By Jim Harries. Reviewed by Prof. Rajkumar Boaz Johnson, PhD Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies North Park University, Visiting Professor SHIATS University Allahabad, India.
Hindsight is always 20/20 and peering into the rearview mirror of missions history, attempting to see it from God’s perspective, is a formidable, but exhilarating, endeavor. One modern thinker who has done a stellar job of helping us understand when, where, and how God has been at work over the centuries is missiologist Dr. Ralph Winter, founder of the U.S. Center for World Mission (now Frontier Ventures).
By Patrick Kingsley. Reviewed by Jamie N. Sanchez, PhD, Assistant Professor and Program Director of PhD Intercultural Studies, Cook School of Intercultural Studies, Biola University, La Mirada, California.
Information is powerful. We’ve all experienced moments where the discovery of a particular piece of information has radically shifted the direction of our lives. Many of us in the mission community had our lives transformed when we discovered the theme of God’s global mission that runs from Genesis to Revelation. The realization that God has always been a missionary God continues to challenge countless Christians to consider the direction and purpose of their lives. Or maybe it was the discovery of the unreached, that millions of souls lived beyond the reach of the local church and had little to no access to the gospel that was the watershed moment in your life. State of the World talks that educate and inspire Christians are a regular feature of mission conferences. Thankfully, God has raised up hard-working men and women who dedicate themselves to helping transform Christian worldviews through powerful and up-to-date information.
Gener L. Green, Stephen T. Pardue, and K.K. Yeo, eds. Reviewed by A. Sue Russell, Professor of Mission and Contextual Studies, Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky.
In December 2015, more than two hundred forty leaders involved in mission mobilization from more than thirty countries gathered in Nairobi, Kenya for the second Global Mobilization Consultation (GMC). To better welcome many different kinds and styles of mobilization and mobilizers, this paper was written before the event in order to provide a simple but clear idea of mission, along with a broad, descriptive definition of mobilization emerging from scripture and practice. Leaders from several countries worked together to produce this paper, with some modifications made at the event. The lead author was Steven C. Hawthorne.
By David C. Pollock, Ruth E. Van Reken, and Michael V. Pollock. Reviewed by Cheryl Doss PhD, adult missionary kid, missionary mother and grandmother, is director of the Institute of World Mission, the missionary training organization of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.
As Charles Van Engen explains in his introduction, this book is about “doing mission theology”. He describes mission theology as “an activity that seeks to discern what God wants to do primarily through God’s people at a specific time, place and context in God’s world”.
Mark Anderson has answered a foundational question: ‘Can Christians fully grasp the Qur’anic worldview without becoming Muslims?’ Anderson has, by engaging the Qur’anic faith dialogically (grace) and by analyzing its doctrines thematically (truth).
Clemens Sedmak takes readers on a tour which spans the globe and plums the depths of the human spirit. Along the way, he introduces a diverse cast of novelists, philosophers, clerics, missionaries, and prisoners—from Chinua Achebe and Saint Augustine, Vaclav Havel and Isaiah the Solitary to Corrie Ten Boom and Cardinal Francis Xavier Van Thuen—and explores how they found the inner strength to endure in the “desert of displacement.” The result is a far-reaching, reflection on “sources of resilience derived from within.”
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