Tentmaking and Business as Mission are among the subjects being discussed when World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) this week arranges a global consultation to discuss what future will look like in the worldwide mission work.
As you read this issue of TMBriefs approximately 230 invited leaders from more than 50 nations are gathered at Schönblick Christian Centre an hour drive outside Stuttgart in Germany to focus on future strategies for reaching out with the gospel. “God’s disturbing mission” is the headline for the conference. According to Bertil Ekström who is heading WEA’s Mission Commission there are several reasons to be disturbed and to rethink how we best can proceed to bring the Gospel further on.
– The environment in which we are doing mission has been dramatically changed. God is doing new things that we need to focus and reflect on. Compared to the number of Christians in the country, Mongolia is now sending out more missionaries than any other nation. Who would have expected that just a few years ago? The church planting movements in India and Africa have also given us new thoughts on how we can send out workers in God’s kingdom and start new, Christian fellowships, says Ekström, who has been leading WEA’s Mission Commission the past five years.
The Swedish-born former missionary to Latin America says many young people are reacting negatively to the shallow plans that often are made on how the world can be reached with the Gospel.
– Without sacrificing their commitment to Jesus and His mission, many have rejected simplified statements of truth, reductionist descriptions of the world and three-step, short-cut strategies “to finish the job”. We are motivated by the need to think together with leading practitioners around the globe about how and why God is disturbing our traditional ways of doing mission, states a document made by WEA’s Mission Commission before the conference in Germany started.
Tentmaking and Business as Mission are among the subjects being discussed at the conference. The GO Equipped TENTmaking course developed by Global Opportunities and Tent, has for several years been run annually in many African nations. The tentmaking model is a good fit for the African churches and enables them to take part in the global mission work although they may not be rich on material resources. Also in Latin America and in Asia the tentmaking model is widely used.