A letter from Tom Harvey serving in England
March 2015 – Global Migration
Dear Friends and Partners in Mission,
Diaspora is a term with which you might not be familiar. It means “dispersion” or “scattered.” Biblically, it often referred to the Jewish communities scattered through the Roman Empire that Paul visited on his missionary journeys. It is a term used by Peter in his epistle written to God’s chosen migrants in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia (1 Peter 1:1).
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Tom on Jumbotron
In mission work and mission studies today “diaspora” refers to the massive migration of people globally that is rapidly changing the nations, societies, and churches we attend. Migration experts have estimated that there are now over 214 million international migrants and over 700 million internally displaced people. This means there are close to 1 billion scattered peoples across the globe. At Oxford Centre for Mission Studies (OCMS) we now have a whole group of scholars, including myself, who have begun to specialize on the modern diaspora movement of people around the globe and how this impacts the church and mission.
