Now here's a description of someone who knew without having to agonise and strategise, what the cutting edge of Mission has to be in a pluralist, globalised, postmodern, post Christendom, and post much else world.It comes from Lesslie Newbigin, quoted in Geoffrey Wainwright's biography of Newbigin, and it concerns M M Thomas. The initials are shorthand for Madathilparamphil Mammen Thomas – photo above – Newbigin clearly found the nickname M M took less time!
"In a very rare measure he has held together the things which tear most of us apart. Deeply committed to involvement in the secular issues of our time, he has at the same time lived by a deep and growing personal faith in the risen Jesus. Realistic in his exposure of the sins of the churches, he has yet remained deeply rooted in and loyal to the Church of his birth. "[His] coherent theological pattern has had the risen Christ as its centre and the whole world as its circumference."
If your church is looking for a strap line mission statement, please consider that sentence:
"The Risen Christ as our centre, the whole world as our circumference"
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