The World Evangelical Alliance held their Global Consultation in Thailand this year from January 30th until February 3rd. By God’s grace, the General Secretary of Youth Evangelical Fellowship, Danielle White, was invited and able to join in this precious opportunity to meet and network with various mission leaders from all over the world. As she flew across the globe, she felt a trembling heart in front of God and sincerely prayed that this time would bring greater inspiration and future movement in her parachurch’s mission.
As said on their website, “Global Consultations are opportunities for missions practitioner-leaders to share wisdom and learn together in collaborative conversation spaces, influencing the future of missions”. With these words, Danielle prays to have a more open heart to let God work around her, through her, and within her for the betterment of mission advancement and passion for her fellowship. She shares her prayers and thoughts below.
“Coming here in the midst of many things, I really want to come as an empty and pure vessel to be used and filled during this time. I’m so thankful to God as well as, WEA and WOA for this great opportunity to participate, so I don’t want to take anything for granted; receiving and giving grace to help best represent YEF and to give something back for our members.”
The topic that will lead this Global Consultation is Polycentric Mission, a conversation that started at the last Consultation in 2016. It creates an image of pebbles dropped into a pond which create ripples that spread from multiple impact points (centres) and intersect with one another. Where gospel impact is felt in one area (the pebble dropping), the effects ripple out, and as they interact with ripples from other centres it causes waves (points of difference, tension and conflict). So we get, “local impact, ripples & waves” in a polycentric (multiple centres of authority) world.
She also believes this could be very helpful in developing unique mission strategies that focuses on local missions, while making a wider impact.
“I pray God would give me the attention and wisdom to focus and soak everything in. I want to come from this time with new connections, greater image of YEF, and newfound passion for greater mission. I also can’t help but think of how impactful this could be for the mission dream of our ministries in Florida, where everyone there is working and dreaming to bring many missionaries to train and be sent out, reaching all unreached people groups. By God’s providencial guidance, I’m here so I want to keep meditating on this and act in accordance to this grace.”
Through this time, she could gain a greater perspective on world missions as a whole and meditate on the possible future of Youth Evangelical Fellowship. Most of all she came to make lasting connections in the evangelical world, in order to develop stronger public relations and to better protect the future of the fellowship.
