Talks & Lectures

Overview Cara shares her own story of coming to understand matters of vulnerability in mission by working and living with children-at-risk in inner city, urban contexts, and then explores several theological paradigms that ground her approach to ministry to, for, and with children-at-risk.

Speaker Rev Cara Pfeiffer

About the speaker Rev Cara Pfeiffer is finishing her PhD in Intercultural Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary with an emphasis in Children-at-Risk Studies. She spent 14 years living in the Los Angeles metro area and teaching peace-making and conflict resolution skills to inner city children attending underserved LA public schools while she also ministered in inner city Long Beach, CA to children, youth, and families living at the margins of society as refugees and immigrants. Her professional life significantly intersected with her personal life when she and her husband, Joe, fostered and adopted a sibling set of five children from their church in 2019. Cara now lives in Ohio with her husband and three of their children where she and Joe co-pastor the Mansfield Friends Church while both finish their PhD studies at Fuller.

Overview Professor Stephen B. Bevans reflects on how a number of missiologists–among them Claude-Marie Barbour, David Bosch, Thomas and Elizabeth Brewster, Dana Robert, and Samuel Ewell–have employed the image of relationship, bonding, and friendship in their work. Stephen is an American priest, theologian, and professor emeritus at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. He is known for his book: Models of Contextual Theology.

Speaker Professor Stephen B Bevans SVD

About the speaker Steve continues his work in the area of the Theology of Christian Mission. In the spring of 2024 Orbis Books will publish his recently completed work, Community of Missionary Disciples: The Continuing Creation of the Church. He continues to research and write in ecclesiology, theology of priesthood in religious life, the spirituality of his congregation, the Society of the Divine Word, and the spirituality of mission. From 2014 until 2022, Steve was a member of the World Council of Churches’ Commission on Mission and Evangelism, and is still very much involved in ecumenical affairs. He is a member of the editorial board of the International Bulletin of Mission Research and the advisory board of the International Review of Mission. In 2021 he received the American Society of Missiology’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

Overview Over recent decades, critiques of mission’s entanglement with colonialism and power have prompted new ways of thinking about how Christians participate in God’s mission. Ideas such as mission from the margins have challenged assumptions about where power lies, whose voices are heard, and what faithful Christian witness might look like. In this lecture, Paul Bendor-Samuel, Executive Director of OCMS, explores vulnerability as an attitude to embody in mission and, more broadly, as a paradigm for Christian witness and participation in God’s mission in a wounded world by giving some of the theological foundations for understanding vulnerability in mission.

Speaker Paul Bendor-Samuel

About the speaker Paul’s professional training in family medicine and public health fostered a spirit of enquiry and reflective practice. He and his family served for 12 years in Tunisia, leading a development organisation and then 12 years leading Interserve, an interdenominational, international mission agency focused on Asia and the Middle East. His interests include Christian organisational spirituality and development, the changing cross-cultural mission paradigm, mission as discipleship and leadership development.

Overview As part of the OCMS Annual Alumni Lecture series, Dr. Melba Padilla Maggay invites us to reflect on mission in an era of shifting global influence, technological change, and cultural complexity. Exploring themes of contextual theology, culture, and Christian witness, she considers how the Gospel continues to take root in diverse contexts and what this means for the future of the global Church.

Speaker Dr. Melba Padilla Maggay

About the speaker Dr. Melba Padilla Maggay is a social anthropologist, author, speaker, and activist whose work explores the relationship between religion, culture, and social transformation. She serves as President of Institute for Studies in Asian Church and Culture and Micah Global, a network of more than 800 faith-based development organisations worldwide. Her academic appointments have included research and teaching roles at University of Cambridge, Hope College, and All Nations Christian College. A respected public intellectual and three-time literary prize winner in the Philippines, she also played a notable role in mobilising Christian engagement during the 1986 Philippine People Power movement and has served on numerous international research, development, and mission boards.

Overview Drawing on his own practice and ministry, in the first part of today's session, John explores the term ‘conversation’ both in characterising Christian mission, and as an essential tool for such mission. He examines the various uses of the term in missiology, and discusses the works of several Anglican and Roman Catholic theologians and missiologists. He draws particularly on the work of David Tracy to develop a nuanced model of 'deep conversation' for mission, which speaks in particular to contemporary pluralism and respect for the ‘Other’. Rooted in a theology of the relational Trinity, it anticipates the presence of the Holy Spirit (the divine Other) as a necessary conversation partner in any meaningful conversation. In the second part of this session, Andrea describes her pioneering work in the UK with those who call themselves 'spiritual but not religious' based in Kingston-upon-Thames, where she founded a Fresh Expression of Church, called 'Sacred Space'. She currently leads the Transforming Shame Network, and works for the Methodist Church in Britain. She teaches Mission, Evangelism and Pioneering at St Augustine’s College of Theology. The double contribution focused on theory and practice is intended to promote discussion.

Speaker John Padwick & Andrea Campanale

About the speaker Dr. John Padwick is a research tutor at OCMS. He lived and worked in Kenya for forty years, mostly as a mission partner with CMS. His Kenyan ministry was initially in secondary education, but from 1978 he worked with African Independent Churches (AICs). John was instrumental in the setting up of the Organization of African Churches, a continental umbrella for AICs, and served OAIC in the areas of grassroots development, the articulation of AIC theologies, and research. His doctoral thesis was on the history of the Holy Spirit (‘Roho’ Churches) of Western Kenya. Andrea has been a pioneer in mission to the spiritual but not religious since 2005 and has founded a Fresh Expression of Church, Sacred Space Kingston. She is the first Licensed Lay Pioneer in Southwark Diocese and currently leads the Transforming Shame Network. Andrea works as a Mission Projects Officer for the Methodist Church in Britain and teaches Mission, Evangelism and Pioneering at St Augustine’s College of Theology.