Jay Mātenga

Jay Mātenga

Dr Jay Matenga is a contextual theologian of indigenous Māori and English heritage and the Opinion Editor for Christian Daily International. Jay has spent more than 30 years serving cross-cultural missions, leading both missions sending agencies and a national missionary alliance. He remains engaged with the global missions community as Executive Director of the World Evangelical Alliance Mission Commission, a position he has held since 2020. Jay has a BMin (Worldview Centre for Intercultural Studies), DipMiss (Australian College of Theology), MA (All Nations Christian College), and Doctorate of Intercultural Studies (Fuller Seminary), all with an intercultural focus. Jay has authored numerous articles, book chapters, and presented papers with particular emphasis on indigenous and Majority World perspectives as counterpoint to prevailing Western assumptions in the global Church. His passion is to strengthen participation in God’s purposes throughout the world, informed by a maturing world Christianity.

Articles by Jay Mātenga

  • Oceania

    We will let the whole world know: introducing CDI opinion editor Dr Jay Mātenga

    By Jay Mātenga

    Jay Mātenga introduces himself as the new Opinion Editor for Christian Daily International while reflecting on women as influential in the growth of world Christianity. Following the example of the mother of King Lemuel in Proverbs 31, the CDI opinion section will work to amplify voices often silenced in global Christian conversations like women, the disabled, the poor, the persecuted, and other marginalized Christians, to bring a harmonic balance to opinion pieces written by those more privileg

  • Oceania

    Emissaries of the way

    By Jay Mātenga

    The people for whom Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are their ancestors have their own responsibilities and privileges. All of which are fulfilled in Jesus, whom they must recognise as their Messiah in order to find satisfaction for their millennia of yearning. As I noted in my previous blog post, we Gentiles are settlers to a well-established faith, the Jews (the blood line of Israel) are indigenous. We are grafted into their story. By Jesus’ blood, which has become our blood by faith, securing our

  • Oceania

    Co-creating safety

    By Jay Mātenga

    Safety is central to our wellbeing. Our sense of safety has an immediate impact on our physical health, emotional stability, social harmony, economic viability, psychological growth, as well as our spiritual maturity. Even the slightest glance at the news or social media today reveals a dramatic increase in instability resulting in a corresponding decrease in a sense of safety, psychologically if not physically.

  • Oceania

    Yielding to gravity (by Jay Matenga)

    By Jay Mātenga

    The text for this month is 1 Corinthians 1:9-10 (NLT), “God will (keep you strong and free from blame), for he is faithful to do what he says, and he has invited you into (koinonia) with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. I appeal to you, dear brothers and sisters, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, to live in harmony with each other. Let there be no divisions in the church. Rather, be of one mind, united in thought and purpose.” 

  • Oceania

    Damaging detachment (by Jay Matenga)

    By Jay Mātenga

    Galatians is widely accepted as Paul’s first epistle. It emerged in response to a radical disruption of the Jewish faith following the resurrection of Jesus. Almost 2,000 years on, we can too easily gloss over the shocking nature of this shift, which became a schism, and then an entirely independent religion with unbroken spiritual roots in the history of Israel and Judaism.

  • Oceania

    Nil by force: a word on militaristic tropes in missions

    By Jay Mātenga

    I think missions influencers resort to militaristic tropes because, when it comes to the sharing of our faith, whether local or cross-cultural, we have a motivational problem. To get more believers ‘committed’ to evangelism, ministry, and missions, influencers too easily twist Scripture to promote a militant activism, casting the ‘great unwashed’, ‘pagan’, or ‘heathen’ as ignorant slaves of our enemy (sin, the powers of darkness, and the Devil) needing to be rescued (by force, if necessary, e.g.

  • Oceania

    Whose side are you on?

    By Jay Mātenga

    I love the way Peterson’s Message Bible renders the question and response: Joshua asks, “Whose side are you on—ours or our enemies’?” and the response was, “Neither. I’m commander of GOD’s army. I’ve just arrived.” I launched my 2023 World Evangelical Alliance Mission Commission Leader’s Missions Forecast from this passage. For my January 2024 post, I’ll repeat the introduction of that essay in the hope that it encourages you to take the time to read the rest.

  • Oceania

    Antichrist

    By Jay Mātenga

    It should come as no surprise that Māori whakataukī or proverbs tend to be aspirational, even if they also contain a warning. After all, Māori are guided by a strongly collectivist values set. That which is treasured in this world is that which strengthens our relationship bonds—to one another, to our habitats, to the unseen spiritual world around us. There is no greater threat to collectivist values than that which would seek to separate or divide the group.

  • Oceania

    Toxic goodness

    By Jay Mātenga

    That suffering can be redemptive sounds utterly perverse in the ears of our mainstream contemporaries. Our secular reality (and too much theology) is so thoroughly drenched in (false) Epicurean hope that it is unfathomable to think that anything bad can ultimately be good, steeped as Epicureanism is in the pursuit of pleasure. We must not fall into the trap that God intends evil so that good might result. That is perverse.

  • Oceania

    Unbroken weave

    By Jay Matenga

    This month’s whakataukī (proverb) is: “Hē o te kotahi, hē o te katoa.” (“The mistake belongs to the collective.”). I’ve said before, I started life in Canons Creek, Porirua, Aotearoa New Zealand—a notorious neighbourhood in the 1970s, noted for its gang violence and poverty-related issues.