The rise of multicultural mission teams has made interpersonal conflict an increasing challenge and a leading cause of missionary attrition. This article presents the findings from qualitative research involving 31 Chinese Christians from 3 major cities and 13 churches, exploring the factors that influence reconciliation efforts. While the broader study identified multiple factors, this article highlights the impact of five specific social norms related to face preservation, hierarchical apology binds, and the moral nature of conflict. Drawing on the theoretical framework of normative expectations, the author illustrates how these cultural mechanisms often drive surface-level rather than heart-level reconciliation. However, surprising results occurred when participants chose to live according to a Kingdom-culture perspective instead of following existing cultural expectations. The article proposes a series of reflexive questions springboarding from the cultural bridges and barriers presented. These questions can be used to help multicultural teams foster new understandings, bring to light the cultural mechanisms that may impact their current team dynamics, and move toward greater multicultural team unity.
This article explores the role and contributions of Vietnamese Catholic women in the development of the Church in Vietnam. The study adopts a missiological perspective to examine the contributions of Catholic women to the local Church and to offer theological reflections on the inculturation of Vietnamese Marian devotion. This study thereby examines how the fundamental values of Vietnamese women’s identity before the influence of Confucianism, their image, and their roles were partly shaped by historical myths about heroic women and the veneration of Mother Goddesses. This study also examines the cultural and social influences, as well as the state’s development policies, on Vietnamese women. The study also identifies the pivotal contributions of Catholic women to the faith life of the family and the local Church through their participation in missionary work, catechesis, community charity, and the promotion of popular piety, particularly devotion to the Virgin Mary, among Vietnamese people.
Anthropology has been a critical dialogue partner for missiology since the inception of both fields of inquiry. Despite this, many missiologists are unaware of the important forays into anthropological theory and practice that missionaries made in the early 20th century. This article reviews and analyzes the contributions of missionaries and anthropologists, especially those that were made in the premier missiological journal of that period, the International Review of Missions. As the field of missiology in North America engages with questions about its future role in academic discourse as well as in practical missionary training, learning from our discipline’s past engagement with anthropology is critical.
Since Johannes C. Hoekendijk proposed the “God–World–Church” paradigm, theological discourse concerning missio Dei and the missional church has increasingly demonstrated convergence, particularly as both evangelical and ecumenical traditions have come to emphasize evangelism alongside social responsibility. 1 This study examines the mission statements issued by the 11th World Council of Churches (WCC) Assembly and the Fourth Lausanne Congress in order to analyze areas of theological convergence and divergence between these two traditions. The comparison identifies significant differences in ecclesiology, biblical interpretation, and understandings of the Gospel, while also highlighting shared commitments to evangelism, social engagement, and participation in the missio Dei . It further suggests that both traditions continue to affirm the centrality of divine love, the world as the context of mission, and eschatological hope as important themes for contemporary missiology. These common commitments provide opportunities for greater mutual learning and cooperation between evangelical and ecumenical communities in contemporary mission.
Given the popularity of Church Planting and Disciple Making Movement strategies, the stated goal of many local and cross-cultural missionaries is increasingly to start a movement. The word movement, however, is not a neutral term. Emerging in popular usage during industrialization in Europe, the term has been used by historians, sociologists and scholars of religion for centuries, yet the corpus of their work is seldom engaged by the missions community. This paper attempts to construct a broad overview of movement sociology and place it into conversation with CPM/DMM. In doing so, new insights are revealed for the missions practitioner and theorist alike, filling a crucial gap in CPM/DMM literature and inviting future research.
