Missional Encounters of Churches in Sub-Saharan Africa through Grassroots Stories

“This series of books arises from a study process that marked the centenary of the International Missionary Council (IMC), founded in 1921 at Lake Mohonk, USA. It has its origin in the Commission on World Mission and Evangelism of the World Council of Churches, which wanted to celebrate the work of its historical predecessor IMC (1921-1961). In 2020, it therefore initiated a global and ecumenical study process, which was strongly supported by the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies (OCMS) in the UK and the Association of Protestant Churches and Missions in Germany (EMW) in Hamburg. The 18-month study process involved some 15 academic and ecumenical study centres or groups around the world, practically in all eight regions of the World Council of Churches, paying special attention to those sectors which were not represented at Lake Mohonk a hundred years earlier. The International Missionary Council Centenary Series edited by the steering committee of the process in cooperation with the director of the CWME of the WCC presents the most interesting parts of the study process. The IMC was founded to foster mission cooperation and unity, and the study process wanted to identify important topics and challenges for mission and mission cooperation, not only in the past, even if the history of the IMC is to be celebrated, but also in the present and future. The steering committee of the study process was delighted to discover that some previously unheard voices have been heard through the process. Indeed, in order to honour the legacy of the IMC, the study process itself was implemented in an interactive and inclusive way that produced more mission cooperation and more unity among various actors in academy, church and mission bodies. The volumes in the International Missionary Council Centenary Series present mainly, but not only, regional aspects and dimensions of world mission that has become polyphonic. The polyphonic character of mission opens and offers new common spaces for discussion and reflection on how all actors, churches, academy, mission bodies and transnational networks, can work together in creative and innovative ways, both in missiology and mission practice. This Regnum Series builds on three foundational books that were generated by the study process and published by WCC Publications in 2022-23. A comprehensive Jubilee volume appeared as Risto Jukko ed., Together in the Mission of God: Jubilee Reflections on the International Missionary Council, Geneva: WCC Publications, 2022. Additionally, two mission studies anthologies gathered up the initial fruits of the study process: Risto Jukko ed., A Hundred Years of Mission Cooperation: The Impact of the International Missionary Council 1921-2021, Geneva: WCC Publications, 2022; and Risto Jukko ed., The Future of Mission Cooperation: The Living Legacy of the International Missionary Council, Geneva: WCC Publications, 2023. Now the Regnum Series offers a much more extensive harvest of the work completed by the study centres which collaborated in the IMC centenary study process. The steering committee is delighted to be able to make the results of the study process accessible to a wider readership while recognising that opinions expressed in the book chapters are those of their authors and claim no wider authority. Series Editors: Marina Ngursangzeli Behera”

Michael Biehl

“Risto Jukko”

Kenneth R. Ross

“Tito Paredes”

Peter Cruchley