Webinar: The Complexities of Submitting to Local Leadership

Event Details

How far should Western missionaries and practitioners go in relinquishing control and submitting to local leadership? What are the risks, tensions, and transformative possibilities when ministry is carried out in indigenous languages and with local resources alone?

In this interview-style webinar, Deborah Bernhard (former missionary in Thailand and co-editor of Vulnerable Mission for Practitioners) and Jim Harries (long-term missionary in Kenya and founder of the Alliance for Vulnerable Mission) will explore the paradoxes of “letting go” in cross-cultural ministry. They will discuss:

- Why vulnerable mission insists on working through local languages and resources

- The challenges of submitting to local leadership without falling into dependency or paternalism

- Practical examples of both fruitful collaboration and painful missteps

- How vulnerability reshapes the role of Western missionaries in postcolonial contexts

Moderated by an AVM facilitator, this conversation will probe the limits of submitting to host community leadership and the complexities of power in intercultural ministry. Expect a candid dialogue that challenges conventional mission strategies and invites participants to wrestle with what “weakness” and “submission” mean in practice.

Meet the speakers

Dr. Jim Harries: long-term missionary in Kenya, founder of the Alliance for Vulnerable Mission, author of many books and peer-reviewed articles on Vulnerable Mission. For more information, see his website.

Deborah Bernhard: former missionary in Thailand and co-editor of Vulnerable Mission for Practitioners, facilitator of the Rethinking Forum for the Buddhist World:

Prioritising cultural and missiological humility, the Rethinking Forum seeks to strengthen the witness of Christ to the Theravada Buddhist world. We want to address barriers and overcome hinderances to the Gospel, taking a critical look at what lessons can be learned from the past, deconstructing unhelpful approaches (such as neocolonialism and western worldview). Likewise, we seek to learn from and engage with new movements to Christ taking place on the ground and culturally appropriate foundations and expressions of faith. Engaging on a missiological (theoretical) and practical level, we seek to incorporate the two. We aim to become vulnerable towards those we are there to reach, seeking to discover what God is doing beyond our limited frameworks.

Webinar platform

This webinar will be hosted on Zoom. After subscribing (i.e. booking a free ticket), you will be sent the Zoom link. Here can be found the terms under which Zoom provides protection of their users’ data.