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A little over ten years ago I was introduced to English as a Second Language (ESL) for the first time. A student at the local seminary who was fluent in Spanish had started an ESL class at a small Hispanic Baptist church in one of the suburbs of New Orleans and needed some help with her growing class. 

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. 

Just as Gutenberg changed the world forever when the printed word challenged the spoken word, so globalization and the Zuckerberg generation are doing the same in this millennium. One of those changes has been in business as mission (BAM). 

George Muller (1805-1898) is a model of faith for many. Moving from Prussia to Bristol, England, in 1832, Muller ministered as a pastor, started schools and orphanages, and sacrificed unceasingly for others. Many of the sins of his early life were associated with money. After conversion, however, a marked change occurred, and Muller developed several strong convictions about his own use of funds.

When I was a boy, my dream was to one day become an astronaut. I lived and breathed everything NASA—from monitoring the orbit patterns of the first satellites to actually building a full-scale mockup of the Gemini spacecraft and flying multi-day simulated ‘missions’ in my basement.

By the time missionaries reach middle age, quite a few things can go wrong. Their kids may be struggling in the host culture. Their ministry might be advancing far more slowly than they thought possible. Because of limited opportunities for career advancement, they may be jealous or in competition with other missionaries. 

Do teams work? What does it take to develop and maintain a healthy team? Is it worth the effort? Does a healthy team really produce better results than a dysfunctional team?