EMQ

The tranquil cornfields of central Illinois stretched on mile after mile along Route 150 west of Peoria. Suddenly, a bizarre black-and-white sign MURPHY GO HOME popped up from the greenery. How unneighborly, I thought about the good farmers of Illinois.

In a March morning last year, colorful flags streamed down the center aisle of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church carried by delegates celebrating the establishment of Evangelism Explosion International (EE) ministries in all 211 nations of the world.

When Mustafa Kemal Ata-turk founded Turkey’s modern republic 74 years ago, the jury was out on whether a secular democracy could long survive in a predominantly Muslim nation. It still is.

Roland Allen, in Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours? looks over the panorama of churches established by Paul with wonder and incredulity: wonder that so many growing indigenous churches over such a broad territory could be established in just 10 years; and incredulity that so many in missions today consider the feat impossible to repeat.

By intelligently transcending cultural barriers rather than being shut out by them, Christian health care workers can introduce basic changes in non-Christian belief systems and practices.

Church planting within Muslim societies presents a major challenge for Christian missions. As the year 2000 approaches, mission agencies are scrambling for strategies suitable for reaching Islam with the gospel.

Much of missionary methodology has been subject to a type of faddish cycle. The cycle begins when missionaries are exposed to a new technique that has captured the fascination of the Western missiological world.

Moody magazine recently devoted much of an issue to the subject “What’s Ahead for Missions?” The series of articles, which presented a mixed picture at best, addressed some serious concerns plaguing world missions today:

One of my teammates in the Philippines, anticipating his first furlough, worried that if some of his supporters really knew how we did ministry, they might drop him.