Jehu Hanciles connects globalization, migration, and missions in his new book, Beyond Christendom: Globalization, African Migration, and the Transformation of the West, (Orbis, 2008). He maintains as one of his chief points that ”in the same way that unprecedented European migrations from Christianity’s old heartland provided the impetus for the European missionary movement, phenomenal migrations from Christianity’s new heartlands (in Africa, Latin America, and Asia) have galvanized a massive non-Western missionary movement. This latter movement implicates the West as a new frontier of global Christian expansion and represents a major turning point in the history of the Christian faith” (8).
If we concede Hanciles’ point, and I think we must, then this new, major turning point calls for a radical re-framing of mission promotion, rhetoric, and aims. Rather than merely promoting missions as ‘going’ to the pagan world, we must welcome and receive missionaries to our shores. This certainly requires new language, a shift in our concept of missions, and a recognition of our need, but above all it demands humility and grace. Missions no longer travels only in one direction but is bi-directional. Missions no longer means only reaching down from a place of privilege to those who have less but is receiving hope from brothers and sister. In the words of one person, missions is now from everywhere to everywhere.
Amen.