Abstract
In 2023, the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies (OCMS) celebrated its 40th jubilee. Founded in 1983 as a center for integral mission research, in this volume the persons working for and with the Centre look back on its remarkable journey. Beginning in a small office in the then Westminster College (Oxford) in August 1983, the following month in September, it moved to its home since then, the St Philip and St James Church, Woodstock Road, Oxford. This church opened in 1861 had been the flagship of the Oxford Movement.
The fact that you will meet passionate scholars from all over the world, especially from the majority world, under its high roof at any given time is a powerful symbol of OCMS's vision to serve the global church. They – scholars, PhD candidates, mission practitioners and many others – embody the pursuit of rigorous scholarship on mission in all its diversity, engaged with one another in a global fellowship.
It was in this church building that former staff, alumni and journey companions presented their unique stories with OCMS and the wider constituency with which OCMS is connected at the anniversary event in June 2023. Three of the original presentations and a response to one of the presentation are published here. Kirsteen Kim, professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, gave an overview of The future of mission studies. Thomas Harvey, the outgoing Dean at OCMS responded to this during the event. His paper is published here titled Decentring Western Missiology: The Root and Nature of OCMS. Ivan Morris Satyavrat, an alumnus of OCMS spoke on Critical Issues Facing the Global Church and David Emmanuel Singh, PhD stage leader amd a research tutor at OCMS, wrote Declaration as Embodied Practice: Integrating Perception, Confession and Action in Following Jesus Christ as a response to Satyarat's presentation.
The refelctions from the alumnus of the OCMS PhD programme shared during the event are collected and compiled in the chapter Around the OCMS world: Cutting-edge stories of local and global impact.
In this issue, we also have articles that explore the mission of OCMS and its history. Thomas Harvey analyses A Tradition of Inquiry in Holistic Transformative Mission Scholarship of the OCMS fellowship. Mark Oxbrow, program director, follows with introducing the OCMS Guided Research Program; Guiding Missiological Research: The symbiotic relationship between academic excellence, flexible research process design and praxis-focused research output. And the last article is by Marina Ngursangzeli Behera which explores various dimension of OCMS as Third Space.
It is fitting that besides a book titled For the knowledge of the Glory of the Lord’ edited by David Singh & Paul Bender-Samuel (Regnun Books, 2024), Transformation has been chosen as the appropriate medium to publish these papers. The journal has been part of the history of OCMS since its beginnings.