New Wilmington Mission Conference

Here is the audio of Dr. Scott Sunquists' lecture at the "Changes in Presbyterian Mission" mission lunch. I will post the text as soon as I read it. He continues assinging me reading despite my dropping out of seminary 5 years ago.

Please note this paper is scheduled to be published in the near future. Please respect Dr. Sunquist's copyright.

Presbyterian Mission in a Flat World

An address delivered at the New Wilmington Missionary Conference

25 July, 2006

History is not the story of those who "sense" there is a problem. There are always problems in governments, societies and even in churches. Everyone knows it and everyone complains about it. History is marked by those who have the clarity to see when it is time to act, those who have the ability to communicate why we must act and then those who can then communicate how to act. Very few Presbyterians are pleased with our denomination’s involvement in global mission at the present. Very few people are pleased to know that at one time we had over 2,000 full-time missionaries serving in the world (1959) and now we have less than 240. This is not a matter of theology, ideology or geography (Northern Presbyterian versus Southern Presbyterian). This is a general frustration with the present missional and cultural context in which we find ourselves and our churches. The world’s needs and the Gospel obligation both point to the obligation to move forward with greater, not less, innovation, participation and creativity. This is a time, not for a single prophetic leader to come forward and say, "This is the way." This is the time when all men and women of goodwill, committed to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, hold hands and say, "Come, let’s all move forward together. Step in the river and let’s go to the promised land of mission." By the way, the promised land of mission is a place where Chinese, Koreans, Brazilians, Costa Ricans, Nigerians and Kenyans are already there to greet us and welcome us. Our future in mission is led by our past faithfulness in mission.

You see, mission today is messy, unorganized and powerful. It is like the Holy Spirit of the living God; unpredictable, but powerful and transformative. In the words of New York Times reporter and commentator, Thomas Friedman, the missional world is "flat." All people now have access to participation and innovation in mission. It is not just the number of adherents who are now heavily weighted to the South-thank you, Mr. Philip Jenkins-it is Christian mission that is basically a non-western enterprise with greater participation and access by second and third world Christians.

A few examples will help, but many Presbyterian missionaries could do a much better job than I in illustrating this new missional context. R*** M*** and E*** T*** are doing mission work in Vietnam: a Presbyterian and a Roman Catholic reaching out with the love of Jesus, supporting the work already being done by Vietnamese to reach the Eastern Cham people. Thousands of Chinese are moving out to Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam to plant churches in some of the most difficult missional areas of the world. Last night, at the New Wilmington Missionary Conference, I believe I heard our Presbyterian college students were working with Russian Baptists, evangelizing Unreached People groups in Siberia. I took a group of students to Myanmar where we worked with Baptists and independent Pentecostals. None of our students said, "Where are the Presbyterians?" The Pentecostals have planted over 186 churches in Myanmar and China in the past 15 years. In all of these examples, we are following, supporting and aiding work that is already being done, "in each context." It is all rather, messy, exciting and amazing. As Harold Kurtz has reminded us, "The Gospel is out of control."

The issue is not the continual decline in funding, which tracks along with the loss of hope for recovery of Presbyterian mission. The issue is simply, are we going to receive the new context which God has given us, or are we going to fight against it? Can we break out of old worn patterns (many which have been very good, in the past) and follow the work of God in these new patterns? To get the conversation going I offer two clarifying lenses: two resources to guide us in future missional involvement. The resources are Philippians 4:4-8 and Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat; The Globalized World in the 21st Century.

Paul’s letter to the Philippians is the type of letter we need to be writing to each other today. Recognizing the terrible times and suffering of the Christian in the world, Paul writes a letter of forgiveness ("The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains...18 But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice."); it is a letter of joy and it is a letter of genuine fellowship and partnership in the Gospel. Suffering and joy are held together as are personal witness and personal conduct. Paul is pleased with how God has used him, and yet he is filled with gratitude concerning the faithful service of others, especially the service others have shown him. I would like to pull out a few items from these brief verses in chapter four for our meditation and edification.

First, Paul speaks out of joy. Written as a prison epistle, this is the ultimate letter of joy. We need to stop and rejoice. Nay, we need to go and rejoice; in all we do, in all of our trials and in all of our frustrations we need to rejoice because (and this is my second point), "the Lord is near." This type of joy comes from a converted mind that can let go of all the oppressions, pressures and powers that we can not control. This type of joy is rooted in the grateful realization that God is in control; really, finally and fully. Now my second point, Paul’s little three word statement, (Ο κυριοσ εγγυσ) seems to be stuck in the middle of a whole bunch of imperatives ("rejoice," "be gentle," "don’t be anxious," "pray," "think about such things."). I believe, therefore that the reason for the commands, or better yet, the context for the imperatives is the descriptive: The Lord is near. This is the context for our lives, our attitudes and our witness. Jesus Christ is right here now, so be gentle, rejoice, don’t be so anxious.

My third point here is a matter of spirituality, a spirituality that will feed and frame our missional participation. I pray for myself, and also for all of us in missional involvement that we would be gentle, we would let go of our anxieties, we would ask God (with thanksgiving) for requests; that our hearts and minds would be guarded and shaped by the "peace of God" (God’s Shalom). Finally, how wonderful it would be if we could all be preoccupied with thoughts of "...whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy..." When I think of what is praiseworthy, for example, I can’t help to think of Jesus Christ and the joy he has brought to so many Christian friends in Asia who are converts. When I think of what is admirable, I can not help but think of the faithful witness of Christians in Myanmar and Indonesia, being faithful in the midst of persecution, tsunamis, oppressions and economic decline. Such spirituality-a spirituality that living in the world, rises above the human struggles-this is what draws others to Christ, brings answers to the Lord’s prayer ("thy Kingdom come...") and makes partnership in mission both possible and inviting. Christian conduct communicates Christ to others. Mission is really about Christian spirituality.

My second resource that I have found helpful in thinking about the future of Presbyterian mission comes from a Jewish op-ed columnist for the New York Times, Thomas Friedman. Friedman is a three time Pulitzer Prize winning author and an astute observer of the global situation. His book, The World is Flat: The Globalized World in the 21st Century came out in 2005 and a revised edition came out in 2006. Friedman is a type of modern social historian. He is not a prophet or else he would have written this book 30 years ago. He did not predict what has happened in the world and neither did anyone else. Not only is Friedman not a prophet, neither is he a Christian nor a missiologist. Nonetheless, just as Plato was used by the early church, just as Aristotle brought religious renewal in the high middle ages, just as a rediscovery of Paul and Patristics helped to fire the Reformation (with the help of an early world flattener: moveable type), so we need to pay attention to the new global world which is much flatter than when any of us began our missional journey.

Friedman describes ten world flatteners of which I would like to focus on but a few. I will then make a few final observations and then raise some key questions for all Presbyterians concerned about God’s mission. The flat world he describes is not contrasted with the round world, but with the modern, enlightenment hierarchical world. The main thesis of Friedman’s book is that "the old hierarchies are being flattened; that the playing field is being leveled and that people who understand this transformation can wield more power than ever." (p.47) Let me translate this to missiological language. I will only do this a few times, however. The rest of this talk I will simply summarize Friedman’s observations and leave it to you to draw your missional conclusions, to do the translation. Here is how we can understand the book’s thesis missiologically:

The old-line churches are being flattened and the global church is now the Church of the non-western world. This is where the power and creativity in mission is to be found. People and institutions who understand this can provide even more leadership than ever!

Let me describe four of the ten "flatteners" and then you can read the book yourself to find out about other global changes that should change the way we think about and participate in world mission.

• 11/9/89: "The New Age of Creativity: When the Walls came down and the Windows Went up." The Berlin wall fell on 11/9. Friedman says, "I realized that the ordinary men and women of East Germany, peacefully and persistently had taken maters into their own hands. This was ‘their revolution.’" (p. 51) "It tipped the balance of power across the world toward those advocating democratic, consensual, free-market-oriented governance, and away form those advocating authoritarian rule with centrally planned economies." This meant greater freedom, more contact "across borders" and it paved the way for common standards. It must be repeated because as Americans we seldom appreciate the transformation that 11/9 began. Openness, freedom and more democratic possibilities were created first in Eastern Europe and then in all of the former Soviet countries, then in China and now in Vietnam, Laos and other countries. The second part of this flattener was "Windows" from Microsoft. The 3.0 series was a major breakthrough which bridged people and machines as never before. As Friedman notes, "The rise of the Windows-enabled PC (shipped on May 22, 1990) combined with the fall of the Wall, set in motion the whole flattening process." The world became much flatter between November, 1989 and June of 1990.
• 8/9/95: "The New Age of connectivity: When the Web went Around and Netscape Went Public" Brit "Tim Berners-Lee posted the first Web site on Aug. 6, 1991 to foster a computer network that would enable scientists to share their research more easily." (p. 59) As Friedman notes, "He designed it and he fought to keep it open, nonproprietary and free." What made this even more valuable and freely accessible was the development of Netscape (went public Aug. 9, 1995); a way to search and find information across the various web sites. This innovation opened up the portal to information to all people in the world as never before. The openness of this new world of information (as we remember that knowledge is power), gave power to common people like you and like me, as never before. "Open, nonproprietary and free:" this was truly revolutionary in the history of knowledge. Remember, the first web site was put up just 15 years ago. I have checked about a dozen sites to confirm information in the past hour.
• Work flow Software Animation today is produced through a global supply chain, not by a bunch of techno-artists in a Disney studio. Work flow software made it possible for people all over the world (in Starbucks, my home, a factory or an internet café in Timbuktu) to add on ideas, concepts or to make critical decisions. For example, SMTP (or "simple mail transfer protocol") enabled the exchange of e-mail messages between heterogeneous computer systems. (p. 80). We can all connect directly! By 1999 new global standards were built upon other standards: HTML, HTTP, TCP/IP XML and SOAP ("simple object access protocol"). As a result "...once a standard takes hold, people start to focus on the quality of what they are doing as opposed to how they are doing it. In other words, once everyone could connect with everyone else, they got busy on the real value add...to enhance collaboration, innovation and creativity." This is very important. Once standards are set and universally accessible, people are freed up to do new and innovative things.
  
  When eBay decided to use "PayPal" rather than develop their own inferior paying system they were listening to their customers say, "Would you guys quit fighting? We want a standard-and by the way, we have picked the standard and it’s called PaypPal."(p. 86) "Standards don’t stop innovation...they just clear away a lot of extraneous stuff so you can focus on what really matters." What this also means is that the standards (Remember the fallen wall?) were set by common people, not by professionals getting paid a lot of money to make important decisions. The right people were making the decisions (the customers) and the big business folks let them. Both became winners.
  
  Please pardon me while I make some direct translation to our missionary activity. When it comes to Presbyterian missional work, we have many standards in place, but we need to have a "work flow software" mentality that would allow us all to work together and to listen together. Worldwide Ministries Division (WMD) can be and should be the "clearing house" for the standards, values and strategies of Presbyterian-Ecumenical mission. But their job, like eBay, is to free up "the People" to be more effective; to have more power and control of their work.
  
  "The virtual company is here-and it is going to be very disruptive because it is going to give small and medium-size businesses access to some of the powerful work-flow tools that a few years ago only big companies could afford." We might add that Mission agencies are also proliferating and have much greater access to participation thanks to the flattening of the world: "As more and more of us learn how to collaborate in these new and different ways, we are steadily flattening the world even more." (p. 92) The key in the computer generated world flattening is global collaboration. Remember this, please.
• Uploading: Harnessing the Power of Communities Friedman notes that the "great shift from audience to participants" occurred with the new freedom of people to add or contribute directly. ( p. 95) It is remarkable to note that the underlying web server for e-commerce software is a global community built software (share-ware) known as "Apache." A big company did not develop the key, foundational software for e-commerce. What an irony this is. With uploading technologies, middlemen, large corporations and large institutions are cut out of the process as people directly share ideas and move forward. This has produced "Wikipedia, podcasting and blogging" (all of which are not in my spell-check yet!). Friedman is very clear: "This is making each of these things (mentioned above) a bottom-up and globally side-to-side phenomenon, not exclusively a top-down one. This is now true inside traditional companies and institutions as well as outside them. Uploading is, without doubt, becoming one of the most revolutionary forms of collaboration in the flat world. More than ever, we can all now be producers, not just consumers." (p. 94f)
  
  Please listen carefully as I give an important warning: this does not mean that "traditional companies and institutions" are not necessary, just that they have to work according to different patterns; I would argue that these are patterns that are more Protestant (democratic) or community orientated. People (read "lay people," "local churches" and "presbyteries") can build and feed information like never before, creating "thick descriptions" of missionary work, activities and global needs. But this is not just "power to the people." Listen to what happened: IBM, the large corporate institution, found out that the Apache guys (young 20 something geeks) were doing something better than IBM’s six-figure professional techies could do. They did not try to silence them or buy them out. IBM contacted them and backed the Apache team with money, structure and they became part of the community. (p. 102) Thus, IBM avoided getting "flamed" by the internet and learned to work with young collaborators who worked with open-source programming that was offered for free! This is the important warning we need to remember. The collaboration between free-agents and corporate structures creates the best context for business and, I might suggest, mission.
  
  Friedman reminds us that "The Apache collaborators did not set out to make free software. They set out to solve a common problem (web serving) and found that collaborating for free in this open-source manner was he best way to assemble the best brains for the job they needed....It is something like a pure meritocracy; only the best survive and are promoted." Yes, meritocracy trumps bureaucracy in this flat world in which we live. What is the best idea and those who are the most excellent workers are promoted, not because of position, but because of the merit of their work.
  
  "The open-source movement has become a powerful flattener, the effects of which we are just beginning to see. It is incredibly empowering of individuals." (p. 105).
  
  "The old model is winner take all: I wrote it, I own it-the standard software license model. The only way to compete against that is to all become winners;" all contributing to the excellence of the system. Again, I would hope that this would be the basic concern and goal in our churches and in our denomination, that we move away from the privatized and possessive to the communal and common.
  
  Of particular importance for our missional thinking I believe are the following two sentences: "We are now seeing venture capitalists actually funding open-source start-ups." (p. 107). These "blended models" are probably the future. Those who may be tempted to resist the flattening and hold fast to hierarchical control, as well as those who relish the idea of the democratic and flat world need to rethink things. The future is with those who can develop a blended model. "For a complex software platform to be sustainable-that is, to be constantly freshened, debugged, and improved-there has to be an economy around it..." I would add that you need structure, continuity and tradition (like a skeleton or a scaffold) to keep innovation and creativity standing. Yes, blended models of collective or community based innovation and corporate structures are the future of the internet, of e-commerce and of global mission.
  
  Friedman has six other flatteners, all of which we need to know about. I would like to note for this paper that a theme throughout all of these ten flatteners is the new place of China and India in all of this flattening process. In fact, these new players who are empowered by the flat world, and who are leading in innovation, require that we take a different role in global mission. We need to follow. As Chinese are perfecting and refining their production and business capabilities, and as Indians are sharpening their technological abilities, they are leaving us in the dust in the area of missional leadership. In the area of Christian mission, we could add to this list the Brazilians, Mexicans, Senegalese, Cambodians, Indonesians, and the list goes on. This does not mean we are irrelevant to Christian mission today, but it does mean that we have a new role to play and that role will be different in each context.

At this point I will give three types of gentle pointers for future discussions and decisions. First, I suggest some "needs" that we have. Then I will illustrate what some other mainline churches have done. Finally, I will suggest some questions that need to be answered.

• Need for innovation in vision and structures: Harold Kurtz, founding director of the Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship is right in that there must be specific sodalities (plural: missions) working with the umbrella modality (church) for mission to flourish. Harold, of course is quoting another great Presbyterian pioneer, Ralph Winter. Cody Watson (in his DMin thesis), David Dawson (in his article on mission finances) and Harold Kurtz have all said it well; we were better at the sodality idea until the 1920s when we became corporate and modernist in our approach. Before then we cooperated better with other missions (ABCFM, China Inland Mission, etc.) and we even had our own women’s mission societies with women running the whole program. Innovation in mission structures will require some humble and sanctified memory, along with forward looking and creative new ideas.
• Need for trust among various actors: True partnerships and cooperation as Friedman noted required that the various players trust and encourage each other. It is necessary that we build this trust not on human assessment, but on the spirituality spoken of in the section on Philippians. "The Lord is near." I have no need to control or receive credit for the great work that is going to be done, for it is the Lord’s work from start to finish. Therefore I can trust and encourage others (while praying my knees raw) that both they and I will "bear in our bodies the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus might be revealed" to the world. One final note about trust: Trust is built on a commonly held culture of values and goals. Therefore trust will be built as we do our theology well and as we keep Jesus Christ in the center.
• Need to share all results, new ideas and new needs that we discover: The major breakthroughs in communication and business have come about through collaborative and open sharing. The same will be necessary in our new "missional web" structure. For too long we have had "authorities" who had protected information and insights. They generally get worked to death. It will now be necessary that anyone who has the time and motivation can become an "authority" on missionary activity in Ethiopia or Indonesia. This will not happen however, unless there is an open sharing of ideas.
• Need for creative new endeavors and partnerships to be developed: I believe that the new partnerships will at least involve a "hub and spokes" model. What I mean by this is that many different partnerships will continue to develop, but these direct partnerships and creative linkages will be built around the denominational center. The new structure which replaces the WMD should be the hub. This is not a "mission central," or "headquarters" idea, but a hub. A hub keeps things centered, but its function is limited. The spokes actually hold everything together and the spokes actually go out from the center and touch the rim. I want us to remember the model of "Apache" and IBM (pp 93ff). IBM was not threatened by the success of Apache and neither should WMD be threatened or jealous of the good work of direct presbytery involvement in mission, or new mission societies. All will benefit from staying connected, sharing information and finding out what they can do best to contribute to what is "true, noble, right, pure," et cetera. The spokes need to stay connected and this will help in keeping a balance and centeredness to our missionary work.

Roman Catholic orders: The Roman Catholic Church does mission with great plurality and strong centeredness. Some missions have particular "charisms" for work with education or for work with the poor, or to care for children. Some societies were founded to battle heresies and to extend the preaching to new areas (Dominicans). All of the societies, however were started by prophets, missionaries and evangelists with specific "charisms" to guide their work. Rome also started its own missionary society, but it is one of many. As I write this I wonder if, in the upcoming years, we can encourage our "prophets, missionaries and evangelists" to go and do likewise?

The Mission Society of the United Methodists was founded in 1984 to supplement the work of the Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church. Their work tends to be more evangelical in outlook, but their ministries are quite varied. More than anything else the founding of the "Mission Society" has meant that Methodist mission has turned around the decline in global participation. There are now about 180 missionaries serving (or on furlough) with this mission society. By the way, this group has a great mission website and they have hired Darrell L. Whiteman as their Vice President and resident missiologist: http://www.msum.org/go/longhistory

The Episcopal Church Mission Community was founded in1974 and has recently changed its name to "New Wineskins Missionary Network." The change in name, I believe is significant: it signals that this is a new structure and they are moving beyond be a single alternative mission. They are a new type of Episcopal mission hub. "God has given ECMC the privilege of assisting with the founding of the South American Missionary Society, Anglican Frontier Missions, the Stanway Institute for World Mission and Evangelism, and Anglican Global Mission Partners, as well as Yavatmal College for Leadership Training in India and the India Graduate School of Missiology." [From NWMN website]. Thus, the "Network" includes both mission societies and education for mission. Working at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, with our World Mission Initiative, I am very attracted to this idea!

The Association of Lutheran Mission Agencies was founded in 1996 with ten agencies. "From its beginning in 1996 with less than 10 mission agencies, ALMA now includes approximately 75 different mission groups representing a variety of specialties, people groups and geographic focuses. For example, there are groups that focus on outreach and ministry to children and agricultural services. There are groups that focus on outreach to Jewish people, Muslim people in Central Asia and American Indian people. Some groups concentrate their efforts in Latin America and others in Africa or Asia." (From ALMA website) I find it interesting that one of the main buttons on the web site is "How to start a new mission society:" http://www.alma-online.org/ Once again, the Lutherans have started many new societies, and encourage more to do so.

My point is not that we have to do what others have done. We better not. These were all started before the world became flat, and my point is that we have to make revolutionary changes (not careful restructurings) that are built upon the real flat world, not our old pre-flat reality. We have the advantage of seeing how some others have made some advances, have made some mistakes and we can now talk to their leaders. I think we can do better than they have done.

In all of these new designs there is one overwhelming concern for many of us: Money matters. My boss, Bill Carl knows this well and I pray that God will give him great success in raising more money for our seminary. And yet, I believe, and I think my boss will agree, that it is wrong to start with the wrong assumption about money. I have heard many people say that there is only a finite amount of money and therefore if one person or organization gets a certain amount, then other individuals will get less. Money is like a pie; we all are fighting to get the biggest piece. I am a teacher and I find that students often think the same way about getting good grades. "There are only so many A grades to go around. So if you get an A, there is less of a chance that I will get an A." In fact it works quite differently. Money follows ideas and trust. When both are of a high quality, the money will follow. When either or both are weak, mission becomes much more a matter of squeezing money out of people rather than about creatively moving into God’s missional future. We have seen this with the start of the World Mission Initiative at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. More people have been giving to the seminary and we have had more students come with a more focused sense of calling to mission. Money follows ideas and trust.

• Is it possible to harness the flattening agents to develop a more "flat" mission: a missional capability that shares openly, cooperates globally and fosters dynamic and ongoing creativity?
• How do we now promote Presbyterian mission that recognizes the flat (mostly) non-western mission of God in the world?
• Can we follow other mainline churches in multiple sending agencies, but do better in building mutual trust and coordination that allows for ongoing adjustments as with "work-flow software?"
• How do we develop a new missional direction that reflects more of a meritocracy than a bureaucracy, more open sharing than central planning, and more cooperation and trust than competition?
• When so many of our Presbyterian friends are disillusioned and tired, how do we help to unleash the energy, confidence and creativity in our young people, our church leaders and our lay people to "come on board" to God’s global mission?

I believe the answers to these questions are not that complex. As Friedman observes about computer software; the future is about collaboration, communities and blended models. As Mao Tse Tung said, "Let a hundred flowers bloom, let one hundred schools of thought contend." But, Mao used this as a trap to encourage others to come up with ideas, so that he could identify them and then take them out (1958 speech). Mao didn’t like the new flowers, so he cut them down. We need many flowers and the job of leaders is not to plant them and build greenhouses, but to till the soil and provide an environment for growth to the glory of the Triune God.

More to come.

S.W. Sunquist, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary

25 July, 2006

© 2006 Dr. Scott Sunquist, All Rights Reserved.

Here are my responses to the 5 questions for consideration Scott raises.  His thoughts hit close to home for me since I've been building information systems and internal websites for more than 5 years now.  I'd love to hear people's reactions to them.  They're raw as I responded in emails to my father (Don Dawson) and Scott Sunquist.  I may revise them if I am convinced I should start a blog for this site on this topic.  I should probably also note my Uncle Dave is Dave Dawson for those who know him.  Please also understand the great respect I have for these leaders as I trid to call them to action.

1.       Is it possible to harness the flattening agents to develop a more "flat" mission: a missional capability that shares openly, cooperates globally and fosters dynamic and ongoing creativity?

Yes, but the challenge is in creating trust through the internet.  People such as yourselves who are essential hubs in the mission network need to become well educated advocates of secure methods of communicating and establishing trust online.  The secondary challenge is that we still need to develop these methods.  One example is as simple as creating an exhaustive list of censored words for the NWMC website and an effective method of conveying their basic meaning such as with E*** and R*** above.  Once a list is established, it can easily be shared with other sites, especially those using community server.  Doing this and ensuring no person or place ever appears on the site inappropriately, even while discussing them, is one of the biggest steps that can be taken.

2.       How do we now promote Presbyterian mission that recognizes the flat (mostly) non-western mission of God in the world?

Blog.  It’s quick, it’s simple, it’s instant worldwide publication to the most accessible collection of information in the history of the world.  Do it regularly, giving your contacts valuable exposure.  Discuss your networking with the world, don’t hold it back.  Lead by example and reward those you come in contact with by sharing the good news of their work with the world.  Great ideas will be discovered, rewarded and supported.  It doesn’t have to be anything beautiful, just check out the Chatter blog (http://nwmcmission.org/blogs/the_chatter/default.aspx.  It’s not what I envisioned, but it’s the best use of a blog on the site so far.  It’s open about how the process has gone about and makes it much more human, creating the best opportunity for generating true grassroots support.  Open blogs like this are excellent at creating trust.  Let me record the NWMC web statistics if we create a Summer Service 2007 blog, using it as a platform to make all of the announcements about this upcoming year and having the youth blog about their experiences before, during and after.  Trust me, it will be amazing.  I also think we should consider talking to Nolan P about blogging through discerning whatever call he’s feeling and wherever he goes.

3.       Can we follow other mainline churches in multiple sending agencies, but do better in building mutual trust and coordination that allows for ongoing adjustments as with "work-flow software?"

I partially answered the trust issue in #1, but happened to have a conversation with Harold Kurtz along these lines.  He suggested the possibility of having as shared PFF blog on the NWMC website.  If we could get each of the main sending and supporting organizations to have a blog, we could create a Presbyterian mission network hub and realize the power of agglomeration economies even more powerfully than car dealerships!  We’re trying to get the forums going for the discussions, but they can happen on blogs through comments just as well.  Check out the blog post announcing this year’s speakers (http://nwmcmission.org/blogs/announcements/archive/2006/07/08/62.aspx).  Although this isn’t the typical business definition of “work-flow” software, it fits the one described in your article.

4.    How do we develop a new missional direction that reflects more of a meritocracy than a bureaucracy, more open sharing than central planning, and more cooperation and trust than competition?

Blogging about people with good ideas levels the playing field.  You link to other good ideas online, using your post as a vote of support, expressing support and trust for the idea.  Links give people credit for their actions and ideas (that's what Google does).  Visitors can then judge the merits of each and offer support as they see fit.  Trust is created through openness about how decisions are made and by giving others credit for what is theirs.  While there isn’t a centralized location other than the internet, I strongly believe NWMCMission.org can become that networking hub you speak of.  We just need to convince key networkers such as yourselves, Uncle Dave, PFF, etc. to actively participate there.  Missionaries will follow because they have to.
 
5.    When so many of our Presbyterian friends are disillusioned and tired, how do we help to unleash the energy, confidence and creativity in our young people, our church leaders and our lay people to "come on board" to God’s global mission?

Go online and look at the website.  Everyone there is young.  They’re the ones with the time, who know and enjoy the technology.  What we need is established leadership to continue offering direction, taking advantage of the new medium.  Provide opportunities for youth to express their creativity and encourage the growth instead of chopping down different ideas through top-down leadership.  It’s a little risky.  Dad, I can’t imagine you’re overly thrilled about your emails being posted on the Chatter blog.  I don’t blame you.  It does push the limits, but a willingness to explain the struggles goes miles with youth.  You have seen the many attempts to direct them.  They want opportunities for the seeds God has planted in them to grow and bear fruit.  Give the summer service team a blog.  Use it as the first place for all annoucements.  Get the team blogging as soon as it is chosen.  Keep them blogging through the trip, at the conference and into the fall.  I promise that single effort will be more fruitful than all our web efforts this far.  It will then feed church leaders and lay people, lighting them on fire.  Just look at the time I’ve loved putting into all this for much less.
 
A couple notes about blogs:

• Blogs posts are not finished papers.  I’ll probably revise these responses a little, but that’s only because I am that controlling person youth tend to resist.
• Posts don’t have to been revolutionary ideas.  They just need to have meaningful content and be added to somewhat regularly (weekly at the least).
• I expect many of your normal communications (ie emails - like this) can quickly be transformed into blog posts.  From then on, you can link to the post the next time someone requests it.
• Just do it.  I didn’t see it in the text, but Scott spoke of the crippling power of indecision.  The sooner you and other church leaders embrace this technology, the sooner we’ll reap the fruit.
   

Thanks for reading my rambling thoughts.  I look forward to both of your responses.

This post isn't seeing much activity but should be getting much more attention. To lead by example, let me throw my ideas into the mix. First, I hear the response of whodurun4 and that response sounds like this: "Blog". Each questions proposed by Prof. Sunquist is answered with some sort of "blog" response with the exception of the first which was answered with an internet security protocol and standards response. But the answer to the second, 'blog'. To the third, a multi-lateral blog. To the fourth, blogging to raise awareness. To the fifth, blogging a mission trip start to finish.

 Yeah, blogs are fun and informative and can be a great way to share ideas. But just because the world is "flat" doesn't mean that everyone is sitting at a computer reading blogs. How will you attract readers to your blogs? Will you have other bloggers mention you? The frontier of missions and missions awareness is not on the computer - it's in peoples lives. Blogging can be a tool but even then, it is a tool used only by those with computers, who know how to find it, and care enough to read it.

 I do agree with Prof Sunquist that the world is getting flatter. Information sharing, uploading, cross-platform open-source multi-content is making the world a much flatter place but I propose that it is doing most of that flattening in the Western World. Europe is flatter and North America is flatter but can we really talk about side-by-side missions connectivity with the African church? African pastors often lack the reference books they need to prepare sermons. Can we begin side-by-side missions work with the house church in China when persecution is still a live concern?

But perhaps I am generalizing Prof. Sunquists comments too greatly. I don't have answers for all of the questions posed. I do believe that if the Presbyterian Church is to revitalize its missions it will have to do it from the bottom up. Just as African churches are growing at leaps and bounds despite being on the 'under-side' of the world, of power, and of Western "progress" so too the PCUSA must revitalize its missions from the underside. That means local churches taking an active role in missions rather than writing checks and letting Louisville do all the work - a work which they are no longer equipped and scarcely willing to do. If churches are going to get involved, they are going to need help. That is where I see the benefits of a flat world coming to bear. We need to use the flat world to convey information from missionaries to sending organizations to churches so that the churches can then be more informed about the unreached people groups in the world. Then we will have to pray for an IBM/Apache relationship to occur in which churches can independently send their own missionaries and mission teams as well as aid the missions organizations. This usage of the flat world involves more than person-to-person communication or blog entries. It involves global information gathering, resource sharing, translation cooperatives, and secure strategy transmission.

Remember what Prof Sunquist said about the pie: it isn't as though there is a single pie and only so many pieces to go around. If the church gets the zeal for missions, there will be plenty to provide for missions organizations, missionaries, and maybe even some for Louisville. But we need to think not in terms of reallocating slices of a single pie, but in realizing that the church is standing in the kitchen - and it's time to start cooking.

I agree that this thread hasn't gotten enough attention and that my response of blog, blog, blog is overly simple.  I just really wanted to emphasize how easy it is to get online and explain why blogging has become the phenomenon it is (even if it is getting somewhat old).  I still find it difficult to find regularly updated mission information of good quality.  After a week, I still haven't been able to get a final response from the PCUSA about publishing their RSS feed of mission letters on this site.  We've had a hard time getting missionaries to blog on the site because of the security concerns you mention, but there are many who don't have those concerns.  I envision missionaries telling their supporters they could stay in touch through the web and think blogs are the easiest way to do it.  Increasing feedback to supporters can only encourage more support and increase the size of the pie.

You are entirely correct about blogs and technology.  They are just tools, but they are tools that can affect people's lives and extend.  Lives matter, not blogs.  I'm just a web developer, so I'm passionate about how the web can be used as a tool.

I wonder if we could find a way to address the knowledge issue through Pittsburgh Theological Seminary where Dr. Sunquist works.  My father (Don Dawson) also has a lot connections through the World Mission Initiative which is based there.  Could we possibly get professors to publish their works online in a protected environment where we grant these workers log-on privileges?

I see that being another question that runs into the issue of securely sharing information, needs and resources.  How do we know people are who they say they are and how do we know who to allow to see things?  There are some new technologies (such as Information Cards/CardSpaces) I think can help solve the problem. I'm trying to learn more about them and will share on my blog when I feel I understand them reasonably.

I'm not a missionary nor am I a mission expert, so here are some questions.  What information is important to gather?  I've seen it as stories, testimonies, prayer requests, resource requests and sharing opportunities.  How would we ideally share needs and opportunities if security wasn't an issue?  How would these tools be used to impact peoples lives?

Thanks for kick-starting the conversation,

Andrew