A Second Look: Editorial by EMQ Editor Gary Corwin

In Christian ministry circles the terms professional and professionalism have a long history of producing contrary emotions. While everyone celebrates those who do their job like a ‘pro,’ few get excited about people in ministry who go about their duties with professional detachment. The coin of the realm is passionate commitment, not detached objectivity that observes and reports but doesn’t engage deeply and sacrificially.

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. 

Every Christian with a heart to please Christ faces a daily challenge to maintain and even grow in integrity—to be as good on the inside as we may seem to others on the outside. The measure of character, as has been wisely observed, is what we do and think when nobody is looking. 

Whatever else one may say about Paul’s logic, he makes it clear that all the credit and glory for his work belongs to God. Every person in ministry would humbly acknowledge the same truth. And yet, how often do we seek to position ourselves so that when the report, article, or book is written, we will receive significant credit for the breakthrough? We can’t seem to help wanting to take some of what should be God’s glory alone.

by Gary Corwin Recent events have raised the public profile of a question as old as Islam: “Do Muslims and Christians worship the same God?” The news reports and

by Gary Corwin EVERY UNDERTAKING IMAGINABLE entails risk. Risk is everywhere, but it’s not all the same: Some is avoidable; some is not. Some is necessary, even if it is

by Gary Corwin It has been my privilege for the last five years to be part of the leadership team for a network known as Bridging the Divide (BtD).