Today, one of the greatest hindrances to the spread of the Gospel across this planet is the presence of many bad elements within Western society. Many Muslims, for example, rightly fear the decadence of the West and wonder why the Christian faith has not been able to banish those evils. They see Westernization eating its way into their own societies and are fearfully hoping to keep that influence out.
As a result, Western missionaries often recognize that they are being sent out not to preach Christianity but Christ, that is, not a cultural tradition but a living faith. But this is easier to talk about than it is to do. No matter how hard a Western missionary tries to separate himself from his own cultural tradition it is impossible to do so completely.
Thus, those of us who have grown up in the West are doubly happy to see the flourishing build-up of non-Western missions. 1) We see these new evidences of missionary vision adding to the number of missionaries, but 2) we also see them as potentially rescuing missions from being embedded in Western culture.
Let me cite five important areas in which non-Western missions can greatly benefit the missionary cause. In these five major frontiers. American missionaries are in serious need of new Asian perspectives.
Though, there is much more I want to share concerning what Dr. Ralph Winter said, due to the limited space, I have indicated only the important basics. As an Asian as well as Korean, I deeply appreciate Dr. Ralph Winter‘s challenge, and feel that we Asians should also practice these initiatives in fulfilling His vision and the remaining tasks.
The Asian Frontier Mission Initiative (AFMI) was launched a couple years later, challenging many Asians as the 11th hour workers. There are tasks still remaining despite the long mission history and worldwide missional efforts. We understand that this challenge and new initiatives among Asians require a paradigm shift in mission understanding and practices. AFMI continues to seek synergistic effort worldwide through fostering insider perspectives, decisive initiatives of Asians and global cooperation of both the global north and south. By proceeding, you will gain insight on missional efforts of the past and what we are now trying to encourage for His Kingdom‘s sake. I anticipate that all the participants of the AFMI event on 27-30 Oct 2010 will enjoy the spirit of the 11th hour worker and be ready to see the marvelous works of God.(Isaiah 43:19)
The proceedings include a number of articles presented at the Asia Society for Frontier Mission (ASFM) which is held during daytime, followed by Asian Mission Leaders Forum (AMLF) in the evening.
We have two main facilitators for the AMLF. Kevin Higgins will lead us through a post-Tokyo program, presenting an article (this will be distributed separately on the spot). This will be a good time for us to think about where we stand and what is needed for the future. David Lim, serving as the director of AMLF, will wrap up the workshop sessions carried out during daytime. He will appeal our participation to target the year 2020 in engaging some of those unengaged and taking tangible steps with cooperative partnership to realize the breakthroughs in His Kingdom development among them.
ASFM took the first step through AFMI gathering last year. Thus this year‘s gathering will be the first official meeting of the society. A series of papers are to be presented by about 20 speakers. The paper presentations are made with two main themes, "Insider Perspectives" and "Global Cooperation", facilitated by John Kim and Chong Kim, respectively. Among the presentations in "insider perspectives" are Rick Brown, Kevin Higgins, Les Taylor, David B., Rudyanto, Todd E. & Z., and Larry W. Caldwell, and in "global cooperation", Brad Gill, David Greenlee, John Becker (David. B), Rudyanto, and Chong Kim. Any comments or inputs on those presenta-tions remain on your part. You may practice self motivating and proactive interactions with the presenters while taking your part in the activities during this period of event.
Before getting into the main presenta-tion sessions, we will have special time with Rick Brown in understanding of the Kingdom of God. He will lead us with three morning sessions. One part of his presentation is included in this proceedings. Others will be found somewhere else in the upcoming issues of AFMI bulletin.
As Dr. Ralph Winter has already pointed, we need new missionary training. AFMI has been running a specially designed training package consisting of 4 modules. (See p. 51-53) We welcome your participation and suggestion in anyway, furthermore, we encourage you to give chances to your new workers so that they may be equipped with the new mission paradigm to be the Kingdom builders.
I hope we can really enjoy various voices in those specifically focused areas. However always is the challenge in that how we make them go through convergence to synergize all our efforts so that we can minimize any loss of our limited recourses and even life.
May His Kingdom come and Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.(AFMI)
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