The Present
In the year 2000 the organisation EMA changed its name to Global Connections and membership was extended to include agencies whose mission focus was primarily the UK and churches involved in mission. This was done in response to continuing changes in the mission world. These included the growing size and development of the church outside the West and the false dichotomy between the West and the developing world. Mission was now from everywhere to everywhere.
The UK itself was now becoming a mission field with mission partners travelling there from other nations. Furthermore, increasing ethnic diversity was changing the face of the UK. At this time many local churches were becoming involved in mission directly. The organisation wanted to reflect these profound and diverse changes and to develop the understanding of mission and it’s variety of expressions.
Read more about this topic: Global Connections
Famous quotes containing the word present:
“To anticipate, not the sunrise and the dawn merely, but, if possible, Nature herself! How many mornings, summer and winter, before yet any neighbor was stirring about his business, have I been about mine! No doubt, many of my townsmen have met me returning from this enterprise, farmers starting for Boston in the twilight, or woodchoppers going to their work. It is true, I never assisted the sun materially in his rising, but, doubt not, it was of the last importance only to be present at it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Before anything else, we need a new age of Enlightenment. Our present political systems must relinquish their claims on truth, justice and freedom and have to replace them with the search for truth, justice, freedom and reason.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)