Sowing in tears, reaping with joy: The power of joy in missional thinking

This chapter offers an invitation to embrace a missiology of joy that reflects the contexts and cultures of emerging missional leaders in the global south. As a way to deconstruct western cultural values of colonial missions, an emerging missiological enterprise from the Latin American context must be liberated from western values of productivity at the expense of relationships and embodied liturgy. A brief introduction to the "sociology of emotions" and participant observation will demonstrate the social nature of joy and how significant it becomes when detached from individualistic connotations, and imposed biases. Thus, a missiology of joy that is embodied in the communal engagement of women and indigenous leaders will open new pathways of missiological thinking and practice ready to challenge the positivism of western missions and, in solidarity, embrace the suffering of the land and its people with the joy of the gospel.