Forming and restoring community in a nomadic world: A next generation perspective on the future of the discipline of missiology

Abstract

The emergence of a 21st-century participatory culture in a globalized world invites us to reimagine missiology in light of a participatory triune God who forms and restores community amidst difference and otherness. It pushes us toward the local, where we reclaim the centrality of local Christian communities and their ordinary disciples as primary missionary organizations and personnel. The American context must be recognized as a major 21st-century mission field requiring intentional engagement with a diversity of cultures. These realities call for new patterns of giving, receiving, learning, and innovation as missiology accompanies local churches witnessing to and seeking to form community with their neighbors.