While the second component dealt exclusively with the North American Mission Board, the third component concerns the International Mission Board. By the tone and tenor of the report, NAMB is broken, but the IMB only needs tweaked. In fact, the task force is recommending an expansion of the IMB into NAMB territory. Their proposal is to, “Unleash the International Mission Board upon American soil to reach the unreached and under-served people groups without regard to any geographical limitation.”
If one has ever interacted with immigrant groups within our borders, this move only makes sense. Many times they retain their culture, language and customs while living in America. They also retain significant ties to their homelands. This seems to be a sound strategy to reach those people groups effectively and efficiently, however it will be interesting to see how immigrant church plants will be handled. The next post will consider the fourth component.
2 comments:
Greetings! I found your blog through Twitter #GCR tag. My name is Wes, I'm a PHD student @ SEBTS, studying Chr.Missions, and have an international wife.
I think the comments you make about Component #3 are what most people are going to say -- it seems like a good idea.
I'm not convinced it is so! I would love to hear more from the Task Force or someone @ imb greater rationale and a little outline of how it would work. But I have commented on other blogs that the move in my opinion, though well-intentioned, is ecclesiologically, missiologically, anthropologically, and practically unsound (unless qualified, of course).
Unqualified, it fails to recognize the current movements among ethnic churches, it fails to recognize the difference in culture/worldview between home culture and immigrant culture, it fails to recognize the role of churches planting churches in NA.
So, more discussion may prove all my points wrong, but without further discussion, I think we should be hesitant about Component #3.
Thanks for letting me chime in!
Wes
Thanks for the comment, Wes. I pray continued success in your PhD program!
It's interesting how we each see the potential weaknesses in the areas that hit us closest to home.
I especially agree with your ecclesiastical concerns. I do not see how any centralized (IMB) or regionalized (NAMB) agency will be as well-suited as local churches to plant local churches. The image that keeps coming to mind is little SBC franchises--kind of like McChurch. I trust that's not the intent, but I fear it might be the effect.
We shall see what the final report has to say. As they say, the devil's in the details!
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