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Internationalization
Posted by
Bob Fetherlin
,
17 January 2007
·
870 views
Here's an interesting picture:
• The North American family of Alliance churches (the US and Canada) represents the majority of financial resources within the Alliance World Fellowship.
• More and more Alliance churches from economically challenged areas of the world in Latin America, Africa, and Asia are catching the vision to send out their own missionaries.
• The US C&MA is now investing in missionary training for young men and women from our partner churches in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.
• The main barrier to deploying and sustaining trained missionaries from Latin America, Africa, and Asia is financial.
• Missionaries from Latin America, Africa, and Asia can access some peoples of the world more easily and in some cases more effectively than North Americans.
Strategically, what is the best response to this picture? In my vision, it's figuring out how to enable the missionary sending of our more economically challenged partner churches of the Alliance World Fellowship in a way that leaves as much sending authority and responsibility with them as possible. The models developed to carry out this objective must be sustainable in a manner that does not create unhealthy dependency. I can envision ways this can be done that will hasten the completion of the Great Commission thereby hastening the return of our King!
This vision calls for some bold yet sensitive conversations leading to the development of some experiments, some pilot projects. As models that work are discovered, they can be adapted for other contexts in other places. The bottom line is contained in Romans 10:15, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" In the last century the predominant understanding in US Alliance churches was that it would be primarily white American feet that would bring the good news. In this vision, it will be feet of many colors from many different nations and ethnicities as we move toward greater and greater internationalization.
• The North American family of Alliance churches (the US and Canada) represents the majority of financial resources within the Alliance World Fellowship.
• More and more Alliance churches from economically challenged areas of the world in Latin America, Africa, and Asia are catching the vision to send out their own missionaries.
• The US C&MA is now investing in missionary training for young men and women from our partner churches in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.
• The main barrier to deploying and sustaining trained missionaries from Latin America, Africa, and Asia is financial.
• Missionaries from Latin America, Africa, and Asia can access some peoples of the world more easily and in some cases more effectively than North Americans.
Strategically, what is the best response to this picture? In my vision, it's figuring out how to enable the missionary sending of our more economically challenged partner churches of the Alliance World Fellowship in a way that leaves as much sending authority and responsibility with them as possible. The models developed to carry out this objective must be sustainable in a manner that does not create unhealthy dependency. I can envision ways this can be done that will hasten the completion of the Great Commission thereby hastening the return of our King!
This vision calls for some bold yet sensitive conversations leading to the development of some experiments, some pilot projects. As models that work are discovered, they can be adapted for other contexts in other places. The bottom line is contained in Romans 10:15, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" In the last century the predominant understanding in US Alliance churches was that it would be primarily white American feet that would bring the good news. In this vision, it will be feet of many colors from many different nations and ethnicities as we move toward greater and greater internationalization.
