Third Wave Mission (Part 1 of 3)

Training for the Third Wave of Mission: A Catholic Perspective

Co-Presenters: Dr. Mike Gable, Director of Mission Office, Archdiocese of Cincinnati, and Mike Haasl, Center for Mission, Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis

The Third Wave of Mission (parish and diocesan partnerships, short-term mission trips) has increasingly been a part of the U.S. Christian mission landscape for the past 30 years. Pope Francis’s recent teachings, particularly in his Evangelii Gaudium, has given further impetus to Catholics to express their faith through its “missionary option” and specifically notes the local church (parish/diocese) as one place to locate that engagement. While earlier waves of mission included careful preparation of missionaries, formation for missionaries going out in the Third Wave of Mission has been haphazard and often fails to account for updated spiritualities of mission, Catholic Social Teaching, and the learnings from previous waves. This paper will explore preparation for mission in the Third Wave and share a new set of training tools (being developed by a group of missionaries and Third Wave practitioners) for leaders to prepare “missionaries of the Third Wave.” We will further explore whether and how this mode of mission has moved Third Wave returnees towards ongoing engagement in practices of justice, peace and inter-religious dialogue. We invite response and dialogue with other ASM participants.

Patterns for Third Wave Mission Partnerships

David Dawson

Robert Schreiter’s description of Third Wave Mission (lay involvement, sister-church partnerships, short-term mission trips) opens the question of emerging patterns that may serve the world Christian community. I propose to outline in this paper some emerging patterns that might respond to Schreiter’s question “how do we engage and challenge our dioceses and local churches to become missionary themselves.”

For the past 33 years I have been deeply involved in facilitating “third wave” relationships with four presbyteries (regional denominational structures, e.g., judicatories, synods, conferences, dioceses) in the Presbyterian Church (USA). This paper will introduce three emerging patterns with which I have been acquainted and involved:

  1. an 18-year US presbytery partnership with the Sudan Presbyterian Evangelical Church.
  2. an 18-year relationship between three PC(USA) congregations and a congregation in the Dominican Republic.
  3. a 11-year relationship between a student organization at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and a denomination in southeast Asia which has initiated a relationship with an unreached people group.

The importance of “Third Wave Mission” requires that we consider a variety of patterns for sustaining long-term relationships between Christians in the US and other members of the world Christian community.

A Common Mission: Healthy Patterns in Congregational Mission Partnerships

David Wesley

Since 2007, congregational partnerships emerged so quickly and spontaneously that very few researchers have noticed this groundswell. Still, partnerships remain present in over 80% of mega churches, as well as in a large number of smaller churches, in the U.S. today. As a part of a multi-site qualitative study that includes interviews with nearly 200 people, the narratives in my research have come from Christians in Swaziland, South Africa, and the United States. People were interviewed from mega churches of 10,000 to congregations of 50 people who talk about partnerships formed between congregations in different parts of the globe. Research conversations about partnerships occurred in coffee shops, walking down the beaten paths of Africa, in homes, and under spreading shade trees. They occurred in places of worship and nearly anywhere people would agree to talk to me. In the process, I have identified five common elements found in healthy partnerships within this emerging pattern of mission engagement.

Mission Through Diaspora: The Mission Approach of the Chinese Church in USA

Jeanne Wu Swingle, Ph. D.

This research examines and analyzes what kind of role, if any, diaspora plays in global missions today, and also interacts with the theories of global diaspora and diaspora missiology. This study focuses particularly on Chinese churches in diaspora in the United States using survey methodology. In addition to quantitative research, formal interviews are also involved. Through these methods, general information and mission activities of U.S. Chinese churches are reported.

It is a commonly held notion among Chinese Christians that Chinese churches tend to invest more in ministries to their own kinsmen and collaborate with their kinsmen in missions, and this research intends to make comparisons among American mega-churches, Korean churches and Chinese churches in the United States. This research provides solid research data to support this commonly held notion and also provides explanations from diaspora theories for this kind of mission approach. Since the U.S. Chinese churches generally have a unique focus and ministry priority of missions to Chinese, this focus and priority shapes their unique way of doing short-term missions, and thus the short-term mission movement in the Chinese context is discussed and analyzed in this research as well. As Chinese in diaspora, Chinese Christians in the U.S. have the advantage of language, culture and transnational networks to minister to other Chinese in different parts of world. This research shows that diaspora missiology is practical and relevant in the era of globalization: God uses diaspora to spread His gospel not only in the first century in the Roman Empire, but also today in the globalized world.

The “Art of Accompaniment” in Global Solidarity Partnerships

Dr. Kim Lamberty

This paper will be a follow up to the paper I presented at the ASM conference in 2011 and which was later published in Missiology, “Toward a Spirituality of Accompaniment in Solidarity Partnerships.” “Art of Accompaniment” is a quote from Pope Francis’ recent Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium. This paper will draw on the writing of Pope Francis as well as other recent popes, in particular John Paul II, to expand on the theology of accompaniment presented in that earlier article. It will then provide a detailed analysis of what accompaniment looks like in practice, drawing in particular on the work of Catholic Relief Services in Integral Human Development (IHD). IHD draws on both Catholic social teaching and on best practices in international development to provide a framework for working constructively in contexts of poverty and violence. This paper will describe and adapt key concepts from the IHD framework for the mission context. It will focus in particular on global solidarity partnerships (parish twinning or sister church relationships) but the ideas in this paper will be useful for any mission program.