ePLACE: preserving, learning, and creative exchange
Abstract
Missionaries from the Global North regularly serve as trainers for Christians in the Global South. From personal experience, missionaries are regularly seen as being qualified to do this work simply because of their position. Rather than missionaries assuming they are competent purely on the basis of their titles, I believe they should instead practice the Continuity Mindset for Christian Mission, a mindset that emphasizes the continuity of one’s identity and ministry in one’s home culture with one’s identity and ministry in the host culture. This practice includes elements of vulnerable mission, nonresidential mission, tentmaking, cultural intelligence, and authentic leadership. I propose that the intentional practice of the continuity mindset can help missionaries from the Global North appropriately fulfill training responsibilities or ambitions they may have in the Global South. This article introduces the continuity mindset and how its theoretical foundations can aid missionaries from the Global North in laying down their power in order to better serve those to whom they are sent in the Global South
