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The Brookings Institute has released an eye-opening report based on the 2010 U.S. Census: America’s Diverse Future: Initial Glimpses at the U.S. Child Population from the 2010 Census, written by William H. Frey. It focuses on the faster than expected rise of the ethnic diversity of the child population in America. The report has profound implications for the local church and Christian ministries.

These are the two most startling facts from this report:

Healthy cross-cultural partnerships are attractive because we live in such a fractured world. Healthy cross-cultural partnerships glorify God because He delights when the Body of Christ functions in unity. The unity of the Body gives witness of the incarnation of Jesus Christ to a watching world . . . “that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (John 17:21).

Africa is much bigger than we think. In the fight agains “immappancy”, check out this web site to see the “True size of Africa.”

A good friend sent me an email this week asking if we had some tools for evaluating a cross-cultural partnership. Her friend—another Christian leader—had asked…

Timothy C. Tennent has written a book called, Theology in the Context of World Christianity: How the Global Church Is Influencing the Way We Think about and Discuss Theology (Zondervan, 2007). I am only into chapter one, but I love his perspective. I believe there will be much here that applies to the practice of healthy cross-cultural partnership.

I’m in Lombard, Illinois (near Chicago) for the 2010 COSIM conference, which starts tonight. The Coalition on the Support of Indigenous Ministries is a fellowship of evangelical organizations and churches with a common interest in the support and strengthening of majority-world ministries. COSIM’s mission is to expand the understanding and practice of healthy partnership with indigenous ministries for the advance of the gospel.