Mission and power - Blog

"Mission at and from the Margins" was the title of a colloquium held at the Henry Martyn Institute, Hyderabad, india on 23-27 September 2009. An illustrated report of the event is now available to download and is attached here. 

The event brought together about 20 scholars who have been working on issues related to Dalit Christian experience in Andhra Pradesh. As well as theological and historical approaches, their research includes ethnographic field work in local villages. They are attempting to recover the Dalit agency and agenda in Christian missions and draw the implications of this agency for the ecumenical imagination of church´s mission in the world today. The conveners of the study are: Rev. Joseph Prabhakar Dayam, Rev. I. P. Asheervadam and Rev. Dr. Peniel Jesudas Rufus Rajkumar.

Download papers (in Spanish) from the Latin American Theological Fellowship Regional Consultation for Mexico, Central America, Panama and Caribbean in San José, Costa Rica on 6-7 August 2009 from this site through this link, by kind permission of the presenters and LATF.

The Canadian Churches Forum for Global Ministries annually hosts an “International Visitor” providing Majority World voices to the Canadian Church. In 2009 there were three “visitors” representing voices from the Global South, Canadian First Nations, and Canada. At the 2009 Canadian Theological Students Conference these three entered into a series of ‘trialogues’. The visitors were the Rev. Dr. Elizabeth S. Tapia, a Filipina Theologian, Bishop Mark L. MacDonald, the Anglican Church of Canada’s first National Indigenous Bishop, and Rev. Dr. Russell Daye, a Canadian theologian and United Church of Canada Minister, who has also served as UCC International Personnel in Fiji. Over the course of the conference, in February of 2009, each of the three keynotes was a combination of a short lecture by one of the International Visitors, conversation between all three, and dialogue with the audience. The conference took the Edinburgh 2010 Theme 4 Mission and Power as its theme.

A transcript of the 'trialogue is attached here. The picture shows the three 'visitors'.

The Latin American Theological Fraternity, led by Ruth Padilla de Borst, has held a series of events on the topic of 'Mission and power'. These include:

June 22-25, 2009 in San José, Costa Rica

Consultation on Mission and Power in North-South relations.

This three day by-invitation-only consultation brought together a small group of Christian historians from Latin America and North America under the auspices of Conference of Faith and History and the Institute for the Promotion of Christian Higher Education in Latin America.

July 25, 2009 in Santiago, Chile

Consultation on Church, Mission and Power in Chile.

With 33 participants from the local chapters of the Latin American Theological Fellowship in Valparaíso, Concepción, Osorno, Temuco, Valdivia and Santiago.

August 6-7, 2009 in San José, Costa Rica

Regional Consultation for Mexico, Central America, Panama and Caribbean

With 60 participants from 10 different countries, the topic developed was Church, Power and Mission in Latin America Today. The use and abuse of power was deal with both in relation to internal church relations, leadership and such and in relation to Christian presence in the broader socio-political sphere. Also, during this consultation, a letter was drafted condemning the queue in Honduras and calling for a peaceful solution to the conflict. Close to twenty papers were presented and processed in plenaries and groups.

These papers are being posted weekly on the LATF website (www.ftl-al.org) and people are being invited to interact on the issues raised.

September 4, 2009 in San José, Costa Rica

A small gathering of people from CLAI related churches gathered as a final step in the reflexion process they have been involved in on different Edinburgh study themes.

September 26, 2009 in Dominican Republic

National Consultation LATF

Church, Power and Mission in the DR today.

The same will be repeated in Peru and Brazil (dates to be confirmed).

Further details of all these activities are in the attached file.

Also by kind permission of EMW, the keynote address 'Mission und Macht' by Rev. Jacques Matthey, Director of the World Council of Churches programme on 'Mission, Unity, Evangelism and Spirituality', given (in German) at the conference in Freundenstadt, is attached here.

By kind permission of EMW, The Association of Protestant Churches and Missions in Germany, its 2009 yearbook, 'Mission between Power and Powerlessness' (in German), is attached here for download.

Member bodies of EMW, The Association of Protestant Churches and Missions in Germany, are meeting on 8-10 September in Freudenstadt, Germany to discuss 'Mission between power and powerlessness' in anticipation of Edinburgh 2010. Their deliberations will be faciliated by Rev. Jacques Matthey, who is Director of World Council of Churches programme 2 on 'Unity, Mission, Evangelism and Spirituality', Dr Daryl Balia, International Director, Edinburgh 2010, and Dr Michael Biehl of the Missions Acadamy, Hamburg, among others.

Further information in German about the event is available in the attached pdf file.

Members of the European Pentecostal Charismatic Research Association (EPCRA) met in Oxford, UK on 12-15 August 2009 and discussed Edinburgh 2010 themes. They selected three of the nine main themes as being most appropriate for their context: 2 Christian Mission Among Other Faiths; 4 Mission and Power; and 8 Mission and Unity. The quality of input from the papers was very high and led to stimulating discussion. This highlighted the distinctive contributions Pentecostals and Charismatics can make to these issues after more than a hundred years of experience.

Papers from the conference will soon be available on this site. The photograph shows the conference participants outside the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies,where the event took place.

Study Group 4, led by Dr Jon Bonk, Director of the Overseas Ministries Study Center, USA and Lori Ransom of the Presbyterian Church of Canada are finalizing their contribution to the Edinburgh 2010 pre-conference publication. Their chapter will be centered on a case study of the experience of the First Nations in the Canadian Residential Schools System as an example of abuse of missionary power. A number of people from other parts of the world where there are sizeable minorities or populations of displaced and dispossessed people will be responding to this to draw out the key questions for mission today.