The late 1980s and early 1990s were perhaps the most exciting days of modern missions—the Iron Curtain fell, and immediately over twenty countries and four hundred million people had access to the gospel.
As Richard stood staring out his office window, he knew something was wrong. His enthusiasm for ministry that had accompanied him for nearly thirty years was gone. He was tired, spiritually dry, and growing bitter about his situation.
College friends wore our fundraiser T-shirts around campus. Team parents praised us for flying across the world to spread the gospel. In Japan, we were guests of honor. Local pastors advertised the visiting American athletes to draw people to church. Groups of teen girls wanted to pose with us for selfies. We were celebrities.
We live in a rapidly changing world in which massive amounts of people move from one place to the next. Many people who have come from other places live on the margins of society as socially excluded international refugees or immigrants.
by Paul Borthwick, —Reviewed by Dennis J. Horton, associate professor of Religion and associate director of Ministry Guidance, Baylor University, Waco, Texas
by Gary McIntosh —Reviewed by John Doss, senior pastor, Discovery Christian Community, Salt Lake City, Utah
The vocabulary that dominates the theology of mission today features a hierarchy of status describing its very essence. All the terms are derived from the Latin word missio (roughly translated “sent”) and used to convey the concept rooted in the biblical Greek term apostello. At the top is Missio Dei. This is followed by mission and missional in the middle. At the bottom, still championed by ‘unsophisticated slaves to the past,’ is missions.
by Warren R. Beattie, ed. —Reviewed by Ryan Klejment-Lavin, director, Footstool Missions Center, Seoul, South Korea
The primary reason for this article is that it seems to me that something very important about the contextualization of prayer has been lost in the larger debate about appropriateness of certain kinds of contextualization in the Muslim world.
by Sadiri Joy Tira and Tetsunao Yamamori, eds. —Reviewed by Rajkumar Boaz Johnson, Ph.D., professor of Biblical and Theological Studies, North Park University; visiting professor, SHIATS University, Allahabad, India
Sign up for my newsletter to see new photos, tips, and blog posts.
