GUEST POST BY BOB WILSON For much of its history, the church has largely disregarded Jesus’ teaching in Luke 22:24-30 to lead differently from the Gentiles. Instead, it has “established and embraced the leadership models of ‘the Gentiles’”, leading to church history being “replete with examples of leaders actively accumulating, protecting, and abusing power, frequently […]
Guest Post
Translocal Futures: Michel Bauwens and the Polycentric Transformation of Governance
BY JOSEPH W. HANDLEY, Jr. As our world navigates civilizational disintegration—where nation-states strain under the pressure of global systems and capitalism fails to integrate emerging realities—new models of leadership and governance are emerging. Among the most provocative voices in this arena is Michel Bauwens, founder of the P2P Foundation, who offers a hopeful, decentralized alternative grounded […]
Reimagining Missions: Paradigms Paths & Partnerships
GUEST POST / CASE STUDY BY KIRK FRANKLIN Facing momentous change, missional leaders and practitioners face daunting complexities and remarkable new opportunities. Long-held patterns of sending and receiving are giving way to vibrant, interdependent, collaborative efforts spanning languages, cultures, contexts and continents. Instead of relying solely on inherited structures or leadership models of a bygone […]
A Movemental Turn in Missions: Thoughts on New Eras and New Wineskins
GUEST POST BY WES WATKINS “The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” — ALAN WATTS Change is a constant in our world. Especially in the last few years, however, it feels that the pace of change is increasing dramatically. I suspect we […]
From Hierarchies to Haier-archies: The Return of Internal Ecology Management as a Form of Agility and Decentralization
GUEST POST BY EKIN ILSEVEN At the World Management Agility Forum that took place in Lisbon in September, a panel of founders and managers of successful decentralized companies shared their insights. Lars Brüning described how chemical giant Bayer is undergoing full-scale restructuring, defying the organizational charts that are at best matrix-shaped: he visualizes each department […]
Who’s at the Table?
GUEST POST BY BRENT FULTON The notion of polycentric leadership has become an important topic of discussion within the global Christian community. In an era of missions “from everywhere to everywhere,” with more cross-cultural workers being sent out from non-Western countries than from traditional sending nations, it is imperative that the contributions of all be recognized and […]
Gospel Impact Networks
GUEST POST BY ADI P Summary Gospel Impact Networks are united and collaborative collectives of diverse Christians—such as individuals, city leaders, churches, ministries, and businesses— all working together toward a collective impact in a city or region. These gospel-rich networks model the Trinitarian spirit of mutual submission, love, and non-domination. These networks aim to embody […]
Recommendations for Mission Practice
GUEST POST BY COALA2 This year a group of Majority World Mission leaders gathered to discuss and make recommendations for better practices in mission for the future. Their encouragement of polycentric mission to empower local initiative and leadership is inspiring!
Collaboration not Control
Rethinking the international agency model in the pursuit of mutual mission sending partnerships with the majority world GUEST POST BY MICHAEL PREST The Challenges of the International Model For all the talk of polycentrism in mission circles today, in international mission organizations, it is often the multinational structure that persists. Internationalization strategies that added sending […]
OM International: The Case for Polycentric Mission
GUEST POST BY LAWRENCE TONG Our task, shared with other groups of Jesus followers, is to profoundly reduce the number of least reached anywhere in the world, making them disciple-makers to their people—the ultimate expression of polycentric mission! Every day, our world becomes more complicated and more difficult for God’s people to engage meaningfully with […]
