excited for the next four days as at cms pioneer we are hosting a gathering to share learning about training and education for mission. it's called hui – see below for why – here's the spiel we sent out about it.
New imaginative approaches to mission and church have emerged in range of contexts round the world. Alongside that, new approaches to mission education, leadership training and theological education are being explored. In Western contexts it feels like the old models don’t work so well any more but equally new ones are quite fragile and exploratory. In the global South there is less baggage and new approaches areemerging out of energy for mission or finding ways to do things that are authentic to the locale. At CMS in England we have felt our way towards a new approach to training which is now in its ninth year and has been something of an exhilarating ride. Over the nine years we have had lots of international visitors who want to talk about training/education that is focused towards pioneering mission* and have enjoyed those conversations very much. Hui is a Maori word for a gathering where there is mutual sharing and exchange of ideas and learning and we thought it would be good to have one of those for mission educators or whatever you want to call yourselves. It’s as simple as that really!
*It’s actually hard to know what language to use to talk about it! For example mission education sounds like it’s training for people going to another country (and of course it can be but often isn’t). Theological education or ministerial formation also sounds heavy (though theology and ministry are key aspects of the conversation). We have used ‘pioneer mission leadership training’ but appreciate that is particular to our context and a bit long. But whatever we call it, at heart it is about wanting to help people see and imagine through a lens of mission and to be enabled to participate in that mission in good and transforming ways.
hopefully we'll tweet with #HUI2019 so do follow along and i am sure we'll collect contributions and musings to share at a later stage