This body is a CTE co-ordinating group being committed to ecumenical missiological reflection and sharing insights with the churches in England to enable them to make better-informed decisions regarding mission-shaped strategies.
In August 2022 the Mission Research Network re-worked their aims and objectives into the statement below:
- Bringing together academics and practitioners from Member Churches, Bodies in Association and theological colleges to encourage dynamic mission-shaped research the Mission Research Network “exists to create a robust, vibrant, critical and independent mission research community in the UK to resource God’s Church in mission.”
- The group is related to BIAPT’s (British and Irish Association of Practical Theology) Mission Studies group and is especially interested in dealing with missional topics in a time ‘after colonialism.’
- The Mission Research Network is committed to decolonising missiology and mission research. We believe this is a long term, ongoing project that is beyond mere words or gestures. We want to be humble and open to challenge and critique over this process of ‘unthinking’ the colonial assumptions inherent in much missiology.
- We believe that academic scholarship and learning should be a collective endeavour and a communal pursuit. We reject the elitism of academic discourse and long for a breadth of people to join us in learning together. We are committed to developing friendships with one another.
- We are committed to exploring more fully the relationship between mission and racial justice and acknowledge other forms of exclusion whether around gender, sexuality, economics or class that prevent full participation.
- We are committed to inclusion of scholars and researchers from as wide a range of backgrounds as possible with a plurality of theological voices and positions.
- We commit to encouraging and supporting all within our network and standing in solidarity including defending each other from attack.
The Group help organise the annual MA in Mission Prize, set up to draw out high-quality, recently-passed MA theses to add to a small but growing repository of MAs and PhDs. This mission research library on our CTE website includes a number of MAs and PhDs, and we hope to grow these in the coming months. If you have written a MA or PhD on a mission-shaped topic since 2001, and would be happy for CTE to host it on the repository please get in touch with Ben Aldous from CTE.
In 2022 the MA in Mission Prize was won by Owen May for a dissertation on Scriptural Reasoning and Mission.
In 2021 the prize was won by Daleen Ten Cate.
The Group also hosts webinars with Doctoral students in mission, and hosts days dealing with particular topics.
Heather Major (chair) from the group are also part of the International Association of Mission Studies Europe Board. Nigel Rooms is the treasurer for the International Association of Mission Studies globally.
The network consists of theological educators and missiologists from a variety of church traditions:
- Tim Davy (All Nations)
- Philip Powell (Tearfund)
- Harvey Kwiyani (Global Connections/Missio Africanus Journal/CMS)
- Israel Olofinjana (Evangelical Alliance/Centre for Missionaries from the Majority World)
- James Bulter (CMS/St Augustines/Roehampton)
- Nigel Rooms (CMS/IAMS/Partnership for Missional Church)
- Heather Major (Women in missiology network/Highland Theological Seminary/IAMS Europe – CHAIR)
- Cathy Ross (CMS)
- Marina Ngursangzeli Behera (Oxford Centre for Mission Studies)
- Ben Aldous (CTE/Queens Foundation)