Emergence, by Phyllis Tickle
The Tangible Kingdom: Creating Incarnational Community: by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay.

An interesting bunch. They won't all appeal, and you'll have varying views on some of the approaches, but at least one or two of the top four are worth a look if you haven't already come across them.

Artful Leadership

Artful Leadership: Awakening the Commons of the Imagination by Michael Jones.

No, not the notable NZ All Black, but a man who deals with notes of a different kind. Jones' earlier working career was as a leadership consultant, but in his spare time he played piano and composed music. One day he realised the music was too integral a part of him to neglect, and over the next decade or more, he's produced some fifteen albums of solo piano music. He's now done some further integrating, and uses his piano music and performance in his speaking career.

This is his second book,(his first is Creating an Imaginative Life) and you can read the first chapter, A Walk in the Park: the personal and social artistry of leadership, online.