Thursday, November 9, 2017

Open Source, Sharing Resources and what are really yours?

Today I read a blog post from my American friend, title "Are they really yours?" about their children, when they were living in China.

Are they really yours? It think it depends on what does ‘yours’ or possession mean. I think children are our properties in one sense. In different cultures the linkage and relationship change differently overtime. From a Christian point view, we own the responsibility to take care the children and the resources entrusted to us to fulfill His mission. All resources and what we 'owned' are really entrusted to us by God, as He is the creator and owner of all creations.


On the other hand, we will inherit all these in one day, as we will rule with the King of Kings in new heaven and earth.
In this world, we would like to protect our right, copy right, property right, human right. The example of Jesus is about giving His right in order to give us the right to back to the Father's house.

Ironically open source movement reflecting some practices of sharing resources in the early church, but not necessary the churches today. Resources is entrusted to us to bring Glory to him and enjoy our life and labor in a Christian manner.

Tuesday, November 7, 2017

What are the bottle neck(s) of 'consultant development' or "Scriptural translation/engagement"?

I try to think out of the boxes about "consultant and bottle neck" in the context of God's mission with the following concern and questions:

#Bottle neck of what?

I think we need to clarify what are the bottles of the bottle neck about. Are we thinking the bigger pictures of making God's word in every languages .... or Missio Dei, the Great Commission.  What are the theology and biblical based supporting the God's word need to be in every languages or what languages?

a. What are all the tongues in Revelation or other part the bible referring to? All the existing tongues(7000+ languages) plus those languages already dead?

b. What can be other necks of the bottle? Can there be more bottles? Consultants can be one, consultant training can be one tube of one of the neck, but there can be other necks, other ways, such as collaborating, computer aided, paraconsultant,  diaspora engagement and other suggestion by innovators. 

c.Beside bible translation what are other alternatives of making God's words available to all people? I believe that Bible translation is only a small step to make God's word accessible by other other in some context and not all context.

d. Besides the BT communities here, what can be other perspectives from other disciplines within the body of Christ and the people that we served plus the cutting edge technologists and researchers?

e. How can we improve the churches partnership/engagement/trust and BT practitioners morale?

f. What can we do with the decreased volume of the traditional consultant and missionaries from those supplying countries in post-church context?

g. What could be the implementation and proper ways of operation in ideological Bible unfriendly context in access restricted regions?

h. What would be the implementation and role of BT communities in the contexts of fast growing church in spite of difficult situation(even without vernacular scriptures)? If they can survive and grow healthily(as they thought) without vernacular BT, what evidence of BT for transformation as recent testimony can convince the churches and ourselves? 

i. As the technology and education level of some host countries improving significantly, how possible are the national and local churches to grow healthily with or without vernacular scripture especially in urbanization setting?

j. How can we match the right wine with the right bottle in global and local context? One of my concerns is how can we have general principles and  allow flexibility of ethno-lingual customization. 

k. Beside the fastest concern, how can we implement self-sustainable long term Bible translation movement/development in the countries? bi-vocational development of the consultants and BT practitioners? Engaging volunteers? Diaspora and remote HR?