Lausanne World Pulse – Themed Articles – Glocalization from a Norwegian Perspective
By Knud Jørgensen
May 2010
This process has started and migrant churches and leaders are increasingly realising the challenge to become a source of inspiration and renewal in the Norwegian setting of often stale church life. Here we are not talking about inspiration in terms of rhythmic dancing and hand-clapping. Rather, the local church in Norway needs the vitality, the brokenness, the spirituality, and the understanding of primal religious power from Christians in the global South.
Renewal of churches in the West is possible, and the most important way is likely to “go global.” From the churches in the global South we may hear the gospel in a new tone and witnessed by new voices. We may have the churches in the global South demonstrate the strength of the local congregation as an agent of evangelism.
Adopting a Missionary Stance
The dream is to bring together the missionary focus on the specific mission activities of the church and the missional related to the nature of the church, as being sent by God to the world. This “marriage” is being tested in various forms in Norway, by mission societies, churches, and local congregations.
The dream finds expression in a desire to see congregations in both the North and the South become missional. Impacting the world begins with local congregations giving up Christendom assumptions and adopting a missionary stance both within their own culture and cross-culturally. Missional congregations pray both for renewal within their community and in the marketplace.
In local congregations, missional structures are created that go beyond the hierarchies of the past and provide a balance between worship, community, and mission at all levels of church life—in cells, Bible study groups, fresh expressions like café churches and sub-churches, and a growing interest in retreats and Taize.
The dream is to see every member being motivated and equipped to take his or her role in inspiring, encouraging, and equipping local believers, as God’s people turn inward (centripetal movement) in order to turn outward (centrifugal movement).
|
Dr. Knud Jørgensen is dean of Tao Fong Shan in Hong Kong and associate professor at the Norwegian School of Theology. |