Fruitful
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Globalisation, Women and Mission 

Women in Global Mission
It is one of the great ironies of church history that women have been the primary gospel pioneers in country after country and among people group after people group, yet mission strategy is normally devised by men. It remains true today that approximately two-thirds of the world's formal missionary force (i.e., members of mission agencies) are women, with a similar proportion of church members around the world. Yet mission history repeatedly shows us that as soon as a believing community emerges, it will be formalised under male leadership. Mission agencies, however heavily populated by women, are overwhelmingly led by men. Sadly, this male dominance in leadership frequently leads to the marginalisation of women in mission, as well as in church policy and practice. The result is that neither mission agencies nor churches think strategically enough about how God chooses to push back the boundaries of unbelief through the specific contributions of Christian women.

At its heart, the transmission of the gospel is highly relational. In most cultures of the world, women are instinctively (or are socialised into being) more relational than many men. Particularly in parts of the world where there is a high level of resistance to the gospel-those hard, hard places-it is only through quiet, persistent, godly living, accompanied by friendship evangelism, that people will be won to Christian faith. These are often the places, too, where traditional forms of church life, focused on buildings and institutional structures, are not possible. What a marvellous opportunity for Christian women all over the world! In almost any culture in the world, women have free access to other women and to children, with daily opportunities to disciple them, either formally or informally. In some of the countries most deeply hostile to the gospel, there is good evidence that there are countless secret believers, many of them women and children who have been quietly reached through the friendship of other women reaching into neighbours' homes and families. There is enormous potential for faith-sharing when it is properly integrated into the whole of our daily lives, wherever these may be played out-in the domestic sphere, in the community, in a workplace distanced from the home, or wherever else. It may be that some women have better captured this opportunity than those who equate mission with a more formal and separate activity.

It is not only among women and children that women are highly effective missionaries. Many of the world's tribal groups have been reached initially by women. Sometimes this is because women have appeared as less threatening than men. Women, too, have often been at the forefront of compassion ministries, nursing the sick and tending the poor and the dying. They have frequently been able to reduce deaths through childbirth, and, by teaching women primary healthcare at the level of the home and local community, they have also reduced infant and child mortality. They have sensitively taught better nutrition, have introduced small, home-based cottage industries to boost income, have listened and chatted, and so on. In wealthier settings, especially in the West, where loneliness and unhappiness are widespread, compassionate engagement in the lives of others is no less powerful a gospel tool. In a thousand small ways, Christian women, both local and expatriate, have incarnated the gospel and made it understandable, bringing word and deed together. As the contribution of women has impacted communities helpfully, the men have been more willing, in their turn, to listen too.

Another factor enhancing the effectiveness of women in missions is that many Christian women are readily content with discipling quietly in small groups or one to one. The pressure of globalisation may try to make us focus on the big scheme and the highly visible, but the spiritual reality is that the most effective mission is accomplished through deep investment in a personally known group. Yes, we need to share the Lord's vision for the whole world and not be content with a tiny fraction of it! But the paradox is that global vision will be brought into realisation through the multiplication of incarnated ministries in millions of times and places.

Men and Women Together in Global Mission
This pattern of personal discipleship, because it is biblical, is more likely to be effective in reaching today's unreached (but potentially highly reachable, thanks to globalisation) than all the complex schemes the contemporary church cares to devise. The world church has a choice facing it today. One alternative is to copy the pattern of the world and use the tools and goals so amply adopted by global business. With this approach, the church will market itself aggressively, with an emphasis on high profile, size, and success. It will devise global schemes for conquering the world, all served by efficient structures and resulting in a stress on institutional organisation. Most of the schemes will be led by men exercising power as the world knows it.

Alternatively, the church can choose to travel (not just talk about) the way of the cross. For this endeavour, the church must be prepared to be misunderstood and rejected. It must serve out of human weakness, in order that all power should be seen to be the Lord's. Structure must be emphasised less and spiritual life and godliness more. Vision rather than schemes must fire the work, with great humility. The church is called to be a global family of disciples, not a human-made empire. In this family, women and men are to stand side by side, equally loved, equally valued, and equally fruitful. In this way, the kingdom of God on earth in the here and now will more truly illustrate that fully realised Kingdom of the future, and we shall see more clearly what God truly intended globalisation to be.


Rose Dowsett is a former missionary with OMF international, author, speaker, teacher at International Christian College, and Vice-Chairman of the WEA's Mission Commission.

Taken from One World or Many? The impact of globalisation on mission, ed. Richard Tiplady
©William Carey Library, 1605 E. Elizabeth St., Pasadena, CA, 91104
Purcahse the book at www.missionbooks.org