Missions
Showing 151–200 of 495 resultsSorted by latest
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Challenging Islamic Traditions
$21.99Add to cartThe Hadith are Islam’s most influential texts after the Qur’an. They outline in detail what the Qur’an often leaves unsaid. The Hadith are a foundation for Islamic law and theology and a key to understanding the worldview of Islam and why many Muslims do the things they do. This book subjects the Hadith to a critical analysis from a biblical perspective. In a scholarly and respectful way, it exposes significant inconsistencies within these ancient documents and highlights potential problems with the Muslim-Christian interface.
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Transforming Community : The Wesleyan Way To Missional Congregations
$15.00Add to cartDrawing from the strength of their previous book, Transforming Evangelism, Henry Knight and Douglas Powe show us a Wesleyan way to form missional communities and congregations. Drawing from John Wesley’s own organizing abilities, this will better equip today’s congregations to be more transfomational. Each chapter also has study questions.
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Korean Missionary Movement
$24.99Add to cartThis book provides the most thorough, penetrating analysis of trends in Korean missions to date. Seasoned researcher Steve Sang-Cheol Moon maps the relatively recent rise and explosive growth of the Korean missionary movement, studying the mission force and significant themes in its experience over a twenty-five-year period. These articles and papers supply data on every facet: mission fields and ministry foci; finances; age, marriage, family, and general demographics; training and credentials; burnout and attrition; education of missionary children; leadership trends; and global partnership.
These chapters do not merely catalogue statistics-they probe beneath the surface to ask hard questions and set priorities for Korean missions. Moon explores painful subjects such as the 2007 hostage incident involving short-term workers in Afghanistan, and chronic concerns like workaholism and missionaries’ retirement. Ultimately, however, he finds much to commend and celebrate, tracing God’s providence in making Korea, within the span of a few decades, a dynamic leader in global missions.
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Church In Mission
$26.99Add to cartThe WEA Mission Commission and William Carey Library are pleased to introduce the new volume of the “Globalization of Mission” series, The Church in Mission: Foundations and Global Case Studies. Edited by Dr. Bertil Ekstrom, Executive Director of the WEA MC, the book is the most recent distillation of Evangelical and globally-grounded studies on the local church-people of God. Dr. Ekstrom has led an MC global missiology task force team of reflective practitioners through a 3-year process working in community to present this singular publication gift to the church on and in mission. Some 31 writers from 19 nations have contributed to this resource, demonstrating yet again the Mission Commission’s commitment to listen to the global voice and provide a publishing platform for those voices to be heard.
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Engaging Islamic Traditions
$20.99Add to cartThe Hadith have long been neglected by Christians, yet they may hold the key to reaching Muslims with the good news of Jesus Christ. In this ground-breaking book, the earliest traditions of Islam are assessed from a biblical perspective. Insights into the Islamic worldview and potential springboards to Christian truth are uncovered along the way. For those contextualizing the gospel to Muslim friends and colleagues, this book seeks for concord and connection with Muslim thinking, while maintaining a clear commitment to Jesus Christ and his gospel.
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Kierkegaard : A Christian Missionary To Christians
$24.99Add to cartForeword By Merold Westphal
Introduction
Sigla
1. Kierkegaard: Friend To Christians?
2. Jesus Christ
3. The Human Self
4. Christian Witness
5. The Life Of Christian Love
Conclusion
Suggestions For Further Reading
Subject IndexAdditional Info
Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) had a mission. The church had become weak, flabby and inconsequential. Being a Christian was more a cultural heritage than a spiritual reality. His mission-reintroduce the Christian faith to Christians. How could he break through to people who were members of the church and thought they were Christians already? Like an Old Testament prophet, Kiergegaard used a variety of pointed and dramatic ways to shake people from their slumber. He incisively diagnosed the spiritual ailments of his age and offered a fresh take on classic Christian teaching. Mark Tietjen thinks that Kierkegaard’s critique of his contemporaries strikes close to home today. We also need to listen to one of the most insightful yet complex Christian thinkers of any era. Through an examination of core Christian doctrines-the person of Jesus Christ, human nature, Christian witness and love-Tietjen helps us hear Kierkegaard’s missionary message to a church that often fails to follow Christ with purity of heart. -
Ministering Cross Culturally (Reprinted)
$19.99Add to cartWith more than 125,000 copies in print, this model for effective personal relationships in a multicultural and multiethnic world has proven successful for many. On the occasion of its thirtieth anniversary, this contemporary classic has been thoroughly updated to reflect Sherwood Lingenfelter’s mature thinking on the topic and to communicate with modern readers, helping them minister more effectively to people of different cultural and social backgrounds. It is accessible, practical, and applicable to many ministry situations.
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Shaped By The Gospel
$22.99Add to cartIt is easy to assume that if we understand the gospel and preach it faithfully, our ministry will necessarily be shaped by it-but this is not true. Many churches claim to be gospel-centered but do not have a ministry that is shaped by, centered on, and empowered through the gospel. The implications of the gospel have not yet worked their way into the fabric of how that church does ministry.
Gospel-centered ministry is more theologically driven than program driven. To pursue it, we must spend time reflecting on the essence, the truths, and the very patterns of the gospel itself. The gospel is neither religion nor irreligion, but something else entirely-a third way of relating to God through grace. In Gospel-Centered Church, bestselling author and pastor Timothy Keller addresses several current discussion and conflicts about the nature of the gospel and shows how faithful preaching of the gospel leads to individual and corporate renewal.
This new edition contains the first section of Center Church in an easy-to-read format with new reflections and additional essays from Timothy Keller and several other contributors.
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Serving A Movement
$18.99Add to cartOur goal as Christians is never simply to build our own tribe. Instead, we seek the peace and prosperity of the city or community in which we live through a gospel movement led by the Holy Spirit, a movement united by the gospel of Jesus Christ, a common mission to reach and serve others, and a commitment to be gracious and generous to those who disagree with you.
In Serving a Movement, best-selling author and pastor Timothy Keller looks at the nature of the church’s mission and its relationship to the work of individual Christians in the world. He examines what it means to be a “missional” church today and how churches can practically equip people for missional living. Churches need to intentionally cultivate an integrative ministry that connects people to God, to one another, to the needs of the city, and to the culture around us. Finally, he highlights the need for intentional movements of churches planting new churches that faithfully proclaim God’s truth and serve their communities.
This new edition contains the third section of Center Church in an easy-to-read format with new reflections and additional essays from Timothy Keller and several other contributors.
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Seeking The Unseen
$24.99Add to cartBuddhism claims no god, yet spiritual realities abound in popular practice. What are these realities? What do they mean to the practitioners? How can understanding these realities inform Christ-followers seeking to communicate the good news of Jesus in ways that all can understand and relate to? In answer to these and other questions, SEANET proudly presents its twelfth volume,
Seeking the Unseen: Spiritual Realities in the Buddhist World. Christian practitioners
from thirteen different Buddhist cultures share insights gained from their wideranging
experiences and perspectives. From Sri Lanka to Japan, from China to the Philippines, these women and men, Asian and Western, present on a topic that is often missing in mission literature today.And for readers seeking personal insight into the growing spiritual complexities of their own place in the postmodern world, lessons from these authors will guide you with practical principles from engaging, firsthand cultural encounters.
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Where No One Has Heard
$14.99Add to cartWho was J. Christy Wilson Jr.? Many have never heard his name, but his life had a ripple effect in modern missions. Read the first full biography of the humble, adventurous man of prayer who helped launch the Urbana missions conference, pioneered ministry in Afghanistan when others thought it impossible, mobilized hundreds of students toward world evangelization, and reintroduced the biblical idea of leveraging one’s profession for the kingdom with the term “tentmaking.” Riveting, uplifting, and frequently amusing, this book will challenge you to reconsider what is possible when we dare to yield to Christ and his purposes in the world.
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Great Commission Great Compassion
$18.99Add to cartGo and do. Jesus commands it, and the world needs it. Word and deed go together. One without the other is not enough. We follow Jesus into all the world, and we follow his example in all we do. Mission mobilizer Paul Borthwick shows how proclamation and demonstration of the gospel go hand in hand. God gives us the Great Commission, Matthew 28’s call to go wherever Jesus sends us, making disciples and proclaiming good news to all nations. And we become people of his Great Compassion, Matthew 25’s vision for treating others as we would treat Jesus himself, caring for the needy and living justly. Borthwick offers practical ways for us to live out the Great Commission and Great Compassion in every sphere of our lives. Holistic discipleship means learning and looking, praying and giving, welcoming the stranger, simplifying our lives and standing with and for others on God’s behalf. Small steps can make a big difference in the mission of God. Will you answer the call?
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Pioneering Movements : Leadership That Multiplies Disciples And Churches
$20.99Add to cartGod’s mission needs movement leaders. Jesus pioneered something completely new in human history?a dynamic missionary movement intent on reaching the world. His mission is as clear and as relevant today as in the days of the early church: to make disciples everywhere, baptizing them and teaching them to obey everything Jesus has commanded. But the potential of the church remains untapped. What does it take to lead movements that successfully carry out this mission? In Pioneering Movements, Steve Addison identifies what it takes to follow Jesus’ example. Building on his previous books Movements That Changed the World and What Jesus Started, he reveals the apostolic qualities and behaviors of biblical, historical, and contemporary pioneers who can guide church and ministry leaders today. This is a book for those who are called to embrace the mission-driven work that Jesus and his disciples began?making disciples of all nations, in all places.
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Christian Mission In The Modern World
$24.99Add to cartJesus sends us into the world just as the Father sent him. And yet thousands of years later Christians continue to disagree on what this involves. Some believe that the focus of Christian mission is evangelizing and “saving souls.” Others emphasize global justice issues or relief and development work. Is either view correct on its own? John Stott’s classic book presents an enduring and holistic view of Christian mission that is just as needed today. Newly updated and expanded by Christopher J. H. Wright, Christian Mission in the Modern World provides a biblically based approach to mission that addresses both spiritual and physical needs. With his trademark and unparalleled clarity and conviction, Stott illuminates how the Great Commission itself not only assumes the proclamation that makes disciples, but also teaches obedience to the Great Commandment of love and service. Wright has expertly updated the original book and demonstrates the continuing relevance of Stott’s prescient thinking. This balanced approach to mission offers timeless guidance for current and future Christians to embrace Jesus’ unconflicted and holistic model of ministry.
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Beyond The Local Church
$18.99Add to cartForeword
Introduction
1. The Power Of A Balanced Anatomy
The Biblical Genius And Design For Apostolic Structures And Movements
2. Limping Or Leaping Through Time
The Encouragement Of Apostolic Missionality In History
3. Mother Teresa Wasn’t A “Para-Catholic”!
Why “parachurch” Is A Dirty Word
4. So What Is “Apostolic”?
The Oft-neglected Essential To Authentic Missionality
5. Holy Discontent And Sanctified Ambition
The Apostolic Imperative Of Ephesians
6. Setting Visionaries Free
Pioneering As A Second Decision Entrepreneur
7. Finding Second Decision People
How To Engage And Release Apostolic Leaders
8. Running Together!
The Exponential Leverage Of Interdependence
9. Movements Of God
The Extraordinary Results Of Apostolic Gifting Lived Out In Apostolic Structures
10. The Momentum Of Movements
To Kill Or To Multiply, That Is The Question
Conclusion: Be A History Shaper
AcknowledgmentsAdditional Info
Many people have given up on the church. But that doesn’t mean that they’ve given up on God or Christianity. In many cases, it was merely that local church congregations were not the best context for missional people to live out their sense of God’s call.The good news is that God is raising up vibrant movements of Christians in a vast array of vocations around the world: disciple-making ministries, missions, relief and development, social activism, advocacy and much more. These are all strategic ways to live for the kingdom-in venues beyond the local church.
Wherever movements of the gospel have occurred, visionary people and apostolic structures have been essential. Mission leader Sam Metcalf shows how God has always worked through entrepreneurial individuals and organizations that launched out in fresh ways. He gives biblical and missiological foundations for missional movements, showing that what has often been called “parachurch” is an equally valid manifestation of the church. Affirming the strengths of apostolic personalities, Metcalf shows how they can be deployed to cross cultural barriers, renew secular societies and transform the nations with the power of the gospel.
God may be inviting you to join what he is doing around the world. Answer the call and discover how God can use you beyond your imagination.
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Apostolic Church Planting
$18.99Add to cartPreface
Introduction
1. What Is Church Planting?
2. How’s Your Ecclesiology?
3. Practices Of Team Members
4. Pathway To Planting
5. Stages Of Planting
6. Planned Role Changes
7. Church Multiplication Cycle
8. Methods
9. Where To Begin?
10. Pastoral Development
11. Strategy Development
12. Ethical Guidelines
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
About The AuthorAdditional Info
Church planting is not just about gathering new communities of people who are already Christians. In the book of Acts, church plants begin with sharing the gospel. Planting churches flows naturally out of making disciples.Missionary church planter J. D. Payne explains the process and stages of church planting, with biblical foundations and practical steps for planting teams. He provides a pathway for the multiplication of disciples, leaders and churches. Here are church planting strategies and activities that are simple, highly reproducible and can be implemented by ordinary team members, not just by charismatic leaders.
This guide can be used for planting in contexts among any given people group, domestically or internationally. It is an ideal resource for teams to work through together as they follow God’s call in their community.
Read more: http://www.ivpress.com/cgi-ivpress/book.pl/code=4124#ixzz3ZOJH0pFd
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Last Of The Giants
$17.99Add to cartIn its early years, Duluth was a gold mine for lumber barons. Men were employed as lumberjacks and worked like beasts, only to be tossed aside like used equipment when no longer needed. The grand forests were raped for their prime timber, the balance burned wastefully. The men were coarse and hard, but they had to be to survive. More than any other people that ever lived in our land, these old-time lumberjacks could truthfully say, “No man cared for my soul.” That is, until God sent three men to the great Northwoods of our country – Frank Higgins, John Sornberger, and Al Channer. These men blazed new trails of the Spirit and founded an empire for God. They reached a sector of humanity for which no spiritual work had ever been done before, storming the Northwoods with a consuming passion for Christ. And with that passion, they also brought a heart as big as all outdoors, a love for men that burned like a flame, and a desperate desire to see these men saved.
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Called To Witness
$27.99Add to cartSince the publication of the groundbreaking volume Missional Church in 1998, there has been wide-ranging engagement with the missional church theme. In this book Darrell Guder builds on that ongoing discussion by considering basic theological issues that must be addressed if the church is to be faithful to its calling to serve God as Christ’s witnessing people.
Guder argues that there are major consequences for every classical theological locus if the fundamental claims of the missional church discussion are acknowledged. In Called to Witness Guder delves into these consequences, saying that we need to keep doing missional theology until it is possible to leave off the “missional scaffolding” because, after all, mission defines the very essence and calling of the church.
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Understanding Insider Movements
$62.99Add to cartFor the first time in history, large numbers of people from the world’s major non-Christian religions are following Jesus as Lord. Surprisingly for many Western Christians, they are choosing to do so within the religious communities of their birth and outside of institutional Christianity. How does this work, and how should we respond to these movements?
This long-awaited anthology brings together some of the best writings on the topic of insider movements. Diverse voices explore this phenomenon from the perspectives of Scripture, history, theology, missiology, and the experience and identity of insider believers. Those who are unfamiliar with the subject will find this book a crucial guide to a complex conversation. Students and instructors of mission will find it useful as a reader and reference volume. Field workers and agencies will discover in these chapters welcome starting points for dialogue and clearer communication.
The first book to provide a comprehensive survey of the topic of insider movements, Understanding Insider Movements is an indispensable companion for those who want to glimpse the creative, unexpected, boundary-crossing ways God is at work among the peoples of the world in their diverse religious communities.
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Rescuing The Gospel From The Cowboys
$25.99Add to cartIn Memoriam
Preface
1. The Creator’s Presence Among Native People
2. The Colonization, Evangelization And Assimilation Of First Nations People
3. Sweating With Jesus: Stories Of The Native Experience
4. A View From The Hill: Emerging Native Expressions Of The Jesus Way
5. From Colonization To Contextualization
6. Looking Down The Road: The Future Of The Native Church
Acknowledgments
Editor’s Tribute To Richard Twiss
Glossary
Acronyms
Appendix A: Final Words On Indigenous Education And Theology
Appendix B: What Should We Call You?
Appendix C: Boarding Schools
Bibliography
NotesAdditional Info
The gospel of Jesus has not always been good news for Native Americans. The history of North America is marred by atrocities committed against Native peoples. Indigenous cultures were erased in the name of Christianity. As a result, to this day few Native Americans are followers of Jesus. However, despite the far-reaching effects of colonialism, some Natives have forged culturally authentic ways to follow the way of Jesus. In his final work, Richard Twiss provides a contextualized Indigenous expression of the Christian faith among the Native communities of North America. He surveys the painful, complicated history of Christian missions among Indigenous peoples and chronicles more hopeful visions of culturally contextual Native Christian faith. For Twiss, contextualization is not merely a formula or evangelistic strategy, but rather a relational process of theological and cultural reflection within a local community. Native leaders reframe the gospel narrative in light of post-colonization, reincorporating traditional practices and rituals while critiquing and correcting the assumptions of American Christian mythologies. Twiss gives voice to the stories of Native followers of Jesus, with perspectives on theology and spirituality and concrete models for intercultural ministry. Future generations of Native followers of Jesus, and those working crossculturally with them, will be indebted to this work. -
Fully Engaged : Missional Church In An Anabaptist Voice
$18.99Add to cartMission happens when congregations fully align themselves with God’s purposes. As the missional church movement matures, Anabaptists bring a time-honored theological tradition, a contemporary spiritual vitality, and practical stories of witness to the conversation. How are churches and individuals living out Christ’s call to engage locally and globally? And how is it changing them in the process?
Featuring the voices of missional Mennonite leaders, Fully Engaged offers stories and analysis about how mission is taking shape in local congregations and contexts. A diverse chorus of Anabaptist pastors and laypeople explores the roots, tools, and applications of the missional movement. From nurturing church planting to creating a missional culture to preaching for missional engagement, Fully Engaged offers insights and ideas for churches looking for direction.
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Why Didnt You Come Sooner
$16.99Add to cartWhy didn’t you come sooner? is an insightful and fascinating true life tale of 40 years of missionary service in the Philippines. Author Richard Varberg tells of his life through four decades adjusting to a new culture and climate, developing effective strategies for planting churches and equipping local pastors, while also maintaining his own relationship with Jesus Christ through many trials and triumphs.
Mr. Varberg sailed to the Philippines with his wife Elenor and their three-month old son, Paul, in 1958, twelve years after the U.S. ceded its sovereignty over the region. With their Iowa farm behind, the Varbergs raised five children overseas (three of which are still serving as missionaries in the Philippines).
Impacted by the title query posed by a father grieving over the possibility that his son died without Christ before the gospel reached their village, Mr. Varberg gained a new resolve early in his ministry and an unforgettable account on reaching the unreached. Masbate Baptist Bible College and more than one hundred churches founded through the Varbergs’ ministry continue today under Filipino leadership.
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Making Disciples Across Cultures
$24.99Add to cartCulture affects how we make disciples. We often unconsciously bring our own cultural assumptions into ministry and mission, not realizing that how we think and operate is not necessarily the best or only way to do things. In today’s global environment, disciplemaking requires the cultural humility and flexibility to adapt between different cultural approaches.
Charles Davis, former director of TEAM, provides a framework for missional disciplemaking across diverse cultural contexts. He shows how we can recalibrate our ministry efforts, like adjusting sound levels on a mixer board, to accommodate different cultural assumptions. With on-the-ground stories from a lifetime of mission experience, Davis navigates such tensions as knowledge and behavior, individualism and collectivism, and truth and works to help Christian workers minister more effectively.
Ministry teams, church planters, pastors and missionaries working interculturally at home or overseas can be part of God’s movement of making disciples. Discover how the body of Christ grows in the unity and diversity of the global church.
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Health Healing And Shalom
$24.99Add to cartEver since Jesus’s proclamation in word and deed as the Great Physician, his followers in mission have assumed that salvation and health are intertwined. Yet for every age, Christians need to examine how they can best announce the gospel message of God’s healing in word and deed in their own context. In our era, we are often simultaneously grateful for modern medicine and frustrated by its inability to care for the whole person in effective, affordable ways. In this edited volume, authors with an interest in health missions from a wide variety of experiences and disciplines examine health and healing through the theological lens of shalom. This word, often translated “peace,” names a much more complex understanding of human well-being as right relationships with one another, with God, and with creation. Reading various aspects of healthcare missions through these glasses not only yields much-needed correctives to current practice but also exposes the Spirit’s invitation to participate in God’s ongoing work of tending, caring, and healing our broken world.
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Integrating Gospel And The Christian
$27.99Add to cartAlan Tippett’s publications played a significant role in the development of missiology. The volumes in this series augment his distinguished reputation by bringing to light his many unpublished materials and hard-to-locate printed articles. These books-encompassing theology, anthropology, history, area studies, religion, and ethnohistory-broaden the contours of the discipline. This volume contains two manuscripts. The first, The Integrating Gospel, combines a historical ethnolinguistic study of Fijian language, an examination of Fijian culture patterns in interaction with the church, and Tippett’s own firsthand experience as a communicator of the gospel to specific receptors at a specific place and point in time. From this, Tippett is able to extrapolate broader ideas on contextualization and methods of gospel transmission. In The Christian: Fiji 1835-67, Tippett addresses the establishment of the Christian church and the spread of Christianity in Fiji, with special attention to Ratu Cakobau. In this brief but in-depth study, Tippett presents a strong case against the understanding that Fijian conversions to Christianity were primarily political, as he offers evidence of the genuine religious and spiritual experiences behind these conversions.
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Just Mission : Practical Politics For Local Churches
$35.99Add to cartThe last decade has seen a resurgence of the social action of the local church -responses to social need have included street pastors, cold weather shelters, debt advice centres and latterly food banks. The last decade has also seen a greater experimentation in forms of evangelism, most prominently in the fresh expressions movement. The intention has been to bring the Church into contact with people who would not otherwise cross its threshold. All these changes have led to new pastoral relationships being formed and a greater awareness of how social change affects real people’s lives. Just Mission draws upon the increased activism of local churches and links it to effective use of democratic processes to achieve justice for the people with whom they have a pastoral relationship. It seeks to explain in a straight forward and theologically-based way, how they can undertake that task based upon the pastoral work that arises from their social action and evangelism. Helen Cameron introduces the political and public theology that is currently being produced to local church leaders so they can see that theology has a genuine interest in the dilemmas they currently face.
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Everyone Belongs To God
$12.00Add to cartHow can Christians represent the love of Christ to their neighbors (let alone people in foreign countries) in an age when Christianity has earned a bad name from centuries of intolerance and cultural imperialism? Is it enough to love and serve them? Can you win their trust without becoming one of them? Can you be a missional Christian without a church? This provocative book, based on a recently uncovered collection of 100-year-old letters from a famous pastor to his nephew, a missionary in China, will upend pretty much everyone’s assumptions about what it means to give witness to Christ. Blumhardt challenges us to find something of God in every person, to befriend people and lead them to faith without expecting them to become like us, and to discover where Christ is already at work in the world. This is truly good news: No one on the planet is outside the love of God. At a time when Christian mission has too often been reduced to social work or proselytism, this book invites us to reclaim the heart of Jesus’ great commission, quietly but confidently incarnating the love of Christ and trusting him to do the rest.
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From Dependence To Dignity
$26.99Add to cartThe church of Jesus Christ finds itself at a very unique moment in history. The average Christian living in the “economically advanced countries” enjoys a level of prosperity that has been unimaginable for most of human history. At the same time, over 2.5 billion people in the Majority World (Africa, Asia, and Latin America) live on less than $2 per day, with many of these people being Christians. Ironically, it is amongst the “least of these” in the Global South that the global church is experiencing the most rapid growth.
All of this raises profound challenges to the global church. How can churches and missionaries in the Majority World effectively address the devastating poverty both inside their congregations and just outside their doors? How can churches in the economically advanced countries effectively partner with Global South churches in this process? The very integrity of the global church’s testimony is at stake, for where God’s people reside, there should be no poverty (Deuteronomy 15:4; Acts 4:34).
For the past several decades, microfinance (MF) and microenterprise development (MED) have been the leading approaches to poverty alleviation. MF/MED is a set of interventions that allow households to better manage their finances and start small businesses. From remote churches in rural Africa to the short-term missions programs of mega-churches in the United States, churches and missionaries have taken the plunge into MF/MED, trying to emulate the apparent success of large-scale relief and development organizations. Unfortunately, most churches and missionaries find this to be far more difficult than they had imagined. Repayment rates on loans are low and churches typically end up with struggling programs that require ongoing financial subsidies. Everybody gets hurt in the process: donors, relief and development agencies, churches and missionaries, and–most importantly-the poor people themselves.
This book explains the basic principles for successfully utilizing microfinance in ministry. Drawing on best practice research and their own pioneering work with the Chalmers Center, Brian Fikkert and Russell Mask chart a path for churches and missionaries to pursue, a path that minimizes the risks of harm, relies on local resources, and enables missionaries and churches to minister in powerful ways to the spiritual and economic needs of some of the poorest people on the planet.
The insights of microfinance can play a tremendous role in h
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Business For Transformation
$19.99Add to cartBusiness for Transformation focuses on answering the question: “How do you start a business that transforms communities of unreached peoples?” Starting a business cross-culturally involves thousands of decisions. Until now, BAM and B4T practitioners have been lacking a tool that explains how to start a business that engages unreached people for Jesus’ sake. This book draws on years of experience from scores of OPEN workers who are BAM/B4T practitioners. BAM/B4T are among the faster growing segments of the worldwide mission movement. It is written for new workers and coaches who need practical guidance in setting up and doing business in hard, churchless areas.
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1 Gospel For All Nations
$19.99Add to cartThe Bible tells us what to believe–the gospel. Did you know it also shows how to contextualize the gospel? In One Gospel for All Nations, Jackson Wu does more than talk about principles. He gets practical. When the biblical writers explain the gospel, they consistently use a pattern that is both firm and flexible. Wu builds on this insight to demonstrate a model of contextualization that starts with interpretation and can be applied in any culture. In the process, he explains practically why we must not choose between the Bible and culture. Wu highlights various implications for both missionaries and theologians. Contextualization should be practical, not pragmatic; theological, not theoretical.
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Me To We
$20.99Add to cartChurches with front doors that open up mission fields rather than buildings.When Christians answer the clarion call to be missional, too often it is primarily to feel good or to grow in their own faith. But ultimately we remain unsatisfied because, in the end, it’s still about “me”-my church, my faith, my salvation. Then sometimes inspiration dries up.
We forget that Jesus is the head of the Church, which exists at God’s pleasure and disposal. God is birthing a new Social Gospel, meant to reclaim mission and justice ministries as prime directives for the Church, and not with the naive thinking of the 19th or 20th centuries.
What are the characteristics of this new Social Gospel? There is an expectation that mission is “with” and not “for” others. There is an acknowledgement that tolerance is not a dirty word and we have to find a peaceable way to live in our intercultural world. It carries the Wesleyan impulse to change the world by working to build God’s kingdom in this world. It offers the grace and salvation of Christ to those in need, believing that none are free unless all are free. It means that we feed the hungry, educate to poor, and equip the powerless in tangible ways.
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Christian Mission And Economic Systems
$21.99Add to cartChristian mission in the twenty-first century has emphasized endeavors that address poverty alleviation, business as mission, marketplace ministry, rural/urban development, microeconomics, and Christian attitudes toward money and consumerism. However, neither the macroeconomic circumstances in which the church does such ministry nor the assumptions that believers have absorbed from the larger economy have been adequately explored.
Christian Mission and Economic Systems gathers scholars, experts, and practitioners to address the relationship of Christians to the economic systems in which they are embedded and do ministry, and to evaluate the different cultural and religious dimensions of both micro- and macroeconomic systems around the world from a kingdom perspective.
Practitioners doing business as mission will grow in their understanding of the significance of local economic practices. Students and academics will benefit from the critical assessment of the intersection between micro- and macroeconomic systems in the contexts of specific ethnographic circumstances. Missionaries and churches will glean new insights on the difference that being a Christian makes to economic life. NGOs, nonprofits, or other Christian organizations doing work related to markets will benefit from a challenge to their previous understandings. Since work for the kingdom always takes place in some kind of an economic environment, this book will equip Christians in a variety of capacities to be more effective in their ministries.
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Our Global Families
$31.00Add to cartAs Christians, we belong to not only a diverse global Christian family but also a diverse human family. Todd Johnson, a noted expert on global Christianity and world missions trends, and Cindy Wu show how divisions within these families work against our desire to bring about positive change in the world. They provide an overview of global Christian identity, exploring how we can be faithful to our own tradition while engaging Christians across denominations and be better informed as we work with people of other religions. The book utilizes the latest research data on global Christianity and world religions and includes tables, graphs, charts, and end-of-chapter discussion questions.
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Lessons Learned In The Lions Den
$14.99Add to cartLessons Learned in the Lion’s Den shares the journey of one missionary family as the father is detained in a predominantly Muslim country in Africa. Daniel Waheli’s time spent in prison is ripe for building intimacy with the Lord in the midst of confusion, suffering, and uncertainty. The accounts of his wife and two young children offer a glimpse into the inner life of the family during this trying time. The heart of this story is not a man imprisoned, but a family united-in hope, love, and a pressing desire that God be glorified in all things. In a world where mission strategies come and go and often fall short of being effective, Waheli distills his experience into twelve principles for building character to better serve the Lord and persevere in His call. Whether you are a pioneer among unreached people groups or simply a Christian hungry to see Jesus glorified in your daily life, these tried and true concepts will prepare you to endure in the face of hardship.
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Slippery Paths In The Darkness
$21.99Add to cartA primary concern amongst missiologists is presenting the gospel in a way that is culturally relevant without adulterating the essential truths of the message. The ability to appropriately contextualize this message is the difference between establishing an indigenous Christianity as opposed to introducing syncretism. In this compendium of presentations and papers, the issue is addressed with regard to the idea of covenant relationship with the Lord. Drawing from interdisciplinary research across continents, Tippett examines the syncretistic religious behaviors eminent at the time of his writing that threatened to fracture this covenant relationship- from eastern personality cults in India to scientology in Australia, from satanism in the United States to animism in Mexico. While his research only spans a set number of years, Tippett provides timeless insights for a global church burdened with the Great Commission call in an increasingly pluralistic world.
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Worship And Culture
$40.99Add to cartMultifaceted expert perspectives on Christian worship in our multicultural, migrant worldHow are we to proclaim Christ in different cultures? This question was central to a landmark study on worship and culture conducted by the Lutheran World Federation between 1992 and 1999. Much has changed in the years since then: the world today is ever more a multicultural global village. Worship and Culture revisits that LWF study, shedding new light on the question from recent theological and sociological scholarship to expand and enrich the texts in the original three-volume work.This book includes texts from the main statements that came out of the original project as well as new or updated essays from some of the original contributors. It also adds new essays, prayers, and hymns to the conversation, inviting readers to consider what the life of the church should look like in today’s hybrid, multicultural world.
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Overturning Tables : Freeing Missions From The Christian Industrial Complex
$20.99Add to cartThe history of Protestant mission in the world has unfolded in step with the history of the modern marketplace. As a consequence, success in mission has defined in marketplace terms. Scott Bessenecker points toward a view of missions freed of false attachments to material paradigms and tailored toward a kingdom vision.
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Out Of The Dust
$14.99Add to cart“Don’t waste your pain,” says unlikely missionary Avis Goodhart. She didn’t – and neither should you. Despite a background of childhood abuse, dyslexia, and marital infidelity, Avis took her first international mission trip at age fifty. The church, school, and orphanage she later founded in northern Peru, all products of both her pain and her radical obedience to the Lord, have brought thousands of others out of the dust. This compelling story of an ordinary woman who serves God in extraordinary ways will challenge, inspire, and empower you to: * Eliminate excuses from your life * Recognize that in God’s kingdom, availability matters more than ability * Allow your pain to produce – not prevent – your obedience * Serve the Lord with the same abandon shown by one unlikely missionary
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Effective Intercultural Communication
$35.00Add to cartWith the development of instantaneous global communication, it is vital to communicate effectively across cultural boundaries. This addition to the acclaimed Encountering Mission series is designed to offer contemporary intercultural communication insights to mission students and practitioners. Authored by leading missionary scholars with significant intercultural experience, the book introduces intercultural communication; explores the foundations that lay beneath, and the cultural values that show up in, patterns of intercultural communication; and examines areas in which communicating effectively in a new cultural setting is important. Features such as case studies, tables, figures, and sidebars are included, making the book useful for classrooms.
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Dont Throw The Book At Them
$19.99Add to cartDon’t Throw the Book at Them addresses one of the most vital issues in contemporary missions. It is a manual for cross-cultural missionaries and national church leaders ministering in societies based on oral rather than written communication. Harry Box, former missionary and researcher in Papua New Guinea and among the Aborigines of Central Australia, explains the distinct characteristics of oral societies, how they differ from literacy-oriented societies, Jesus’ ministry to oral communicators, and why effective presentation of the Christian message demands that Western Christians change their approach to orality. The book goes beyond case studies and analysis, allowing the reader to develop a detailed plan for communication.
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Starting Missional Churches
$22.99Add to cartAll mission is local–the people of God joining the work of God in a particular place. In Starting Missional Churches Mark Lau Branson and Nicholas Warnes introduce us to seven missional churches and explore what it looks like to be salt and light where you are.
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Theology From The Trenches
$26.00Add to cartWhile urban pastors devote time and energy to all the typical demands of ministry, they also grapple with challenges endemic to city life. Achieving a measure of balance amid these competing demands and responsibilities can be daunting. Using his experiences as a pastor in urban settings for nearly three decades, Roger J. Gench offers pastors a close look at the challenges that come from being involved in urban ministry.
Throughout, he integrates memoir, sermons, and essays on social ministry, and reflections on the theology and spirituality of parish life. In each chapter, Gench offers his own stories and reflections and then invites readers to consider the relevance for their own ministry. Urban pastors will not only find themselves relating to Gench’s experiences but will also uncover practical help for their ministry.
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Mighty England Do Good
$48.99Add to cartThe first in-depth study of the foreign missions of the Church of England
In late Victorian and Edwardian England, says Steven Maughan, foreign missions had a broad resonance and significance not adequately explored by historians of English culture. Mighty England Do Good fills that lacuna by examining the rapid growth of foreign missions in the Church of England between 1850 and 1915, culminating at the height of the missionary enterprise in Britain. Maughan’s book bridges the gaps between religious, cultural, and imperial history to give a full picture of the movement’s importance.
Maughan explores Anglicanism as a microcosm of the larger religious culture of Britain, particularly in light of the expanding British empire. This book provides a multidimensional reassessment of the power that foreign missions had to shape belief, institutions, culture, and practice not only within the Church of England but also in the broader culture of the time.
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Being Church Doing Life
$18.99Add to cartEvidence now suggests that contextual church plants have an important role to play in church growth. There is an increasing international interest in these new and different forms of church, often known as ‘Fresh Expressions’ or ’emerging church’. Author Michael Moynagh is a member of the UK national Fresh Expressions movement, a remarkable initiative that has attracted widespread attention around the world. In this inspiring volume he shares practical and comprehensive advice on how to start and grow new churches – however small – in every context of life. This popular introduction emphasizes practical aspects, telling many of the great stories that have emerged through practitioners. It will enthuse and help church leaders and individuals to start and develop these communities; and advise them on how to help them grow to maturity and become sustainable.
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Holding The Rope
$12.99Add to cartHolding the Rope gives an insightful look into the preparation, philosophy, and application of short term cross-cultural ministry. Archer addresses the issues with candor, humor, and most importantly, grace. He provides viable solutions to common problems, and encourages churches, pastors, and volunteers to adopt a biblical and practical approach for engaging in short term missions. “Holding the rope” is more than a catchphrase. It articulates an entire philosophy of ministry. Christian missions is too daunting an enterprise to attempt alone, but the synergy of combined efforts can accomplish untold advancement for the kingdom of God. This book is a tool for those serving the servants, a guide and celebration of those who hold the ropes.
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Introducing Christian Mission Today
$50.99Add to cartMission–a driving force in the long Christian story–today is often cast as the embarrassing relative of tall-steeple religiosity. In our wider culture it’s now tucked in the endnotes of book-club histories or forms the ghostlike ellipses in the six o’clock news. But in Christian Mission Today, Michael Goheen brings the vibrant history, motivation and challenges of Christian mission to the fore. Through the centuries Christian mission has always been recalibrating, retooling and reevangelizing. It has repeatedly taken surprising turns as it is carried along by the Spirit of God. Goheen’s introduction to mission’s biblical, theological and historical dimensions engages the present and anticipates the future. As he unfolds the major issues of the global and urban, the pluralistic and wholistic contexts of mission today, he lays the ground for engaging in God’s great kingdom enterprise. This full-scale text incorporates the keen missional insights of Lesslie Newbigin, David Bosch and other formative thinkers. It will be a valued resource not only for those involved crosscultural contexts but also for those engaged in reevangelizing the West.
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Message Worth Dying For
$15.99Add to cartPastor Michael and Diane Meagher released their youngest child to attend Bible College in 1996, and boarded a jetliner to begin their new lives as independent missionaries among an un-evangelized tribe in the bleakest, most unforgiving wilderness on earth. They had two dollars in their pockets, two donated airline tickets . . . and one indescribably powerful God who had called and prepared them to reach precious lost souls in north-central Siberia, Russia.
They were compelled by hearts flaming with the compassion He had instilled in them and a shared faith forged in the crucible of decades of tribulation, deliverance from myriad dangers, and the forsaking of all earthly frills and baubles that might distract them from their purpose.
They were deemed unqualified and unfit by two dozen mission boards and dismissed as crazy by casual onlookers, self-appointed counselors, and even fellow soldiers of the faith.
The odds were severely stacked against them and their enemies and detractors were legion. They had no promise of financial support, no safety net, and no sanctuary. Once they set foot on that plane, there was no turning back. To an uttermost part of the earth, they were resolved to carry a message worth dying for: this is HIStory and their story …
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Health For All
$17.99Add to cartWhen Dan Fountain and his wife arrived in the Congo in 1961, the challenges to effective medical missions seemed overwhelming. As the only doctor for a quarter of a million residents of the Vanga Health Zone, and with nothing but a dilapidated mission hospital and an undertrained staff to run it, Dr. Fountain turned to prayer, innovation, and local partnerships to meet the vast needs of his area.
Health for All tells the story of an ever-increasing vision-from curative care to community health, from a barely functioning hospital to a network of successful health services, from a lack of qualified workers to a local residency training program, from biomedical reductionism to whole person care, from cultural stalemate to worldview transformation. Dr. Fountain’s insights into health and wholeness have changed countless lives and communities. Part memoir, part history, part textbook, Health for All is the legacy of a man who patterned his life and labor after that of the Great Physician.
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New Parish : How Neighborhood Churches Are Transforming Mission Discipleshi
$22.99Add to cartWhen . . . faith communities begin connecting together, in and for the neighborhood, they learn to depend on God for strength to love, forgive and show grace like never before. . . . The gospel becomes so much more tangible and compelling when the local church is actually a part of the community, connected to the struggles of the people, and even the land itself. Paul Sparks, Tim Soerens and Dwight J. Friesen have seen–in cities, suburbs and small towns all over North America–how powerful the gospel can be when it takes root in the context of a place, at the intersection of geography, demography, economy and culture. This is not a new idea–the concept of a parish is as old as Paul’s letters to the various communities of the ancient church. But in an age of dislocation and disengagement, the notion of a church that knows its place and gives itself to where it finds itself is like a breath of fresh air, like a sign of new life.
