In the past "mission" has been thought of as only "over there". You must cross saltwater or at least national borders to be involved in mission. In recent years there has been a change and a lot of churches talk of mission as almost exclusively local. Eddie Arthur has written a blog post on this, check it out. He identifies three areas: theology, generosity and openness. He posits that many churches have a limited theology of mission, generosity is a long-term commitment and UK churches, who are in decline should be open to learn from newer churches here and from churches in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
This got me thinking about the need for an integrated theology that embraces both local and international mission.
In this blog, I simply want to raise some of the issues which we may develop over the next few blogs.
1. Theologically, there is no difference between local and cross-cultural mission.
2. Does sending missionaries make a church a missionary church?
3. How can we develop a theology (I assuming "Missional Theology") that encourages, challenges and develops an integrated approach to mission?
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