1 New Perspectives on Mission for the 21st Century

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1) New Perspectives on Mission for the 21st
Century

• Acknowledgement of the Churchs rich heritage in
  Mission work world wide.

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2) Five Marks of Mission

• The church has traditionally followed the five
  marks of mission
• Tell
• Teach
• Tend
• Treasure
• Transform

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3) Some continuities and discontinuities

• Mission is in essence Gods action through human
  agents.
• The church is one of the agents for the Mission
  of God.

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4) New directions for Mission

• Multi-directional
• Multi-cultural
• Multi-lingual

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5) Biblical foundation Acts 18

• But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit
  has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in
  Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the
  ends of the earth.

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6) Biblical foundation Matthew 2819-20

• Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,
  baptizing them in the name of the Father and of
  the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them
  to obey everything that I have commanded you. And
  remember I am with you always, to the end of the
  age.

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7) Notes on the Mission texts

• Offer a counter to the dominant world view of pax
  romana.
• Power is not in the military might of the Emperor
  and his agents.

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8) Notes on Mission

• Power is with Jesus, who, by His resurrection has
  triumphed over death.
• Power is delegated to the disciples as they are
  to go on the Mission of God.
• They are to take a globallocal approach.
• Sometimes called Glocal or G/LOCAL strategy.
• The task of mission is to make disciples.

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9) What then are the new perspectives for Mission
in the 21st Century?

• Mission is listening, discerning and discovering
  together, at the point of our mutual and deepest
  need, the movement of Gods love to all creation.
• Mission begins with people in their struggles for
  the fullness of life Justice!
• Justice Food, Water, Shelter Liberty.
• Mission is reading the signs of the times and
  unmasking the falsehoods of empire where ever
  they locate themselves.

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10) More perspectives

• Mission is solidarity and friendship
• Mission is prophetic action like just wages, fair
  trade
• Mission is proclamation that another world is
  possible because God is still speaking.
• Mission is participation in the spirituality of
  ubuntu Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu.
• (I am because you are and you are because I am,
  and therefore together we can!)

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11) Thoughts on Mission

• If you have come to help me, you are wasting
  your time. But if you have come because your
  liberation is bound up with mine, then let us
  work together.
• (Ms. Lilla Watson, a native Australian woman
  addressing a missionary serving in her country.)

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12) Further thoughts on Mission(from the UCCSA
Mission Plan for the Local church)

• The world today operates with what is sometimes
  referred to as the champagne economic model,
  where
• 80 of the worlds wealth is owned by 20 of the
  worlds population
• 11 of the worlds wealth is owned by the next
  20 of the population of the world
• And the bottom 60 of the worlds population own
  6 of the worlds wealth.