I’m sure if you are like me, when you heard the expression: “polycentric mission”, you said to yourself: “poly what?” I mean, what idea or thought is this expression meant to convey?
Polycentric simply means, “having more than one centre”. In other words, in our global missions context there are now many poles or centres from which mission is being launched. In the 20th century, mission was primarily from the Western world. However, in the 21st century, mission is being launched from Ethiopia Chile, Brazil and Indonesia. This is what is called the Global South.
There are several practical implications or effects from this shift. In this blog post, let’s focus on just two of the many implications.
For one, responsibility for the task of global missions is now a shared work. This is always easy to say, but difficult to practice. For many of us, we are used to directing, leading, or running global mission outreach from our perspective, our centre of gravity. This shift causes us to recognize the importance of active listening to others, as well as gospel humility, by which we will understand more and more our need for others more than their need us perhaps. This shared work of global missions may take more “time” and “energy” than in the past. However, joining hands in this shared task is a tangible mark of God’s universal church.
Another practical effect or outcome is seeing the need of cross-cultural intelligence. It will be difficult to effectively work with others from the Global South if we from the West do not seek to understand the cultural background, cues and dynamics at play with those who share the global missions task with us. For cultures that thrive in getting things done fast, there will be the need for patience and a willingness to “slow down a bit” in the process. For those cultures where time and planning are not priorities, there will need to be more “fluid organisation” allowing all partners to know their part in the task. And the only way all this will happen will be through His grace, through a deepening understanding of the Gospel, and by adding new cross-cultural skills to our toolbox.
Poly-centric, in other words, means learning to play as a team with a whole new group of players who may be different from one another.
Filed under: Mission, Partnership, Polycentric focus |
Thoughts Along The Journey 
What a great post, David. I am very encouraged to hear you remind us of our need to keep adjusting to new realities as God builds his church. I am encouraged as I read about other ethnicities who are members of the WT family, bringing their unique perspective to the work to which God has mutually called us. It is hard work to change. From my limited experience I found it humbling to know Latin American missionaries whose vision outstrips our own. God calls us to deep repentance (Sean Gibson’s term) as we learn to serve alongside believers from the church worldwide. Well stated, brother. Thank you. Chuck Sutton
It certainly takes a strong hold on the Gospel which allows to more freely admit our wrongs to God and to others (repentance). Gospel humility is a core principle in any kind of cross cultural ministry. Thanks Chuck for your encouragement and for your example!
Agreed! The gospel of Christ with the Spirit’s indwelling forms in us the fruit of humility, love, joy, and peace that becomes the fuel and engine for the kind of intercultural, collaborative relationships you described. As important as organizational plans and processes are (and they are), the loving reciprocity we are commanded to embody in God’s family has to take precedence. It seems that our Global South brothers and sisters tend to grasp this more intuitively than us in the West. We need to learn from them.
This is the future of global missions! And it will require a lot of learning from one another. And that goes in both directions as you said. But if we are not “listening” we will miss what our brothers and sisters from elsewhere in the world have to say to us.