• Directories
    • Business Directory
    • Church Directory
    • Organization Directory
  • Advertise
  • Donate
  • Help
  • Log In
MENUMENU
  • Learning
        • Leader’s Edge
          • Author Interviews
          • Book Summaries
        • Book Reviews
          • Book Look
          • EMQ Book Reviews
        • Publications
          • Anthology
          • Evangelical Missions Quarterly (EMQ)
          • Missiographics
        • Podcasts
          • The Mission MattersNew
          • Missio Nexus
          • People First HR
          • Members Only Feed
        • Blogs
          • Global Issues Updates
          • Member Highlights
          • Mission Advisors
        • Topics
          • COVID-19 ResourcesNew
          • Diaspora Missions
          • Mobilization
          • Muslim Missions
          • Support Raising
        • Media Library
          • Conferences
          • Global Issue Updates
          • On Mission
          • Thought Leader Briefings
          • Webinars
          • Workshop
          • View All
  • Programs
    • Accreditation
    • Alliance for Benefits
    • Bible CertificateNew
    • Church Missions Coaching
    • Cohorts
    • Cybersecurity
    • ImproveNew
    • Mission Jobs
    • Publish
    • RightNow Media
    • The Mission App
    • Women’s Development
  • Events
          • Calendar
          • In-Person Events
          • Virtual Events
          • Event Recordings
          • Awards
        • Premier Events
          • Mission Leaders Conference
          • On Mission
        • Upcoming Events

          • Webinar: God's Heart for Oneness and Diversity
            Thu Mar 4 2021, 02:00pm EST
          • Women In Leadership - Special Events
            Fri Mar 5 2021
          • On Mission 2021
            Wed Mar 10 2021, 12:00pm EST
        • View All Events
  • Research
          • Missiographics
          • Mission Handbook
          • Research Reports
        • Popular Research
          • Compensation Reports
          • COVID-19 ResourcesNew
          • Field Attrition Report
          • View All Reports
        • Contribute
          • Current Research Projects
          • Submit Data for Mission Handbook
          • Volunteer
  • About Us
        • Who We Are
          • Our Contribution
          • Meet the Team
          • Board Members
          • History (1917–present)
        • Our Beliefs
          • Statement of Faith
          • Community Standards
        • Awards
        • Partner with Us
          • Advertise
          • Donate
          • Sponsorships
          • Volunteer
        • Help
          • Contact Us
          • Advertising Specs
          • Branding Guidelines
  • Join
        • Learn
        • Learn what you cannot learn anywhere else.

        • Meet
        • Meet people you otherwise won’t meet.

        • Engage
        • Engage in a community like none other.

          • Benefits
          • Benefits for Churches
          • Pricing

Sponsored Content

Upcoming Events

  • Webinar: God's Heart for Oneness and Diversity
    Thu Mar 4 2021, 02:00pm EST
  • Women In Leadership - Special Events
    Fri Mar 5 2021
  • On Mission 2021
    Wed Mar 10 2021, 12:00pm EST
  • Four Things Every CEO Needs to Know About Fundraising
    Tue Mar 16 2021, 03:00pm EDT
  • Webinar: Mission Increase: Discovering the Joy of Biblical Generosity
    Thu Mar 18 2021, 02:00pm EDT

View all events »

Topics

author interview Canada CEO Church Church Missions Church Mission Team Church Planting Conference Proceedings COVID-19 Cross Cultural Skills Diaspora Evangelism Focus Future Innovation Islam Justin Long Leadership Management Missiology Missionaries Mission Finance and Administration MLC2019 MLC2020 MLC2021 Mobilization muslim Muslim Diaspora Networks Partnership Personal Productivity Podcast Presenter Research Security Short-Term Missions Spirituality support raising Training Trends Unengaged Unreached unreached people groups Weekly Roundup Women

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Transformation after Lausanne: Radical Evangelical Mission in Global-Local Perspective

Posted on July 1, 2009 by July 1, 2009

by Al Tizon

How should missiology be conceived and the missionary task carried out in an age which labors under the weight of the competing ideologies of modernity and postmodernity?

Regnum Books International, P.O. Box 70, Oxford, OX2 6HB, UK, 2008, 281 pages, £24.99 ($36.00 USD).

—Reviewed by Dieumeme Noelliste, professor of theological ethics and director of the Grounds Institute of Public Ethics at Denver Seminary.

How should missiology be conceived and the missionary task carried out in an age which labors under the weight of the competing ideologies of modernity and postmodernity? Should the missionary mandate be pursued in accordance with modernity’s penchant for globalism or postmodernity’s proclivity for localism? In his recently released book, Transformation after Lausanne, Dr. Al Tizon seeks to shed light on these questions.

Starting out with an exploration of the missiological thought that emerged in the second half of the twentieth century, Tizon comes to the conclusion that the concept of “mission as transformation” provides the most promising missiological paradigm for our time. He explains that following its introduction at the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization (1974) and its subsequent elaboration at the Wheaton Consultation on the Church’s Response to Human Need (1983), the notion of transformation was seized upon and developed into a full-blown missiology by evangelical thinkers around the world who came to form the Oxford-based International Fellowship of Evangelical Mission Theologians.  

As Tizon views it, the strength of the new missiology lies in its three most salient features. Its first noteworthy characteristic is its kingdom relatedness, which imparts to it an integrative/holistic character, an incarnational thrust, and a special attentiveness to the condition of the poor. Because the kingdom is a transcultural reality, these qualities enjoy a global status. This note of globality leads to the second characteristic of transformational missiology: its intercontextuality. Tizon insists that the globality he is talking about is not homogeneous and unidirectional. For the themes that became integral to the new missiology were not hammered out in one corner of the globe and imposed on the rest for implementation. Rather, they emerged in the process of sustained intercontextual reflection involving thinkers and practitioners from around the globe on the shape of the Missio Dei in their own specific contexts. This is a bottom-up globalization. In fact, much of the book is devoted to showing how transformational missiology has worked in Tizon’s own country—the Philippines.  

Determining what happens once the global missiology is birthed via the interaction of the various local missiologies leads to the third feature of mission as transformation: its glocal character. Tizon is adamant that at all times a dynamic interaction between local and global mission should exist in the form of a continuous interplay or mutual enmeshment. This symbiotic relationship between the two dimensions results in what he terms “glocal missiology,” which is characterized by an ongoing process of cross-cultural dialogue, intercultural interaction, genuine reconciliation between the Western Church and the Majority World Church, and collaborative action. In so doing, glocal missiology sidesteps both unbridled globalism and isolationist localism and enlists the whole Church in the task of taking the whole Church to the whole world.

Clearly, Tizon’s work is a significant contribution to contemporary missiological thought. Its usefulness consists not only in bringing to the attention of the Western Church the thinking of thoughtful spokespersons of the global Church on missiology and missionary engagement, but also in suggesting ways in which the missionary mandate can be pursued in a genuinely holistic fashion in a postcolonial, modern/postmodern era. It is work worth studying.

….

Copyright  © 2009 Evangelism and Missions Information Service (EMIS).  All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from EMIS.

GoToOlder PostNewer PostAll PostsBook ReviewsEMQSectionVolume 45 - Issue 3

Comments are closed.

Subscribe to Our Mailing List

Keep up to date with our community.

Menu

  • Join
  • Directories
  • Events
  • Donate

About

  • Who We Are
  • Statement of Faith
  • Awards
  • Resources

Help

  • Contact Us
  • Terms
  • Cookies Policy

Connect

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Google+

PO Box 398
Wheaton, IL 60187-0398

Phone: 770.457.6677
678.392.4577

© Missio Nexus.
All Rights Reserved.

Membership website powered by MembershipWorks