In recognition of a latest era in global missions with greater participation by the Global South, a recently formed group of mission, church and market-place leaders from Asia and Latin America issued a communiqué with recommendations for mission practice for the Majority World.
Meeting in Bangkok, Thailand, from May 1-3, 2024, the group called COALA – which stands for “Christ over Africa, Latin America and Asia” – emphasizes the importance of unity and partnership in missions and hopes the recommendations would start off conversations in the worldwide Church.
The Bangkok meeting that brought together 38 missionaries, mission leaders and pastors from 30 nations was a follow-up to an earlier gathering in June 2023 under the auspices of the Korea World Mission Association. Participants from Latin America included leaders from COMIBAM (Cooperación Misionera Iberoamericana), a movement that brings together national mission groups or networks in twenty-five Latin American countries, in addition to Spain, Portugal and Hispanics from the United States and Canada.
“Discussions focused on the changing shape of worldwide mission from a Christendom model to a really poly-centric mission,” the group said, pointing to the “recommendations towards some principles for healthy majority world mission engagement in a poly-centric era of missions” as one in every of the important thing results of the meeting.
With the heading “Greetings to the Global Church of our Lord Jesus Christ, all mission movements & networks,” the communique on COALA 2 begins by outlining the geographic shift in global Christianity towards the Global South, highlighting the role of Majority World missionaries, after which calls for unity and authentic partnership in missions throughout the global Church as a complete.
“The twentieth century has witnessed a serious shift in the form of the worldwide church. For the primary time in the trendy period, the middle of gravity of the church has moved from the West into the non-Western or Majority World (MW: Africa, Asia, Latin America & MENA [Middle East and North America]). Today, two-thirds or more of worldwide Christians reside within the latter,” the preamble states.
“Side by side with this shift, we now have also seen a relative numerical decline of cross-cultural missionaries being sent out from the West, with the gap increasingly being filled by those sent out from the MW. The overall results of the above is that some countries that were mission fields previously are actually increasingly being recognized as missionary sending nations. Further, some that was once sending nations are actually receiving missionaries back from formerly receiving nations.”
“Given the above, many in the worldwide church today recognize that we are actually living in a latest era of polycentric missions, wherein missions today is from in every single place to in every single place. The above have necessary missiological consequences for the worldwide church, each the Western and the MW churches.”
“As a bunch of missions employees from the MW, we now have some real concerns over the involvement of MW churches in cross-cultural missions. We would really like to propose some recommendations for further reflection and discussion by the broader church,” the preamble concludes.
Recommendations emphasize relationship with locals, address concerns about money in missions
The recommendations begin by stating the centrality of the Holy Spirit, emphasizing, “The primacy of the leading and power of the Holy Spirit in mission: In accordance with the Lord Jesus’ instruction (e.g. Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4-5, 8) and the instance of the Apostles within the New Testament, especially in Acts, we affirm that missionaries sent out must go under the leading of the Holy Spirit and in His power. It is primarily the work of the Holy Spirit which makes mission possible and fruitful.”
Among the first concerns, the recommendations then go on to spotlight the connection of the missionary and the local church, the role of funds, and the overall spirit of unity and partnership.
“Missionaries and related cross-cultural employees should all the time go together with a servant heart and attitude, and with humility and respect towards the leaders of the local church and their indigenous co-workers. Their reliance should all the time be on God and never on their superior educational background or the resources that they carry from outside,” one in every of the recommendations says.
The following then continues along the identical lines, saying, “The goal of missions is to construct the local indigenous church which is marked by self-government, self-support, self-propagation and self-theologizing. Therefore, missionaries should never construct churches centered around themselves or their sending bodies, which remain depending on them and the resources they carry.”
Regarding the connection with existing local churches, the recommendations state, “As far as possible, a missionary should work with local churches with a Kingdom mindset which is worried to construct the entire church of God in a specific region or nation. Churches should never be planted and inbuilt isolation.”
Where possible, missionaries and church planters should develop into a part of existing denominations or church networks, the recommendations say.
They add that “missionaries should all the time hold themselves accountable to the local church or body where they’re working. Thus, missionaries sent out should know easy methods to network with local believers and, and so far as possible, be willing to serve under local leadership.”
Emphasizing that locals are more practical in sharing the gospel due to their understanding of the context, the recommendations say that “Missionaries should see themselves as midwives, and never moms. They must due to this fact respect the local churches and permit them to make all necessary decisions in a contextual and culturally-sensitive manner, albeit based on scriptural teaching.”
“The handiest witnesses of the gospel are indigenous believers and the local church. To this end, missionaries should encourage all indigenous believers and available local church-related institutions to take responsibility and initiative for the expansion of the church. The missionary’s major tasks are to coach and work alongside local believers and institutions,” they proceed.
Speaking in regards to the critical issue of monetary support, the recommendations acknowledge that “money is a matter of crucial concern in missions. It can bring great blessings; it might also cause much damage in the long run.”
“We due to this fact urge missionaries and their sending bodies to exercise extreme care on this matter. We have to avoid models which result in an ordinary of living for the local Christian employee which is higher than the local average or to initiate expensive projects which the local church will find difficult to sustain long-term,” the recommendations emphasize.
Finally, the recommendations call for unity and partnership, saying “we’re called to unity in Christ (John 17:11,21), which ought to be expressed as real partnership within the work of the Kingdom of God.”
In order to attain such partnerships, they call for serious consideration of two recommendations.
Firstly, “God has given us a transparent mission mandate in Matthew 16:18 and 28:19-20. Together with this, we imagine also that God has given all of the resources needed for the advancement of the work of the Christ’s mission, be it spiritual, human and financial. Such resources are to be shared as much as practically possible by all involved: between the local church and the missionary; between the mission sending and the receiving churches; and between churches and mission agencies working internationally.”
And secondly, the recommendations conclude saying, “In this era of polycentric missions, we affirm that real partnerships have to be developed between all churches in every single place, between those within the West and the MW, in addition to amongst all churches within the MW. The challenge before us to fuse all our God-given resources together into a strong synergistic whole for world mission.”
Stretching out the hand for partnership between Global South and Global North
In a soon-to-be published in-depth interview with Christian Daily International, Rev. Jonas Kang, Chairman of the Korea World Mission Association, shared how COALA emerged from the World Evangelical Alliance’s Mission Commission consultation in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in 2023. Dr. Gina Zurlo’s presentation on the shift of worldwide Christianity to the South sparked conversations amongst a bunch of mission leaders from Asia and Latin America.
In a follow up meeting in Korea a couple of months later, the Global South leaders got here together to speak about a latest paradigm in missions, without participation of mission leaders from the Global North at first.
However, Rev. Kang emphasized that the Global South leaders recognize and are grateful for the centuries of Western missions that brought the gospel to the entire world. Therefore, they desire for collaboration with those within the Global North and need that the entire Church together engages in missions united in partnership.
As one in every of the primary initiatives in pursuit of this latest collaboration, Rev. Kang led a delegation of Korean mission leaders that participated within the European Leadership Forum (ELF) in Wisla, Poland from May 25-30, where they hosted a session titled How Can the European Church and the Korean Church Work Together?, as Christian Daily reported earlier.
Lindsay Brown, who served with the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) for a few years and formerly led the Lausanne Movement as International Director, facilitated the session on the ELF.
In his own comments to Christian Daily, Brown reflected on the changes in global missions and said “the leaders of one in every of the biggest missionary forces from Korea are saying that they would really like to partner with Western churches as equals. Not as subservient cross-cultural employees, but as a body of people that have an equal say and an equal commitment to the advance of the gospel globally.”
“They would really like to dialogue together in regards to the key theological and missiological issues that should be addressed, and to be involved in lively partnership. They are taking initiative in putting their hands out, offering to serve together,” Brown said, and urged Western leaders to pay attention to that and respond.
“They are stretching out the hand of fellowship and partnership. So, the Western mission leaders and church leaders should say, ‘yes, we would like to partner!’ And they need to rejoice within the invitation.”
