Shifting Centres, Moving Peoples: Rethinking Partnership and Mutuality in an Age of Migration

Shifting Centres, Moving Peoples: Rethinking Partnership and Mutuality in an Age of Migration

Acts 11 Conference | 4–5 September 2026

Migration is one of the defining realities of our age. As people move across borders and continents, long-established centres of economic, cultural, political, and religious influence are shifting in profound ways. Across Europe, these shifts are transforming communities, identities, and institutions—creating both new possibilities and complex challenges for the Church and society.

At the same time, in an increasingly post-Christian context, relationships between historic denominations and diaspora and migrant churches are becoming ever more significant. While the language of partnership and mutuality has long been central to mission conversations, these ideals often remain difficult to realise in practice.

This conference seeks to move beyond simply affirming these values to asking deeper and more urgent questions: Why, after decades of discussion, do partnership and mutuality remain unresolved? What historical, theological, cultural, economic, and institutional dynamics continue to shape—and sometimes limit—our aspirations toward genuine mutuality? And what new language, frameworks, and practices might help us move forward?

The Acts 11 Conference Shifting Centres, Moving Peoples brings together church leaders, mission practitioners, academics, students, policymakers, and community leaders to explore these critical issues. Through keynote presentations, panel discussions, workshops, and specialised streams, participants will engage the realities of migration and intercultural mission while examining the complexities, tensions, and possibilities of working together across difference.

Held in Liverpool—a historic gateway city shaped by global movements of people—this two-day gathering offers a unique space for honest conversation, theological reflection, and collaborative learning. Together, we will seek to discern how God is at work through migration today, and what it means to walk together in more faithful, just, and genuinely mutual ways.

Speakers

Keynote speakers include Dr Alexander Chow (University of Edinburgh) and Dr Sheila Akomiah-Conteh (Evangelical Alliance), alongside voices from organisations working at the intersection of migration, mission, and church life.

Whether you are a church leader, practitioner, academic, or engaged in faith-based work with migrants, this conference invites you not only to join the conversation—but to help move it forward.

Description supplied by the event organiser.