ANZAMS
Aotearoa New Zealand Association for Mission Studies

ANZAMS 2000
ANZAMS 2001
ANZAMS 2003
ANZAMS 2004
Archives for Mission

ANZAMS Core Group: Cathy Ross, David Tutty, Hugh Morrison.

Statement of Aims:

The Aotearoa New Zealand Association for Mission Studies
is concerned with the study of Christian mission within and beyond Aotearoa-New Zealand and its impact on the world.

We wish to encourage fresh leadership and younger scholarship in Mission Studies, to support each other in the work we are called to do, and to facilitate fruitful dialogue with other theological disciplines.

 

We desire to champion questions about Christian mission: theological, biblical, historical, practical and contextual.

 

We wish to draw on the wisdom of recognised theological disciplines and inter-cultural experiences of the Christian Gospel and take seriously the changing historical, social and cultural contexts in which mission takes place.

 

We have a concern for the stories and reflections of people in mission who have been neglected and support the development of archives documentation and oral history by churches and mission agencies.

 

We seek to take seriously the mission experience of Aotearoa New Zealand in all its dimensions, achievements and failings.

 

We wish to encourage informed discussion and decision making  among stakeholders in theological education.

 

We recognise the importance of media studies for cultural analysis, the theological importance of fresh study of ecclesiology and mission, and the need for a more informed theology of religions based on relationship with people of other faiths.

The ANZAMS Conference is held every one or two years, where possible alternating between the North and the South Island of New Zealand.

 

Membership of ANZAMS is currently by attendance at the Conference, which for reasons of security with regard to immigration, is restricted to those resident in New Zealand or those specially invited by the host committee.

 

We comprise teachers of missions studies, theology, history and Biblical studies, researchers, missions specialists, mission administrators, and missionaries and others who support our aims and values.

 

As an inter-confessional Christian group of "reflective practitioners" we share a critical concern for the mission of the Church with respect for the diversity of views among us.

 

It is not our purpose to resolve theological and missiological differences, but it is our intention to facilitate understanding and provide a safe space where different perspectives may be discussed.

The financial activities of ANZAMS aim to be minimal and are funded largely through the annual conference.

ANZAMS is affiliated with the International Association for Mission Studies (IAMS).

A note on the use of the word Mission

ANZAMS has retained the word mission in its title acknowledging that while it speaks of the purpose of God and the place of the Church in that purpose for many people, it is "not an innocent word."

Christian mission has historic links with colonialism and its abuses. The use of the term can focus on the needs and interests of those who engage in mission (the missionary, the mission society, the missionary church, the mission-sending country), more than in the stories, initiatives and interests of those on the receiving end of mission. The history of our mission from the viewpoint of one, is the history of our church from the viewpoint of the other.

We seek to be sensitive to these concerns. No term describing what we seek to study is free of problems. Church history is easily just the history of the church of Europe and North America, as many books still assume. Christian history might cover both, but our concern is about the dynamic of God's mission and our parts in that, however mixed with culture and the viewpoint of our era. Mission is an activity for the whole church and the mixed associations of mission with power are not its most important defining characteristic.

We note the following comments from John and Rita England:

    "We have long felt that use of the word "mission", even when understood holistically, does not normally make clear that we are studying church history - as much as, if not more than, mission history; the life, witness and theology of often long-established churches and autonomous traditions, not just "mission programmes"  usually from West to East / North to South. In almost every geographical area we have long had to recognise that it is churches we related to not 'mission-fields.' 

    Of course it is God's mission, in all times and places and peoples, which we seek to understand - which is vastly larger than any experience of ours, of church or mission."

ANZAMS Home Page + International Association for Mission Studies