I suggest that many local congregations have not been of great assistance to world mission. Such advances have not taken place because of, or at the instigation of, the local congregation. The support for world mission has come from individual Christians from within the churches, rather than from the churches themselves.

That’s a direct quote from Changing Global Mission Culture in the UK Church which is published by Global Connections in a collection of papers called Churches and Agencies in Partnership. I can’t seem to find a free copy online  so I’m going to do some grovelling and see if I can get a copy to send out with my next newsletter because it really is worth reading.

Since joining Wycliffe Bible Translators I’ve discovered that I now spend a lot more time thinking about mission than I ever did when I was part of a church – but that shouldn’t have been the case! If mission is supposed to be a core activity of a Christian community and a key element in every Christian’s life, regardless of the context they are living in, why did I have to join a mission agency before I had the opportunity to think seriously about many of the issues involved.

Why is a mission agency asking more questions about connecting in the local context than the local church that’s already there?

This paper, Changing Global Mission Culture in the UK Church, should probably be essential reading for all church leaders. Even if they disagree with the conclusions they would, at least, have to think through some of the issues that it throws up.

Quick Summary

The paper lists the present situation in many churches as

World mission is a marginalised interest for most and a fervent commitment for a few. Many church members are glad that their church has a world mission programme, but don’t want to have much to do with it themselves. ‘Missionary’ events are poorly supported.

The world mission mandate is connected to the Great Commission. The unspoken logic is that ‘We do it as a church because Jesus told us to.’

World mission involvement is limited to what comes from ‘missionary’ people or societies and is disconnected from what comes via the TV screen, from world news or news documentaries.

World sport, world music, fair trade concerns, environmental calamities, political issues, international business travel and tourist travel are not promoted in church as issues that interest God or impact on our faith.

Younger church members take little interest in the church’s world mission culture.

On a weekly basis, world mission is represented by a world map with a few pins stuck in it and a small pile of ‘missionary’ magazines, untouched and rather out of date.

Even when young people have been on short-term programmes and their involvement has energised and interested other young people, it often has done little to change the culture of the church as a whole in relation to world mission.

From a mission agency point-of-view, the opinion is,

Agencies know that most of the resources of people, prayer and finance that they need come from committed individuals in churches rather than from the church as a whole.

That’s a statement that’s easy to agree with, because, even if we don’t like it we need to acknowledge that it’s true.

The paper, rather than just criticising the current stage of affairs, does gives a few suggestions as to how our thinking and practices should be adjusted

1. Relate to the world biblically (not just Great Commissionally)

To  break the unhelpful church culture, we need to take a step back and stop talking about world mission… Instead, we need to help people relate biblically to the world.

2. Break down the home/field barrier

The church needs to recapture its global characteristics. Mission starts at the end of the pew and extends to the ends of the earth.

3. Restructure the local church

Close down anything that marginalises world mission and gives it a specialist only label.

4. Maximise globalisation

In many churches, the only things that relate personal faith to the world have a ‘missionary’ label. That’s the culture that we must change.

Thoughts

I feel awkward with the notion that people in full time Christian work are somehow more special than anyone else. I also feel pretty uncomfortable with the notion that people working overseas require more special attention than those who go to school, or the office or look after the home. I fully appreciate that there are significant challenges for people working in an alien culture, but their work and the importance of their relationships shouldn’t be any more valuable than those who are doing their best to obey God where they are right now.

I believe that the church in the UK has to do some significant thinking when it comes to their values associated with mission, but then so do many mission agencies – the one I work with included. Maybe this paper would be a good starting point.

Sarah Barnes is in the process of joining Wycliffe in Canada and will go into a role recruiting a mobilising more people to get involved in the translation movement. You can read more about her on her blog – she’s still got a way to go raising her support before she can start properly so you can see how that’s going too.

One page worth taking an extended look at, is the collection of videos she’s put together illustrating all the different aspects covered by the work of Wycliffe Bible Translators.

Photograph from Ruth Hubbard's blog http://ruthhubbard.wordpress.com/2010/05/25/gloria-a-dios/

Ruth Hubbard is Vice-President of Communications for Wycliffe Bible Translators in the US. Recently she was in Guatemala, where Cameron Townsend – the founder of Wycliffe Bible Translators – first recognised the need for Bible translation.

In a recent blog post Ruth reflected on how things have changed.

• When Cameron Townsend started work he thought that there were about 1,000 languages in the world. It turns out that there are around 7,000.
• In Guatemala it’s possible to see the results of the early days of Bible translation. Not only are there Christians as a result of the Bibles that were produced in the minority languages, but, these Christians are involved in leadership within the church.

Uncle Cam (that’s what some call him) had a vision that was both expansive and limited. He saw a day when people from every language community would have access to God’s Word and therefore could decide for themselves whether to enter into a relationship with Him or reject that invitation. That vision is in the process of being fulfilled. Today there are just over 2,000 language communities with no access to Scripture who need it, and around 2,000 with a translation in progress.

You can read the whole piece on Ruth’s blog Hubbard’s Cupboard

It just got me wondering, what do we take for granted today that within 80 years will have changed completely?

Bible translation in Mozambique from Wycliffe International on Vimeo.

Elvis Presley’s Bible part of the Museum of the Book

May 11th – 14th I spent the week with colleagues at the Christian Resources Exhibition at Sandown Park.

This is a giant trade show for all things church related, so there’s everything from pews and vestments to insurance companies and builders. Some things are wonderful, others are quite strange, it really depends on what mood you are in.

We were taking part in the Biblefresh exhibition so we went equipped with a number of Bibles from different parts of the world.

We shared the room with a number of Biblefresh partners as well as the Museum of the Book. Based somewhere in East London, the Museum of the

Book is a collection of different Bibles, either owned by the famous/infamous or historically significant. At CRE there was a copy of the Coronation Bible, an early Wycliffe Bible and Elvis Presley’s Bible, the cover of which he’d signed and listed various dates in his family history.

It was a treat to be in the same room as this exhibition. Especially as people who would stop to look at the exhibits would also stop to take a look at the various language Bibles we had out on display, giving us the chance to chat.

This isn’t a political blog post, although, you don’t have to think too hard to come up with some items for prayer that centre around national or international politics. Some days you have to wonder why we ‘humanity’ seem to insist on believing that we have all the answers ourselves. Instead, this is about one of the busiest weeks in the life of Wycliffe Bible Translators in the UK.

This is the first week of the From Eden to Eternity Tour. It all kicks off tomorrow in Exeter and then runs for another 26 days around England and Wales. Please continue to pray for the cast and crew who will be travelling thousands of miles by road and sleeping in a new bed almost every night of the tour.

Tomorrow is also the start of the International Christian Resources Exhibition. I’m running the Wycliffe stand for the week, with support from different colleagues for each day. It’s also the week where the Biblefresh book will be launched.

Finally, tomorrow colleagues from the European Training Programme are involved in the final stages of approval for a new Masters degree. Months of hard work and planning rest on the outcomes of tomorrow’s meetings.

As you can probably guess, this is a very important, stressful and challenging time for a number of people. Please remember them all in your prayers.

My job for the day had been to take photographs, but it’s quite difficult to concentrate on this as the character of Jesus is being crucified before me.

A few weeks previously I had been to interview Bec Rogers, one of the Saltmine actors and the director of the production. She had commented that for her she learnt a lot through seeing the Bible, rather than reading words on a page. Bec has Dyslexia, which means that taking written information in is difficult for her. Seeing the Bible story enabled her to make a much stronger connection with what was going on.

From Eden to Eternity is on tour in May and June, the dates are below.

From Eden To Eternity – 2010 Tour Venues

• 11th May – Exeter – Belmont Chapel
• 12th May – Bristol – Kensington Baptist
• 13th May – Swansea – City Temple
• 14th May – Cardiff – Highfields Church
• 15th May – Hereford – Hereford Baptist Church
• 18th May – Northampton – Kingdom Life Church
• 19th May – Cambridge – St Barnabas Church
• 20th May – Ipswich – St John the Baptist
• 21st May – Norwich – Norwich Central Baptist Church
• 22nd May – Banbury – St Paul’s Church
• 25th May – Durham – St Nicholas Church
• 27th May – Sunderland – Sunderland Minster

• 8th June – Shrewsbury – Trinity Churches, Holy Trinity Meole Brace
• 9th June – Thame – St Mary’s Church
• 10th June – Fleet – Church on the Heath
• 11th June – Brentwood – Peniel Church
• 12th June – Leeds – City Evangelical Church
• 15th June – Coventry – Elim Pentecostal Church
• 16th June – Woking – Christ Church
• 17th June – Ruislip – Ruislip Baptist Church
• 18th June – Brighton/Hove – Holland Road Baptist Church
• 19th June – Crawley – Crawley Baptist Church
• 21st June – Chelmsford – Central Baptist Church
• 22nd June – Chertsey – St Peters Church
• 23rd June – Portsmouth – Oasis Church, The Venue
• 24th June – Salisbury – St Pauls Church
• 25th June – Swindon – Freshbrook Evangelical Church

Examples of the impact of translation work can be found in the new Words For Life, Wycliffe’s UK magazine.

Dave Pearson’s article, Transformed Hearts, Transformed Lives is an excellent example of how material produced in the mother tongue of a community can make a spiritual and material impact. In it he writes…

Wycliffe’s language development work produces transformed lives through the translated Word and through translated development information. People grow better crops and live better lives. They care for their environment and they care for their neighbours. They learn about justification by faith and oral rehydration solution. Wycliffe’s work brings both spiritual and material blessing.

You can read the whole magazine online as a pdf, or order future copies through the website.

Wycliffe is a huge organisation with thousands of people working around the world on a whole host of different projects. Yes, we all long to see people with the Bible in their own language so that they can hear about God’s love for this world themselves, but the parts that go to make up that whole are numerous.

So it’s always good when I can hear from an independent source about their view of Wycliffe. In this case it was Stafford Carson, Moderator for the Presbyterian Church in Northern Ireland. He recently visited the Wycliffe offices in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and this is what he said afterwards…

My visit to the Belfast offices of the Wycliffe Bible Translators revealed that there are many people, from many nations, who are fully committed to the task of translating the Bible into the mother tongue of millions of people in our world.  Their strap line is “The Bible: the Story everybody needs”, and they are enthusiastic about bringing that story to everyone.

…and later…

What made my visit to Wycliffe Bible Translators so energising and interesting was the way the Wycliffe members understand the Bible as story. The Bible is full of stories.

It’s worth reading his whole post, which you can do here, because it illustrates so well what we are in the business of doing.