Birmingham, and Lesotho than London. Yet they are one of the most exciting places in the world. Exciting because they are international: within the past five years they have seen students from 110 countries, a United Nations in miniature, and more peaceable! Exciting because they are ecumenical: virtually every main Christian denomination is represented: where else would you find four Protestant missionary colleges calling an American Roman Catholic to be their Dean, or an Anglican college with an Egyptian Coptic nun as tutor? Exciting because they are diverse: there is training for Christian mission, and centres for dialogue between Christians and those of other faiths; training of teachers and social workers, people studying for professional qualifications and people studying for fun, bishops and even archbishops studying with unemployed industrial workers. [John Ferguson and Jack Thompson, Foreword, Selly Oak Journal No. 1, 1984, p. 2] It was Quaker initiative which founded the first four colleges. It was Quaker money which enabled the federation to come about and sustained it in its early years. It was Quaker hostility to legalism and binding documents which gave the Selly Oak Colleges freedom to develop and grow. (David Mole, The Selly Oak Tradition, Selly Oak Journal No.1, 1984, p. 3) If mission and mission studies have a future, they must be rigorously ecumenical. Ecumenical does not only mean that we have to co-operate with all Christians. We must also listen to that which non-Christians have to offer... This is important for the tasks which lie ahead of us, namely, the search for a just world order, the overcoming of the threat of nuclear war and the solution of the ecological crisis. All this needs understanding on a global scale. And since war and greed start in the hearts and heads of people there is no world peace without peace between the religions, and between religious and agnostic people. (Walter Hollenweger, The Future of Mission and the Mission of the Future, Occasional Paper No.2, Selly Oak Colleges, 1989, p. 5) On all these issues ... there are different points of view... Hence it is essential that staff and course participants be able and willing to communicate why they believe what they believe, and to do so credibly and intelligibly. There is no way, other then by encounter, open respect, sharing of personal and communal stories in the Lord, that mutual trust will grow and barriers will