Molding Mission: Collective Action Frames and Sister Church Participation

An increasing number of North American congregations have forged long-term partnerships or “twinning” relationships with companion congregations in the global South. This trend represents a changing paradigm in Christian mission, and it reflects the multi-directional nature of global religious flows and the border-crossing dimension of religious communities. Using collective action frames, partnerships are formed as an expression of solidarity and distinguished from colonial approaches to mission. Participants tend to eschew short-term, cross-border evangelistic crusades in favor of holistic and contextualized Christian witness. However, sister church framers also tap into the wider cultural stock of images and values that inform secular cross-cultural interaction for North Americans.