by David J. Hesselgrave
We welcome readers to the Association of Evangelicals Professors of Missions supplement, “AEPM News and Views.” Granted, there’s nothing very new or original about that caption.
We welcome readers to the Association of Evangelicals Professors of Missions supplement, "AEPM News and Views." Granted, there’s nothing very new or original about that caption. For that matter, the AEPM is not new either. It has been around since the middle 1960s. But there is a new interest in revitalizing the AEPM; there are new plans for its future; and there is a new urgency for the viability of the organization.
Interestingly enough, the Association of Professors of Missions (APM) did not go into eclipse subsequent to the inauguration of the American Society of Missiology (ASM). The AEPM, on the other hand, came very close to a premature demise. Why? A variety of reasons could be offered. First, early on many of us devoted energies to the ASM that otherwise could have served the AEPM. Second, many AEPM members and potential members teach at the undergraduate level. That being the case, they have not always had travel funds to attend AEPM meetings and sometimes have not felt that their interests were served when they did. Third, the AEPM has proceeded by fits and starts, never quite able to overcome difficulties that militated against the choice of acceptable meeting times and places, and appropriate agendas and projects.
Now much of this is changing. The AEPM has been organized into regionals that will become increasingly active. Plans have been made to meet with the Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association and the Evangelical Foreign Missions Association at their triennial meeting at the U.S. Center for World Mission in Pasadena, September 24-28, 1984. A major concern of all these groups will be missionary preparation. At that meeting other important changes will be proposed-changes designed to broaden the base of participation and enable the AEPM to serve its members in a better way. An agenda for the future will be discussed and adopted.
With the foregoing in mind, we invite teachers of mission in whatever context to join with us in the AEPM. All who can subscribe to either the EFMA or IFMA statement of faith are eligible. Send your, request for membership and a $5.00 check to our secretary-treasurer, Ray Tall-man, Moody Bible Institute, 820 North LaSalle, Chicago, Ill., 60610. Ray will be editing a column on classroom materials and teaching methods in these pages beginning with, the next issue, so please also send him information and ideas that may prove helpful to all of us.
Forward news items for "AEPM News and Views" and any questions directly to me at TEDS-SWME, 2065 Half Day Road, Deerfield, III., 60015. Contact your regional vice-president (Norman Allison in the South and Southeast, Harvie Conn in the Northeast, John Orme in the Midwest, Ronald Blue in the Southwest, and Norman Cook in the West) for information and plans for your region.
We sincerely thank the general editor and the Editorial Committee of the EMQ for making this supplement possible. We urge all evangelical professors of missions to encourage their colleagues and students to subscribe to the EMQ. Please use special AEPM forms available from Ray Tallman for this purpose, or have new subscribers mention the AEPM when they send in their subscription money ($10.00 per year).
And now we invite you to read what Donald McGavran has to say about the need for a revitalized AEPM. Also to think with John Gration about some of the issues that he feels should be high on the AEPM agenda in the future. Of course, all materials in these pages other than notices of the organization represent the ideas of the authors. They are not to be understood as representing the official position of either the EMQ or the AEPM as such. They are "AEPM views" only in the sense that they emanate from persons who are members of-or at least in sympathy with-the faith commitment and overall purposes of the AEPM.
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