Another St Francis Missiological Conference

This month, 20 or so mission practitioners from the Muslim world meet to present and discuss papers on the cutting edge of Church, Islam, and Arab World. The subjects of the papers promise great mind-stretching discussions! The papers will probably be published in the December issue of St Francis Magazine - so keep coming back!

Suggestion: Union of Dicatorships

Why are most conflicts concentrated in the Middle East? Why is the Arab world experiencing the highest rates of religious, sectarian and social violence? There are two answers: the first is direct, that is, because of the religious and political differences between countries and groups in this region; and the second is indirect, related to the strong interrelationship between political tyranny and social injustice. Thus argues Khalil Al-Anani in Daily News-Arab media. See HERE.

Doing Mission in the Arab World

Interserve has just published a book that was created on the basis of articles that appeared on our St Francis Magazine website. Lyn Weaich, Berys Nixon and I edited the book (but I take the blame, in the end...) and am quite happy with the result. Have a look for more information on Doing Mission in the Arab World.

A Normal Missionary: Vivienne Stacey

At the moment, five or six people are helping to put all of Vivienne Stacey's writings together, for publication on www.stfrancismagazine.info. Vivienne has lived a very long and fruitful life as a 'stateswoman' for mission in the Muslim World, and she has allowed us to make all of her writings available on the internet. She went to Pakistan in 1954 and retired (well, officially) in the 1990s. This is normal in mission: it consumes a lifetime.

During her life as a missionary with Interserve, Vivienne was also connected with IFES (the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students) and often spoke in meetings of that organization. No wonder she has friends all over the world.

May we see more missionaries like Vivienne. Presently, we see so many short-term people come (and especially: go) and I wonder what we are doing... Is this the mission God has called us to, or are we just helping people with getting a good experience or in their career-planning?

Just imagine Paul, or John, or Peter... after 3 or 6 years they returned home. 'We have served God as missionaries, but now we will work for assuring that we will not miss out on a pension arrangement. And our kids need to go to school. Of course this means we return to Galilee. And mind you, we need to take care of our aging parents.'

Give us more long-term people like Vivienne. These are the people impacting the Muslim world. They know the language, they become deeply embedded in the local church, they slowly begin to understand the culture in which they live. They become effective in speaking of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

We are in the process of uploading as many articles and books by Vivienne Stacey as we can lay our hands on, have a look here at stfrancismagazine.info.