TWELVE REASONS TO BE ENCOURAGED CONCERNING
AFRICAN-AMERICAN GLOBAL MISSIONS

Many impediments to AFAM (African American) cross-cultural service are gone.

1. Africa and other nations are wide open to AFAM missionaries.
2. Civil rights legislation is in place in America.
3. White mission agencies and schools welcome AFAM candidates.
4. Evangelical Christian Bible institutes and colleges not only welcome minorities, but some provide special funding for minority attendance. So proper preparation for the field is far more available today.
5. New AFAM non-denominational mission agencies have arisen.
6. Racism is newly and increasingly unpopular among White Christians.
7. The necessity of the AFAM church serving interculturally has recently had a higher profile through The Destiny Movement (especially through 1992) and through COMINAD (The Cooperative Mission Network of the African Dispersion). COMINAD is AFAM-led and its purpose is to awaken the AFAM church to world missions.
8. Independent and other churches are committing to a foreign missions program. The writer knows of at least four conservative Black churches in Chattanooga, Tenn. which have decided within the past three years to give ten percent of their total income to missions outside their church.
9. Black income has risen in the past 20 years, and Black church income is fully sufficient to fund missions.
10. Black clergy also have access to the aforementioned schools, which hopefully impacts their pulpit teaching and preaching ministry, including evangelical missions theology.
11. The world is getting over, in Loritts' words, "White idolization," and other ethnic groups are both accepted and are picking up the missions torch.
12. Opportunities for short-term missions exposure abound, and such exposure is a very powerful recruitment tool.