Missional Hub

Lesslie Newbigin posed this question in his 1984 Warfield Lectures, “What would be involved in a genuinely missionary encounter between the gospel and this whole way of perceiving, thinking, and living that we call ‘modern Western culture?” (Foolishness to the Greeks, 1) We seek to engage Newbigin’s questions for our shared mission fields in the US and Canada.

1. We gather as leaders and missiologists compelled by Newbigin’s question and under the banner of the Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology. We seek to explore the intersection between gospel and culture to determine how the mission of God informs us in our context today. 

• We come together [twice a month] as humble learners seeking to make a meaningful contribution to missiology and the practice of leadership wherever we serve 

• We agree to collaboratively invest our time to reimagine missional engagement by:
  • Sharing stories of faith and vocation, to pray for one another; and to meet regularly (Hebrews 10:25). 
  • Building a bridge that allows missional theology and missional praxis to meet in the middle [Engage missiology as a bridge tethering together theology and praxis]  
  • Creating an intersection between the academy and the (local) church around culturally and contextually relevant topics through conversation, research, writing, and teaching
  • Reimagining leadership development and missional engagement for a new era of leaders to consider how to help leaders address pressing issues, like:
    • Congregational fear and polarization 
    • Prophetic approaches to leadership–help to bring contrast and energizing hope to their people
    • Diatribe vs dialogue approach
    • Equipping saints to tell stories–God’s, theirs, and ours. 
    • Helping leaders to possibly take a more prophetic approach to their role to bring contrast and energizing hope to their people.
  • Design a missiological framework that is theologically sound and missiologically compelling for a new era of leaders that purposes to:
    • Address our cultural and contextual reality
    • Clearly articulate the elements of our framework and our particular vantage point and answers the following questions: 
      • Who is our audience?
      • How do we develop a missiological framework that builds a bridge between missional theology and praxis in such a way that invites others to co-create with us?
      • What will we produce individually and/or as a HUB? 

2. As pilgrims along the way, we commit to fostering an environment for spiritual and professional growth. On a quarterly basis we engage in some type of spiritual formation and/or personal/professional development.