This review was developed from a draft prepared by a dedicated ‘listening team’ who met at the end of each day to reflect on the proceedings of that day and draw out key ‘takeaways’ from the presentations, round-table discussions, and general conversation. The group was led by Mission Commission Global Leadership Council Chair, Dr Ruth, together with Dr Karsten, Dr Robin Harris, Héber Negrão, and Peter Oyugi.
An abridged version of this review was published in WEA’s Evangelical Review of Theology (ERT Vol 47 No.2).
Between 30 January and 3 February 2023, 172 missions leaders from 33 nations, age 26 to 76, gathered in Chiang Mai, Thailand for the 15th Global Consultation of the WEA Mission Commission, known as GC23. Participants were welcomed to Thailand by Dr. Chansamone Saiyasak (Thailand), of the Evangelical Fellowship of Thailand’s Executive Committee. His welcome was accompanied by indigenous music and dance exhibiting the God-given cultural wealth of mainland Southeast Asia peoples, showing how the gospel is being received and expressed in highly contextual ways. Dr Jay Mātenga (New Zealand), the Mission Commission’s Executive Director, responded from his indigenous Māori heritage, formally robed in a kākahu (feathered cloak). He greeted them with a ceremonious Māori blessing, presented the gift of an ornately carved wooden paddle, and concluded with a traditional Māori song of unity. This exchange, expressed through cultural arts, was received by participants as a moving example of the mutual respect that can be experienced across global Christianity as we seek to build bridges of understanding.
The culture-honouring introduction set the tone beautifully as we entered a sacred space to discuss the future of missions in an increasingly unstable global context. From the outset we were encouraged to enter the consultation with a posture of ‘removing our shoes’, acknowledging the consultation as a sacred space as we were led in communion by former MC Executive Director Dr Bertil Ekström (Sweden/Brazil). A place to share sacred stories and engage in a sacred work. In his opening address, Executive Director Jay expressed the Mission Commission’s desire that all participants would feel safe, but that no one should expect to feel comfortable. For if we feel comfortable, it indicates that we enjoy the privilege of being part of a majority view. In such a diverse gathering, we should not assume that there will be a single dominant perspective, except of course around the non-negotiables of our common evangelical faith. Dr. Ruth (UK, surname withheld for security reasons), Chair of the Mission Commission’s Global Leadership Council (governing board), further elaborated that we, together, were entering a metaphorical kitchen, with each of us bringing unique ingredients favoured by our respective contexts. Some of the flavours might not be to our tastes, but they should be embraced as a necessary part of the recipe we would co-create during our time together. Such a fusion, we believed, would result in a delicacy—a blessing to one another and to the nations.
We were encouraged to:
The three full days of GC23 discussion centred around the three elements of our theme: our, missions, future. Our: who is a participant in God’s mission today? Missions: what are major priorities for God’s mission today? Future: where ought missions to be directed and how do we get there? In keeping with the by-line of ‘local impact, ripples and waves’, our plenary speakers each promoted the view of ‘insiders’ as central to God’s purposes in the world.
As the incarnate Jesus came into the world in a specific time and place, so the gospel incarnates into a context at specific times and places, with the potential to transform communities and environments through faithful, Holy Spirit–enabled disciples. We might call these resident disciples indigenous or local, but given the masses of diaspora in our world, they might also be dislocated from, yet still represent, their traditional backgrounds. The common denominator is that they share values that are similar across the Majority World: collectivist, highly relational, hospitable, holistic, honour-oriented, rich in ancient cultural norms, and developing expressions of our faith with theological perspectives that tend to look different from what Jay identified as the “Eurocentric theological consensus”.
To ensure we kept the ‘main thing the main thing’ we were led into God’s presence each morning in worship and word. Jaewoo Kim, Grace Funderburgh, and Joy Kim, a fabulous team from Proskuneo (USA), with additional volunteer musicians, artfully drew our hearts and minds to God in collective song, prayer and action. Mission Commission leaders, Peter Oyugi (Kenya), Jan Wessels (Netherlands), Claire Chong (Singapore), and Nosa Tukura (Nigeria) challenged us with their exposition of Scripture for the theme of the day (Our, Missions, Future, and a Commissioning Challenge respectively). With the support of intercessory ministry led by MC Synergist for Prayer Jenny Oliphant, the unity of the Spirit was evident in the unscripted way all of these elements strengthened what we sensed the Spirit was saying to the believers gathered in this space at this time.
Ripples intersect, overlap and create waves. Despite such intercultural tensions, we promoted the need for greater inclusion of participants in God’s mission, both within borders and across borders. Demographer Dr Gina Zurlo (USA), world Christianity scholar and demographer, helped us see, from current and historic global data, the indigenous nature of churches that flourish and sustain growth over time along with the crucial role of women in that sustained spread, creating what is today a truly world Christianity.
Dr Bijoy Koshy (India), International Director of Interserve, spoke on behalf of ‘nationals’ or locals who desire to fully participate with international missions in their own or near cultures but find inclusion overly restrictive. Dave Coles (USA), an encourager and resourcer of Church Planting Movements with Beyond, brought to us some challenging first-person testimony from indigenous church planters; and Ken Katayama (Brazil), Global President and CEO of Crossover Global, interviewed a panel of indigenous church planters regarding their experience as indigenous missionaries with Crossover Global. One of the Crossover Global church planters, from a Central Asian nation that is resistant to the gospel, shared how their movement is being accelerated by the ministry of women, further strengthening Dr Zurlo’s thesis.
As we heard from indigenous church planters who are involved in large movements to Christ among their countrymen and women, at great personal risk to themselves and their families, the MC committed to pushing back against attitudes that would deny the existence and legitimacy of millions of biblically faithful followers of Jesus who have converted from other majority-religion backgrounds.
Speaking from the position of a Westerner in missions, Craig Greenfield (New Zealand), founder of Alongsiders, concluded our plenaries with a charge to ‘outsiders’, to reposition themselves as servants and put ‘insiders’ at the centre as guardians of the gospel for their people—in other words, to let the locals lead.
In addition to updates from other networks like the World Council of Churches’ Commission on World Mission & Evangelism, The Pentecostal World Fellowship’s World Missions Commission, and missions networks such as Blue-Med and COMIBAM, we heard brief updates from WEA Mission Commission Synergists: Sarah Scott-Webb (New Zealand, Anti-Trafficking & Exploitation), Jo Herbert-James (UK, Creation Care), and JP (John Paul) Arceno (Philippines, Tech: Digital & Virtual Worlds).
Afternoons were set aside for specific conversations in 22 issues groups, and the facilitators of each were asked to guide the conversation towards answering these four questions:
Four emergent themes were identified and described using the overall metaphor of co-creating a banquet in our collaborative kitchen.
Key Question: How should we address the needed mindset changes among missions workers and churches across the globe?
Key Question: How can we we become truly collaborative in the way we work?
Key Question: How do we champion the local?
Key Question: How can we discern the tensions and which aspects need to be embraced and which need resolution?
Our missions future will display the glory of God in the nations—and among the peoples, only as all of us respond to God’s call and participate together in God’s mission.
It involves all who are compelled by the love of God, from north, south, east and west; men and women; young and old; bearing witness to the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ and testifying to the power of the gospel to bring transformation.
All of us together will be for the praise of God’s glory in the diversity of ethnicity, language, culture, and lived expressions of faith in Jesus. Being willing to hold, rather than solve, the tensions our differences create; being willing to live with the pain our histories, our assumptions, attitudes, actions and our words have caused and to lament together.
All of us together being cross-centred people who engage as peace bringers in a ministry of reconciliation.
All of us together demonstrating the mind of Christ as we show respect to one another—especially in our manners, actions and words, and as we seek to listen and to learn from, and with, one another.
God calls us together—the insider and outsider—to depend on the Spirit of God to guide and empower us in the mission of God (Acts 1:8) , for as God spoke to Moses, “all the earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord” Numbers 14:21.
