think global... act local

Here are some thoughts that might help you with the first part of that phrase. A friend forwarded me an article called Companions of Life by Phillip Jenkins which is written to answer the question... What must we learn, and unlearn, to be agents of God's mission in the world?

If you are anything like me you view the world through the lens of Fox News, CNN or USA Today... which largely makes us bad world citizens. And on top of it it makes us bad world Christians. We just have a pretty white, democratic, European view of the world. I'm no hater of the USA... but this article sheds some light on what God is doing in the church around the world.

Consider Jenkins insights:

*Within a few decades, the African continent could be, in numerical terms, the center of world Christianity.

*By 2050, white non-Hispanics could represent just 15 or 20 percent of the world's Christians.

*Rather than thinking about how to carry the message, then, the churches of the Old Christendom must now undertake a rigorous self-assessment to determine just what "we" have that "they" still lack.

*If one wishes to reach Guatemalans or Ghanaians, then approaching people of those origins within the United States is an excellent way to begin.

*What we must unlearn is a much more straightforward matter, and in fact there really are only three minor items on this "to forget" list, namely history, geography, and politics.

History, in the sense that Christianity has been only a white European faith system until recently.

Geography, in the sense that Christianity no longer moves from White North to colored South but is moving from South-to-South.

Politics, in the sense that the western package of politics into which faith traditional falls is not the same package in the South or East.

*In short, Christians of European descent should learn that they are not necessarily the norm within the Christian tradition.

*As the companions of life, of course newer churches remain flexible and bend our familiar dividing lines. Perhaps by observing how they do this, we can find our way back from a faith that has been, on occasion, too hard and strong to flourish.