THE GREAT COMMISSION IN REVERSE: THE GREAT COMMISSION IN REVERSE: THE GREATEST OPPORTUNITY IN MISSIONS HISTORY John A. Mayer President of the non-profit Christian ministry, City Vision headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Published in Global Missiology, January 2015 @ www.globalmissiology.org ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Abstract This article will examine the growing phenomenon of the immigrant patterns of relocation around the world. This is a new strategic opportunity for the Church to think and react to this in new mission’s outreaches. The article examines various glocal diaspora people groups in the cities of the world, the U.S., and locally in the author’s home city of Minneapolis-St. Paul (the Twin Cities), Minnesota. The article is clearly not meant to be an exhaustive approach but functions merely as an introduction for most readers and begins a needed conversation in many mission’s circles. Introduction A quick look at the national or international daily news shows us that the world is in a period of drastic change. As Christians we see it too. Change is nothing new to the Church of Jesus Christ. In fact, the Church is in a constant quest to see the world, its peoples, generations, and needs. That is why Jesus told us to have “eyes to see and ears to hear.” For if we ever lose those “eyes and ears” as the Church we will quickly lose contact with the world, its peoples, generations, and needs. This paper is a quick look at what I see happening around the world with my own eyes and ears and suggests an http://www.globalmissiology.org/ 2 opportunity for the Church to join in a great opportunity to reach out in within this new mission’s context. Back in 1988, while I was in seminary as a missions/evangelism student and working at a bank in a very diverse neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, I began to have “eyes to see and ears to hear.” I began to notice a huge influx of immigrants and refugees all coming to the bank where I worked. It increased dramatically over the 15 years that I worked there. Everyone needs money and so everyone came to the bank to get it and so I saw all different peoples of the neighborhood and I noticed more and more that this neighborhood began to resemble the world. So I made up a new word to represent this new reality. I called it glocal, which stood for global + local = glocal. I began using that word regularly to describe the people and vibe of the Phillips Neighborhood where I worked. Over time, others used this term as well and the term slowly caught on until it has become a real word now that you can even use in Scrabble if you want to. So this new glocal environment become my first aha moment in my new mission’s paradigm. The second new missions aha moment changing my worldview was that all these new glocal people from around the world were all moving to the city, my city of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. So I started to study this new urban phenomenon in missions and saw that this was a worldwide global trend. Many of these new glocal urban residents had never lived in a major city before and they tended to group together in certain neighborhoods and areas of the city. So for me, these two aha moments from my “eyes and ears” merged together into seeing it as a great opportunity for missions. I got three C’s in college, all in Spanish, and 3 so even though I felt called to missions, language learning issues held me back. So I began to see something new. I began to see that actually God did call me to be a missionary, despite my poor foreign language skills. He wanted me to be a missionary in my own context of urban glocal missions in my own neighborhood. Since that time, I have found others with a similar calling. I believe that God may be up to something entirely new in our time and that a new missions paradigm is needed to embrace it. I think this new urban glocalism is all God’s doing and that He is making it easier than ever for each of us and all of us to become missionaries in what I call, “the Great Commission in Reverse.” If you are a Calvinist, then great, you should fully agree with me on this. If you are not a Calvinist, then great, you should also fully agree with me on this as if God isn’t directly causing it, then He is surely allowing it as part of His will. Either way, God wants us to do something about it in the area of missions. I am greatly indebted to the missions thinking of the late Dr. Ralph Winter of the US Center for World Mission and through his influence on me through his Perspectives Course and other writings. He came up with the ideas of the Three Eras of the Modern Missions Movement as seen in the chart I created and adopted below. But I have added a Fourth Era of Modern Missions that starting in 1988 with the Glocal Diaspora Peoples. Others are also beginning to see that we have begun to enter this new Fourth Era of Modern Missions and have started to act to engage the Church in it. Others have begun to see the diaspora peoples flooding into the cities of the world and the great new opportunity this “Great Commission in Reverse” brings to the Church. 4 5 I like combining the term diaspora with glocal as I think both together add new connotations of meaning. To me diaspora means the spreading out of various people groups, but it still sounds too much like over there somewhere in a far off land. By adding glocal to it and making it glocal diaspora it connotes to me the arrival of these dispersed people into my own city and neighborhood and thus is not somewhere far away and but is right here, right now in my own context and God has called me to deal with it within my Christian worldview. Thus, I shall use the term glocal diaspora throughout this article to define this new reality. Glocal Diaspora Worldwide Maybe I haven’t convinced you yet about this new glocal diaspora marking a new phase in the modern mission’s movement. You can take a brief tour with me around the world and see for yourself about the Great Commission taking a reverse course. In fact, Anthony Marsella and Erin Ring report that approximately “3% of the global population lives in countries in which they were not born.” 1 Table 1 gives a small sampling of some of the glocal diaspora taking place in the cities around the world. Thus, you can see the variety of glocal diaspora peoples spreading out around the world’s cities. Many unreached people of the world are now very much “in-reach” of the average Christian and the smallest of churches located throughout the world. No passport or even foreign language skills are needed to reach many of them with the Gospel message of word and deed. 1 Anthony J. Marsella and Erin Ring, “Human Migration and Immigration: An Overview: in Migration: Immigration and Emigration in International Perspective, ed. Leonore Loeb Adler and Uwe P. Gielen (Westport: Praeger 2003), 16. 6 What’s interesting to me is that although we see this new glocal diaspora as something brand new, it really isn’t. Even in Jesus day, they hung the cross over Jesus head in three languages so everyone would understand what was going on. The apostle Paul, himself spoke four languages and always reached out to the glocal diaspora Jews of 7 whatever city he went to in the Roman Empire. The Early Church was made up of glocal diaspora people from Antioch to Rome with many of them slaves, merchants, and immigrants speaking hundreds of various languages of the time. So ministering to and in the glocal diaspora paradigm actually was the norm for the Early Church and led to much of its explosive growth in the first few centuries and shows the power of the Gospel to transcend culture and language differences and speak to the heart and needs of all the people of the world. Glocal Diaspora U.S. Maybe I still haven’t convinced you yet about this new glocal diaspora marking a new phase in the modern mission’s movement. So let’s take a brief tour with me around the U.S. and you can see for yourself about the Great Commission taking a reverse course in your own cities and neighborhoods. Table 2, gives a small sampling of some of the glocal diaspora taking place in the cities around the U.S. Thus, you can see the variety of glocal diaspora peoples spreading out around the cities of the U.S. Many unreached people groups from around the world are now very much “in-reach” so that the world is now on the doorstep of every Christian and on the doorstep of every church. This glocal diaspora phenomenon isn’t just happening in major U.S. cities but even in the smaller and rural areas of America. 8 I’ve picked two small town cities to illustrate my point. Postville, Iowa (Population 2,273) has the motto of “Hometown to the World.” Over 21% of the city is non-White. 2 Barron, WI a town of 3,400 has large Somali and Hispanic populations there. So now, even the middle of nowhere is the middle of everywhere. Mary Pipher’s 2003 book entitled The Middle of Everywhere: The World’s Refugees Come to Our Town deals with this topic of glocal diaspora changing the face of her city, Lincoln, Nebraska. The vast majority of these people have never met a true Christian in their life. In America the two things we are told to never discuss in public are politics and religion. Yet in every other country of the world these two topics are what are discussed most 2 Wikipedia: Postville, Iowa. 9 fervently in all settings. Thus, when we don’t engage the glocal diaspora people groups with the message of the Gospel they are very surprised by this as they expect us to share our beliefs with them as it is a normal part of their daily discussions in their home countries. We as Christians in America must see this new glocal diaspora reality as not some fad that will simply pass away in a few years but as the new reality. In fact, by 2043 America will be at a significant tipping point where we will all become a minority and there will be no majority culture group in the nation. 3 This is just a few decades away and will surely change everyday life in the U.S. Thus, the glocal diaspora will forever change everything in America including missions. As Christians we will all need to become cross-cultural missionaries the majority of our time in our everyday interactions. Thus, we should start thinking, preparing, and strategizing about this now while there is still time to do so in a proactive mode rather than in a reactive manner later on. How Do We React to this? Again, this glocal diaspora missions worldview isn’t really a new reality. Dr. Ralph Winter of the U.S. Center for World Missions pointed this out to us when he created his E Scale for describing Evangelism I adapted in Figure 2. In Figure 2, E2 would be considered the glocal diaspora area of missions or what I call Samaria from Acts 1:8. The arrows on the chart describe how we all start in E0 in our own church or family and then how most of us venture out beyond that into our own culture and people groups of E1. Then over time, many of us go beyond E0 and E1 to try a short-term foreign missions trip in E3 with some career missionaries staying in the E3 3 Hope Yen, “Census: White Majority in U.S. Gone by 2043,” Associated Press, 13, June, 2013. 10 arena but with most of us then returning back to E1 or E0 after are short term trip. You can see in the chart the area I call the E2 Gap. Very few people that go on a short-term trip to Haiti, for example, then come back and work with Haitians in our own city. Likewise, long-term missionaries to Haiti rarely work with Haitians in their own city first and then go on to do missions work in Haiti. Also, many long-term missionaries to Haiti when they leave the foreign missions field for a variety of reasons plug into their local Haitian community upon their trip back home to the U.S. I would like to see this E2 glocal diaspora gap filled both with people planning to go on short-term and long-term mission’s trips around the world. This would make them far more valuable in the foreign missions field experience and cut down on culture shock and other issues once they are in their foreign field. Likewise, when short-termers and 11 long-termers return back to the U.S. they should immediately connect back to the people groups they were serving in the foreign field again using their valuable knowledge and skills in the E2 gap. The other thing this does is it empowers the people we reach out to now in the glocal diaspora of our cities to now begin to reach back home to their own family and friends in their home countries and thus we multiply our effort in Christian missions exponentially. To me this should be the new mission’s norm as part of the preparation and strategy we need to create in preparation for the U.S. being viewed as a new missions field. I have discussed this strategy with many mission’s organization and although they fully agree with me, they are just not in a position to begin doing this. Satan has a plan to keep the Church from engaging in the glocal diaspora missionfield. Satan’s strategy is to use ignorance, fear, hate, and division to stop us from working in this ripe mission E2 mission field. First of all there is ignorance. I have a saying, “You can’t do the prayer, care, share, unless you know they’re there.” (Yes you can rap to it to if you want to). So the first step in outreach to the Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Animists, etc. is what I noted before as having “eyes to see and ears to hear.” We can’t do the prayer, care, share, if we don’t even know that the unreached people groups of the world are strategically located right in our own city. Second, Satan’s plan involves fear. Yes, many Christians and churches are very fearful of these non-Christian glocal diaspora people groups and their religions they practice. Many fear that these immigrant groups are destroying the Christian’s way of life, or that they are all terrorists, or that they will take the jobs away from others. But this fear actually causes us to distance ourselves from the glocal diaspora people in our 12 schools, neighborhoods, and workplaces. This fear then actually leads to a greater cycle of more fear. It is a simple fact, that if we as Christians are all afraid of them, then we will not pray, care, or share the Gospel with them and their numbers will keep steadily increasing. This fear is not from God and must be overcome. Third, Satan’s plan to stop outreach to the glocal diaspora people groups involves hate. Some Christians do honestly hate Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Animists, etc. out of fear as I previously just described. Even if these people are the enemies of God (I don’t really think this), as some Christians believe, hate is not an option. Jesus told us to love our enemies. Thus, Christians should not fall into this trap of ignorance, fear, and hate that Satan has laid out for us. Fourth, Satan uses a strategy of disunity to get us not to engage as the Church in this glocal diaspora mission field. This classic military strategy of divide and conquer is one of Satan’s favorites to employ. He causes disunity by age, race, gender, geography, theology, denominations, and in the Church body. Thus, we end up like those mentioned in the book of Judges where, “Everyone does what they think is right in their own eyes.” We are all so busy fighting each other as Christians and divided as the body of Christ and then also greatly divided from the people we are to be reaching that we really never get around to reaching out. Division is also seen by the glocal diaspora groups we are trying to reach and they often come from a much more mono-cultural or mono-religious worldviews and are not excited by the Gospel message if it is chiefly seen by them as a message of division and disunity. This disunity strategy of Satan is not attractive to the watching world and is in fact the opposite of what John said in the Bible that they will know us for our love for one another (John 13:35; 1 John 4:16). 13 Instead, God has His own plan to reach the glocal diaspora people groups and this involves Christians being the Church. God’s plan to reach the world is clearly laid out in Galatians 5 and other passages and involves the Fruit of the Spirit. Notice that the Fruit of the Spirit are clearly the opposite of what Satan intends. Gods wants us to reach Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Sikhs, Animists, etc. by “Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” I have seen this work as an outreach strategy in reaching others for Jesus. Others respond to the Fruit of the Spirit. In fact, in the Old Testament there are only three commandments to love, and one of these three is to love alien in your midst (Leviticus 19:33-34; Deuteronomy 10:19; Exodus 22:21). Most of the Fruit of the Spirit will be shown in our daily interactions with people one on one in our workplace, school, neighborhood, and with our friends and family. I know of no one who was converted to Christ through ignorance, fear, and hate. Also, when the Church is mobilized to work together, I believe this honors God and empowers believers by the Holy Spirit. This is part of the Good News. So where does one start in reaching out to the glocal diaspora people groups of their city? I have devised Figure 3 from my own ministry experience to show some of the progressive logical steps to take in this outreach process. This isn’t meant to be a “cookie cutter” model but more like a pathway that any people group can be plugged into it. Let me explain some of the points from Figure 3. We start with phase one of listening and learning. Many Christians and churches like to skip this phase and go right into Phase 2 of Prayer, Care, Share. But without this important base they often fail. I can give an example of one church in my city that wanted to reach out to Somali Muslims. They planned to do a hot dog outreach every Friday at 12 noon to reach them as they all 14 lived right around their church. So they did it without doing this Listening and Learning Phase 1 first and no Somalis ever came. They called me after several weeks and I told them what was wrong. Although, the church did much right in planning, they failed to listen and learn from the community they were trying to engage. Thus, I told them, 1). Somalis don’t eat pork products such as regular hot dogs. 2). Somalis go to the mosque on Fridays at 12 noon time. 3). It is probably best to reach Somalis one-on-one rather than in large groups. This is just one 15 example of what happens when we skip the Listening and Learning Phase 1. We often try the “Hot Dog Outreach Method,” and when no one comes we just say they’re not open to Gospel and give up rather than evaluating our own methodology as maybe not being right or contextual for that particular people group. So in this Listening and Learning Phase 1, we are listening and learning from the people group we are trying to reach, from God, from other Christians and other churches so we don’t always have to reinvent the wheel. Once we are done with the Envisioning steps and have done some praying and planning and have heard from God and other Christians and from the people group we are trying to connect with, we can then move on to the Enlisting step. In this step we have to start preparing to reach out and find partners to help us as I believe in this partnering step we will find we don’t have all the people and resources to pull off the outreach. Thus, I believe God will force us to look beyond our comfort zone of our own person and church to look to other believers to come and export their spiritual gifts and talents into our plans to help us partner to reach out. Often the partner is also with the people group we are trying to reach. They most often have something to contribute to make their own outreach more effective and contextual then if we just did it to them rather than with them. The next phase is the Prayer, Care, Share where we begin to Engage the people group we are reaching out to with actual ministry. This starts the Penetration into their community reaching some of their felt needs as the connecting point. Most of this Penetration is done one on one in the glocal diaspora community in a very contextual way where we do the next step of Proclamation both in word and deed. Then over time, the Holy Spirit begins to work in Persuading them to become believers. After some of the 16 glocal diaspora people begin to know and follow Jesus then we plant them in our church or if our church isn’t conducive for them in language or in other ways, we plant a contextualized church with them for their own people group, language, and culture. In the final step, once they are in our church or in the new contextualized church plant for them, they are Praising the Lord and are Exalting Him and then this chart repeats itself back to the beginning with these new believers reaching out to their own people group or to others cross-culturally. The other piece in connecting for outreach to the glocal diaspora communities lies in Figure 4 on the Diffusion of Innovation Adoption Curve and the Tipping Point Strategy. 17 When you start reaching out to the glocal diaspora people groups of your city, you will find that at first you will attract two types who will connect with you and your church: the Innovators and the Laggards. The innovators are those most open to the Gospel and are willing to try something new or are open to crossing cultural boundaries based on their personality types and previous experiences. But the Laggards will also come out at the same time and they are actually there to discourage you and spy on your efforts so in the future they can discourage others from their people group from engaging with you and your church in those outreach efforts. You will quickly discern by their reaction in either area who are the Innovators and who are the Laggards. Don’t let the Laggards get you down as usually they are quite vocal and in much larger numbers than the Innovators. Just keep going with the Innovators and spend all your time working with them and fleshing them out. They hang out with the Early Adopters and the Innovators will tell others about their positive experiences which usually sways the Early Adopters. Over time when you get both groups of Innovators and Early Adopters gaining about 10-20% of the whole people group you are trying to reach, you will be at the Tipping Point where the next groups of the silent majority are in the Early Majority and Late Majority groups who over time follow the lead of this Tipping Point contingent. I find this strategy human nature and helps me focus my energy in ministry in trying to identify and connect with the Innovators and Early Adopters. Paul used this same strategy when he preached in Athens. Paul went to the agora market place and Mars Hill as he tried to connect with the Innovators and Early Adopters. After he preached his famous sermon in Acts 17 we can see the response of all the groups 18 shown in the chart above. The Innovators said I like this new God Jesus and a few believed (Innovators); others said, “we want to hear you again on this subject.” (the Early Adopters); most said nothing (the silent majority of Early and Late Majorities); and the rest said, Paul is a babbler advocating a foreign god or they sneered at him (the Laggards). So Paul began to plant a church in Athens with these few Innovators. So we must also follow this same strategy today in working with the glocal diaspora of the cities of the world. By the way, this same Tipping Point Strategy will also need to be employed within your local church context as you begin to reach out to the glocal diaspora people groups of your city. You will get the same reactions and so start with identifying and pouring most your effort into the Innovator and Early Adopter groups. Again, I site a biblical example of Jesus and the 12 Disciples. Three of them were Innovators and Early Adopters (James, John, and Peter). Two of them were Laggards (Thomas and Judas). While the other seven Disciples were the silent majority and in four gospels that we have in the Bible they either have no recorded dialogue or say just a few sentences. You will have this same experience in your church when starting outreach efforts. So again, I’d focus 80% of my effort of identifying and pouring my time and efforts into the Innovators and the Early Adopters in my church setting. A Local Minneapolis/St. Paul (Twin Cities) Contextual Response Since we already discussed the glocal diaspora cities around the world and in the U.S., I wanted to touch briefly on the state of the glocal diaspora in my own city and context. Like most cities, I didn’t at first notice the glocal diaspora people groups in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota. It was like they were all hidden in plain 19 sight and the Rip Van Winkle effect suddenly took place where I woke up and saw how the trickle of these immigrant peoples had suddenly become a flood and how my own city was now at the front line of the new Twenty-first Century mission field. Table 3 will fully illustrate my point. I suddenly saw how the Great Commission was in reverse in my own city and that I and others needed to engage this glocal diaspora mission field. For example, the Twin with a population of almost 3.5 million has over 873,000 first and second generation immigrants from around the world 4 , who speak 216 languages 5 . Many of them either lived or live in the Phillips neighborhood of South Minneapolis that has over 100 languages spoken it and is the most diverse neighborhood in the state and is reported to be one of the most diverse in the U.S. One leg of the light rail system in the Twin Cities borders this neighborhood selling tickets in four languages (luckily one of them is 4 City Vision 2014 Database of Ethnic Groups, Minneapolis, Minnesota. 5 Multilingual Word Translators interviewed by author, August 27, 2014, Minneapolis, Minnesota, by phone. 20 English). A short distance from the Phillips area lies another glocal diaspora area of our city that has 75 ethnic restaurants located on it in a six block area and is now called Eat Street. The Twin Cities is known for having the first enclosed mall in history, Southdale located in Edina and we are also known for the Mall of America the largest mall in America. But now we are also home to Hispanic malls, Hmong malls, and Somali malls, one I renamed the “Somal of America.” In the Twin Cities you can buy a variety of new glocal diaspora food products including yak, kangaroo, guinea pig, goat, and even goat milk lollipops. We even have a giant ethnic food court located at the Midtown Global Market in Minneapolis across the street from the bank I worked at for 15 years where I first made up the word glocal back in 1988 as I discussed earlier. Yes the Twin Cities is forever changed by this glocal diaspora title wave that has changed our city over the last 40 years. Not all the changes are for the best. Ten church buildings in the Twin Cities have now become mosques 6 . There are plans to build the largest mosque in America in Minneapolis and it will cost $48 million 7 . This new “megamosque” in Minneapolis will be right near an apartment complex nicknamed “Vertical Africa” where currently 5,000 Muslims live 8 . The Twin Cities is also home to the largest Cambodian Buddhist temple in America 9 as well as the largest Hindu temple in North America 10 . There is little doubt for the need for the Twin Cities to be seen as a new glocal diaspora mission field. 6 City Vision 2014 Database, Minneapolis, Minnesota. 7 Allie Shah, “Creating a Safe Space for Young Muslims,” Star Tribune, 31 August , 2009. 8 Wikipedia: Riverside Plaza. 9 Jessica Mador, “Cambodian Buddhist Temple Opens in Hampton,” Minnesota Public Radio News, July 8, 2007. www.mprnews.org/story/2007/07/08/temple. 10 “Hindus in Minnesota,” Star Tribune, 2 December, 2010. http://www.mprnews.org/story/2007/07/08/temple 21 Even in my own neighborhood in the third ring suburb of Burnsville, Minnesota located 18 miles from the center of Downtown Minneapolis, there is a huge glocal diaspora presence. Burnsville has large concentrations of Hispanics, Russians, Somalis, Brazilians, Cambodians, etc. In fact, Burnsville is what we now call an ethnoburb. A term coined in 1997 by Dr. Wei Li, professor at Arizona State University, to describe large enclaves of immigrants who live in the suburbs of a major city. 11 This ethnoburb phenomenon is taking place in many cities touched by the various glocal diaspora populations. So where does one begin in exegeting and understanding their city answering the question of why is my neighbor? The following may be helpful for your city and so I will share what we did in our own city. At City Vision, the ministry where I work, we first began with the eyes and ears part by doing research. We researched the entire Twin Cities metro area including the immigrant people groups. Once we did this we put this information into various forms. We did this to make people aware of what was going on in their own city and to mobilize them to take action with prayer, care, and share. We created a report which later turned into a 200 page book with maps and graphs and charts that we call the CityView Report and it is now in its 15 th Edition with thousands of churches and ministries using it. It shows us the past, present, and future trends in our city and covers the mission field and the mission force of the Church. We also found that more forms we put our city exegesis into the more different people responded to it. A very popular form is our Discover Your City Tour that we created back in 1996 and now over 17,000 people have taken it including many Christian 11 Wikipedia: Ethnoburb. 22 high school, college, and seminary students, along with pastors, church planters, and lay leaders. Even people from other countries and many other states have taken a Tour with us. City Vision now has 10 different Tours and we show people how the city is changing and were the glocal diaspora people groups are and how to engage with them. We go and visit their stores and markets and eat their foods and connect with them. We also travel by ethnic and other churches as well as Muslim mosques, Hindu temples, Buddhist temples, and other religious worship sites. We usually stop and eat an ethnic meal on the Tours and sample the foods from around the world. We do this as we talk about “Stomach Evangelism.” I explain on the Tour that to find the people that don’t go to our churches we must follow their stomach and we will find them as everyone eats at least once per day. Food is neutral and so we can cross the cultural and ethnic boundaries by sipping Somali Tea at the Somali mall or eating a camel burger with them. I actually invented the camel burger to give me a chance to engage large groups of Christians with an excuse to interact with Muslims at the Somali owned restaurant where I built a relationship with the owner. It has worked so well, as he has now left Islam and attends my local church. All through this “Stomach Evangelism” method. I see Jesus also using “Stomach Evangelism” in the Bible where He is always eating and drinking with others. In fact, Jesus did “Stomach Evangelism” so well they accused him of being a glutton and a drunkard. Other things that we have done over the years to mobilize others into the glocal diaspora mission fields of the Twin Cities are organizing and hosting several Somali conferences which led to the first Somali church in America being planted. We also 23 organized and hosted several Tibetan conferences and in 2003 we organized and hosted the Ethnic America Summit with 1,200 attendees. Several other ways I’ve seen work in engaging the glocal diaspora people groups is through sports outreach, especially soccer, basketball, and volleyball. Some churches, ministries, and individuals have formed soccer leagues and connect with the glocal diaspora youth cultures in an effective way. Most of the glocal diaspora people groups are more oral culture often speaking four and five languages but maybe literate in none including their main language. For example the Somalis didn’t have a written language until 1970 and the Hmong people didn’t have a written language until 1950. So I and others often use Bible orality and story telling to connect. I often begin with telling them American proverbs and biblical proverbs and ask them to tell me proverbs from their own cultures. They love it and engage easily in it. I use the Socratic method and ask them questions about their cultures and their religions. Jesus also used the Socratic method in his teaching and in engaging with others. In fact, according to Richard Rohr, in the four gospels, Jesus is asked 183 questions and He only answers three of them directly. 12 Jesus often asks them a question in response or tells them a story, etc. This is where I’ve had success communicating biblical truth to the glocal diaspora people I come into contact and from there I progress to other Wisdom Literature within the Bible. Job is the oldest written book in the Bible and it is written by a non-Jew probably from the tribal people of Saudi Arabia. All people ask this question of the problem of evil and suffering at least sometime in their life and so Job is a great book to 12 Forward by Richard Rohr in The Questions of Jesus: Challenging Ourselves to Discover Life’s Great Answers, by John Dear, Colorado Springs: Image, 2004, page XXI. 24 study with them. I also go on to study Ecclesiastes with them. Again, who doesn’t want to know the meaning of life? Many of the Psalms are also great to study. I usually skip Song of Songs for obvious reasons. From there I go on to study Jesus’ parables and the Sermon on the Mount. They get it and are interested to study and ask lots of questions. Also, because they are more oral cultures, I will give them, or watch with them, the Jesus Video which has now been translated into over 1,200 languages since 1979 by Campus Crusade for Christ. On the Discover Your City Tour, we go by and stop at one house that has nine satellite dishes on one house where and estimated 40 Hispanic people live in many family units. When we stop I ask the Tour group on the bus if they really will read the Bible in their own language at this home? No my guess is that they don’t read and write even in Spanish and even if they do, they prefer to watch Satellite TV in their free time not to read. So this is why the Jesus Video is a powerful tool to give as a gift to the glocal diaspora people groups. I’ve never had anyone offended by it. They are amazed that Jesus speaks their language fluently and the visuals help them clearly understand the story as they have never understood it before. I know of several ministries that regularly give out thousands of Jesus Videos at various times of the years as gifts. I know another ministry that has software where it tells them the various clan names or religious names like Mohamed and they print these addresses out and mail a video to that people group in their home language. Conclusion I think you will now agree after reading this article, that we may have indeed be in a new phase of missions with the glocal diaspora peoples of the world coming to our cities in this new “Reverse Great Commission.” I think the Lord has made it easier than 25 ever before to engage in foreign missions without ever leaving your own city. In fact, many of the countries some of these unreached people groups come from are fully closed to missionaries or are in a very hostile unsafe environment. Again, two examples from my own city: Somalis and Tibetans. Even if you are called to reach Somalis in Somalia you can’t. You can’t get a visa to travel and even if you sneak across the border illegally into Somalia, you can’t eat camel burgers with them, play soccer with them, and share the gospel. No instead you will most likely by killed or kidnapped. Tibet is a similar story, where the Dalai Lama himself cannot return to Tibet. So if even Jason Bourne himself cannot go to Tibet and Somalia safely then God in His wisdom brings Somalis and Tibetans to be part of the glocal diapora of the world’s cities. In my opinion, the front line of the Twenty-First Century mission field has shifted to the front line of the glocal diaspora cities worldwide and it crosses the front door of every Christian church, every Christian home, workplace, and school. To quote Winston Churchill in a quote that I think fits this situation, “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” 13 Come join with God as He begins working in this new glocal diaspora mission field of the “Great Commission in Reverse.” Biography Rev. Dr. John A. Mayer serves as the President of the non-profit Christian ministry, City Vision headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. John graduated from Hennepin Technical College with a diploma in Banking; an A.A. degree (Phi Theta Kappa Honors) from Normandale College; a B.A. degree (Magna Cum Laude Honors) from the University of Minnesota in History; a M.A.T.S. degree from Bethel Seminary in Missions/Evangelism 13 Sir Winston Churchill, Speech given at the Lord Mayor’s luncheon, Mission House, London, 10 November, 1942. 26 and Historical Studies; and a D. Min. degree from Bethel University in Organizational Systems. John has been part of organizing a number of local and national conferences and outreaches including the following: Somali conferences in 2000, 2001; Tibetan conferences in 2004, 2012; Ethnic America Summit in 2003; Twin Cities Ethnic Evangelization Network Conference in 1998; COMMA VII National Consultation in 2011; Twin Cities Leadership Consultations in 1997, 1998, 2000; Unity Conference in 2006; Convoy of Hope in 1998; Discover Your City Conference in 1995; Citywide Post 9/11 Metrodome Prayer Event in 2001; and the Invitation Metrodome Prayer Event in 2002. John serves in leadership on several ministry boards and is also a well known seminar/conference speaker, urban missiologist, and researcher. He also serves as an adjunct professor at various Christian colleges and seminaries teaching 23 different college and graduate courses for the last 10 years and has helped develop several new urban/cross-cultural degree programs. He also serves as a national speaker for the Perspectives courses. John has been featured in national and local radio and TV programs as well as being quoted in many books, magazines, newspapers, and videos discussing a variety of spiritual topics. He is considered to be an expert on the religious, urban, and ethnic climates of the Twin Cities having completed the most in-depth research ever done on any city from a Christian perspective and he serves as a thought leader in these areas of expertise. Since 1996, he has authored 15 editions of the CityView Report book. John also created the Discover Your City Tours of the Twin Cities in 1996 with over 17,000 people attending the ten different Tours from 39 states and 19 countries. He works with other cities around the world, training them to understand and exegete their own communities as part of their city reaching efforts. Through his ministry work, John has worked with over 1,200 churches/ministries from 61 denominations, including over 100 new church plants. John coined the word “glocal” (global + local = glocal) in 1988 for describing the new E-2 cross-cultural mission fields in North America. As part of his “stomach evangelism” strategy, he is the creator of the Camel Burger. Rev. Dr. John A. Mayer City Vision P.O. Box 23237 Minneapolis, MN 55423 612-396-3091 www.cityvisontc.org jam@cityvisiontc.org http://www.cityvisontc.org/