North American Mission Leaders Conference

Dear church/mission leader,

On September 24-27, 2008, approximately 322 participants from 153 organizations, 28 colleges and universities and 18 local churches, assembled for Mission Next: Relating to the Majority World Harvest Force. If you were among those in attendance, we thank you for making time to join us. If you missed the event, we hope you will benefit from the conversation through the Downloadable Resources tab in the left hand menu of the conference web site.

Throughout the event we emphasized two priority questions: What did you hear? and Where do you go from here? The most important take away from any gathering of this nature is your specific list of next steps. For some of you, that involves following up on several connections you made in the always important "meetings outside the meetings." For all of us, there are important implications associated with how we as individual leaders and how our organizations relate to the majority world.

There is a real danger to assume the issues highlighted in the four majority world presentations are important for "everyone else" to hear. But I believe we could all benefit from revisiting the negro spiritual, which says: "Not my brother, not my sister, But it's me O Lord, standing in the need of prayer."

Our purpose for this event was to challenge assumptions, broaden perspectives and stimulate actionable dialogue with regard to how we relate to the majority world. Our conference evaluation suggests our basic objectives were accomplished but the real question is what are you going to do with what you learned? May God give you wisdom and perseverance is our prayer.

Blessings,

	Steve Moore President and CEO | The Mission Exchange | formerly EFMA www.TheMissionExchange.org
	Marv Newell Executive Director | CrossGlobal Link | formerly IFMA www.CrossGlobalLink.org

P.S. It was a special privilege to jointly present the 2008 Lifetime of Service Award to Dr. Ralph Winter, on September 25, 2008. Please take a few minutes to visit the Lifetime of Service page on this site where you can watch the tribute video (coming soon) and view a few pictures from the award presentation.