Christian Missionary Fellowship and a Wider Vision
In this column, Mark A. Taylor reflects on two challenges raised during CHRISTIAN STANDARD’s contributing editors retreat: global inequality and the need for connection within the Restoration movement. He links both concerns to the upcoming World Convention and the opportunity it offers for learning, unity, and action.
- Global poverty, oppression, and injustice remain pressing concerns for the worldwide church.
- Leaders continue to ask how connected Christian churches and churches of Christ need to be—and how best to stay connected.
- The World Convention can help broaden perspective and activate compassion beyond familiar circles.
By Mark A. Taylor
CHRISTIAN STANDARD’s contributing editors met in January during the same week our staff finished this issue on the World Convention. Two quotes from that meeting stick in my memory as I write this column.
“In 1995, the poorest 20 percent of the world shared just 1.4 percent of global income. The richest 20 percent of the world shared 85 percent of global income.”
Those statistics came from Doug Priest, executive director of Christian Missionary Fellowship, and one of CHRISTIAN STANDARD’s contributing editors. He spoke during the first session of our retreat. His paper presented a convicting picture of “the marginalized, the powerless, and the oppressed” who make up the church in most of the world.
We spent a whole evening asking questions whose answers seem elusive: What can Western Christians do to ease the overwhelming burdens of poverty, oppression, and injustice suffered by most of the population in much of the world? And what can an enterprise like Christian Standard do to help?
Yet the challenge Doug Priest offers is not the only one we’re considering in this office. That leads me to the second quote:
“How many in the Christian churches and churches of Christ need or want the connecting point CHRISTIAN STANDARD provides?”
Actually, that’s more of a summary than an exact quote. Our contributing editors spent quite a bit of time discussing the state of the “Restoration plea” today. How is that plea (the plea that gave rise to this publication) perceived and expressed by leaders in Christian churches and churches of Christ? In an age of nondenominationalism, what is the need for these leaders to stay connected? And in a time when digital communication often bypasses print publishing, what will be the best medium to keep us together?
Soon we’ll ask you, our readers, to answer a survey asking questions like those. Meanwhile we’re making plans to address in these pages the issues raised by Doug Priest.
But I couldn’t help thinking how the World Convention relates to both sets of concerns. What steps will our loosely connected fellowship of independent congregations take to ease worldwide suffering? What impact can a free church really have on a needy world? How can the World Convention help to activate us?
Here’s my conclusion: The World Convention offers us the chance to get outside ourselves and talk with folks we don’t know from places we can’t pronounce with perspectives we haven’t encountered about issues close to the heart of God.
Jeff Weston’s assessment is not hyperbole. This summer’s World Convention can be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
World Convention Articles
- The World Convention: Christmas Truce or Reclaiming a Heritage? by C. Robert Wetzel, 2008 president
- An invitation to attend this year’s World Convention, by Jeff Weston, executive director
- “Southern Hospitality” awaits visitors to Nashville, by Phil LeMaster
- The World Convention schedule, speakers, and registration information
Author: Mark A. Taylor
Mark A. Taylor, who served as Christian Standard editor from 2003 to 2017, retired in June 2017 after almost 41 years with Standard Publishing (Christian Standard Media).
