Search Phrase = Publications
Keywords: Conference
Annual Conference
Keywords: ASM, American Society of Missiology, podcast, postcast series, Overseas Ministries Study Center, Andrew Walls, Ian Douglas, Jay Moon, Mary Mikhael, Ruth Padilla
ASM, American Society of Missiology, podcast, postcast series, Overseas Ministries Study Center, Andrew Walls, Ian Douglas, Jay Moon, Mary Mikhael, Ruth Padilla
American Society of Missiology is proud to collaborate with the Overseas Ministries Study Center of New Haven, Connecticut, in making available in our inaugural podcast series these fine lectures by leading scholars on a variety of missiological topics. Suggestions for future podcast series may be emailed to Publications@gmail.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">asmwebPublications@gmail.com. We are very grateful to Dr. Michael L. Sweeney for producing this podcast in collaboration with the ASM's Board of Publications. We hope it is just the first podcast series of many to come!
Click the play button below each title:
1. Andrew Walls_First African Diaspora and Its Mission to Africa
2. Andrew Walls_The Christian Chapter in the History of African Religion
3. Ian Douglas_The Church as Missionary Society
4. Jay Moon_Orality and Scripture Use
5. Mary Mikhael_Arab Spring and Christians of the Middle East
6. Ruth Padilla Deborst_Faith and Life
(adapted from January 2020 IBMR Editorial)
Leaning into the convergence of past and future has been a perennial source of reform and renewal for the church's mission, theology, and institutional life. This enduring tension at the heart of Christian faith is captured well by the New Testament word kairos, which means both an opportune moment and a time of crisis.
The present kairos for OMSC invites us to embrace a known past and an unknown future, calling on the wisdom embodied by our institutional legacy while welcoming God's new and ever-hopeful future as we prepare for the move to Princeton Theological Seminary (PTS) in July, 2020 and the celebration of our centenary in 2022. I have been thinking that this moment calls for a clear sense of identity and a discerning and playful sense of joyful expectation.
Of course, we won't know the full implications of this kairos until after we have settled into our new home at PTS, but here are three of the procedural, programmatic, and pedagogical innovations on the horizon:
1. Application process. In place of our former practice of rolling admissions, we launched a new online application that opened on October 1 and closed on December 31, 2019 (for more information and link to online application, go to https://www.omsc.org/information-for-prospective-residents). Applicants for the 2020-21 academic year will be notified of our decision on Friday, February 14, 2020. This revised application process will allow time for us to tailor the content of seminars for the coming academic year to better suit the needs and interests of our incoming program participants.
2. Research and writing project. In light of Princeton's rich research environment and the expanded opportunities for interaction with faculty, seminarians, and others, all OMSC program participants will be required to pursue a practical or academic research and writing project in English that is relevant to their academic interests and ministry contexts. The new application for residency will include a proposal for this project. Given this new requirement, each yearlong program participant will also be asked to lead two morning seminars, one in the fall and one in the spring semester. In these seminars, they will present their work in progress and engage in dialogue with OMSC professional staff and other program participants, PTS faculty and students, and members of the broader community. Some of the best work each year may be selected for the IBMR or other OMSC Publications.
3. Pedagogical strategy and outcomes. Concerning the shape of the Study Program, we do not plan to eliminate the excellent OMSC tradition of seminars facilitated by invited scholars and teachers, but we will resituate those seminars within a participant-centered pedagogical strategy that leads to the production of concrete outputs, such as books, articles, essays, op-eds, interviews, artwork, poetry, music, and so forth, which we will share with individuals, churches, and foundations who support our mission. Since each program participant will be pursuing a research and writing project on a particular topic, we plan to invite scholars from topic-relevant fields who will offer either a seminar with three morning sessions or two ninety-minute lectures for the whole group and others. We will also ask these invited scholars to give individual time to helping guide our participants' research and writing projects. While pursuing their own projects, program participants will commit in advance to attending all the OMSC-sponsored seminars and lectures. At PTS we will have the technological facility to offer some OMSC-sponsored seminars, lectures, and interviews as webinars and/or podcasts, thereby expanding our global impact.
We know that such an ambitious plan will require careful planning, execution, and management, but I believe we have a responsibility to strengthen our impact by sharing the concrete fruits of a season at OMSC with those in churches here in the United States and elsewhere who are committed to engaging in God's mission.
Postscript for ASM Colleagues: OMSC's Study Program was originally launched in 1967 as a continuing education opportunity for North American missionaries. Since taking on this responsibility in 2016, we have not hosted a single North American missionary in our program. Instead, we have had the privilege of welcoming African, Asian, and Latin American church leaders, scholars, and missionaries. Given this dramatic shift, we are being challenged to redesign our Study Program to serve the needs of these leaders and, through the two-way pedagogy gestured at above, to listen to what the Spirit may be saying through them. I want to thank the members of the ASM for your continued support, advice, and prayers as we move into God's ever-hopeful future.
With thanks and blessings,
Rev. Thomas John Hastings, PhD
OMSC Executive Director
IBMR Editor
Many of us who have devoted our lives to boundary-crossing ministries know well the gnawing feeling that, despite our good intensions, our work may actually be doing more harm than good-or, at least, doing more harm than we realize. Confessing this out loud can be scary; we risk damaging relationships, losing funding, and even being exiled from our home church communities when we earnestly seek to identify and repent of ugly truths about ourselves. And yet, it is through the continual process of soul searching and repentance that we draw closer to God and one another, becoming more fruitful disciples of Christ.
In recent years, an increasing number of folks with decades of ministry and anti-poverty work experience have boldly spoken their constructive criticisms and been heard. Books such as When Helping Hurts and Toxic Charity have made it onto mainstream bestseller lists and are joined by a chorus of similarly themed Publications. And yet, these introductory texts barely scratch the surface of the deeper more painful issues that must be addressed-issues that sit at the intersection of vanity, racism, power imbalances, trauma, exploitation, hero-complexes, and alienation. If we are truly serious about a life of discipleship, of accompanying the vulnerable among us, bandaging the wounded, and announcing Good News to the poor and oppressed, we must be vigilant in our efforts to know ourselves better, be honest about our wounds and complicity in the world's problems, and seek out and shatter every golden calf we were taught to adore-even if it means parting ways with beloved church mission practices and traditions.
It was with this resolve that I entered into my doctoral research. As a second-generation missiologist pastor committed to standing in solidarity with The United Methodist Church (UMC) in the DR Congo, I wanted to analyze and learn from the mistakes I had made over the years, understand the myriad of invisible dynamics at play that had caused these stumbles, find out what work I needed to do on myself, and share my findings with others. This quest took me on a long and emotionally grueling journey, and my findings eventually took the form of a book that was selected in 2019 for inclusion in the American Society of Missiology's Monograph Series: Decolonizing Mission Partnerships: Evolving Collaboration between United Methodists in North Katanga and the United States of America.
While examining the history and recent shifts of relational dynamics between American and Congolese United Methodists in the North Katanga Conference (DR Congo), Decolonizing Mission Partnerships explores how colonial partnerships can be transformed into healthy boundary-crossing ministry partnerships. While much of the book's content is specific to the context of The UMC in North Katanga and its relationship with (primarily White) Americans, it sets up a conceptual framework through which one can analyze other missional collaborations in postcolonial contexts. Every postcolonial or cross-racial missional collaboration must wrestle with the legacies of colonialism, racism, and unhealed trauma. If they don't, those legacies will undermine their efforts, carrying that pain, shame, and harm into the next generation.
My prayer is that my book will serve as a useful tool for those seeking to create Christ-filled legacies of healing and atonement. If after reading it you would like to continue the conversation together, I would love to hear from you. I can be reached at [email protected] or on WhatsApp at +1-317-408-5036.
Praise for Decolonizing Mission Partnerships:
"Taylor Denyer's research on the dimensions of one colonized partnership-and what it would take to decolonize it-presents an informative case study and a compelling challenge. Her skillful integration of several academic conversations into a single missiological framework provides a helpful model for further reflection on transforming mission partnerships. This hope-giving study embodies an ethos of deep listening and vulnerable self-criticism coupled with a determined personal commitment to work for change." - Johannes (Klippies) Kritzinger, Professor Emeritus of Missiology, University of South Africa
"Taylor Walters Denyer takes an important topic-the missional relationships between large groups of United Methodists from the North Katanga region of the Democratic Republic of Congo and from the United States-and analyzes it through a refreshingly wide variety of critical lenses. In so doing, she lifts up important Congolese voices, and adds her own unique voice, developed through close personal connections to the Katanga region about which she so knowledgeably and passionately writes." - Dr. David W. Scott, Consultant, Office of the General Secretary, General Board of Global Ministries, The United Methodist Church
"Decolonizing Mission Partnerships is a book that should lead us into redefining what it means to be a church engaged in God's mission. Structures and systems that support mission are called to reevaluate themselves through the lenses of the perspective and experiences that Rev. Denyer presents to us. I appeal local churches to reflect on the book." - The Rev. Dr. Mande Muyombo, United Methodist Bishop over the North Katanga Episcopal Area