{"id":3007,"date":"2025-12-08T20:25:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T20:25:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vulnerablemission.org\/?p=3007"},"modified":"2026-04-15T09:21:48","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T09:21:48","slug":"webinar-local-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vulnerablemission.org\/de\/webinar-local-leadership\/","title":{"rendered":"Webinar: The Complexities of Submitting to Local Leadership (16 Apr 2026)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong>Thursday 16th April 2026<\/strong> &#8211; 14:00 GMT+2<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Deborah Bernhard and Jim Harries invite discussion on the complexities of submitting to local leadership in Vulnerable Mission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-a89b3969 wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button is-style-primary\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.eventbrite.de\/e\/avm-webinar-the-limits-of-letting-go-submitting-to-local-leadership-tickets-1976599925586?aff=ebdsoporgprofile\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Kostenlose Anmeldung<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<h6 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Webinar info<\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n<p>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?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this interview-style webinar, <strong>Deborah Bernhard<\/strong> (former missionary in Thailand and co-editor of <em>\u201eVulnerable Mission for Practitioners\u201c<\/em>) and <strong>Jim Harries<\/strong> (long-term missionary in Kenya and founder of the Alliance for Vulnerable Mission) will explore the paradoxes of \u201cletting go\u201d in cross-cultural ministry. They will discuss:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Why vulnerable mission insists on working through local languages and resources<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The challenges of submitting to local leadership without falling into dependency or paternalism<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Practical examples of both fruitful collaboration and painful missteps<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>How vulnerability reshapes the role of Western missionaries in postcolonial contexts<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>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 \u201cweakness\u201d and \u201csubmission\u201d mean in practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h6 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Meet the speakers<\/h6>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Dr. Jim Harries: <\/strong>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 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jim-mission.org.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">website<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Deborah Bernhard: <\/strong>former missionary in Thailand and co-editor of <em>Vulnerable Mission for Practitioners, <\/em>facilitator of the Rethinking Forum for the Buddhist World:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Prioritising cultural and missiological humility, the <strong>Rethinking Forum<\/strong> 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.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h6 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Webinar platform<\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n<p>This webinar will be hosted on Zoom. After subscribing (i.e. booking a free ticket), you will be sent the Zoom link. <a href=\"https:\/\/explore.zoom.us\/docs\/ent\/privacy-and-legal.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Here <\/a>can be found the terms under which Zoom provides protection of their users&#8217; data.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thursday 16th April 2026 &#8211; 14:00 GMT+2 Deborah Bernhard and Jim Harries invite discussion on the complexities of submitting to local leadership in Vulnerable Mission. Webinar info 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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3016,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"wp-custom-template-single-post-events","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[66,67,16],"class_list":["post-3007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","tag-local-leadership","tag-submission","tag-webinar"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/vulnerablemission.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Webinar-2026-04.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vulnerablemission.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vulnerablemission.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vulnerablemission.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vulnerablemission.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vulnerablemission.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3007"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vulnerablemission.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3126,"href":"https:\/\/vulnerablemission.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3007\/revisions\/3126"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vulnerablemission.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vulnerablemission.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vulnerablemission.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vulnerablemission.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}