Acta Missiologiae 2011/3. [antikvár]

Acta Missiologiae2011.3-6Scott KlingsmithIntroductionThe year 2010 was a busy and momentous one for those involved in mission and mission studies. Four global mission conferences took place, each with the stated goal of commemorating the World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh in 1910. Those in Cape Town and Edinburgh had significant representation from Central and Eastern Europe. Those in Boston and Tokyo had far less (the latter case probably reflecting the almost universal ignorance of CEE as a missionary sending region!). How much lasting fruit will come from these gatherings is yet to be determined, but they had the minimai impact of drawing the global church's attention to the importance and vitality of mission in the world today.There seems to be a growing consensus that mission is something crucial to the life of the church, and not somé peripheral option for the few, extra-adventurous people who are willing to travel and cross cultural barriers. In a variety of church situations, and increasingly in theological education, mission is moving to the center. Christopher Wright, during a recent symposium on the missional church, held at Denver Seminary and co-sponsored by WorldVenture and Denver Seminary, quoted a Danish friend who expressed frustration about the missional church movement. Quoting him (loosely!), to speak of the missional church is like speaking of a female woman". What other kind can there be? A church that doesn't have mission at its core has ceased to be the church. It's encouraging to see that churches around CEE, after years of looking inward and being concerned primarily about survival, are alsó catching this conviction. We see this growing interest reflected in several of the articles in this issue.In 2010, the Central and Eastern European Institute for Mission Studies (CIMS) of the Károli Gáspár of the Reformed Church in Hungary in Budapest held an academic essay competition on relevant mission related topics in Central and Eastern Europe, entitled "Together Witnessing to Christ Today". We are pleased to publish the two winning essays from that competition, by two younger scholars. We begin with an article by Slavko Ezdenci, who researched the feasibility of planting evangelical churches in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, and develops a strategy to do so. Then Alison Clarké shares about the development of a movement of Románián evangelical churches and mission organizations who are attempting to develop a way to cooperate as they learn to send missionaries.We follow with two articles by Orthodox missiologists. Fr Dávid Pestroiu from Romania outlines the way the Románián Orthodox Church is carrying out