If you want to know where and how the church is going to grow, think local and global. Think glocal. Glocal is Bob Roberts’ term for the seamless connectedness between the local and global. That connection is affecting the church in ways that never could have been imagined in the first-century church, or even the twentieth-century church. And it’s creating unprecedented opportunities for individuals and churches—for you and your church—to live out their faith in real time across the world. Glocalization offers a vision of the unprecedented changes of our times and how they are impacting the church. Discover how these changes will transform the way churches define their mission and how Christians relate to one another and to the world. This provocative book turns the traditional mission-agency model upside down and shows how transformed people and churches can make a glocal (global and local) impact. Glocalization offers an exciting vision for churches and individuals who want to reach this changing world for Christ. Bob Roberts Jr. is the founding pastor of NorthWood Church in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, and has been involved in the planting of a hundred congregations in the United States. Bob also works in Australia, Asia, Afghanistan, Mexico, and Nepal helping with church planting and development and global engagement. Bob is a graduate of Baylor University (BA), Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (Mdiv), and Fuller Seminary (D.Min.) with an emphasis in church planting. He and his wife have two children. Glocalization How Followers of Jesus Engage a Flat World By Bob Roberts Jr. ZONDERVAN Copyright © 2007 Bob Roberts Jr. All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-310-53086-2 Contents Acknowledgments, 9, Part 1: Why Christians Should Engage Glocalization Today, 1 The Whole World Has Gone Glocal!, 13, 2 It's All about the Kingdom — Not Missions, 31, 3 Born in a Family, Called to a City, 49, 4 Every Nation under God — and Then Some, 63, Part 2: Getting Practical about What We Can Do, 5 Send the Whole Church, 77, 6 Follow Jesus on CNN, 95, 7 Bang on the Front Door First, 105, 8 Decrease the West So the East Can Increase, 117, 9 Create Culture instead of Fighting It, 127, 10 Serve Not to Convert but Because You Have Been Converted, 139, 11 Be Gandhi's Best Friend, 151, Part 3: How the Work Will Be Done (Key Values), 12 Get Over Your Call to Preach, 163, 13 Face Your Fear of Death, 175, 14 Depend on the Holy Spirit, 185, T-Model(TransformationModel), 197, Endnotes, 201, Index, 205, CHAPTER 1 The Whole World Has Gone Glocal! Issues That Comprise a Glocal World * * * I remember when I first truly realized the world had gone glocal. It was September 11, 2001. Prior to that, I'd been working globally in various development projects and was reading about globalization. Now it was screaming loud and nonstop on television, radio, and print media. The global nature of the world had finally hit home through this single day of terrorism on American soil. We'd had global involvement in the terrorists' world and they, in turn, had sent us a local response. I realized that, as author Thomas Friedman had asserted in his book by the same title, the world was now flat. We could no longer hide behind a thin veil of feeling safe "way over here." Here was there — and vice versa. Where Friedman uses the term to describe the modern phenomenon of comprehensive connectedness between technology, travel, vocation, business, communication, and the like, I was now seeing the world flattening in a new way. Not just in a Friedman sense where we realize we are no longer isolated villages, but more like a blown-out tire that has gone just about as far as it can and is digging deep into the asphalt pavement. What was happening to the world? That night at supper, my wife, our kids, and the newly arrived exchange student from Hanoi, Vietnam, sat around the table. I began to sob and couldn't stop, no matter how hard I tried. I realized many more lives would be lost as more attacks came and America retaliated. What would this mean for my seventeen-year-old son? What would it mean for this Vietnamese visitor at our table? How would he view us? Were his parents afraid for him? Later that same evening, I walked outside in my backyard as I often did to count the number of airplanes landing and departing from the nearby airport. The most I ever counted was thirty-three. If you look up at the sky from anywhere in the metroplex, you always see planes dotting the horizon. Now, it was strange; there was not a single plane in the sky. I sat in a swing and just looked up and listened; how odd not to hear any planes at all. It had never been that quiet. Not since the days of Wilbur and Orville Wright had every plane in America been grounded. The world was now very different and still is, nor will it ever be the way it was. A New Term for a New Flat World I knew that 9/11 would impact me as a pastor, but I c