A Wind in the House of Islam: How God Is Drawing Muslims around the World to Faith in Jesus Christ
David Garrison. Wigtake Resources, 2014. —Reviewed by Larry Vanderaa, missionary for more than forty years in West Africa, currently working among the Muslim Fulani. How about some refreshing news from the Muslim world? This book delivers. David Garrison claims that from the days of Mohammad to 1960, only two movements towards Christ developed in the […]
The 3D Gospel: Ministry in Guilt, Shame and Fear Cultures
Jayson Georges. Self-published, 2014. —Reviewed by Rick Kronk, scholar-practitioner, Christar, Inc.; adjunct professor of Missions, University of Northwestern, St. Paul, Minnesota. Just as people assume the cultural orientation of their context, (so) Christians often assume forms of Christian ministry in which they learn the gospel” (p. 55) are the only correct or valid forms of […]
Structured for Mission: Renewing the Culture of the Church
Alan J. Roxburgh. InterVarsity Press, 2015. —Reviewed by Janet Silverthorne Walker, Pastor, National Wesleyan Church, DC Campus, Washington, DC. Denominations are faced with the ever constant need to determine how their missional mandates will be met. As organizations, they engage their subsidiaries (local churches) as the mechanisms for meeting these mandates. However, organizational structures often […]
Reincarnation, Oblivion, or Heaven: An Exploration from a Christian Perspective
Bobby Bose, SAIACS Press, 2014. —Reviewed by Timothy L. Eckert, PhD Intercultural Studies, missionary to the FulBe of West Africa. The global situation is increasingly one where cultures and religions are meeting and interacting across the world, particularly in urban centers. Bobby Bose’s tome is a response to the theological challenges Christians increasingly face in […]
Christian. Muslim. Friend: Twelve Paths to a Real Relationship
David W. Shenk, Herald Press, 2014. —Reviewed by Edwin R. Zehner, lecturer, Ph.D. Program in Asian Studies, Walailak University, Thailand. David Shenk is an author with more than fifty years of experience working as a missionary among Muslims in Somalia, Kenya, the Philippines, and elsewhere. Drawing on the resources of his Mennonite tradition, his pacifism […]
Builders of the Chinese Church: Pioneer Protestant Missionaries and Chinese Church Leaders
G. Wright Doyle, editor. Pickwick Publications, 2015. —Reviewed by P. Mary Ho, executive director, All Nations Family, Kansas City, Missouri. Mission history proves again that there are not too many new lessons under the sun, even in a country as diametrically confounding as China. This biographical compilation of nine pioneers chronicles what historian Kenneth Latourette […]
Becoming the People of God: Creating Christ-centered Communities in Buddhist Asia (SEANET series vol. 11)
Paul H. De Neui, editor. William Carey Library Press, 2015. —Reviewed by Larry Poston, professor of Religion, Nyack College. In this newest addition to the SEANET series, Paul de Neui collects the thinking of a variety of missionary practitioners into a potpourri of thought regarding contextualization of the gospel message and the institutional Church in […]
Becoming the Gospel: Paul, Participation, and Mission
Michael J. Gorman. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2015. —Reviewed by Ezekiel O. Ajani, PhD, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois. Go on in the work where to God has called you, and He will do all things well. I hope our preachers preach and live the gospel—I am.” These were the words of […]
Orality in North America: Keys to Gospel Advance
A woman in the small group that I led couldn’t wait to tell her hyperactive four-year-old nephew about Samson’s strength. She had just learned the Bible story and began telling it before she remembered the ending. Her nephew was just recovering from a very serious eye injury, but the woman skidded right into the conclusion, including how Samson had his eyes gouged out.
God’s Transforming Story: How the Metanarrative of Scripture Can Change Lives
We all love a good story. In 2012, moviegoers worldwide spent the equivalent of US$62.4 billion at the box office. Something happens when a story is told. Stories move us emotionally and move us into action. There is power in a good story, and in the wake of post-modernism the power of storytelling is needed today like never before.