| Lausanne Connecting Point - May 2004 |
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NO TRANSLATION AVAILABLE In This Issue:
Greetings! LCWE Communications By Joshua Yates Globalization is now a household word in many parts of the world. Yet for all its popularity, there is little agreement on its meaning, let alone on its implications for the world it purportedly describes. For some, globalization means expanding markets, the increasing realization of human rights, perhaps the chance to bring the gospel to the entire world and to a greater degree than ever before in human history, the opportunity for people to improve their life conditions. For others, globalization means only greater economic and technological inequality, the loss of local culture and tradition, the rise of various fundamentalisms and greater general insecurity. For still others, globalization is a meaningless word, unhelpful jargon that obscures more than it reveals. Of course, the story of globalization is far more complex than such views betray and one, we believe, that we cannot afford to ignore. Indeed, the mission and life of the church are both increasingly subject to and responsible for all that globalization has come to mean. After getting off to a late start, the Globalization Issue Group (IG) is now underway and in the process of examining this complicated and contested topic, analyzing its nature and assessing its implications for the gospel. The Globalization IG consists of 25 members representing 16 nations, all of whom bring a wealth of perspectives - geographic, experiential and theological - to the work of the group. We kicked off this work by drafting a discussion paper that offers some preliminary definitions and distinctions and raises some of the key issues we feel are crucial to addressing the opportunities and liabilities of globalization for the church and the world. We examined the nature of globalization in both its historical and contemporary forms. We considered how globalization can be understood as a complex set of (albeit unequal) processes increasing planetary interconnectedness for good and ill through advances in communication and transportation technologies, worldwide economic integration and through the geo-political realignment that has been occurring since the end of the Cold War. We also considered globalization as a political and economic ideology that came to dominate many of the world's most powerful financial institutions in the 80's and 90's and which has more recently pawned "anti- globalization" sentiments and social movements that are themselves global in scope. Lastly, we explored how globalization, perhaps for the first time in history, has created a situation where people everywhere increasingly share the perspective of the world as a single place (i.e., the view of Earth from outerspace), humanity as a single people (i.e., the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) and history as a shared memory (i.e., the celebration of the Millennium). These three "global" points of reference, although not experienced in the same way, are not only imaginable for most humans today they are unavoidable contexts for understanding their own identities and action - even when resisting them. In this discussion paper, we also raised a number of issues we believe are pivotal to understanding the situation of the church in a global age. These issues include the implications of Christianity's shifting demographic center from the North to the South and the related issue of non-Western missionaries in the Post-Christian West; the embattled relationship between the two largest global religions: Islam and Christianity, especially where Christians live as minorities in Muslim societies; the responsibility of Christians everywhere to address the economic downside to global capitalism and American influence worldwide; and the growing, mass-mediated, commercial global youth culture, to name a few. As we turn to the writing of the whitepaper, we are selecting and researching particular case studies that we believe will highlight many of these issues in ways that will assist the church to live and share the gospel in its varied contexts around the world. Specifically, it is our hope that we can aid our brothers and sisters to think and act "Christianly" in the particular "global" circumstances in which they find themselves as stewards of God's love for the whole world. We are excited to be part of this important process and are hopeful that the mission of the church might in some small way be made stronger because of our work together. By Ian de Villiers, Convener Jesus never had a problem in relating to people on the margins of society. To the people of the wrong caste, the wrong race, the wrong disease, He offered healing and hope and they in turn made commitments to leave their sin, to follow Him. Some were even commended for their outstanding faith. But today Christians face many hard questions in relating to those marginalised from their societies, resulting variously in no action, in piecemeal and uncoordinated action and, in the best cases, effective witness to Jesus' love that transforms individuals and communities. One great example of this effective witness in the midst of the terrible HIV/AIDS pandemic is the Assemblies of God Church in Jinja, Uganda. It "has over 140 teams of members who visit the seriously ill. They provide home care and support. This enables them to continue to work with children after the parental death. The envisioning process has come through the combination of strong servant- leadership by Church pastors." (Prof. Andrew Tomkins, "Needs, Niches and New Leadership Styles") Issues we need to address to enable that envisioning servant-leadership include:
Despite the 1974 Lausanne Covenant's affirmation that mission includes evangelism and social action working hand-in-hand, the practice is much harder. For example in Sri Lanka, Buddhist monks are leading a national campaign against Christian proselytism and have as one of their main targets international Christian relief and development agencies. In India the reception of foreign funds for aid is automatically viewed with suspicion, particularly by the "Hindutva" movement. In Islamic and totalitarian countries the difficulties are, if anything, worse. We need to work out our own morality of what it means to run an outreach to at risk people: is success to be measured in numbers of converts; is it successful social interventions; or is it incarnating Jesus' love without pre-condition? Many agencies and missionaries have tales of their churches reducing support because the numbers of converts were not adequate. Perceptions that Christians only help to gain converts have led to huge numbers of "rice Christians" and significantly eroded credibility in Christian witness. Further, at risk people are frequently perceived as being difficult to reach and need significant, loving commitment. Street children may be filthy, smelly and cheating. The morality of HIV positive people may be prejudged. Drug-users are known to be petty criminals. Finally, there are often vested interests in keeping people in harm's way. For example, trafficking of women and children for commercial sexual exploitation, abuses some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in some of the world's poorest countries, such as Cambodia. This makes it all the harder for local churches to know how to respond, whether they are resource poor or resource rich. Not that this is stopping Cambodia's Vietnamese church from working to prevent the selling of their community's children into prostitution. IG 5 is comprised of about 40 people. We represent a wide variety of churches, missions and Christian development organisations. Our organisations vary from local churches to larger international agencies and we are a mixed group of men and women from different nations. Our organisations reach out to refugees, to children at risk, to HIV victims, substance abusers, people with disabilities, vulnerable indigenous peoples and more. The convenor is Ian de Villiers, Viva Network's Asia Coordinator, who works with children at risk agencies across South and South East Asia. The co- convenor is Lee Chee Loi, Executive Director of Malaysian CARE. Malaysian CARE works nationally with people with special needs, prisoners, AIDS victims, drug-users and urban and rural poor. Our plans and hopes for IG 5 are that we can:
When John asked Jesus who He was (Matthew 11:2), Jesus responded by pointing to the lame walking, healed leprosy sufferers, the blind seeing and good news preached to the poor. Our prayer is that more churches can bear testimony to the Lordship of Christ by the evidence of His love in action. Christian broadcasters from various countries met in Seoul, Korea May 3-6 to discuss how they could work more closely together. Nestor Colombo, former chairman of the Hispanic National Religious Broadcasters (HNRB), who attended the summit said, "The world is becoming a smaller place, technology is at the forefront and the stage is now set for ministries to come together to cooperate in the area of mass communications and specifically television." Memorial services were held recently for the President and founding member of Mission Aviation Fellowship, J. Grady Parrott. He was 95. Parrott served as president from 1949 until he retired in 1970. As president, he molded Mission Aviation Fellowship into a worldwide operation. Today, the ministry operates a fleet of 62 aircraft throughout 16 countries of Africa, Asia, Eurasia and Latin America. Full Story: Mission Network News The Bible League is celebrating the success of "Project Philip Monterrey." This two-year Scripture placement project was designed to further develop the Bible League's ministry in Monterrey, Mexico. Original goals were to place a half-million specially designed and easy-to-read Spanish New Testaments; final totals exceeded that goal by several thousand. Church leaders say the discipleship process in Latin America takes about two years, so they expect continued results. Full Story: Mission Network News By Glenda Weldon, Chair, Intercession Working Group
Praise God for the continuing evidence of his hand on the preparations for the 2004 Forum. Please pray for great wisdom for David Claydon as he allocates the available Scholarship money. He writes "We have far more applications for financial assistance from people in Africa and Latin America then we can grant. We need a lot more funds to be able to help those who are strategic people to come to the Forum - please pray for funds to come to hand." Issue Groups (IG):
IG 2: Uniqueness of Jesus Please pray for:
IG 7: Non-Traditional Families The group is using a questionnaire to help identify the family experiences and insights of group members from different cultures. The questionnaire will also help to identify the main issues for evangelism and some of the blocks to it as perceived by group members and others. Please pray for:
IG 13: Prayer in Evangelism
IG 29: Bioethics
IG 30: Business as Mission Praise the Lord for:
Please pray for:
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