Noteworthy

Beginning in the fall of 2022, the Overseas Ministries Study Center at Princeton Theological Seminary and the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary will collaborate to host Map and Compass , a new online weblog, bringing together their networks across the world church to provide publicly accessible and relevant data and analysis on a weekly basis. This new venture builds on OMSC’s and CSGC’s longstanding collaboration. Since 1985, the IBMR has published the CSGC’s annual statistical update on the changing demographics of the world church in our January issue, highlighting trends and issues of importance to scholars and church leaders with an interest in the world church.

A multilingual, international mission research community of Christian institutions, networks, churches, and individuals engaged in mission research is being facilitated through AMRIConnect (www.amriconnect.net), a secure online platform that was launched February 17, 2022 (watch: www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oDb5NTJqJ0). The new network, the Alliance of Mission Researchers and Institutions, aims to create collaboration and community among academic institutions, mission agencies, and individuals. This online tool has been under development for several years and now is live and open to new groups and individuals to register. The eight-language platform emerged from discussions within the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, Oxford, UK, related to the trajectory of mission research and scholarship globally. The Akrofi-Christaller Institute of Theology, Mission, and Culture, Akropong-Akuapem, Ghana, agreed to cofacilitate the project. A steering group was established, and through prayer, reflection, and planning, the vision for the alliance was born. In February 2019 representatives of fourteen institutions from around the world attended a workshop in Oxford to discuss the desired functionality of the digital platform. Robert Buckeldee (admin@amriconnect.net) of Oxford is AMRIConnect’s project manager.

In September after a pause due to the pandemic, the Overseas Ministries Study Center at Princeton Theological Seminary will welcome the following global partners to its 2022–23 Residential Study Program (omsc.ptsem.edu/what-we-do/residential-program-overview).

Lal Biak Chhuangl (Myanmar)

Presbyterian layperson and PhD candidate at Philippine Christian University

Research focus: Quest for the Emerging Need of Dialogical Mission within Christian-Buddhist Dialogue

Sithembiso Hlophe (South Africa)

District leader, Zulu Congregational Church

Research focus: Inculcating a Missional Culture in the Local Church

Sharath Souuseelya Jangapalli (lndia)

Church of South India pastor and PhD candidate at the Senate of Serampore

Research focus: A Feminist Appraisal on Coping of Young Adult Rape Survivors Indian Context: Significance of Pastoral Care and Counselling

Chai Jung Lim (South Korea)

Missionary, The Presbyterian Church of Korea

Research focus: The Perception of Refugees in the Korean Churches

Andrew Mkwaila (Malawi)

Professor and dean, Pan Africa Theological Seminary, Lome, Togo

Research focus: The Focus is Now: Exploring the Contours of Contemporary African Christianity and Missionary Movements in the Context of World Christianity

Everlyn Nicodemus (Tanzania, Sweden, Scotland)

2022–23 Artist in Residence

Artistic focus: personal and cultural trauma and the role art can play in healing.  For more, go online to www.richardsaltoun.com/artists/326-everlyn-nicodemus/biography/

Ernest Chibuzo Osuchukwu (Nigeria)

Anglican priest and lecturer at Trinity Theological College, Umuahia, and Federal University, Abakaliki, Nigeria

Research focus: Utilizing some Models of Benedictine Spirituality as a Means of Transforming the Curriculum for the Training of Postulants and Students of Religious Studies in Nigeria

Christopher Augustin Vaz and Ruth Manimekalai Christopher (India)

Summer Institute of Linguistics and Evangel Bible Translators

Research focus: Training Paradigms for Bible Translators (Christopher)

Research focus: The Hill Madia Tribe’s Socio-religious Organization (Ruth)

Xiaoli Yang (Australia)

Research fellow, Charles Sturt University, Australia

Research focus: Towards a Chinese Theology of Displacement

In December 2021 BLF Ministries (“Bibles and Literature in French”), Carol Stream, IL, changed its name to Synergie Francophone (https://synergiefrancophone.org) to better reflect its approach to reaching French speakers with the gospel, according to a press release. “God has confirmed his mandate to our organization to support evangelism, multiplication of disciples, and equipping of local churches by providing Bibles and biblical resources in French,” said board chair Thomas Rice. A new executive director, Angela Brandle, who, from 1996 to 2021, worked for SIM as director for the Midwest (US), Quebec (CN), and the Pacific Northwest (US), is renewing the team and approach to “grow and equip French-speaking churches around the world to fulfill their role in God’s mission, bringing transformation to lives, communities and nations.” Brandle wrote and edited for French-language magazines and led the SIM International French Media Group.

Appointed. Leanne M. Dzubinski, as editor of Missiology: An International Review, beginning with the July 2022 issue. She is associate professor of intercultural education and interim dean in the Cook School of Intercultural Studies, Biola University, La Mirada, CA. Prior to joining the Biola faculty in 2013, Dzubinski served on the international staff of Greater Europe Mission in Spain and Austria (1989–2011), for which she taught at the Bible Institute and Theological Seminary of Barcelona, Spain, developed church-based community support groups for new mothers, and organized a church-based lay leader training program. Dzubinski is coauthor with Anneke Stasson of Women in the Mission of the Church: Their Opportunities and Obstacles throughout Christian History (2021). Darrell Whiteman, publisher of the American Society of Missiology, the Missiology publisher, announced Dzubinski’s appointment in February and said that the journal “has been intentional in giving voice to the three ecclesial traditions that the American Society of Missiology comprises—Conciliar Protestants, Independents/Evangelicals, and Roman Catholics.” She succeeds Richard L. Starcher, professor emeritus of intercultural studies at Biola, who has been the editor since 2011.

Appointed. Heather Pubols, missionary communications-marketing consultant, as editorial director of Evangelical Missions Quarterly (EMQ, https://missionexus.org/emq), a Missio Nexus online journal, effective with the April 2022 issue. She formerly served the Wycliffe Global Alliance as assistant director of communications (2011–18), based in Kandern, Germany, and Cape Town, South Africa, and she was director of communications for Africa (2009–11), based in Nairobi, Kenya, and Cape Town. She launched and directed the Wycliffe News Network, a visual storytelling team; managed social media accounts; consulted with Wycliffe’s organizations on their communications strategies; and led training seminars. Previously, she served Wycliffe USA, Orlando (2000–2008), as a production specialist, electronic media manager, and then director of communications. She directed the communications staff, created strategic media plans, and managed media projects. Now based in Somerset, MA, Pubols started le Motif (lemotif.org), a ministry that helps missions organizations tell their stories. The Rhode Island native became the EMQ editorial director in January, replacing Marvin J. Newell, who retired to become the first executive director of the Alliance for the Unreached.

Appointed. Retief Müller, director of the Nagel Institute for the Study of World Christianity, Calvin University, as associate professor of theology in the Faculty of Theology, Diaconia, and Leadership Studies, VID Specialized University, Stavanger, Norway, beginning in August 2022. He will research and teach contextual theology and related World Christianity topics. Previously, Müller, a South African, was associate professor of church history at South Africa’s Stellenbosch University, and assistant professor in Christian studies at Keimyung University, Daegu, South Korea. He worked with IBMR editors to publish two Nagel-managed “African Theological Advance” special issues (April 2021 and April 2022). Müller is author of The Scots Afrikaners: Identity Politics and Intertwined Religious Cultures in Southern and Central Africa (2021). VID Specialized University was established in January 2016 from the merger of four Norwegian institutions, including Stavanger’s School of Mission and Theology (Misjonshøgskolen, founded in 1843) and Bergen’s Haraldsplass Diaconal University College, with roots in the nineteenth century.

Appointed. Connie Main Duarte of Portugal and Jan Wessels of the Netherlands as general secretaries of the European Evangelical Alliance (EEA, www.europeanea.org/european-evangelical-alliance-successors-appointed/) beginning October 7, 2022, when Thomas Bucher of Switzerland will retire after ten years of service. Both Duarte and Wessels have served EEA as board members for several years; they applied for their new posts as a team. A Canadian, Duarte taught spiritual formation and homiletics for three years at Portuguese Baptist Theological Seminary. She moved to Portugal in 1998 to minister with university students. Ordained in 2013, Duarte serves as a copastor of Meeting Point Church, a Baptist congregation in Estoril, Portugal. Wessels is international director of the evangelical mission network Faith2Share, Oxford, UK, and is also a Christian Reformed missions pastor in Veenendaal, the Netherlands. He started as pastor of a small Christian Reformed congregation in the 1980s before being sent by the church to Southern Africa to assist the Reformed Churches in Botswana with their mission among the San, or Bushmen, in the Ghanzi District. In 2010 he returned to the Netherlands and was appointed general secretary of the Dutch Evangelical Alliance.

Appointed. Evangelist and pastor Juan Cruz Cellammare, a Buenos Aires native who lives in Paraguay, as president of the Alianza Evangélica Latina (Latin Evangelical Alliance, www.aelatina.org). Cruz is pastor of the International Christian Center La Gracia, in Lambaré, Paraguay, president of the Asociación Vuelve a Soñar, and an evangelist affiliated with the Luis Palau Association’s Next Generation Alliance and Global Network of Evangelists. Cruz is also director of JC Group International and founder of a Christian ministries expo in the country. He was founder of an association of pastors and youth leaders in Paraguay and president of the Funda Joven Foundation, which leads social projects in educational institutions and conferences for teachers helping at-risk youth. He hosts the broadcast Salvado Vidas on the Christian television network Aliento Vision in the US and Latin America. Alianza Evangélica Latina affiliates with the World Evangelical Alliance. Watch WEA global ambassador Brian Stiller’s interview of Cruz about his appointment at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6vDNdy1L9E.

Died. Mary M. Motte, FMM, 85, mission leader, missiologist, and Roman Catholic sister, on March 12, 2022. From December 2009, Motte was director of the Mission Resource Center of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary (FMM) in North Providence, RI. She was a long-time IBMR contributing editor and OMSC supporter, a past president of the American Society of Missiology (1993–94), a research consultant to the United States Catholic Mission Association (USCMA), and a Roman Catholic consultant to the Commission on World Mission and Evangelism of the World Council of Churches. After graduating from St. Joseph’s College in Brooklyn with a degree in English literature, Motte earned two master’s degrees and a PhD from Boston College. She helped write FMM documents, an assignment that took her to Rome until 1982. Motte’s mission research interests focused on the life of Hélène de Chappotin, a French missionary sister known as “Mary of the Passion,” who founded the FMM congregation in India; developments in Catholic mission theology since Vatican II in 1965; and intercultural mission practices. In 1943, at age six, she “made a decision in the silence of my heart that I would give my life entirely to God,” and eleven years later she entered the FMM congregation. While on short-term service in Lebanon in 1973, without the ability to speak Arabic, she “experienced a profound transformation of what it means to be a missionary.” Motte relates these and other stories in “My Pilgrimage in Mission,” IBMR 38, no. 3 (July 2014):140–44. For the IBMR she also wrote “The Involvement of Roman Catholic Women in Mission since 1965” (8, no. 1 [January 1984: 9–10]) and “The Legacy of Hélène de Chappotin” (35, no. 1 [January 2011]: 23–27). Motte is coeditor of Mission in Dialogue: The SEDOS Research Seminar on the Future of Mission, March 8–19, 1981, Rome, Italy (Orbis Books, 1982) and author of To Be Hope and Joy: Presence Bearing a Glimpse of God (USCMA, 1991).

Died. George O. Wood, 80, Pentecostal minister and denominational leader, on January 12, 2022. He served in executive leadership of the US Assemblies of God (AG) for twenty-four years as general secretary and general superintendent. Wood was AG general superintendent, Springfield, MO (2007–17), and chairman of the World Assemblies of God Fellowship (whose 2023 World Congress is being planned for October 12–14 in Madrid). Previously, he had been the AG general secretary; director of spiritual life and student life at Evangel University, Springfield, MO, where he was the interim president; pastor of Newport Mesa Christian Center (now Mesa Church, Irvine, CA) for seventeen years; and assistant superintendent of the AG Southern California Ministry Network. “He helped move the AG to a more diverse body that better reflected the nation’s overall demographics. The Fellowship became one of the most ethnically diverse denominations in America, with 42.3% of adherents representing ethnic minorities when he left office, compared to 36.9% when he began,” as reported at https://www.ozarksfirst.com/local-news/longtime-leader-of-assemblies-of-god-passes-away/. Wood, who was born to missionaries in China, held doctorates in both theology and law and was the author of Power for Life: Why Every Believer Needs to Be Baptized in the Holy Spirit (2017), Road Trip Leadership: Mileposts along My Way in Ministry (2011), and other titles.