Globalization: The Changing Face of World Missions

In preparation for a seminary class I'll soon teach on Missions and Evangelism, I have begun to peruse Pocock, Van Rheenen and McConnell's volume, The Changing Face of World Mission: Engaging Contemporary Issues and Trends (2005). The authors explore twelve trends and their impact on missions, the first being "globalization."

While underscoring the economic forces that drive much of globalization today, Malcom Waters' definition in Globalization (2001) is helpful:

"a social process in which the constraints of geography on economic, political, social and cultural arrangements recede, in which people become increasingly aware that they are receding and in which people act accordingly"

Four interrelated aspects of globalization are explored. The first is:

World Migration
My exposure to World Migration began in my years of campus ministry. Students (read here adult learners working on upper level graduate degrees) from 10/40 Window countries with little exposure to gospel proclamation in their native country, sojourn for a time on US campuses. While doing my own graduate studies (in seminary), Nanci and I intentionally focused our ministry efforts with international graduate students at a nearby university. We had the privilege of associating and interacting with post-docs and grad students from China, India, and Iraq, as well as Taiwan, Liberia, France, Mexico, Germany, Japan and other countries. Many of these returned to their homeland, of course, and thus are not technically "migrants". But some have stayed behind, for a variety, but mostly, economic reasons.

Beyond the college campuses, our neighborhood is filled with foreign born men and women -- English, Nicaraguan; Colombian; Sri Lankan; Philippine; Ghana; etc.

On a flight earlier this year, I traveled beside a Pakistani medical doctor living and working in a US city. For 2 hours we engaged in a dicussion (fueled by his questions) on the gospel. Four days later, we were together to continue our discussion in a coffee shop in his city. On a flight a few weeks before, I had the opportunity to share life-journeys with a Palestinian-born engineer, living near my home. What was exceptional decades ago--the opportunity to witness to individuals from 10/40 peoples--is commonplace today. On a flight a few weeks ago, Nanci had the privilege of leading a Mexican-born businessman living in Florida to Christ.

These personal examples are mere reflections on the reality that globalization has shrunk the distance (not completely, but substantially) involved in the harvest for which Jesus felt compassion and commanded to "ask the Lord of the Harvest to send out workers into..." (Matt 9:37-38).

It has presented new questions to mission strategists - where do we go to reach the peoples of the world? Their homeland or the land of their migratations? The answer, of course, is both. And today, it may mean going across the street or around the block. A century ago, this would hardly have been a question to contemplate. Globalization is changing the face of missions and evangelism.