VULNERABLE MISSION

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VULNERABLE MISSION VIS-À-VIS MAINSTREAM MISSION AND MISSIOLOGY ing that people do mission from a position of strength if they can and from a position of weakness if they must? THREE REQUESTS FOR READERS While we consider the mega-issues of oral thinking style and “complement or copy,” there are three very down-to-earth activities I would love to see readers engage in. I am doing them already and benefiting, but I am only one person. We need to multiply this. 1. Getting more perspectives on VM from Majority World people whose contact with the West has not persuaded them to approach mission like Westerners (we’ve been confining the dialogue mostly to Westerners). For me this happens mainly through ongoing communication with a house church pastor in Central Asia. 2. Discovering where and how VM overlaps with other movements and trends in the mission world, particularly “partnership” and “orality” (we’ve been describing ourselves mostly in isolation or in contrast to others). For me this means staying in touch with the COSIM and ION networks. 23 3. Finding and sharing more success stories about VM in practice (we’ve been refining the VM theory, and I’m still mostly doing that in this paper). For me this means promoting Thomas Oduro’s book Mission in an African Way. CONCLUSION There is broad consensus among the overseas churches I am familiar with, missionaries, and mission scholars that the Western missionary movement has not produced the desired amount of the desired fruit, and that the shift to emphasis on short-term mission is not helping much if at all. There is widespread work on method improvement, especially among advocates of partnership. VM takes things a step further, advocating much greater reliance on local language and resources than we currently see. I am proposing that we also advocate a much greater reliance on oral thinking as opposed to analytical thinking. There is a very difficult choice for the next generation of Western Christians. Should they complement the “weak” VM of the Majority World church with their strength, or should they forego their strength and copy the VM that the Majority World uses by necessity? If God is in this, then we need to widen the VM circle and connect with others among whom he is also stirring. It is his mission, and it ought to be done in his way(s), which we can find in consultation with others he guides. 23 COSIM is the Coalition on the Support of Indigenous Ministries (http://cosim.info). In spite of its name, it is not about funding of indigenous ministries but partnering with them in a variety of ways. ION is the International Orality Network (http://oralbible.com). 77
MISSIO DEI 4.1 (FEBRUARY 2013): 68–80 And here is the heart of the matter for VM. If missionaries and mission agencies are so interested in bringing more glory to God, 24 why would we not cut back on the mission methods that are failing to bring much glory to him? Why not replace them with a more vulnerable strategy, one that for its inspiration harks back to the cross, the resurrection, and Pentecost instead of the conquest of the Promised Land? Why not pay the prices of vulnerable mission and bring to God the glory that vulnerable mission in his name brings? Dr. Stan Nussbaum is Staff Missiologist of GMI Research Services and Adjunct Professor at Wheaton College. He has also taught the Breakthrough course at the Overseas Ministries Study Center in Connecticut, at the World Link Graduate Center in Portland, and (including earlier versions) in England, Korea, Malaysia, India, Egypt, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, Congo (Dem. Rep.), and Nigeria. 24 Thanks to the influence of writers like John Piper and programs like the Perspectives course, there is increased attention to the connection of mission and the glory of God. Ralph Winter and Steven Hawthorne, eds., Perspectives on the World Christian Movement: A Reader, 4th ed. (Pasadena: William Carey Library, 2009); see especially Hawthorne’s article on pp. 49–63 and Piper’s on pp. 64–69. 78
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February 2013 VOLUME 4, ISSUE 1 VUL
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The cover of this issue is adapted
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FEBRUARY 2013 EDITORIAL BOARD Execu
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PREFACE TO THE ISSUE Dependency, wh
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MISSIONAL THEOLOGY
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“MISSION IN WEAKNESS AND VULNERAB
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BIBLIOGRAPHY “MISSION IN WEAKNESS
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Economy of Grace: An Early Christia
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Economy of Grace in Ephesians ECONO
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Vulnerable Mission in Angola: An In
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REFLECTIONS
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BOOK REVIEWS
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VULNERABLE MISSION

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