Category: Mobilisation
Personal Reflections on Lausanne 4
In this post I reflect back on my experience of Lausanne 4. While there is much to celebrate about the event, the motives of the Lausanne executives made explicit throughout it left much to be desired. After noting highlights, I examine some of the things that concerned me most.
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Knowledge & Soul
It can be easy to use slick ‘visionary’ hype to motivate people and resources toward achieving a goal. Often a well defined method accompanies the emotional appeal as the means to achieve the goal. Proverbs 19:2 warns that zeal without accompanying knowledge, applying a method without understanding, can lead to sin.
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Half The Sky
Missions is replete with women following their vocation in service of the purposes of God. Sad stories of mistreatment abound and this should not be. The dignity and power of women in general is worthy of great respect. For the sake of God’s mission in a hurting world, women must be released to their full potential.
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Patron Providence
It tends to be human nature to “throw the baby out with the bathwater”, so when missions realises the damage that paternalism can cause, we can too easily dismiss the benefits of healthy patronage. We must remain mindful of ‘when helping hurts’, but that doesn’t mean total withdrawal. The generosity of God’s people remains central to the effectiveness of God’s mission.
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When Have We Reached
We have become accustomed to applying dramatic rhetoric to motivate people to engage in missions. I return to “Reaching The Unreached” and “Finishing The Task” as phrases that are overdue for reassessment.
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Doing The Work
Missions is hard work, but sometimes we make it harder than it needs to be. As we face persistent challenging times we would do well to consider where we need to “sharpen our axe”.
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A Life Or Death Situation
John Chau has left the global evangelical missions community with a gift, at great personal sacrifice. In dramatic fashion he closes a chapter on a bygone era in mission. We need to listen to the conversation he has created.
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New Blood In Mission
Us older ones think we ought to be teaching the younger ones about mission, and to an extent we should, but maybe God is revealing new methods through youth movements, as the Holy Spirit has done throughout history.
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Splice To Thrive
With the decline of the middle class in the Western world, so we have seen a correlating decline in missions resources. The future of missions from the West will require increasing collaboration. We are stronger together.
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Resting Places
Courage has many resting places and the call of mission comes to us with new views if we stop long enough to see them. We would do well to foster a posture of exploration in mission, being open to new possibilities, daring to move into them.
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Pass The Kumara
We are too easily tempted to “save” what we get it in case we run out. This is a poverty mentality. The Polynesian people have an abundance mentality that informs their values of hospitality. The kumara makes for a great metaphor for the gospel.
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Te Karanga | The Call – Part Two
Without getting too self-helpish, you really are God’s gift to the world! You have a unique contribution to make and a responsibility to find out what He’s asking you to do. As His love flows through you it will express itself in unique ways via your unique abilities to lovingly help repair the sin damage around you.
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