From 23-27 August 2022, the Global Diaspora Network hosted a consultation in Cape Town, South Africa, to convene a catalytic gathering and conversation among leading scholars and practitioners of diaspora missions of both Africans worldwide and in Africa.
It was at the Lausanne Movement’s Cape Town 2010 congress that ‘people on the move’ (diasporas) was launched as an area of strategic mission focus for the global church. Over the last 12 years, many churches, mission agencies, and institutions in many regions of the world have embraced the diaspora agenda set out by the Global Diaspora Network. Yet much more needs to be done.
The Cape Town diaspora consultation, with the theme of ‘Africans in Diaspora and Diasporas in Africa’, brought together key leaders of churches, denominations, mission agencies, and networks, as well as missiologists, educators, and practitioners, to deliberate on contemporary Christian mission by scattered people of African origin and non-African Christians in Africa. The consultation included paper presentations, group reflections and critique by participants, networking, worship, prayer, intercession, and collaboration and strategizing on diaspora missions in and beyond Africa.
Objectives included:
• Learn about and discuss mission by and through African diaspora communities worldwide
• Assess the impact of migration of Asians, Europeans, and North and Latin Americans into Africa
• Explore new horizons of diaspora missions in the contexts of economic migrants, international students, refugee crises, and environmental and political upheavals
• Compile proceedings of the consultation into a future publication on diaspora missiology
To learn more, please visit http://www.global-diaspora.com/events/capetowndiaspora.