Episode 16 Transcript: Power in Mission

Date: September 2026.  Guests: Kirk Franklin, Hannes Wiesmann

Phil Prior (host): Welcome to another episode of the Journey Podcast from the Wycliffe Global Alliance. Today we’re hosting a global conversation about what can be a really touchy topic: power in mission.

Jim Killam (host): Power is not usually understood as a good thing in ministry. Over the history of global mission, it’s most often been wielded, or at least perceived this way, by the people who supply the money. Generally, that meant North Americans and Europeans.

Phil Prior: The intent was almost always good, but there were and still are some uncomfortable and even surprising dynamics around power. And as we’ll learn today, it isn’t always about money.

Jim Killam: I had the chance recently to talk about this with Kirk Franklin and Hannes Wiesmann. Kirk is the former executive director of the Alliance, and Hannes is the director of special projects. They’ve been busy preparing for the next phase of this conversation—something we call the global coffee chat.

Phil Prior: Yeah. So the global coffee chat is a gathering hosted by the Wycliffe Global Alliance for leaders of Alliance organisations, and the idea is for us to meet semi-informally to look at a particular topic or issue and have some time for discussion. So it’s hosted on Zoom, so there are no travel costs, and we have interpretation for the main languages used by Alliance leaders. So it’s about as accessible as we can possibly make it. And the conversation on power in mission, which will take place on September 30th, will happen twice because while Zoom is great for dealing with connection issues, it hasn’t solved the time zone challenge. So, by repeating this conversation more than once, we’re trying to meet people at a time that better suits them. And I would say this is an invitation-only event. Alliance organisation leaders will have received an invitation to register, but if they’ve missed this and they’re listening to this before the 30th of September, 2026, they can email the Alliance at info@wycliffe.net and we can resend the invitation for them to register.

Jim Killam: Yeah. What’s especially good is that this conversation is being built on the results of a recent survey that was done with Alliance organisations. Bible translation leaders all over the world gave some very thoughtful answers to some hard questions about that theme: power in mission.

Phil Prior: And we should also note that this isn’t just one conversation involving only organisational leaders. The event on the 30th will be part of a much larger process. The Alliance is developing tools that organisations can use to address situations where power needs to be acknowledged and may be adjusted. Those tools will be available to anyone very soon.

Jim Killam: So that’s enough of an introduction to this important topic, and here now is our conversation with Kirk Franklin and Hannes Wiesmann about power in mission.

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Jim Killam: Today we have Kirk Franklin and Hannes Wiesmann with us, and we are talking about an event coming up in the Alliance. Kirk is in Australia, correct?

Kirk Franklin: That’s right.

Jim Killam (host): And you, as I understand it, are part of the faculty at the Melbourne School of Theology and Oxford Center for Mission, and you were formerly executive director of the Global Alliance from 2008 to 2020. Hannes is in Switzerland and you are director of special projects for the Alliance and have been Europe area director. You guys have both lived in contexts where you were not born, right? And so that becomes an interesting part of this conversation, too. One of the challenges of working globally is finding a time for these conversations when everyone on the call is awake and coherent. I won’t speak for myself on the coherent part of that, but I know you guys are. So, thanks for doing this today or tonight, whatever the case may be.

Can you talk about what the event is coming up? First of all, Hannes, maybe you’d be the one to mention that we have a global coffee chat coming on September 30th with the Alliance, and then there’s some new resources coming too for Alliance organisations and probably others as well. And all of those address the topic of power in mission. Hannes, could you talk about the event a little bit first and what’s going to happen?

Hannes Wiesmann: Yeah, thank you. So, there was quite a buildup to this event, the global coffee chat. The whole power in mission endeavor or process started a few years ago actually and then it was almost stalling for a while and a few months back Kirk and I re-engaged with it and analysed—Kirk analysed basically the data that we collected in the previous phase. And we found that there was actually rich insight, a treasure of insights in these data that we collected in surveys and conversations that we had throughout the Alliance community.

So we were talking about how are we going to best share what we learned and make it available and also find ways how to actually help the Alliance community in this topic. So Kirk and I already said let’s—well actually we came up with a number of ideas how to talk about it. One is the podcast but then we also thought it would be good to invite to a webinar where we share the results of the research and then in conversation with the area directors the idea came up to use this new platform that they created a few months back with the global coffee chat. We thought that this would be a perfect second edition of the global coffee chat and would be a perfect platform for the power in mission topic to be shared with the Alliance.

So this is what’s now going to happen hopefully end of the month September, that we will have two sessions to take care of time zones so that if you’re in the eastern part of the world—if there is a center to the world, but Greenwich Mean Time would be the center in this case—you can participate in the first session and if you’re in the western part, in the second session.

Jim Killam: I mean, I know there’s no substitute for face-to-face meetings and we’re all Zoom weary sometimes, but in a case like this where you are trying to talk about leveling a playing field, is it actually a little bit better to do this in a forum that’s online and everyone’s on equal footing so to speak and there’s no travel issues kind of thing?

Hannes Wiesmann: I think it’s probably the best of all the bad practical solutions that we have. I would say meeting face to face would still be preferable because it is not an easy topic to talk about. So, it would certainly be better to have more time and drink coffee and all that, but it’s just very difficult both in terms of time and money, and ecologically it’s not very smart either. So, all of this leaves us with a situation where we say it’s better to do a Zoom and a webinar than nothing at all.

Jim Killam: Yeah. Kirk, maybe I could ask you to backtrack a little bit and ask how would you define that term power in mission as we talk about this? Maybe we should lay that out there first.

Kirk Franklin: Yeah. Look, power in mission is a term obviously that is going to have different meanings to different people. So, it is good to say, “Well, what are we talking about when we say that?” And when we think about mission, we’re thinking of God’s mission, participation in God’s mission, and therefore agencies, mission agencies, Bible translation agencies, those sort of structures. But we then encounter when we start relating to each other the power questions, the power imbalances, the power dynamics. And we will always have those. And anytime organisations have to work together, people have to work together, there will be power issues.

So the framing that’s important, I think, for this conversation is to move it away from the negative connotations that often exist around power. We have so many examples in the Wycliffe Global Alliance of these sort of negative power imbalances from the past and so forth. I think we really need to reframe it to say that power in mission is about every person, every leader, every organisation has some degree of power. How can we use that to glorify the Lord and to support each other? How can it be a positive amplifying effect? But we may have to get there. So to define power as something that we can use to serve each other rather than wield over each other.

Some people like to use influence in that equation, and that can be good because influence in a positive sense would be rather than a negative sense. The other angle I would bring into that is also the idea of agency where you’re giving voice to those who maybe have felt not heard or appreciated in this particular conversation around power. To be honest, to be frank, it’s actually really difficult to land a concise definition. But if those themes that I’ve just mentioned would be what I think we would want to see come out of some of these conversations—and again to land it as a positive, but to be aware that to get to the positive, we’ve got to work through the negative, the baggage, the histories, the imbalances, the broken relationships and so forth. But those should not be the main story at the end of the day. This is a very maturing conversation that we’re seeing arising out of this whole idea of power in mission.

Jim Killam: You mentioned there’s been some negative aspects to this. Without implicating anybody, could you give me some examples and maybe keep them as vague as you need to? But I’d love to hear—and I’m sure people would have a whole spectrum of examples on this—but what are some things that have come up specifically?

Kirk Franklin: I mean, yes, there’s a number of examples. One would be cultural difference when it comes to power and influence, and the way we’ve seen that operate in the Wycliffe Global Alliance would be that certain cultures know how to use power in a very proactive way, a way to achieve results—perhaps their results, what’s their agenda, what’s their vision, what they’re going to do about it—and then they rally the resources, which then gives them that power to then enact upon that. And in the past, we’ve certainly seen that as a very Western phenomenon, but not all Western organisations or not all parts of the West because some parts of the West are quite disempowered in comparison to those who maybe have had more of the power.

And then with those on maybe more of a receiving end, it has often come across as they feel disempowered because they don’t feel they have a voice or a say; the agenda has been set somewhere else. So you see that a lot; maybe it decreases, but it’s there. And so I see it as somewhat of a cultural dynamic. I even had somebody say to me recently from part of Asia, speaking of a partnership with a Western partner, that the problem for them as an Asian was they didn’t speak up enough. It wasn’t that they didn’t have power; they just didn’t know how to use it. Well, they even knew how to use it, they just didn’t articulate it or voice it.

And I remember hearing this in the past too from even within an African context talking to a European context was: We need to speak up, but we need to figure out how to do that so that our voice is heard and not shut down or seen as an opposing voice. Because sometimes obviously people don’t get listened to if they come across as perhaps negative or against something. Rather, this is more about culturally how do we speak up into this space?

Now, that’s not to frame it that it’s always a Western to a rest of the world issue because within a continent, whether it’s Asia, Africa, or the Pacific, we’ll still see those same dynamics. So the other perspective I’ve often seen is that it can have to do with the size of the organisation. So it could be an Asian organisation, but it actually is quite powerful and it could be quite overwhelming to other Asian organisations that it might be trying to partner with. So that would be then coming back to beyond just culture, but what assets or resources—human, financial, knowledge, etc.—that they actually can pull together, and that can be quite a formidable partner to partner with.

So those in a sense, those are probably classic sort of stories that have been around a long time. They don’t go away because often, from my perspective, you just change a leader and you’re repeating some of that same way of thinking; it starts all over again and then the new leader has to be helped to realise they’re using this sort of language in a way that can be unhelpful.

Jim Killam: The issue of funding always seems to come up with power, and I wonder if the default setting would be that the funder is the one perceived to have more of the power in a relationship. You’ve mentioned several other things here too, but does a lot of it come back to funding?

Kirk Franklin: It certainly does. That comes out a lot in the data from the questionnaires and interviews that Hannes led across the Wycliffe Global Alliance. Money or funding, financial resources, is a very common theme. It’s one of the biggest common themes. It’s not always seen as—it’s certainly not put in a negative framing. We’ve actually summarised it about how can it shape influence? How can it be a power amplifier? Funding can be a power amplifier, and that doesn’t have to have a negative connotation whatsoever, but it’s still a powerful connotation because it means if you have that or you have access to that, most likely you will be able to achieve more than if you didn’t have it.

And look, in a sense, I don’t know who we blame for this—not really trying to blame anyone—but I remember back in the ’90s after Vision 2025, the International Administration of the day said the biggest obstacle to seeing Vision 2025 achieved was the lack of money or lack of funding. And in a sense that’s true, but it also set in motion, “Okay, now, you know, we’ve got to chase these funds.” And within the wider mission ecosystem that I see beyond Wycliffe and beyond Bible translation, Bible translation still comes out as one of the most expensive endeavors in mission because of the cost, even with the cost coming down. And so you put those together, you can understand therefore why we keep coming back to the challenge and the effects of funding and money.

Hannes Wiesmann: If I can also add to this, I still hope that this whole process broadens our perspective. If we see power only through the lens of money, I think it’s very limited and it has a negative effect that those who find they have a lack of money put themselves exclusively, maybe almost, in the place of the powerless. Whereas if we can broaden our perspective, we would realise that there are many other ways how power or the basis on which power is placed—like knowledge, like relationships, local knowledge in particular is very important, expertise and all that. So I think if we can see that these are other factors that come into play as we talk about power in mission, people would realise actually we are not exclusively on the receiving end of power, but we also have something to contribute. All of this, in the beginning, is neutral. It’s neither positive nor negative, as Kirk said. So the question is: how do all of these players use the power that they have in a constructive way that glorifies God?

Jim Killam: Have you guys been involved in a conversation like this in the past, or is this a new thing in global missions to be talking about this as a global community?

Hannes Wiesmann: What comes to mind is the third space conversations that we had—the one in Johannesburg. Kirk, you remember the year?

Kirk Franklin: 2018, I believe. There was also the Europe-Africa conversation. You were also looking at that, but I would suggest it was coming out in some of the missiological conversations that were starting earlier back in the—not necessarily the very early ones but certainly whenever we started looking at issues to do with the church or how different parts of the world saw each other, I think we started hearing about power imbalances.

I remember a conversation quite a while ago about when we’re thinking of partnering and collaboration, it was around kingdom. You know, it’s all about the focus being on God’s kingdom, and that would be moving us away from unequal collaborative efforts, and unequalness usually had to do with money. And so, unfortunately, that’s often how it was framed. And so, how do we move away from that? Well, then we should be viewing the kingdom of God as the equilibrium or focus for it. But I don’t know that there was ever really a straight-on, deliberate, only focus on this topic of power. I believe that started under Hannes when he led this initiative.

Jim Killam: What do you think makes now an appropriate time to be having this conversation, and how might it look different from say 10 years ago?

Kirk Franklin: One thing that comes to mind, and it really comes out of the data, is that there’s a real maturity towards this topic that I don’t think I saw before, certainly in my tenure, bearing in mind that I stepped down six years ago. But I could confidently say when I was stepping down, I didn’t see the maturity of expression about power in a helpful way that I’m seeing in the data that Hannes has collected. And so I’m wondering if there has been some healthy development over these last few years—perhaps speaking up, owning agency, better collaborative language, mutual respect, mutuality, those sort of things. Maybe they are now becoming more of a value and therefore this is maturing the language.

Hannes Wiesmann: Yeah, I would also have framed it in this way, maybe particularly—I think we as a global community have matured. Those of us who were at the global gathering in ’24, we have experienced quite a level playing field for those five days. It seemed to me at the time titles didn’t matter. Everyone was just seen and gave him or herself into this space as who they were. There was hardly any protocol to be followed to behave appropriately. I mean, it’s still good to behave, but the playing field was pretty level, and I think that’s—I take that as a sign of maturity of the community and a level of trust that comes with it, and that people feel this is a space where I can speak my mind and not be punished for it.

Jim Killam: You guys spoke of third spaces a little while ago and how, I know that’s a huge value in the Wycliffe Global Alliance, but what’s leading to this sort of an improvement in this dialogue? Is it the fact that the Alliance holds it so closely as a value and is promoting it? Is it—you guys both mentioned maturity, which can look lots of different ways, but again, what—how is this a different conversation than it might have been let’s say pre-COVID? Because that would take us back six years. What looks different?

Kirk Franklin: I mean, one of the things that comes to mind if I think back to those earlier—the biggest attempt of a third space which we did in Africa, that was the biggest, costliest, involved the most people, and so forth, had the most at risk, but it worked really well. And coming out of that, we as the leadership of the Wycliffe Global Alliance said to each other, “We need to make this our value. This is what we now can be. This is now the place and space we can offer.” And we didn’t necessarily try to put legs to that or put a structure around it or put someone in charge of it. We kind of just let it float. And it’s interesting how that’s kind of spread.

So it looks differently in different places. So you have in Latin America what David Cardenas leads with the mesas that started earlier under Nidia Garcia Schmidt, where they were looking at, “How do we bring people together equally? How do we set that neutral table?” So they found that to work. Last year, the—well, it’s carrying on from that—the Forum of Bible Agencies International uses a third space approach to bring sort of equal conversation around tables: north and south, east and west.

And so we’ve kind of had it there for a while for me because I remember being part of the early conversations conceptually. What is this? What could we do with this idea of a third space? That goes back to before 2016 even. It just was never clear how do we actually do this? Do we set up processes? Do we really make this thing work? And so it felt to me like it just sat there. Hannes can speak to whether it did or not. But in working on this project and then figuring out what could we be offering back to the Alliance organisations and its participants, we actually could be offering third space as part of the next steps because it is that place where different parties can come together and create mutuality and mutual respect, and actually work through the issues that are preventing them from enjoying that kind of fellowship and working together. And so it’s just interesting to me, here we are 10 years later from when it was first conceptualised, to see it didn’t die. It kind of just—it stayed alive. It’s morphed, and here it is now being offered in a constructive way.

Hannes Wiesmann: Once a year I teach at the Mennonite theological training place here in Switzerland to talk about third space. They’re totally fascinated by what we discovered as a model or as a way how to address conflict, potential conflict of various degrees. So it has even gone beyond the Wycliffe Global Alliance.

Jim Killam: Do you think in the Bible translation world that being in a post-Vision 2025 era makes a difference in this? Kirk, you mentioned kind of a rush to funding at one point which largely was driven I think by that or by similar goals. Does that look different today?

Kirk Franklin: I suppose it does and it doesn’t. I mean, in the sense that funders and those who are able to access good funding are still going to play a very important and significant role, and they are still needed. But at the same time, these other values, the ones that Hannes spoke of—and you could add some very scriptural values such as stewardship and a real earnestness of seeking God’s mind and being custodians of what He wants to take place—means that it isn’t just about, you know, the pre-COVID, post-Vision 2025, that whole era of trying to rush to meet a deadline or goal, to now saying, “Well, what is the whole church, what is God preparing the whole church to do in this sense in terms of the Bible translation needs?” And there it definitely shifts the focus a lot.

It doesn’t mean the funders aren’t needed. They’re probably needed more than ever, but the way it’s done obviously has to change because the ownership is shifting and changing. So, there’s probably a whole number of other issues that are also contributing to this, including new tools such as AI and others that are actually probably going to bring costs down. So there’s probably a lot of other things going on that just kind of re-shifts this focus. But I don’t know if there’s a deliberate or definite, clear answer to what the difference is, but those would be some of the things.

Jim Killam: Looking ahead to the event at the end of September—the 30th. And I know we’ll talk in a second too about some of these tools that you guys have been developing, but what would a successful outcome to that event look like to you guys?

Hannes Wiesmann: I think one first thing is that we owe it to the Alliance organisations to give them a report. They have invested themselves in the first phase of this whole journey with sharing their insights and thoughts and questions, etc. So it’s just good stewardship of that gift that they gave to us as a global community to share what we gained from that. Another good outcome would be, of course, if the Alliance organisations then would be motivated to look into the toolbox, as we call it, that we will offer to them and are motivated to actually engage with it because we believe that much could be benefited from that process if they really use these tools. Yeah, I guess that would be two outcomes that I would see. I don’t know, Kirk?

Kirk Franklin: Yeah, I think I just hope that people join the chat because we’re not going to share the report in detail. It’s quite extensive. It obviously will be made available. But just some of the highlights are really encouraging. It comes back to that maturing language, that robust dialogue, the acknowledgement of some of the tensions, and being the ability to articulate them in a very healthy way. I really found it is very, very helpful to see. I was so encouraged to see these expressions, and I think those who can come and join the chat will be also encouraged because it shows a real shift that has taken place, and that’s, you know, we can thank the Lord for that. So that’d be definitely one that’s going on.

And then to dig in a little bit deeper: Well, what does it look like to have healthy power? What does that look like in the collaborative efforts within the movement? What does that even sound like? What’s the aspirations behind that? What’s the motivations, and how maybe there are some organisations, though, are still a little bit concerned that they don’t really get to articulate how they really feel about this topic? You know, they may or may not have participated in the surveys and so forth, and they may be really struggling with real issues. I would hope they would want to come because this is still that safe space to raise those in the processes that we have in mind to make an even deeper contribution to what’s already been made.

Hannes Wiesmann: You alluded to that, Kirk. One thing that we have been saying is we need to learn language to talk about this. It’s not an easy topic. So I think it just benefits being part of such conversations, even if it’s mainly at the receiving end listening to reports, but there will be group conversations also. We need to practice talking about it. Everyone knows that power dynamics are going on, but it’s sometimes difficult to address them in a way that we feel comfortable that it will be a positive conversation. So it’s just good to be part of such conversations to learn this language, so to speak.

Jim Killam: It’s almost like you’re removing the elephant in the room by encouraging this as a topic rather than have it come up organically. You know, where it’s a tough thing when that’s not the stated topic and the reason—

Kirk Franklin: And I think you’re right, because I can think of many times in the past where we had to skirt around it. We had to dance around the elephant because we didn’t want to create disruption to those who might not see it the same way. And so we knew it was always there. We couldn’t really be honest about it. And when we did try to be honest, then inevitably someone gets offended or some don’t want to participate. So now I think we finally come to a place where it is safe, and ideas are being expressed, and there is a real engagement with this tension that before we knew was always there, but we just weren’t really hearing it like we are now in a productive way.

Jim Killam: You mentioned a toolbox. I know you’re going to talk about that in the event, but can you give us a preview on what that is and how people might use it?

Hannes Wiesmann: So this toolbox is presented in the form of a document that has three main parts, three main tools in the box. The first tool encourages Alliance organisations to identify what the power dynamics are that they find themselves involved in, just to name them, make an inventory in a way to realise what’s going on.

The second tool is an invitation and also with questions to actually evaluate these power dynamics, to say which ones are healthy, in which ways are they healthy and strong, and in which ways are they maybe problematic and would be good to talk about. Ideally, I would say probably this would be done in conversation with the partner. So if two Alliance organisations have a collaboration together, they could engage in this conversation together and evaluate their power dynamics.

And then the third tool is this third space that we talked about, to encourage and actually facilitate also with questions and the surrounding ideas, to encourage these organisations to engage in a third space conversation where they would then address in particular those power dynamics that they found had aspects that should be addressed, and to see what’s going on and what’s the way forward together. What can they commit to doing, to learning, to change, whatever. So those are the three tools, and we really believe that if they are used within the Wycliffe Global Alliance, it could shift the dynamics that we experience in very positive and fundamental ways.

Kirk Franklin: Yeah. And I would add that the interesting thing to me is that the tools come out of the reports, so that the data—the synthesizing of the responses to the questionnaires around power and the surveys—start articulating, “Well, we need some way forward, how do we do this better, how do we break through some of these obstacles?” So the tools really rise out of that. They’re not, “Oh, let’s just come up with three ideas,” but they’re actually in response to the very data, the very themes, the very questions that were arising.

The other thing I would add is that I would wish we had these back in my time when I was the leader of the Wycliffe Global Alliance. I can just think of many times these could have been so helpful to frame a conversation or to help parties get together and ask the right questions of each other and so forth. Perhaps we weren’t ready back then, but again, maybe this is another expression of the maturity that we see developing, that we’re now ready to offer these tools because they do take some work. They require some commitment. We’ve made them as straightforward as possible, but any embarking on them will need to give some effort to that, and so I would be confident to believe that the time is now, that they’re ready for that and the maturity is there as well, and to really engage with what we can offer through these tools.

Jim Killam: Yeah. And again, it feels like you’re almost granting permission for people to have this conversation, and it doesn’t have to be an awkward thing to bring up here. “We’ve got this form, we’re going to go through together.” That probably makes this an easier start, huh?

Hannes Wiesmann: Yeah. I would also say the covenant that we have, the covenant or statements of commitment, actually almost creates a space. Everyone has committed to engaging in conversations, even if they are difficult, by the covenant that they have signed.

Jim Killam: And then for those who might be hearing this conversation and aren’t going to be part of that event on the 30th, a lot of this is going to be made public on the website and other forms, right? So, they’ll have access to a lot of this whether they’re part of that one-time conversation or not.

Hannes Wiesmann: Yeah, the report and the toolbox we will eventually publish on our web page as we have done with other findings of such processes. I would like to add that this is not the end of a process, a full stop, but this is more of a report of where we are, and we believe the toolbox will be really helpful, but it should not be the end of the conversation also at the higher level where we explore what is happening and how do we best address it. So it’s not a topic that you probably should ever think that you can just take off and no longer engage with.

Jim Killam: Maybe I can wrap up with this question or this observation. It’s got to be very gratifying to see this come about and to see where and how the Alliance gets to participate and even catalyse a conversation like this. Is that exciting for you guys to see where we’re at on this topic?

Kirk Franklin: I mean, from my point of view, it is, but I’m also looking at it quite broadly in terms of my engagement with other mission agencies, even in the classroom with mission leaders and so forth. This whole issue just never really gets dealt with very well. This whole issue of power in mission, framed the way it’s been framed. So I feel like the work of Wycliffe Global Alliance is once again taking the lead on offering something that’s very, very useful, very missiologically sound, it’s very robust, it’s well thought out, and the fact that we were able to do in terms of the data—getting that data—was a monumental effort because it really started giving us the insights that I think we probably have been lacking up until now. We would have had some best guesses, but to now see the quotes, see what people are saying, how they’re articulating it, I think is really, really helpful. But once again, I haven’t actually seen that happening in other areas of missions around the world like I’ve seen in this one.

Hannes Wiesmann: I’m certainly very grateful that we can offer something back to the Alliance after the stalling of the process that I alluded to in the beginning of our conversation. Now, I would say—what’s the saying in English?—”The proof of the pudding lies in the eating.” And the eating in this particular case is the question whether the toolbox will be used or not. Because if it’s just another document that sits on a web page, nothing will change. So I will be truly, truly, truly grateful and happy if the tools are widely used. We as a Wycliffe Global Alliance and maybe beyond, missions at large, learn to have these conversations in truly helpful ways. That would make me very, very happy and grateful.

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Phil Prior (host): Wow, that’s some fascinating stuff. Thanks again to Kirk and Hannes for providing a great preview to this global conversation.

Jim Killam: You know, we say all the time how amazing it is to be part of Bible translation movements and see God’s word reaching nearly every language community, but it’s also fantastic to see humble, thoughtful, generous leaders asking these hard questions: How do we serve together in God’s mission and truly act as the global body of Christ, valuing everyone’s gifts and callings and unique contributions?

Phil Prior: Yeah, it’s recognising when our human nature and cultural blind spots may throw things out of balance and then developing and using tools for good and challenging conversations where everyone feels seen and heard. Those are some things where the Alliance is uniquely positioned to lead.

Jim Killam: Again, if you are an Alliance organisation leader and have not yet responded to the global coffee chat invitation in your inbox, this is the time to do that.

Phil Prior: And to everyone, we hope this episode has got you thinking and maybe inspired you to become part of this global conversation as it plays out over the coming months and years. Please keep an eye on wycliffe.net and our monthly e-newsletter, The Journey, for news and resources about power in mission. And that’s all for now. Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time.