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Understanding, reconciling and engaging with God’s stories together

ReimaginingHome

2017 AAMS Conference Whitley College 2–5 July

whitley.unimelb.edu.au/events

Conference Program

2 • Reimagining Home

Sunday 2 July

5:30 pm Geoffrey Blackburn Library

Registrations Open

6:00 pm Dining Room Dinner (for residential participants only)

7:15 pm Grigg Theatre Welcome to Conference and Prayer

7:30 pm Grigg Theatre KeynoteMission: Indigenous Community ReflectionsTerry Leblanc

8:30 pm Common Room Supper

2017 AAMS Conference • 3

Monday 3 July

9:00 am Townley Area Day Registrations

9:30 am Chapel Bible Study and PrayersPolis and Topos: Reimagining Home in the Gospel of MarkKeith Dyer

10:15 am Grigg Theatre KeynoteNegotiating ‘Home’ in an Age of UncertaintySeferosa Carroll

11:15 am Common Room Morning Tea

11:45 am Session 1 Electives

Resisting empire: A Maori theology of church and state Steve Taylor

Being at ‘home’ wherever you areCarlos Raimundo

Legacy: Australian Urban Mission 1960–2000Dean Eland

The Arrente concept of apmereMike Bowden

Home and homelessness in the AnthropoceneMick Pope

Re-weaving society through community organisingAndreana Reale

12:45 pm Dining Room Lunch

2:00 pm Session 2 Electives

Strong spirit in Aboriginal community developmentGrant Paulson

Missional Messy ChurchMichelle Eastwood

Reimagining homemaking, materiality and missionCarolyn Kelly

Shelter, country, and home through Aboriginal eyesMilliwanga Sandy

Making home in BengalRos Gooden

Reimagining home economicsJonathan Cornford

3:00 pm Common Room Afternoon Tea


Encountering God in community development Barry Borneman

When home is a precarious shorelineGarth Eichhorn

The neighbourhood is God’s home tooMark Johnston

A Christological paradigm for social transformationTitus Olorunnisola

Welcome: Who shares the nod?Liellie McLaughlin

The little church that couldLisa Wells

4:30 pm Relaxing time

6:00 pm Dining Room Dinner

7:00 pm Coffee and ConversationThese are unfacilitated after-dinner conversations available for participants, to be held over Supper:

Indigenous Conversations Townley Room

Considering Neighbourhoods Common Room


Tuesday 4 July


9:30 am Chapel Bible Study and PrayersReimagining Home: Reading Romans in Multicultural AustraliaSiu Fung Wu

10:15 am Grigg Theatre KeynoteFaces of Home in the Context of MigrationGemma Talud Cruz

11:15 am Common Room Morning Tea


A journey to the promised land? Theological perspectives on Chin migrationMang Hre

Relocating in Christ: Rural churches and migrationMark and Monica Short

Migration: Discovering ‘hope’ and ‘home’ in a foreign landSharmila Blair

The Indian and Sri Lankan diaspora in Australia: Mission as ‘homecoming’Kamal Weerakoon

The Bible as a place of intercultural encounterGeorge Wieland and Andrew Butcher

Sehnsucht among second generation migrantsStephen Said

12:45 pm Dining Room Lunch


A Case of Testimonial Injustice: William Douglass Gunselman in the Philippines 1964–1971Brady Kal Cox

Cultural intelligence for leadership and team development in Chinese churchesMichael Chu

Embodying the hospitality of GodMeewon Yang

Missionaries to a world with concubines in the homeGrace Tsoi

A ‘steamboat’ theology of homeXiaoli Yang

New Humanities. Renewed homeRosemary Dewerse

3:00 pm Common Room Afternoon tea


The LORD’s home in canonical IsaiahEleonora Scott

From gold miners to studentsKevin Ward

Foundations of home, mental health, inclusion and stories of GodStacey Wilson

Facilitating a sense of home for spiritual seekers Lynne Taylor

Reconciling church for second generation Chinese AustraliansGraham Scott

Missionary kids, identity and belongingLinda Devereux

4:30 pm Grigg Theatre Relaxing time AAMS Annual General Meeting for all AAMS members

6:00 pm Dining Room Dinner

7:00 pm Coffee and ConversationAn invitation to join: Language Matters Facilitated by Ian DicksManley Room


Wednesday 5 July


9:30 am Chapel Bible Study and PrayersPreserving Home, Seeking ShalomDeborah Storie

10:15 am Grigg Theatre KeynoteBuilding Church Homes across Cultural BoundariesDudley Woodberry

11:15 am Morning Tea


Our home: bigger than we had imaginedPatrick McInerney

Intercultural pastoral care and missional practiceSue Holdsworth

The paralyzing effect of continuing captivity to Western cultureWalter White

Liturgy, exclusion and embraceJacob Joseph

Reconcile with Earth, reconcile with each otherAnne Lanyon

Hidden peoples in Australian citiesIan Dicks

1:00 pm Lunch

please note Lunch overlaps with participants in the Aboriginal & Torres Straight Islander Consultation, which continues into the afternoon.


Mick PopeProfessor of Environmental Mission Missional University

We live in a new geological age, the Anthropocene. We are at risk of becoming homeless from our disruptive impact to the Earth. The biblical story is one of home and homelessness, from the expulsion from home in Genesis 2–4 to our new home in Revelation 21. Explore how the framework of Genesis 2–4 applies to mission in today’s world (the Anthropocene). How have our actions abrogated the divine command to care for the Earth? How do we understand the present crisis as our expulsion from the divine presence, and how do we make our home once more with God in our disrupted world?

Rev Dr Steve TaylorPrincipal Knox Centre for Ministry and Leadership

Taylor examines the response of Maori leader Wiremu Tamihana to British colonisation in Aotearoa, New Zealand, in 1861. Tamihana used Ephesians 2:13 to offer a theology of church and state which defended Maori political initiatives, reconceived international relationships and reimagined home. How can we learn from the creative work done by indigenous cultures in interpreting Scripture and in so doing, resisting the power of empire?

Resisting empire: A Maori theology of church and state

Session 1 Electives: Monday 11:45 am

The Arrente concept of apmere

Home and homelessness in the Anthropocene

Mike BowdenPhD Candidate Yarra Theological Union

The Arrernte (an Aboriginal group in the Northern Territory) word for home is apmere (connoting ‘place,’ ‘country’, ‘hearth’ and ‘the place my heart yearns for’). In the western world one can sell one’s ‘home’ and purchase a new ‘home’ in another place far away. For an Arrernte speaking person one can never relinquish apmere because it is the source of spirit and life. Walking the long journey of reconciliation from the shadows of imperial colonisation and stolen country, how do we understand and utilise the Arrernte concept of apmere and interpret the Arrernte welcome to strangers in this sacred land?

Being at ‘home:’ Connecting theology and neuroscience

Dr Carlos RaimundoLecturer in Relational Psychodynamics and Supervision Jesuit College of Spirituality

It is difficult, even impossible to feel settled when you are outside a familiar place, or making a home in a new place, when you’re not at ‘home’ with yourself, the Creator, others, your past and your hopes for the future. Explore the concept of connecting theology with neuroscience from different points of reference including: the Gospel of Matthew, Ignatian Spiritualty, Jewish Torah and Midrash and the work of theologians including L. Boff, Karl Ruhner, D. Bonhoeffer and P. Teilhard de Chardin, N. Mandela. Discover how to be ‘at home’ wherever we are.


Andreana RealeCommunity Organiser

Relational community organising is a means of ‘re-weaving’ the social bonds that comprise a diverse and connected social fabric. The central tension of civil society and the ‘craftsmanship’ of community organising is that all involved must be both united with others, and yet differentiated in their own right. Explore how a civil society can be a ‘city of shalom’ by being strong in its diversity and therefore having the ability to contend with the power structures of the state and market that can inhibit its growth and flourishing.

Dean ElandPilgrim Uniting Church Adelaide

A legacy is a bequest, a gift from one generation to another. The experience of urban mission activists in the second half of the 20th century anticipated some of the central topics of mission theology and practice in Australia today. The term, ‘urban mission’ implied an incarnational presence in disadvantaged inner city communities and involved attempts to address the long term poverty, injustice and social inequality. Discover the characteristics of this experiential style of mission from 1960s–2000s and its influence on and implications for those practicing contextual mission theologies in Australia today.

Legacy: Australian urban mission 1960–2000

Re-weaving society through community organising


Milliwanga Sandy

Details coming soon!

Grant Paulson

Details coming soon!

Michelle Eastwood

Catholic Theological College

Messy Church is a form of worship that encourages intergenerational community development through creating, singing, story, worshipping and eating together. People of all faiths and all cultures are welcome. The relaxed atmosphere and informal program encourages exploration and discussion faith, life and God in the context in which we are living. Explore how Messy Church can serve your community.

Strong spirit in Aboriginal community development

Missional Messy Church

Session 2 Electives: Monday 2:00 pm

Shelter, country, and home through Aboriginal eyes

Making home in Bengal

Dr Rosalind GoodenRetired Director of Training Global Interaction

Eleven single women were the first workers sent by Australasian Baptist missions to East Bengal, in British India. Five of them finished their lives without returning to reside in Australasia. Life in Bengal for them was a transformative experience. Significant influences were the Bengali concepts of ‘belonging’ and ‘home.’ Gooden explores these womens’ conversion experiences and traces how they became ‘accepted outsiders.’


Jonathan CornfordPhD Candidate Whitley College

Reclaiming the practice of Christian economic witness is essential to the Church’s missiological effectiveness in twenty-first century Australia. Christianity’s cultural accommodation of capitalism has implicated it in the ‘bad news’ of Western civilisation. A Christian material ethic must necessarily be a counter-cultural ethic rooted in an exilic understanding of home and vocation that maintains a tension between Revelation 18 and Jeremiah 29. Learn how the everyday practices of household economics (production, consumption, investment, work and leisure) are central for revitalising faith and reclaiming a meaningful presence in the face of systemic idolatry.

Carolyn KellyHead Chaplain University of Auckland

Home improvement is big business and a popular diversion in contemporary antipodean society… Yet the domestic sphere of home-making is rarely mentioned, let alone the primary subject, in serious theological or missiological discourse and the home is merely background; a feminine sphere that sustains the people, ideas and activities that warrant notice in the public realm and the church. Kelly examines the home as the site of embodied experience and its role in the ‘making’ of human beings, arguing for a re-engagement with material and visual elements in a theology of incarnated living.

Reimagining homemaking, materiality and mission

Reimagining home economics


Barry BornemanCEO

Wycliffe Australia

‘Community Development’ has become a bit of a dirty word. It is too often thought of as people and organisations with money and expertise helping those less fortunate. This very real or perceived power differential prevents transformational relationships from forming and can reduce such engagement to be transactional at best or abusive at worst. However transformation in community development does not need to be an illusion. Discover the ingredients that favour transformation over transactional mission with an emphasis on the combined place of personal prayer, personal friendship, and the appropriate sharing of wealth.

Garth EichhornState Director Street Chaplains WA

The homeless of any Aussie city inhabit what some call ‘the shoreline.’ Home for them is the narrow strip between a comfortable apartment and the dangers of the roadway. Eichhorn examines the developing spirituality of street chaplains as they engage the homeless and work with other services in transforming the shoreline environment. Explore the progression of a street chaplain’s theology and practice as they encounter God in community care and environmental development.

Encountering God in community development

A Christological paradigm for social transformation

When home is a precarious shoreline

Liellie McLaughlinMinister at Eden Hills Uniting Church Physiotherapist at Brian Burdekin

Australia is often celebrated as a successful multi-cultural country, deemed to be welcoming to many diverse cultures. But how easy is the Australian culture to access? Who facilitates training of these values and traditions? McLaughlin discusses the evolving growth within individuals in their development from being ethnocentric (presuming the superiority of one’s own worldview) to becoming ethno-relative (assuming the equality and validity of all groups and does not judge others by the standards of one’s own culture). A spectrum of experiences, from bewilderment to having a sense of thriving in a new culture, will be discussed. A readily accessible tool, to enhance reciprocity of cultural exchange and a sense of mutuality, will be described.

Session 3 Electives: Monday 3:30 pm

Welcome: Who shares the nod?

Rev Dr Titus Olorunnisola

Reconciliation is a theological concept that directly touches on human relationships and situations in the society. A theology of reconciliation highlights the huge significance that Christology may have upon universal human conditions. Explore the ongoing tension between reconciliation as a socio-political concept and as a theological model. How can a theology of reconciliation as a Christological paradigm be re-emphasised further in view of the social-political, economic and relational challenges of today?


Mark JohnstonField Work Coordinator Knox Centre for Ministry and Leadership

Suburban churches in New Zealand are increasingly inclined to estrangement from neighbourhood and locality. The imagination and praxis of local church mission can be limited to ‘come to us’ invitations or to excursions that feel artificial. How do we re-inhabit notions of home and mission? Investigate how the mission of God invites us to view our neighbourhood as a form of home where God is present and active.

The neighbourhood is God’s home too

Lisa WellsCatalyst Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand

Missiologist Lesslie Newbigin contends the congregation is the hermeneutic of the gospel. Wells analyses the experience of Nawton Presbyterian Church (a church plant in the suburbs of Hamilton, New Zealand in the 1960s) as a case study of one congregation engaging in mission as a way to examine shalom in a multicultural context. How do we build a church culture that creates space to discern where God is at work in a multicultural community?

The little church that could


Kamal WeerakoonPhD Candidate Morling College

To speak of diaspora mission in Australia is to speak of a ‘homecoming.’ The Indian and Sri Lankan Christian diaspora is ultimately the product of mission to the Indian subcontinent from the middle East and Western Europe. What missionaries took with them to India and Ceylon is now being returned as diaspora Christians bring with them the legacy of their Christian inheritance. Survey the variety of churches and Christian fellowships that Indian and Sri Lankan Diasporans attend across Australia and explore the history of missional movements in and their impact upon the South Asian Subcontinent.

George Wieland Director of Mission Research and Training Carey Baptist College

Andrew ButcherAdjunct Researcher College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Massey University

Mang Hre

Hre analyses the contemporary issue of global migration, focusing specifically on the history of migration among the Chin people. Reflecting upon the Bible’s diverse presentations of migration and its variously-articulated hopes for a land of promise, Hre brings the key insights arising into conversation with theological questions raised by Chin migrants today as well as drawing on his own experience of being an asylum seeker in Australia. Investigate the theology of migration arising within the fields of biblical interpretation and mission.

Mark ShortNational Director The Bush Church Aid Society of Australia

Monica ShortLecturer, Social Work Charles Sturt University

A journey to the promised land? Theological perspectives on Chin migration

The Indian and Sri Lankan diaspora in Australia: Mission as ‘homecoming’

Relocating in Christ: Rural churches and migration

The Bible as a place of intercultural encounter

Session 4 Electives: Tuesday 11:45 am

What does Christian mission look like in a world of shifting borders and emerging walls? Through hearing the voices of refugees, migrants and other church members we learn about how finding a home in the local church can be part of the migration experience for both Christians and people new to Christianity. Investigate how the church can become a home ‘in Christ’, where labels like ‘refugee’ can be replaced with titles like ‘friend,’ ‘brother,’ ‘sister’ and ‘family.’

The city of Aotearoa, New Zealand, comprises a multiplicity of Christian populations and communities. How do Christians relate and understand each other in light of such diversity? Wieland explores the effects of cultural and social location on how the Bible is heard, interpreted and responded to. He proposes ways in which the Bible itself might become a shared ‘home,’ where mutually respectful and illuminating encounters are experienced and authentic pilgrim community might emerge.


Stephen Said

Urban Seed

In his book Pilgrim’s Regress, C.S. Lewis describes Sehnsucht as an ‘inconsolable longing’ for ‘we know not what’ – a “longing for a far off country, but not a particular earthly land which we can identify. This is the experience of the second generation migrant who lives between two worlds. Explore the migrants’ experience of “homelessness” and how this acute experience of dislocation can inform the post-Christendom church in (re)discovering her vocation as a home between the now and not yet.

Sharmila BlairMasters Student Stirling Theological College

How might we read scripture through the lens of the other (new migrant, asylum seeker or refugee) in Australia? What does it mean for us to re-read scripture today as a predominantly Gentile (other) ‘in-grafting’ into a Jewish narrative? How does this inform our orthopraxy concerning people from different countries, cultural backgrounds and faiths? Explore how the biblical narratives highlight how the other discovers a sense of ‘hope’ and ‘home’ through acts of radical inclusion and embrace. How can we as a church enflesh a practical theology which welcomes the other in our midst?

Migration: Discovering ‘hope’ and ‘home’ in a foreign land

Sehnsucht among second generation migrants


Michael ChuResearch student Morling College

The vast cultural distance and cultural diversity between pastoral leaders of a migrant generation and their descendent generation present serious challenges for team work and unity in Chinese churches. Generational conflicts and disagreement occur in all levels of church ministry which can have destructive consequences for a congregation. What insights are gained when we inspect the generational conflict from a cultural perspective? Explore the relevance and application of Cultural Intelligence (CQ) to the pastors of Chinese churches and how the two generations in churches can be reconciled.

Grace TsoiPhD Candidate Whitley College

China has a long history of concubinage, and until the 1950s concubines were legal members of families widely accepted by the culture. When missionaries entered China in the 19th Century, this posed a significant challenge to Christian values. Tsoi investigates how the missionaries’ message was reflected in their translation of Judges 19 in the Chinese Union Version (CUV) of the Bible. Explore the effects of translating scripture and how a clash of kinship values between Western and Chinese cultures plays a role in the translation of the text.

Xiaoli YangPostdoctoral Associate, Adjunct Lecturer Whitley College

Drawing on the metaphor of eating together around a ‘steam boat’, commonly used to entertain guests at home in Chinese culture for over 1000 years, Yang explores a contextualized Chinese theology of home. It embraces and integrates the Chinese concepts of Jiaxiang (hometown), Huijiaxiang (homecoming), Haoke (hospitality), Yin-Yang harmony, and the honouring of ancestors. Investigate how Chinese can feel at home and find the space in which they truly belong through a ‘steam boat’ theology.

A Case of Testimonial Injustice: William Douglass Gunselman in the Philippines 1964–1971

Missionaries to a world with concubines in the home

Cultural intelligence for leadership and team development in Chinese churches

A ‘steamboat’ theology of home

Session 5 Electives: Tuesday 2:00 pm

Brady Kal CoxGraduate Student Abilene Christian University

Using archival materials, interviews, and insights from the field of epistemology, Cox demonstrates that Gunselman participated in, and perpetuated a system of testimonial injustice (i.e., due to prejudice, he gave a deflated level of credibility to Filipinos) while serving as a missionary from the American Churches of Christ. What were the mistakes he made, and what can we learn from his example about engaging in cross-cultural mission work?


Rev Meewon YangMulticultural Consultant Baptist Union of Victoria

Yang reflects upon her experience of multicultural ministry, exploring a vision of mission that arises out of the practical experience of her local church (Brunswick Baptist) engaged in multicultural ministry. She draws upon biblical and theological resources on the theme of hospitality to expand upon this vision. What is the character of multicultural mission in terms of hospitality? Examine some of the critical issues, strengths and difficulties involved in a ‘hospitality approach’ to multicultural mission.

Dr Rosemary DewerseThornton Blair Research Fellow Knox Centre for Ministry and Leadership

Dewerse critically reflects on her experience of participating in a ten-month transformative leadership course where she discovered Jesus coming to meet her in and through the lives and ideas of the leaders and participants. In a setting espousing Integral Theory and Buddhist philosophies three commitments offered resonance with, critique of and possibilities for Christian mission practice: the transformation of humanity and experience of shalom – paying attention; embodying meaning; and celebrating truth, goodness, and beauty.

Embodying the hospitality of God New Humanities. Renewed home


Lynne TaylorTeaching Fellow Otago University

Taylor draws on Scripture, theology and the experiences of recent converts to Christianity to offer a model of hospitality for communities of faith that desire to be places of belonging and transformation. How can churches facilitate the sense of homecoming significant for conversion? What resources do theology and the Scriptures offer to leaders and congregations longing to be communities of welcome and embrace? How can such communities enable people to encounter Jesus, God’s shalom, and deep connection with one another?

Graham ScottPhD Candidate Brisbane School of Theology

For second generation Australians whose formative years are spent within such migrant church contexts, church can represent both ‘home’ as well as a ‘strange land.’ Church is home in it familiarity, but also in the sense of cultural solidarity, especially with others of the second generation. Church also takes on the form of a strange land, as the realisation grows that the faith expression of their church no longer captures their experience of and desires for faith, fellowship, community, and governance. How can their expression of faith reflect the cultural reality of being second generation Australians and honour the faith and story of their parents?

Eleonora ScottPhD Candidate Brisbane School of Theology

The prophet Isaiah warns the people of Judah and Israel of their impending exile, but they are also given glimpses of hope that the LORD is still willing to make a home among His people. Tracing the Hebrew terms relating to ‘home’ and ‘family,’ Scott examines the home of the LORD in canonical Isaiah and how God’s home is more than just a physical temple. Learn how the implications are relevant for church and missions today.

The LORD’s home in canonical Isaiah Facilitating a sense of home for spiritual seekers

From gold miners to students Reconciling church for second generation Chinese Australians

Session 6 Electives: Tuesday 3:30 pm

Kevin WardSenior Lecturer Knox Centre for Ministry and Leadership

When gold was discovered in Otago in 1861 it led to a significant influx of miners from China. The Presbyterian Church in Otago and Southland saw this as a missional responsibility. Investigate some of the key historical developments from a missiological perspective from the 1861 Otago Gold Rush to the present day. Explore how and why it has become so effective in engaging with young Chinese students and other Chinese migrants.


Linda DevereuxHonorary Senior Lecturer University of New South Wales

There are thousands of families involved in church mission work living overseas at any given moment, and many more who have returned home. Missionary work overseas can involve risks such as encountering trauma, poverty, disease, violence, political instability and social oppression. Some missionaries suffer from stress when they come back. Examine the effects of overseas missionary work on the children of missionaries and discover some ways the church might support missionary families.

Foundations of home, mental health, inclusion and stories of God

Missionary kids, identity and belonging

Stacey Wilson

Victorian Council of Christian Education

The need to belong is a fundamental human motivator which shapes our behaviour and impacts our physical and mental health. Finding a place where you feel at home can be difficult when experiencing a mental illness. Examine the cultural and religious understandings of mental health and illness and the effect of these beliefs within the church context, by focusing on religious coping strategies and their impact on mental health outcomes.


Patrick McInerneyLecturer in Missiology (Islam and Interreligious Dialogue) Columban Mission Institute and Broken Bay Institute

Our Australian ‘home’ is much bigger than we had previously imagined. With hundreds of Aboriginal spiritualities, Australian society was multi-religious from time immemorial. Our society has now become increasingly ‘multi-religious’ too. God’s stories are much bigger than we had previously imagined. They include God’s dealings with believers of other religions. What are the missional implications for our multi-religious Australian society? Investigate how Christians can become more engaged with our neighbours from other faiths, with integrity, openness and understanding.

Our home: bigger than we had imagined Liturgy, exclusion and embrace

Session 7 Electives: Wednesday 11:45 am

Jacob JosephResearch Student Pilgrim Theological College

Examine the practical impact of Ion Bria’s (a Romanian Orthodox ecumenical theologian) model for mission in the Indian social context. Survey the contextual debate on the theology of margins in India and its meaningful engagement in the development of a contextual Orthodox mission theology. By ‘listening to some thoughts of early teachers of the church,’ learn about the significance of reading the Christological debate of Severus of Antioch, an early Asian teacher of the non-Chalcedonian church and his impact on missional theology in India.

Anne LanyonCoordinator Columban Mission Institute, Centre for Peace Ecology and Justice

Earth is home to the diversity of life in a wondrous universe, yet our common home is suffering from the effects of human behaviour. We have become disconnected from the natural world. It could be said that the Earth herself is a prophet now reminding us of this relationship gone awry. How do we relearn how to belong and feel at home? Explore our connection to earth and God’s revelation in the earth through the two experiences of a pilgrimage in the Adnyamnathanha country (Flinders Ranges) and of interfaith dialogue on the role of the human and interdependence.

Reconcile with Earth, reconcile with each other

Sue HoldsworthPhD Candidate Stirling College

Intercultural pastoral care and missional practice

Many church congregations in Australia provide intercultural outreach programmes designed to meet the perceived needs of recent Australian immigrants. Holdsworth surveys three particular initiatives: English conversation classes, sewing clubs and intercultural playgroups. How effective are these activities in demonstrating love of God and neighbour? What really takes place at these events? What part does Cultural Intelligence play in pastoral care? Explore how intercultural pastoral care can dialogue meaningfully with the discipline of mission.


The paralyzing effect of continuing captivity to Western culture

Hidden peoples in Australian cities

Ian DicksLecturer in InterCultural Studies Whitley College

Walt WhiteGlobal Consultant Global Interaction, Australia International Ministries, American Baptist Churches USA

Missionaries of the 18th–20th centuries have been severely criticised for imposing their culture as they communicated the Gospel cross-culturally. The buzz word of ‘contextualization’ can still be heard in missiological conversations today. Without critical reflection, Western culture still promotes radical individualism and the adoption of a scientific worldview. Re-examine the goal of contextualization, how culture shapes one’s experience of God and how the cross-cultural worker’s experience of God can be reshaped in another culture.

Australia is an increasingly diverse country in culture, language and religion. The ‘Least Reached’ are communities (predominantly Buddhist, Muslim and Hindu) hidden in Australian cities who are largely unengaged with the gospel. What models for engagement can call churches to cross the street and interact with people who are culturally, linguistically and religiously different?


Reading Romans in multicultural Australia

Preserving home, seeking shalom

Polis and Topos: Reimagining Home in the Gospel of Mark

Siu Fung WuAdjunct Lecturer Whitley College

Deborah Storie Postdoctoral Associate, Adjunct Lecturer Whitley College

The immigration/refugee crisis preoccupies the media and engenders heated public debate. Despite this, we routinely overlook our complicity in forces that render displaced peoples’ original homes untenable. A parable Jesus told in Jericho called the surrounding economy of power and exclusion into question. How might we resist a global economy that gives more to those who have too much and takes away from those with nothing the little they have? How might we create home without making other people homeless?

Keith DyerProfessor of New Testament Whitley College

Bible Studies and Prayers

Paul told the Christians in the house churches in Rome that they were all God’s children, even though they came from a wide range of cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. Did he think that they were close members of one big family, or separate individual Christians? What if we treat each other as siblings in Christ in multicultural Australia today, where people of many cultures have called home? Let us re-imagine home together, with the expectation that it will transform our understanding of community and the church’s mission in our pluralistic society.

A common interpretation of place (topos) and home in Mark’s narrative is that in the pre-Markan traditions, Jesus leaves his home in Nazareth, relocates to Peter’s home in Capernaum as the base for his Galilean ministry, and then spends much time ‘on the road/way’ to Jerusalem. Discover what Mark’s strange aversion to urban centres and the mysterious use of ‘circumlocations’ in Jesus’ journeys suggest about home. Uncover the critique of political and religious power throughout the Gospel, and the positive use of topos to refer to those places where Jesus provides hospitality for the powerless.

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