Agatha was only 16 years old. Although she was a teenager, her pastor trusted Agatha to plan a mission trip for her youth group, leaving their home town of Nilopoli, Brazil, to work in Curitiba, Brazil. Agatha, now a mother of three young children recalls how she "took applications, rented a bus, contacted pastors, and calculated money to spend on food." As a leader in her youth group planning these "social action days," Agatha was given hands-on experience that taught her to be "both a social activist and a preacher of the gospel."

Agatha represents the next generation of mission-minded leaders. Raised in an age where people are accustomed to crossing national and continental boundaries both physically and virtually, they experience a world that desperately needs to see the gospel lived holistically-reaching the spirit, soul, body, and community.

Their question: Is there room in the Church's mission for me?

In the spring of 2007 Daniel Ketchum and the global Nazarene Missions International (NMI) team began to re-envision the practices of the General NMI Convention to answer the questions of the next generation.

Dating back to its origin in 1914, NMI has worked to include children and youth, and the convention has always been a place where voices and stories from all over the world join together around the mission of God for the Church of the Nazarene. This year, NMI will expand the convention to become a Global Mission Conference.

The Global Mission Conference, held during the 27th General Assembly and Conventions in Orlando, Florida, will create space for the next generation to participate in God's mission. The conference will include features from every world region accompanied with several global conversation tracks. In these tracks, participants will ask questions, engage in authentic conversation around topics such as how Christlike disciples respond to social injustice and lifestyle issues, listen to stories of lives affected, and tell their own stories.

Joining the Conversation

The next generation wants to be involved in more than just hearing the gospel, or telling the gospel with words. This is a generation who wants to put flesh on the gospel story.

If we hope to engage young leaders like Agatha, we will need to begin re-envisioning some of our practices. In the same way a pastor in Nilopoli, Brazil, created space for young Agatha to participate in God's mission, we need to begin creating space for a younger generation to not only listen to the church, but to participate in God's mission through the church.

The Global Mission Conference will model and facilitate open collaboration. All four major conventions of the Church of the Nazarene-youth, Sunday school, education, and mission-hosted simultaneously at the Orange County Convention Center, "will collaborate together under one quadrennial theme: Making Christlike Disciples in the Nations," Ketchum says.

Opening Collaboration and Conversation

The conversation at Global Mission Conference will begin in April, when participants will enter global on-line discussion groups. The dialogue initiated in these discussion groups will continue as participants meet each other face to face in Orlando.

Ketchum and Kevin Garber, conference coordinator, recognized that in order to engage a new generation, the conference would need to do more than merely discuss holiness and mission. Partnering with One Heart, Many Hands, the Global Mission Conference will integrate service to the neediest residents of Orlando with the conference activities.

Openness and collaboration will set the tone for interaction with people such as Amitava, a church planter and youth leader in India. "Millions of people are running behind fake things," says Amitava. "But our God is truth. My only concern is to give them the true God." We have much to learn from Amitava.

At the Global Mission Conference we will participate in conversations, prayer times, worship sessions, and work projects that will further shape his passion for mission in India.

Questions of an emerging generation

Allie has a different perspective on the mission in India. A business major at Trevecca Nazarene University, Allie recently returned from a Youth in Mission trip to India. "The Church there was welcoming, hospitable, and overflowing with the Spirit," says Allie.

Allie is part of this new generation of Christians who want to see the gospel embodied and know that their questions are included in the conversation. "The Church of the Nazarene's mission is to reach to the poor and oppressed. That is what the Nazarene church is doing in India . . . But the thing that sits the most uneasy in my stomach is the Â'political'. . . side of the church," says Allie.

Allie returned from the summer with some difficult questions about the feasibility of becoming a global church when "economies and populations are so different."

Although no easy answers exist, Allie even admits, "I could be ignorant about how things are run in the Church of the Nazarene, but I just struggle." Allie needs to know that there is a place for her to struggle as a global Christian in the church-a place where her questions will be engaged in conversation. The Global Mission Conference will be a space for that conversation to take place in grace and love.

A Prayer for the Nations

Agatha probably didn't organize a flawless mission trip at the age of 16. But 40 youth experienced the story of God's mission on that trip. And more importantly, Agatha found her place in that mission, all because a pastor created space for a new generation of leadership. Agatha went on to start the first missionary training center in Brazil where she served as director. Her prayer for the church in Brazil is that the Spirit will empower the people to be "bold preachers of the gospel through words and social action."

Although they are oceans away from each other, Allie and Amitava share one prayer for India: that "the overflowing of the Spirit" would bring all the peoples of India to know the whole gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Global Mission Conference seeks to bring together the stories of Amitava, Allie, and Agatha into one story of God's global mission. It seeks to create space for these young leaders to participate in that mission and return to their home, community, field and region with new passion and vision.

Global Mission Conference will be more than an event. As Louie Bustle, director of World Mission describes, it is a catalytic opportunity to "stir the next generation of mission leaders to see what God sees" and move the whole church in mission.

A new generation of mission-minded leaders is seeking to live out the gospel openly, collaboratively and holistically. When our young leaders ask, "Is there a place in the mission for me?" our hope is that the church will say "yes." And out of many stories we will become one in God's global story.

Shawna Songer Gaines for NMI

Please note: All facts, figures, and titles were accurate to the best of our knowledge at the time of original publication but may have since changed.