Recently, I had coffee with the former President of the American Society of Missiology, Dr. Miriam Adeney, at Starbucks in City Centre, Doha (Qatar). Yes we were in Qatar and in Doha. There are several Starbucks outlets there; most of their workers are Filipinos and Indians! (Speaking about globalization in labour industry, and economic migration, Starbucks has done it so well!)  Dr. Adeney and I were talking about many missiological issues that concern us, including my recent blog post ( 21.11.2011 ) on Diaspora Readings and Intellectual Invasion. She agreed for the most part except she said that “there are [indeed some] missiologists (including herself) who are looking at the diaspora issues very carefully”. In fact, she said: “in my presidential address to the American Society of Missiology (ASM), I mentioned diaspora.”  Her presidential speech was subsequently published in the ASM Missiology :  An International Review (01.2011).  

Please don’t get me wrong. There are some missiologists who are researching and writing about this global trend. To be fair with Dr. Adeney, I would like to also suggest to the Lausanne readers, Evangelical Missiological Society President, Dr. Enoch Wan’s seminal work Diaspora Missiology published by the Evangelical Missiological Society (EMS) Occasional Bulletin of EMS Vol. 20 No. 2, 2007.   You may read this article at:  www.enochwan.com/english/articles/pdf/Diaspora%20Missiology.pdf

So, the two leaders of the largest Missiological Societies in the USA and Canada are championing Diaspora Missiology! However, we need more scholars in four quarters of the globe to research and write. Diaspora issues in Latin America is very different than the diaspora issues in North Africa and Middle East; issues in Eastern Europe is different than in  Far East Asia. We need to encourage more PHD, D.Miss., D.Min., to write diaspora missiology dissertations; and practitioners and field workers to document case studies.
These young diasporalogists who are researching on Diaspora Missiology should be invited to come together in March 2015 for the Global Diaspora Forum to be held in Manila, Philippines.

For now, you may want to read the works of Adeney and Wan. Both missions scholars have written articles and books related to this subject.  Also, people interested in Diaspora Missiology should also read Missiology An International Review:  Mission and Migration 31,1. Then to hear from a diaspora and migration blogger, I recommend that you periodically visit Dr. J.D. Payne’s site, Missiologically Thinking at http://www.jdpayne.org/.  Another significant book that I am recommending is Beyond Christendom by Dr. Jehu Hanciles, professor at Fuller Theological Seminary.  You can find it at http://www.amazon.ca/Beyond-Christendom-Globalization-Migration-Transformaiton/dp/1570757909

The Whole Church can effectively preach the Whole Gospel to the Whole World as Kingdom Workers are well informed-practitioners.

*Dr. Enoch Wan and Dr. Jehu Hanciles were former members of the Lausanne Diasporas Leadership Team (LDLT).  LDLT presented on diasporas with Senior Associate for Diasporas, Sadiri Joy Tira at Cape Town/Lausanne III.  It was the forerunner of the Global Diaspora Network (GDN).

Sadiri Joy Tira (D.Min., D.Miss.) is the LCWE Senior Associate for Diasporas; Vice President for Diaspora Missions at Advancing Indigenous Missions (AIM); Director of the Institute of Diaspora Missiology at Alliance Graduate School (Philippines); and Diaspora Missiology Specialist at the Jaffray Centre for Global Initiatives at Ambrose University College (Canada).