January 20, 2012 by Darrell Dorr

In his previous writing Patrick Johnstone introduced his paradigm of “Affinity Blocs” and “People Clusters” to describe and categorize the world’s many people groups, but in The Future of the Global Church he “unpacks” this paradigm in far greater detail. So what’s new about this paradigm, and what is its practical significance? Are these blocs and clusters mere “categories of convenience,” or do they help us to obey Christ with greater clarity and fullness?  Notice, too, that this paradigm carries with it an advocacy that the global Church give proportionally more energies to the world’s least-reached people clusters, so in this video I ask Patrick what kinds of particular opportunities and challenges are connected with these peoples. Finally, Patrick’s book carries an urgent plea that local churches, mission agencies and training institutions find new means of partnership in the Great Commission, so I asked him why such partnership is often so difficult and what new forms of partnership are needed.