{"id":19546,"date":"2018-10-18T08:51:12","date_gmt":"2018-10-18T15:51:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=19546"},"modified":"2018-10-21T04:13:08","modified_gmt":"2018-10-21T11:13:08","slug":"moving-missions-to-the-21st-century","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/moving-missions-to-the-21st-century\/","title":{"rendered":"Moving Missions to the 21st Century"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am convinced that the Church cannot continue to do global missions in the 21st century as she did in the 20th<\/sup> century. The world is not the same as it was 100 or even 50 years ago, and as culture and context changes, so must the means through which we proclaim the unchanging gospel of Jesus Christ. Consider the great American Evangelist, Billy Graham, who travelled the world preaching to large crowds and giving altar calls. I know many who were saved at such events, being moved by the stories and music. These conversions were genuine\u2014Truth was proclaimed, lives were changed, Jesus was praised. At the same time, churches had \u201cLadies Missionary Societies\u201d that raised funds for missionaries and Sunday School teachers told stories about missionaries in jungle lands sharing Bible stories with tribal people, inspiring children to give their \u201coffering\u201d to help the poor savages. I\u2019m not disparaging these things, I believe that they were perfectly adapted to their time and place in the world; but, like rotary dial telephones, console televisions, and cassette tapes, they aren\u2019t adapted to the 21st<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n

Old models are becoming obsolete, but transitioning to new models proves challenging. Missionaries have long been funded by donors \u201cback home,\u201d a practice that is on the decline. \u201cNorth American Christian financial commitment to world missions is in sharp retrenchment.\u201d[1]<\/a> Another present reality is that global connectivity has changed the way that people move into a new culture. A hundred years ago, a missionary moving overseas would literally pack her belongings in her coffin, not expecting to return to her country of origin until she occupied that coffin herself. Today, a millennial missionary might consider his time as a missionary as one of several careers he plans to explore over the course of his life. \u00a0Furthermore, missionaries are able to stay connected to loved ones back home via the Internet, a practice that is proving to be a hindrance to their integration and adaptation on the field. Fritz Kling, in his book Meeting of the Waters<\/em>, predicts, \u201cIn the coming years global church leaders \u2026will increasingly need to try out experimental, innovative, and even uncomfortable ideas.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

As mission agencies seek to abandon archaic models in favour of models that are relevant to the 21st<\/sup> century, perhaps some of those \u201cexperimental, innovative, and even uncomfortable ideas\u201d will be found in the world of arts. Art typically reflects culture, revealing where the culture IS, and might help us to discern what mission might look like in the modern context. In Visual Faith (Engaging Culture), <\/em>Dyrness identifies several characteristics of modern art that might \u201csuggest openings for Christian engagement.\u201d[3]<\/a> I think these openings might be significant for missionary engagement as well.\u00a0 They are, \u201can element of performance,\u201d[4]<\/a> \u201can interactive character,\u201d[5]<\/a> \u201ca collaborative character,\u201d[6]<\/a> \u201ca turn to the visual,\u201d[7]<\/a> and \u201ca spiritual element.\u201d[8]<\/a> Let\u2019s look at each one individually.<\/p>\n