600C Eden Road –
Lancaster PA 17601
Telephone: (717) 299-1427
Website for details: www.vulnerablemission.com
Email: jim@vulnerablemission.com
ADDRESS date
Dear Ministry Colleague,
Receive greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus.
The AVM (Alliance for Vulnerable Mission, founded in 2007) invites you and your mission personnel, especially those already concerned with sensitive contextualised cross-cultural approaches, to attend one of its regional day conferences in USA / Europe in early 2009. This alliance promotes mission by Westerners that uses the language and resources of target peoples.
Drawing particularly on African experience, the Alliance notes a widely recognised problem; that Western missionary activity creates unhealthy dependency, unorthodox teachings (the prosperity Gospel), racism and shallow theologies. The two key missing ingredients in mission approaches are found to be the use of local languages, and ‘ministry poverty’. Use of a people’s language reveals the complex issues that beset their churches and societies, and thus guides Gospel workers in their approach and teaching. Orienting teaching to a known language ensures people’s confidence and ownership and healthy criticism in appropriating teachings. Depending on local resources avoids giving foreigners untoward advantage in the ministry market place, and ensures target people’s honesty, especially in poor parts of the world where subsidised ministries are often uncritically welcomed.
This way of approaching mission, unfamiliar to many practitioners today and responding to recent trends such as business as mission and holistic mission, is articulated and explored at www.jim-mission.org.uk. The Vulnerable Mission principles articulated are essential for the healthy future of international mission.
AVM already has partners in many churches and missions, including SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics), SIM (Serving in Mission), Church of God (Anderson), WEA (World Evangelical Alliance), WCIU (William Carey International University), WMA (World Mission Associates), GMI (Global Mapping International), Bibelseminar Königsfeld, and many more. More partnerships and affiliations are sought to bring vulnerable mission into the mainstream of Christian outreach especially to the Third World. Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox churches, groups and individuals are welcomed.
I would like to encourage you to send representatives to these conferences. Please write to jim@vulnerablemission.com to be included in the mailing list in the run up to the conferences.
Yours sincerely,
Jim Harries, PhD
Board Chairman, Alliance for Vulnerable Mission
Missionary in Africa
Executive Board: Dr. Stan Nussbaum, GMI (USA) and Jay Gary, Regent University (USA) Advisory Board: Hans Schultheiss, Bibelseminar Königsfeld, (Germany), Tim Lewis WCIU, (USA), Steve Skuce, Cliff College, (UK), Steve Knight, SIM, (USA).
