| | CONSIDERING NORTH AMERICA
Brothers and Sisters,
Tomorrow my family and I leave for my hometown to spend a day celebrating my son's third birthday. I greatly look forward to the event (and especially the cake)--for every trip "back home" is nostalgic. The town where I was raised has changed in a variety of ways. One way in particular is that it now has more ethnic restaurants than the shabby Chinese place I was fond of in my youth. While it is still a small Appalachian town, people's skin colors appear different. Different languages are present (and no, I'm not referring to 'Kentuckian')
Recently, I started researching global migrations, particularly those to western countries. Part of this desire began last year when I presented the paper "In Through the Back Door: Reaching the Majority World from North America" to the Evangelical Missiological Society. For those of you who are interested, it is scheduled to be published this month by William Carey Publishers as a chapter in Missions from the Majority World: Progress, Challenges, and Case Studies, edited by Mike Pocock and Enoch Wan (I hope my contribution to the book does not lead to a book burning).
Presently, the United States is by far the largest receiving nation when it comes to immigration. At the moment, America is a country with a count of 38 million migrants (20% of the global migrant population). Who is number two on the list, you ask? Answer: the Russian Federation with 12 million migrants (6.4% of the global migrant population. Did you catch the difference between first and second place?
While there is still a great deal of needed missionary work in North America that is not related to migration, I wonder how many of us recognize the Great Commission opportunity that is at our door. Some of the world's least reached peoples are living in North America. Think of the potential of reaching, training, equipping, partnering, and sending such peoples as missionaries to their peoples across the globe.
Lord willing, sometime tomorrow, between the presents and the piñata (hey, more ethnic diversity), I'm sure I'll be reflecting on my hometown and how the peoples of the world are moving to the foothills of the Appalachians. And they are moving to your neighborhood as well.
Take care,
J. D.
P.S. I am very thankful to inform you that my new book
Discovering Church Planting: An Introduction to the Whats, Whys, and Hows of Global Church Planting
was released last month. Please purchase many copies for all of your loved ones as a Labor Day gift this Monday. :)
ARTICLE THIS MONTH...
Jeff Walters is a former missionary to Paris, and is presently a Ph.D. student in the Billy Graham School at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. A few years ago, I was blessed to be in France with Jeff and his family and see them in action in this world-class city. Jeff is also the Associate Director of the Dehoney Center for Urban Ministry Training at Southern. Jeff's article this month is a paper he completed for a class. It is a very good and brief historical overview of Southern Baptists and urban missions in North America.
REVIEW THIS MONTH...
Since I have been doing some research on global migrations, I thought I would pass along to you a great book I recently encountered.
LINKING YOU TO NORTH AMERICA...
The Global Commission on International Migration has been linked to the site. There are also three new categories on the site: Kurds, Turks, and Chinese. The Japanese category has been updated with several new links.
I am also including a couple of interesting links below that have not been added to the site yet. The first is a series of photos set to audio that was released by the LA Times this week showing Koreatown. The second is found in the CBC.ca archives and offers a history lesson on the political developments and forming of Canada as a naiton.
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