We are starting small, but with a vision for growth. On this page we’ll talk about who we are now, and who we aspire to be in the future.
Mission Statement
To serve the Great Commission Community (Missions Organizations and Missionally Engaged Churches) by offering cutting-edge, rigorous missiological research that answers their most pressing questions and by building relationships of trust between the Great Commission Community and academic institutions.
Vision
We bring PhDs in missiology together to answer the most pressing questions being asked by the Great Commission Community. MissioLogic will design and implement bespoke research projects that serve the wider missiological community; particularly sending agencies, organizations that support missionaries, missionally engaged churches, and academic communities. Some projects may also include developing publications, curricula, or other materials to apply research findings.
MissioLogic wants to change the relationship between research and practice in mission today. Right now, there are millions of short-, medium-, and long-term workers being sent to work internationally by American churches and sending agencies. These are supported by even more support staff in home offices and churches across the country. All of them face problems that they lack the time, energy, or expertise to formulate an answer to. Or worse, they are facing problems someone else has already solved, but they do not know about it. In many cases, the questions they are facing are not inscrutable mysteries. They are research questions that (with careful, thoughtful reflection and rigorous testing) can yield transformative impacts.
Meanwhile, in academic institutions across the United States and around the world, missiologists are being trained with the very tools needed to answer the most pressing research questions of people on the field. But the vast majority of dissertations and other high-level research projects are pursued according to the interests of each individual researcher. While those interests are nearly always informed by real-world mission experiences, the lengthy period of time that elapses while practitioners become scholars and work their way toward conducting their own research means that they are often asking questions that needed to be answered a decade or more ago. The result is a research agenda that is haphazard and occasionally out of touch with the realities being faced by people on the ground in missionary contexts. And even when they are not, it is hard to ensure the people who are asking the questions on the ground will ever hear a reply.
We want to change all that by creating a space where top-quality research projects can be pursued by experts in the field with the agendas set by churches and missionary organizations and with all stakeholders receiving direct feedback concerning the findings. The needs of practitioners and the interests of scholars are crying out for each other. They just need to find each other a little faster. We think we can help.
Objectives
1 – To implement high-quality, rigorous research projects that serve people involved in mission; prioritizing projects that promise the most impact for missionaries while minimizing costs.
2 – To be a bridge between the academy and missionally engaged churches and organizations.
3 – To provide careers for a generation of highly qualified missiologists looking for work outside of traditional academic avenues.
4 – To reflect our concern for long-term impact and sustainability by our research approach and by slow but steady organizational growth focused on growing our endowment.