Tides of Opportunity: Missiological Experiences and Engagement in Global Migration
Ebook
Hope and Hospitality for Migrating People
Never have so many people left their homes and migrated to other parts of the world as we’ve seen in recent years. This phenomenon creates as many opportunities as challenges. We are witnessing a massive increase in urbanization, pluralization, multiculturalism, and interfaith dialogue. What are the implications for the church as it tries to reach the nations?
Tides of Opportunity brings together experts from diverse backgrounds to consider the practical significance of this mass migration. The reasons for these population movements are as varied as the people. Sadiri Joy Tira explores several causes, like military conflict, economic hardship, and natural disasters. The contributors not only explain such trends but suggest possible ways to engage with diaspora neighbors. Through case studies, this volume also examines lesser-known dynamics, such as sex trafficking and the movement of immigrants to rural areas.
This book challenges us to find more creative and integrated mission strategies for effectively reaching out to the various “peoples on the move” with the gospel. How will you respond to the tides of opportunity?
Foreword by Michael Oh
Preface by Sadiri Joy Tira
Introduction by Damples Dulcero-Baclagon
Part I: Understanding the Realities of Tides of Opportunity in Global Migration
1 Global Gateway Cities in Canada as Diaspora Epicenter
Christopher Carr
2 Diasporas and Multiculturalism: Social Imaginaries, Liminality, and Cultural Identity
Steven Ybarrola
3 La Mamaì as Missionary to the Next Generation: A Case Study of a US Latina Immigrant Mother and Her Influence on the Religious Identity Formation of Her Gen Z Daughter
Rebekah Clapp
4 Pluralism, Multiculturalism, and Diaspora Mission: Discovering the Relevance of Apostolic Mission Today
Thomas Alan Harvey
5 Religious Pluralism in the Context of the Twenty-First Century Global Diaspora: A Case of Canadian Pluralistic Communities and the Evangelical Response
Sadiri Joy Tira
6 Ethnic and Cultural Hybridity: Jewish-Gentile Intermarriage in North America
Tuvya Zaretsky
Part II: Responding and Engaging the Tides of Opportunity in Global Migration
7 Models of Diaspora Communities for Missiological Application
Jason Richard Tan
8 Rural Migration and Diaspora Missions
Matt Cook
9 Embracing the Broken, Dislocated, Homeless Refugees in Canada through Hospitality
Craig C. Kraft
10 Understanding and Ministering to Survivors of Sex Trafficking
Valerie Geer
11 Examining Ourselves: Working for Freedom in a World of Exploitation and Trafficking
Marion L. S. Carson
12 Missional Transnationals: Coming Full Circle
Sadiri Joy Tira
13 Rooted in Spirituality, Committed to Missions: My Tribute to the Late Dr. Thomas Wang
Juno Wang
Appendix A: Resources and Tools for Diaspora Missions: Annotated Bibliography
Various Authors
Appendix B: The Seoul Declaration on Diaspora Missiology
Acknowledgments
About the Editors and Contributors
The diaspora studies in recent decades have garnered increasing interest among evangelicals worldwide due to the extensive migration of people. This migration has attracted the interest of Christian mission thinkers and practitioners alike, who have been exploring various venues for engaging these displaced people worldwide. Dr. Sadiri Joy Tira and his team have been relentlessly attempting to produce valuable resources to enable the global church to engage with the diaspora people missionally and ministerially. Tides of Opportunity: Missiological Experiences and Engagement in Global Migration, is one such valuable resource that certainly has the potential to help us understand the importance of taking diaspora missiology seriously. This book draws stories, experiences, insights, and implications from the writings of those with significant exposure and experience with the diaspora people from around the world. Insights from this book are bound to compel the traditional mission academicians and practitioners to think afresh about mission and ministry among people on the move. This book is a significant contribution to understanding and practicing diaspora missiology.
Atul Y. Aghamkar, PhD
Director, National Center for Urban Transformation
Former Professor and Head of the Department of Missiology,
South Asia Institute of Advanced Christian Studies, Bangalore, India
Global migration and the growth of diaspora communities in and from every continent are among the most visible and urgent missional challenges to the global church—including the church within some of those very diasporas. So a book of this scale and diversity is a most valuable contribution to our missional thinking, strategy, and engagement in what God is doing in the midst of these phenomena.
Rev. Christopher J. H. Wright, PhD
Global Ambassador, Langham Partnership
Chief Architect of the Cape Town 2010 Commitment Call to Action, Lausanne Movement
Books of this nature tend to look only backward at the past contributions of missiological giants. But the robust collection here seems to agree that a bold forward march into the future of global mission is needed. The readers of this volume, Tides of Opportunity: Missiological Experiences and Engagement in Global Migration, will enjoy the occasional glance over the shoulders of the giants to discern their thoughts about missions and migration. But, again and again, we find our heroes waving us on forward—urging us to keep blazing the trail ahead until the kingdom fully comes.
Rev. Hon. Cody Lorance
Co-CEO, Endiro Coffee
Trade Representative of His Excellency the President of Uganda
Honorary Consul for the Republic of Uganda in the USA
Global migration opens for us big opportunities for missions. It is a necessity for us to study these migrations and learn how we can respond and engage with them biblically and humanely. Great movements of people show us that the Lord is bringing people out of countries where the gospel is hard to access. Tides of Opportunity: Missiological Experiences and Engagement in Global Migration offers us a variety of experiences learned firsthand by brilliant and godly authors and will be a great tool for mission leaders, churches, and Christian individuals. Let us learn from them! May we learn to embrace the opportunity to be used by God to minister to these migrants. Let us passionately treat the migrants as our mission field.
Timothy K. Park, PhD
Senior Professor of Asian Missions, Fuller Theological Seminary
This compendium of mission writings will serve as a significant resource for any Christian who wants to be informed and engaged in what God is doing in the midst of global migration. This book is not for the hobby reader—the authors go deep in their global research, missional insights, and cultural perspectives. The principles presented call for rigorous thinking and determined response from the reader. The themes examined range broadly from the vast stream of global diasporic trends, to the salvific impact of mother-child relationships. Although each article in this book is unique in its perspective, the authors speak with one voice to call the church to understand their times and to see how God is at work among his people from every nation and in every nation.
Sandra Ryan
Global Mission Pastor, The Peoples’ Church, Toronto
This fine collection of essays brings together a rich compendium of studies and resources for anyone wishing to understand and engage with contemporary trends and practical approaches to mission in the multiplicity of emerging diaspora communities around the world. The field is rapidly changing, and the movement of peoples in our complex, global mosaic challenges us to pray, think, reflect, and respond practically to the opportunities this movement presents for all who take seriously our Lord’s mandate to “make disciples of all nations.” Dr. Sadiri Joy Tira and his colleagues have blessed us with a great gift, a snapshot of how God is at work, and how we are called to participate in the mission of God today.
Richard Harvey, PhD
All Nations Christian College, UK
Senior Researcher, Jews for Jesus
Tides of Opportunity takes the sustained effort to develop diaspora missiology one giant step forward by arguing that challenging migration and devastating human displacements are God’s purposeful design to fulfill his mission. Reading this book can be a powerful spiritual experience as the authors urge mission academics and practitioners to take a divine perspective on the tides of human movements.
Julie C. Ma, PhD
Professor of Mission and Intercultural Studies, Oral Roberts University
The collective experience and wisdom that shaped Tides of Opportunity represents the best of evangelical diaspora missiology. A hallmark of the scholarship that shapes this volume is its determination to resource diaspora ministries and the many women and men who serve people on the move in the name of Christ. I am delighted to commend this new volume from the team of authors and editors, led by Dr. Sadiri Joy Tira, who have yet again crafted a remarkable resource.
Rev. Darrell Jackson
Associate Professor, Whitley College, University of Divinity, Melbourne
This volume is a veritable smorgasbord of stories, statistics, and Scripture about global diasporas today. It beautifully overlays these elements into a stunning picture of the current state of human migration. This is essential reading for anyone hoping to glean valuable insights into the move of God in his beloved people and what this means for our world’s immediate future.
Allen Yeh, DPhil
Professor of Intercultural Studies and Missiology, Biola University
On November 15, 2022, the world population reached a staggering 8 billion! Almost 80 percent were newly born in Asia, and they will not stay put! More people will move away from their “birth or present” country than any other time in human history. The wave is growing in height, size, and sheer immensity. Meanwhile, our Father continues his God-sized rescue operation to save humanity. The future must be seen through a new lens; the day of exclusive male, pale, and getting frail Western-dominant ministry is gone. The church needs to grow in cultural intelligence and competency in engaging and empowering multiethnic, multicultural, hybrid Christian communities in order to meet the rising wave of God’s scattered people. When you digest the contents of Tides of Opportunity: Missiological Experiences and Engagement in Global Migration, your game will change.
Rev. Warren Reeve, DMin
Founder, Missional International Church Network
Pastor, Martin Luther King Église, Greater Paris, France
Diaspora is the motif of both the Old and New Testaments, as God reveals himself to humanity and unveils his plan to bring redemption to all creation. God continues to act in and through the diaspora people. The unique challenges that people on the move face open their hearts to the message of the gospel and prepare them to be God’s instrument of blessing. This book presents fine essays on recent world trends on diaspora missiology and passionate accounts to voice the pain of those suffering during their journeys. This book inspires us to live on mission, as God’s people on the move, proclaiming the salvation of Jesus Christ to all nations.
Rev. Jura Yanagihara, PhD
President, Alliance World Fellowship
This volume has led me to three reflections on diaspora missiology. First, it is an important discipline that continues to grow and develop. Dr. Sadiri Joy Tira and the contributors to this volume present new data and new ideas as to how we approach diaspora missions. Second, this volume presents both the global scale of diaspora and the local voices through stories and examples. It is necessary for academics and practitioners to be informed of the magnitude of missional opportunities brought by diaspora missions and yet to be moved with the personal stories of how viable this ministry is. Last, the book has been true to the nature of diaspora—which is liminality—by discussing crucial issues like identity, hybridity, prostitution, human trafficking, exploitation, and injustices.
Juliet Lee Uytanlet, PhD
Former Lausanne Catalyst on Diasporas (2016–2018)
Author, The Hybrid Tsinoys
- Title: Tides of Opportunity: Missiological Experiences and Engagement in Global Migration
- Authors: Sadiri Joy Tira, Damples Dulcero-Baclagon, Lorajoy Tira-Dimangondayao
- Publisher: William Carey Publishing
- Print Publication Date: 2024
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781645084808, 1645084809
- Resource ID: LLS:9781645084808
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-05-19T01:51:56Z
Dr. Sadiri "Joy" Tira A is diaspora missiology specialist at the Jaffray Centre for Global Initiatives at Ambrose University in Canada. A reflective-practitioner, Sadiri Joy Tira served as catalyst for diasporas (formerly, senior associate for diasporas) for the Lausanne Movement from 2007–2019, as founding chairperson of the Global Diaspora Network (2010–2015), and for over two decades, as senior pastor of First Filipino Alliance Church in Edmonton, Alberta—Canada’s “Gateway to the North.” He is also a blogger for Outreach Canada.
Damples Dulcero-Baclagon is the managing editor of Asian Missions Advance and secretary of Asia Missions Association. She obtained a master’s degree in Asian Studies from the University of the Philippines. Prior to that, she was trained as a missionary at the East West Center for Missions Research and Development, Korea where she also served for six years under the late Dr. David J. Cho. In the Philippines where she now lives, she serves as the national discipleship coordinator of Operation Christmas Child, a ministry of Samaritan’s Purse.
Lorajoy Tira-Dimangondayao is an MTS student at St. Stephen’s College at the University of Alberta (Canada). She has a bachelor’s of theology from Ambrose University (formerly Canadian Bible College). Lorajoy serves as a press editor for the Jaffray Centre for Global Initiatives at Ambrose University and serves on the Lausanne Movement Canada’s Board of Directors. With diaspora missiology close to her heart, she served as Dr. Sadiri Joy Tira’s administrative assistant for two decades. She is co-editor of Beyond Hospitality: Migration, Multiculturalism and the Church.