MIssions Briefing in Tyler Texas

We had a great informal meal last night of steak and shrimp [thanks George] and I gave a short missions briefing from the Lausanne World Congress.  It was a nice evening and pastors from about 6 churches came along, all invited by Stephen Wickcliffe of Grace Community Church.

Summary: The challenge of missions and how we are responding has radically changed. There is a greater need for storying the gospel, utilizing the new media, recognizing the next generation is doing things differently, understanding world religions, appreciating the holistic nature of the task at hand and providing some holistic metrics for measuring our progress that go beyond bums on a pew or churches in a network.

One of the biggest changes we have experienced is the need for a more streamlined way of doing mission overseas with less wastage – that means a focus on social enterprise, micro-business and a sacrificial lifestyle that is more sustainable and more incarnational among the people. We also showed some recent photos of our ministry and shared our plans of driving over to Asia next year.

For those interested in mission, Steve Rumpf from Grace is leading a Perspectives course on world missions soon – highly recommended. My chapter in Perspectives, excuse me for blowing my own horn here, is called “Mission Comes Home”.

Andrew

Andrew Jones launched his first internet space in 1997 and has been teaching on related issues for the past 20 years. He travels all the time but lives between Wellington, San Francisco and a hobbit home in Prague.

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