Holistic Mission - Good news for the Poor and the Oppressed?

A one-day conference on Holistic Mission to help form thinking as part of the Edinburgh 2010 celebrations.

Arguably, holistic mission has been the most significant development in the church over the last 100 years. Different branches of the global church have reacted to the challenge in quite different ways: some stick tightly to the belief that mission is only about evangelism and church planting, some concentrate only on a social gospel, others wonder what all the fuss is about because they understand that Christianity is essentially an holistic activity about being Christ-like. For Edinburgh 2010 OCMS has been tasked with the challenge of developing an understanding of the place of holistic mission in the global church today.

To this end, OCMS is gathering together a group of practitioners/writers/academics, all committed to holistic mission in one way or another, to analyse how it has developed in different parts of the world in the last century and to engage with the underlying issues as they impact the church, para-church CNGOs, and the lives of individual Christians, internationally for the future. It will raise important, political, and sometimes contentious issues, as questions will be wrestled with concerning justice and the seeking of shalom in a broken and hurting world from a variety of perspectives.

The discussions, which are designed to help form thinking for and around Edinburgh 2010, and which will focus around a series of writings that have been commissioned to form chapters of a companion volume, will be held at the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies (OCMS).  All who are interested and concerned about holistic mission are most welcome to join, and for those who are not able, the book will be published before the end of the year as part of the Edinburgh 2010 Publications Series.

For more information please email Deborah Lake at OCMS, or download the event flyer.