Those in the working group originating from the Philippines felt that the most important thing for the church to stop doing is dividing itself. So many of the institutionalized churches have fallen prey to division. This seems to be an enormous problem in the evangelical church and is a very poor witness to society. We must pray for a new spirit of unity. Many Filipino churches have also adopted the western leadership model where the congregation looks to one senior pastor and no one else contributes. The congregation go to stand-up / sit-down churches, where the leaders are responsible for all the work and activity. This is a direct result of the colonial history of the Philippines and we must
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not replicate it in the next generation. And yet the situation is perpetuated by western “sponsorship” and paternalism.
Historically, much of the Western mission agenda has been patterned on systemic and philosophical divisions.16The primary division of children as an “unreached people
group”, seen in isolation from family and community, culture and political realities has formed the backbone of western engagement in the majority world, via such sponsorship. Further divisions based on Western management ideologies17 have replicated unhelpful
patterns, which disintegrate children from community, community from leadership and gospel ethical action from gospel articulation.
Much like the feedback given from Vietnam and China, the Filipino response identified the problem with separating evangelism from social welfare. There is a clear need to educate Christians in the ways that the gospel can be demonstrated as well as declared:
“In terms of what we need to start doing we should devise methods of integrating churches. We should hold conferences like this (ISUM), as well as united prayer together as multiple churches. This would start to break down walls of suspicion between different churches. We should also encourage churches by profiling examples of the blessing that comes from giving to those in need, even when it is at a cost to ourselves. We know of a great example of a child that needed help, and was welcomed into someone’s personal home at a cost to the people that took care of the child. These kind of stories need to be shared.”
Perspectives from mixed East–West sub-groups:
“We want to stop the thinking that all the good stuff happens in church and start in the community instead, with a people-focus, to grow community spirit. As we do this we should be asking ‘How can the community take ownership of their young people?’ This would probably necessitate a place to gather, some kind of urban community hub. We could envision a network of safe community HUBs scattered throughout many poor neighborhoods. In this way the church could
16 Bill Prevette, Child Church and Compassion (Oxford: Regnum, 2012), 31. Brewster (1997) described “children as an unreached people group” and raised no questions about the validity of the concept, the underlying mission pragmatism, or how these ideological concepts might be informed or critiqued by theology or alternate views of mission.”
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enhance what it is doing already, and be holistic. It ought not be difficult to get churches involved because of the clear need for people willing to get out and build relationships.
In a way this is like fostering a village spirit within a large city. A village tends to have an established community structure, but in the city everything is so transient. So we need place that encourages the village spirit. By doing this children and parents of different families can begin to respect one another. It would be a culture of not just looking after your own kid but looking after everyone – a real community vision.
Our hope would be that a turn in this direction could contribute towards creating violence-free communities and families. Informal education using pictures could assist the promotion of the values of the community, amongst people who often can’t read. There wouldn’t need to be a lot of money involved, as local resources would be utilized. We see people in the community involved in running these places on a day-to-day basis. Everything that happens would be based on community needs whatever they might be, for example parenting workshops, sports, education, teamwork, daycare, arts & music.” And in another voice:
“The experience of my team here in BKK, is that there is a huge gap between the classes. There may be a possibility of mobilizing the Thai middle class but first their attitude toward the poor needs dealing with, as they do not want to personally spend time with the poor.
Therefore the engagement with the poor is left to the foreigners who belong to mission agencies and NGO’s. We need to get the middle- class locals included in solving the problems of their own city. A great way to begin would be by getting the local churches to pray regularly for local families and local neighborhoods – this would start to turn their attention outwards rather than inwards. ” =
Approaching the end of this stage of the journey the sub-groups refined their thinking into a shortlist of shared priorities:
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• The imperative to be conscious of constantly training a new generation of leaders and pioneers fully equipped to share the gospel in word and deed.
• Local community ministries must be held as closely as possible to the local church. Compassionate ministries amongst the poor are diminished in effectiveness if there is no opportunity for those being reached to be welcomed into the arms of Jesus and into the worshipping family of God.
• A shifting perspective on the modality of the church, with an emphasis upon the revelation that God desires to establish pioneers and leaders in all spheres of life. Once this has gained traction we could then move to develop ministries out in the community beyond current walls of the church.
• The conviction that it “takes a community to raise a child” calls us to establish stronger working models of this in practice, and multiplication of the model, spreading the idea more widely. Hence the idea of the community hub network - Christ-centered safe places scattered throughout urban neighborhoods.
The Bridge Children & Youth Resource Center is one such community center in Pattaya,
Thailand that a Summit participant comments on:
“Pattaya is one of the darkest cities in Thailand because of its blatant tolerance of prostitution. Although it is illegal, bars and massage parlors advertise sex on almost every street in the downtown area of this beautiful, yet exploited vacation town. The Bridge Children and Youth Resource Center is in the heart of downtown. The mission offers a safe place for children and youth to go within their community. The center is connected to a local Thai church, and is being facilitated by their youth, brothers and sisters in Christ, and operates as a big family. It is a community of children and youth, who receive and share the love of God in a real and tangible way. Those who come have an opportunity to express their creativity and develop their God-given gifts, surrounded by the love of God, and knowledge of Him. This is a place were holiness is held high, ministering to those that come to help, reconcile, and restore what was stolen.”
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