From Global Villages to Global Apartments: Intentional Living in Global Cities

by Sadiri Joy Tira

I am fascinated by the term “Global Village” coined by Edmonton, Alberta-born Canadian philosopher, Herbert Marshall McLuhan. Decades before Global Village became a catch-phrase, McLuhan popularized it in his writings, using it to describe how the globe would be connected by electronic technology and instant information.

Three decades ago, while studying at Canadian Theological Seminary, a missiology professor of mine described the term Global Village in his lecture. Now, leaping from McLuhan’s usage, I use the term global village to refer to the reality of the world seemingly growing smaller due to the arrival of immigrants from all over the world in international cities.

Today, urban missiologists talk about Global Cit[ies], and Arrival Cit[ies]. These mission scholars describe the shrinking globe and its impact on missions and local church evangelistic programs. I can think of no better example of these realities than what I will call the “Global Apartment.”

For the month of February, I was in Manila, Philippines, lecturing at Asian Theological Seminary, networking and planning for the 2015 Global Diaspora Forum under the Lausanne Movement/Global Diaspora Network platform. While in Manila, I stayed in the Ortigas Commercial Centre.

I was hosted by my friends, Mark and Susan, in their 39th floor suite in their apartment building, Grand Emerald Towers, a 40-stories high-rise condominium-apartment across from Greenhills Christian Fellowship (GCF). There must be close to 2,000 people living in that tower and I was surprised to learn that there were many Koreans, Indians, Europeans, Latinos, and Americans residing there. I saw them every day.

One day, my friend Mark and I were going down to the ground level when we stopped at the 35th floor to pick up more “passengers.” There came in three people: a Korean, a Nigerian, and a 6 ft. tall lady wearing formal clothing, a designer handbag, and a Gucci wristwatch.

I took the courage to break the silence! I said, “Hello folks, welcome to our conference room!” Everyone smiled. Then, I directly engaged the tall woman inside the elevator, saying, “You are taller than me and I think I know which country you came from!”

She smiled. “How do you know, and where do you think I came from?”

I responded: “You must be from Iran!”

She replied, “How did you know that? You are correct.”

I said, “I have been in Tehran and I can usually identify the wonderful Iranians.” The door opened and the five of us said to each other,”Goodbye and enjoy the day.”

I also added, “Let’s have another conference in this same place.”

Tonight, March 6, 2014, I am back in Edmonton, Alberta (Canada). At 9 p.m. I was having a cup of coffee with my friends Nabil, a first-generation Sudanese-Canadian, and, Owen, a third-generation British-Canadian. While having our coffee at Tim Horton’s, my friends and I discreetly took note of an affectionate young couple in the corner. For the next 15 minutes we discussed the rise of cross-cultural dating, and interracial marriage in Canada.

Around 10 p.m. I asked my friends several questions and we grappled with each.

I said to Owen, “Before you arrived, I was talking to a Somalian man. He said that there are close to 30,000 Somalis in Edmonton alone.” Nabil added, “They are a huge community, larger than the Sudanese.”

Owen’s eyes doubled in size. “What? How many? Really! Where are they in the city?” I told my friends, “If I was a pastor again, I would look for Somalis, I am sure they are living not too far from our local church. Many live in the apartment buildings around this Tim Horton’s.”

I thought about the Ortigas Commercial Centre. If I was a pastor again, I would mobilize my congregation to occupy many condominiums and apartments.

There they live as Salt and Light.

There, they practice hospitality and become friends to the foreigners around them.

I would lead a seminar on how to conduct evangelism inside the elevators, encouraging them to be polite, cordial, helpful and friendly. I would remind them that they can be true Christians even for a five minutes on elevator ride. People can be very rude inside elevators, using cell phones and only looking the tip of our shoes or up to the ceiling. I suggest we make use of every moment of our lives to shine as bright as the sun inside the elevator.

Finally, I would do all I can to plant a congregation–be a  cell group, a prayer group, an affinity group in our global apartments within a 100-meter radius of our church facility.

Is that too much for a pastoral vision? No. Missions in the 21st century is no longer missions beyond but missions around! I am excited as individuals, organizations, and denominations work together to brainstorm and implement “out-of-the-box” strategies for reaching people with the good news. I am always saying that “Now, is a thrilling time.” Yes, it is.

[Read more about diaspora missions in apartments by clicking here.]

Sadiri Joy Tira is chair of the Global Diaspora Network and senior associate for diasporas with Lausanne.  

Side note: In March 2015, Greenhills Christian Fellowship will be the venue and host of the 2015 Global Diaspora Forum (GDF), in which 500 invited diaspora missiology scholars and practitioners will assess the advance of diaspora missiology. You can learn more about the event through the Lausanne Movement‘s media outlets.

Diaspora Missions: Only Tomorrow Will Tell

by Sadiri Joy Tira

Last Saturday (11.30.2013), I drove north of Edmonton to the small town of Westlock, Alberta. There in the town hospital are my dear friends, Hope and Horatio McCombs.

Our paths first crossed in 1983, when I arrived in Edmonton to serve as a pastoral intern at Millbourne Alliance Church (to read more about Millbourne Alliance Church, see The Heart of the Gospel: A response to Samuel Escobar’s ‘Mission Fields on the Move.’

Hope and Horatio were physically active and strong then. They were outstanding leaders of their congregation and community. Horatio was on the Board of Elders, while Hope served as a deaconess. Horatio also served on the Board of Governors for the Canadian Theological Seminary. The McCombs were successful business people and diligent supporters of kingdom-advancing missions both globally and locally. Most important for this post, Hope and Horatio were active in reaching out to the Scattered People (diasporas) in Edmonton.

This couple used their own apartment building to provide housing to newly-landed immigrants and students. They would pick up international students to take them grocery shopping and would invite them for meals at their home. The Filipinos attending Millbourne Alliance called them Lolo and Lola (grandpa and grandma in Tagalog). Through the 1980s, Horatio and Hope “adopted” a Chinese family who came to the University of Alberta to study engineering. They patiently took care of this family of four until they followed Jesus Christ.

In 1984, Millbourne Alliance Church launched a church-birthing initiative among the Filipinos which led to the birth of a missional congregation, the First Filipino Alliance Church. FFAC, in turn, became a catalyst to the church-planting movements among the Filipino-Canadians under the Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA). Today, there are over 20 Filipino congregations affiliated with the C&MA in Canada. The McCombs were quietly but effectively involved and engaged in this movement through their prayers and financial support.

The McCombs will be remembered as servant leaders, catalytic leaders–leaders with tender hearts for international students and new immigrants. Hundreds have been ushered into the kingdom because of Hope and Horatio.

Now let me tell you about the following morning. On Sunday morning, I found myself ministering to a group of 25 (European Canadians) senior citizens during their worship service at an Edmonton senior’s extended care home. I was surprised to learn that their pianist was a youth of Chinese descent. It turns out that the chapel ministries at this senior’s manor are a ministry of South Edmonton Alliance Church (SEAC) — a vibrant South Edmonton congregation that started by reaching out to the Chinese diaspora.

SEAC may have been primarily a Chinese congregation initially, but today, SEAC ministers to the community, including New Canadian (new immigrant) and established Canadian, privileged and marginalized, young and old, through their various programs (see a post about SEAC here). There is much talk of migrant ministries and church revitalization, but I want to talk about coming full circle. I am certain that somewhere in SEAC’s history, there are people just like Hope and Horatio McCombs, who were part of a movement to welcome and love Scattered Peoples new to Canada, in the name of Christ. 

At some point, Canadian Christians reached out to New Canadians from China, and now, decades later, Chinese Christians are ministering to elderly Canadians.

It seems that evangelism here (in this post) has come full circle. The kingdom formula remains: various people cultivate the ground, plant the seed, water the seedings, nurture the plants, and harvest the fruits. God is glorified in team efforts. Lay leaders like the McCombs must be affirmed and mobilized for glocal (or global local) missions.

My recent weekend experiences remind me of the words of Dr. Mary Wilder of Western Seminary spoken in an address given to the Conference of Filipino Alliance Ministries (CFAM) held at Taylor Seminary in Edmonton in August 2007. She said of the Filipinos, “… 100 years ago, the Filipinos were a mission field. Now, they are moving out to take their place in missions, reaching around the world in very creative ways!” 

In the case of my story, thirty years ago, some new [Chinese and Filipino] immigrants were “mission fields on the move” (Escobar, click here); now they are moving, reaching out to their hosts and to other scattered people in innovative ways!

May many more extend welcome and love to “newcomers” particularly to Scattered People, in Christ’s name. Only God knows what tomorrow may tell.

Sadiri Joy Tira is chair of the Global Diaspora Network and senior associate for diasporas with Lausanne.

Global Invitations to the Table

by Sadiri Joy Tira

When I was a student at seminary in the early 1980s, my missiology professor talked about Closed Door Countries (CDC) and Creative Access Nations (CAN). Now we talk about globalization, rapid mobility, mass migration/diasporas, labor/economic re-alignments, and communication connectedness.  

Three decades ago, when we debated how to penetrate these so called CANs and CDCs, the answers were ‘Bible-smuggling’ and undercover ‘tentmaking’. Since then, the validity of these strategies has been challenged by ethicists. Talking about the ‘regions beyond’ has become in some circles, the ‘regions around’ [us]. Unreached People Groups (UPG) have become Unengaged, Unreached, People Groups (UUPG).

Observers see the world around us in mega cities–no longer global villages, but rather more like global condominiums or global apartments. We also hear about how global networks have been replaced by global families! 

My point is: mission and evangelism departments must update their syllabi to keep up with current realities. Our emerging leaders need to recognize the realities of the 21st-century world. Mission professors must spend hours looking at the syllabi for economic, labor, sociology, migration, and technology courses. I would suggest that we need more integrated and inter-disciplinary mission courses in order to meet the challenges and opportunities presented by these new realities.  

It is not too complicated to conceive the potential impact of simple, but intentional personal relationships that spread across the globe. 

Three weeks ago I was in Bahrain, a small but strategic island in the Arabian Gulf. There were gathered 90 Filipino Kingdom Workers (associated with the Filipino International Network(FIN), a catalytic movement of Christians committed to motivate and mobilize Filipinos globally to partner for worldwide mission) representing a myriad of professions: medical doctors, nurses, engineers, bus drivers, maids, etc. 

Some have been in the region for 35 years, indicating long-standing relationships with Arab employers. In short, many of these Filipino Kingdom Workershave earned the credibility and the respect, and even love of their masters. 

In the three days, we met to seek the face of God, worshiping and praying together, and acquiring knowledge and skills on how to effectively connect with our co-workers in the hospitals, hotels, oil fields, etc. 

Call this witnessing! 

Participants learned how to confidently share their life-changing stories, and I believe they left and returned home to their adopted nation excited and empowered. At the end of our time together, we had a big Arabian dinner followed by the breaking of bread. 

I told my friends that neither Jesus nor his followers built a memorial or monument at Calvary or Bethlehem for him to be remembered. I explained that Jesus’ memorial, or His Table, is mobile. 

His Table must be spread to all nations and countries of the world. We (re)committed among ourselves to share our stories to our local friends so that many of them will join in and around the Master’s Table for the breaking of bread.

Meet just a few of the people who participated:

• H.A.: a seasoned Arab trainer and evangelist

• Mark: a businessman who travels extensively, an expert on team building.

• Jopet: chairman of the Filipino International Networkin the region and a medical technologist for over 20 years in Kuwait City.

• Ronald: lives in Bahrain with his wife and children and trains aviation engineers in the region to maintain the Airbus 320. According to him, he gives Bibles as gifts to his students. “I don’t smuggle, but I give gifts and my students receive with gladness.”

• Ike: a tender-hearted mining engineer in Oman, who serves as the pastor of a Filipino congregation whose members are lonely, discouraged, and burdened.

• Ronnie: a successful civil engineer in United Arab Emirates who also organizes training for Filipino Kingdom Workers in the region.

• Luis: the baker of a Royal family in Bahrain for 25 years

Consider these statistics: (from the Country Migration Report Philippines 2013; IOM)

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia – Number of Filipinos: 1,550,572

United Arab Emirates – Number of Filipinos: 679,819

Qatar – Number of Filipinos: 342,442

Kuwait – Number of Filipinos: 186,750

Now imagine that approximately 7% are evangelical Christians (Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches).  

Imagine if 7% were mobilized as story-tellers whose lives declare testimony to “God [who] so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, [and] that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).   

Imagine if each one of them invited just one other person to become a regular partaker of the Lord’s Table before they returned to their homeland.  

Think about the future banquet in heaven (Rev. 19:9), and remember the people who invited you to the Table!

Is that too complicated to imagine?

Sadiri Joy Tira is the Lausanne senior associate for Diasporas; vice-president for Diaspora Missions at Advancing Indigenous Missions (AIM); and Diaspora specialist at the Jaffray Centre for Global Initiatives at Ambrose University College (Canada).