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Welcome to the Emerging Leaders Network Blog of the Baptist World Alliance! This is a forum for Baptist young leaders in the more than 100 countries represented within the BWA to connect with one another. We welcome your feedback as more than anything else this is a point of conversation. All are welcome.

Throughout August as I watched the 2008 Olympics my thoughts kept drifting to the meaning of the often repeated phrase, ‘global community.’ What does it mean to live in global community?

Among other things it surely implies interdependence. Beyond nations, geographies and ethnicities there stretches a more fundamental thread that weaves us together. As the author of Genesis stated, ‘The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.’ (2:7)

Hopefully interdependence implies more than a vague connection to one another. As in the African ethic of Ubuntu: a person is a person only through other persons. Without you I cannot be me. Without you our community is incomplete. We need the culture you represent, the language you speak, the communal traditions that shape your background, the gifts you possess. Though rooted into our own specific contexts we are interdependent and we should be guided by an ethic to stretch out our hands to fellow sisters and brothers around the world in truth, transparency, equality, love and when requested, acts of solidarity. As one poem states:

‘I sought my soul, but my soul I could not see.
I sought my God, but my God eluded me.
I sought my brother, and I found all three.’

As you have questions or concerns; reports, pictures and events in your region of the world; ideas related to ministry and personal discipleship; or any other comments please feel free to pass them on. (Please note the Blog Guidelines. Care will be taken when sharing sensitive information.)

Stretched around the world we are a global community of emerging leaders bound by the common breath of our humanity, enriched by backgrounds of diversity, committed to the holistic advancement of the kingdom of God. We are interdependent.

What does living in ‘global community’ mean to you?