Here at the end of the year I wanted to take just a quick minute to say a heartfelt, “Thank you for being part of the Missio Alliance community!”
It’s actually kind of hard to believe that our inaugural gathering, “The Future of the Gospel: Renewing Evangelical Imagination for Mission,” was just over three year ago. A LOT has happened since then!
What God Has Done
We now have 15 Alliance Partners that are energizing and shaping our work. The fact that these partners represent Reformed, Holiness, Restorationist, Baptist, Methodist, and other traditions is both enormously gratifying and incredibly telling. It clearly communicates that we exist in a time when the urgent questions of our day related to faithfully participating in God’s mission outweigh the gravitational pull of hunkering down in our own tribal and institutional silos.
We have convened two Once and Future Mission Series gatherings. One of these focused on the Anabaptist tradition and the other on the Reformed tradition. Both of these gatherings succeeded in bringing diverse leaders and organizational partners together to share the gifts of God embedded within their traditions and to dialogue with friendly leaders from outside these traditions.
We have held two Summits: The Church Residency Summit and SheLeads. The Church Residency Summit brought leaders from 40 churches of different types and sizes from across the country together to consider the vital role of local church residencies in equipping future generations of pastors and church leaders. SheLeads provided a powerful platform for the equipping of women as leaders in church and ministry contexts and for advancing the vision and practice of the Blessed Alliance – God’s design for women and men leading together.
We have recruited a diverse team of incredible Christian leaders as a regular Writing Team. Anchored by 7 Leading Voices, our 20-person Writing Team engages in a ministry of writing to resource theological practitioners for mission through the publication of thoughtful articles through our online platform. Over 3,000 people visit our site daily to be resourced through this team’s writing.
We entered into a strategic partnership with InterVarsity Press to create a Missio Alliance line of books. With several titles already out, including Church as Movement, Embrace, Redeeming Sex, and Faithful Presence, and several more on the way, this promised to be an unique and important series of books for those who are hungry for a theologically robust and mission-oriented way of engaging the issues of our day. Even more specifically, this line of books will embody and advance our values for comprehensive mutuality, hopeful witness, and church in mission.
And those are just a few of the highlights. I don’t even have time to expand on all the amazing things we’ve seen God do through our 2nd North American Gathering, “Being Truly Human: Reimagining the Resurrectional Life, the regional events we’ve done across the country with Scot McKnight (Kingdom Conspiracy) and Deb Hirsch (Redeeming Sex), or all the behind the scenes relational development we’ve seen take place among our partners, through our “Friends Network,” and in other spots.
Truly, it’s been an amazing few years and we are so excited for all that lies ahead!
Check out some exciting things God is up to through @missioalliance! Click To TweetWhere God is Leading
In its essence, Missio Alliance is a convictional fellowship of Christian institutions, churches, and leaders who are committed to exploring and engaging faithfulness in God’s mission after Christendom.
This is what lies behind, shapes, and energizes all of our efforts. As we continue to live into that identity and calling, we are so excited about what lies ahead.
- We are excited to continue to grow our network of Alliance Partners to include an even greater diversity of leading groups and organizations.
- With several having already joined us, we will also be expanding our partnerships to include local churches who want to identify and journey with us.
- We will also be looking to expand our Podcast Network as well as offer more webinars as a means of advancing important perspectives and conversations among ministry leaders.
- We will be moving forward with additional efforts for the equipping of women church leaders under the banner of SheLeads.
And of course much more is in the works as we follow the leading of the Holy Spirit – some of which we’ll be excited to share at the Awakenings gathering in April!
If all this resonates with you… if you have a kindred spirit for an effort that is seeking to advance mission-centric unity and thoughtfulness among the Body of Christ amid all the issues and challenges we are facing, I thank you for being “with us” in all that God is doing!
If you want to be a more direct part of advancing this effort, we’d be incredibly grateful for an end-of-year financial contribution. Or, you might want to consider joining our Friends Network to access exclusive benefits. We definitely hope to see you at our 3rd North American gathering, “Awakenings: The Mission of the Spirit as the Life of the Church,” where incredible figures like N.T. Wright, Ruth Padilla DeBorst, Greg Boyd, Charles Montgomery, Cherith Nordling, and many more will lead us into important discussions about the person and work of the Holy Spirit for our lives and ministries.
Lastly, if you represent an organization or local church (a new opportunity!) that would be interested in partnering with us in all God is doing, please reach out to me directly at jr.rozko@missioalliance.org. I’d love to talk with you!
On behalf of the rest of the Missio Alliance Team and our Board, Merry Christmas!
Dr. JR Rozko
Co-Director, Missio Alliance