“Who says it is a translation?” Issues of community ownership and global responsibility

We are living during the era of the greatest acceleration of Bible translation (BT) in history. It seems legitimate to raise the question within the BT community of practice: is there an obligation to recognize all translations as legitimate translations? While we are usually confident that if a translation is sponsored by a local community or denomination and published by a recognized BT agency, then we know that the BT program went through appropriate drafting and quality control protocols. But what about other situations, such as that of a single translator or a small group of individuals who work alone and without sponsorship? They intend to publish on their own and at the time when they say it is suitable. Or perhaps a mission agency declares unilaterally that a translation they sponsored is acceptable for a language community. In light of unprecedented acceleration, “Who says it’s a translation?” is a relevant question for BT practice and process. We must find a shared understanding about how to discern a proper balance between community ownership of the task and global responsibility in reporting overall progress and the size of the remaining task.

Mentorship and Discipleship of OMF Short-Term Mission Volunteers as With-ness and Consociation

Short-Term Mission (STM) is a reality that is intertwined and integrated into the fabric of world mission and Christian experience. Many discussions revolving around short-term mission have been descriptive and about best practices. This article moves beyond an appraisal of short-term mission as a phenomenon and instead looks at why and how OMF International, a long-term mission agency, aligned STM with long-term mission, vision and strategy by focusing on the mentorship and discipleship of its STM volunteers. It also looks at with-ness and consociation as a model for mentorship, and discipleship as a means of addressing the opportunities and challenges that STM presents to long-term mission agencies.

Leading in Global-Glocal Missional Contexts: Learning from the Journey of the Wycliffe Global Alliance

The journey of the Wycliffe Global Alliance (WGA) is an example of how some paradigm shifts are influencing leading in mission. Since Christianity is both an agent and product of globalization, its beliefs have spread from one source to another, crossing religious, linguistic and cultural contexts. As a result, there are polycentric or multiple centres of influence since Christianity has homes within a diversity of contexts. This carries with it various implications including how partnering in mission needs to be deconceptualized through greater emphasis on friendship. In order for this to happen as a missiological principle, third spaces may need to be created. Viewed against the backdrop of church and mission agency leadership, structures may be ‘stuck in the Industrial Era’ (Uhl-Bien et al., 2007: 298). Therefore, the stage is set for exploring how these and other themes influence leadership in God’s mission.

Polycentrism in the missio Dei

Structures for mission have been under review as a result of many factors. In particular have been the widening influences of globalisation, and to a lesser degree, glocalisation. Various models of leadership praxis and structures have been proposed along the way. As Christianity moved farther away from the Christendom model of centralised control to other models of structure and leadership, other paradigms have been proposed along the way. However, one possibility, called the concept of polycentrism, has not been considered with any significant effort. In order to understand polycentrism, this research covered a literature review of seven spheres: (1) the urbanised-economic context; (2) political-ideological associations; (3) globalglocal socio-cultural situations; (4) organisational-leadership contexts; (5) missional movements; (6) the global church; and (7) the journey of the mission agency called the Wycliffe Global Alliance. The application of the concept of polycentrism to the specific context of the Wycliffe Global Alliance has enabled conclusions about the relevance of polycentrism in mission structures that are part of the missio Dei. The study concluded that polycentrism was a very helpful methodology that understood and resolved the inherent tensions and influences brought about by globalisation upon structures in God’s mission. The implications shaped what leadership communities look like in terms of values and ideals because of the benefits of polycentrism. Through polycentrism, there has been a deliberate movement away from established centres of power, so that leadership occurred among and with others, while creatively learning together in community.Keywords: Polycentrism, globalisaiton, glocalisation, mission leadership, global church

A Theological Examination of the Two-Structure Theory

In 1974, Ralph Winter wrote a paradigm-changing article, “The Two Structures of God's Redemptive Mission,” which affected the way many evangelical mission leaders view the role of the local church and the mission agency in world evangelization. What began as a historical observation, primarily, has developed into a theological doctrine which advocates theological legitimacy for mission agencies. Using Winter's document as a beginning point for discussion, this article analyzes and rejects the doctrine of sodalities as being another expression of the universal church. Instead of arguing for the acceptance of mission agencies (independent or demoninational) from a biblical basis, the author maintains that agencies should be accepted and utilized on a pragmatic basis by congregations.