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Just as many roads in the third world seem to be constructed solely of potholes, so missionary life and service sometimes seem to be composed of a boundless configuration of problems.

The church in Antioch became the vehicle for two areas, first the vision and second the strategy.

George: Boy, this situation is confusing. I’m trying to sort it out. Sam, will you help me? Having our units overseas can cause some real problems.

Sam: Yes, it can, but that doesn’t mean it’s hopeless. These units cost about $150,000. Most work well, but too many seem to operate at 25 percent capacity. This one has broken down and has to be sent back.

Jokes about single women missionaries bother me. First, for what they reveal about the people who tell them – Christians should reject all humor made at other’s expense. Second, for what I fear is revealed about the women referred to – our failure to protect their dignity and personhood has helped produce characteristics that become the basis for those jokes.

“Crossing an ocean doesn’t make one a missionary” has become an axiom in missionary circles. I’d like to add a corollary that I think is just as self-evident: “Crossing an ocean doesn’t make one a church-planter.”

Since there are probably more opinions about politics than there are people to hold them, any discussion of politics is bound to be controversial. But the Bible peels away the cultural veneer missionaries sometimes mistake for Christianity and forces them to seek God’s kingdom and his righteousness, rather than some transient political ideal.

A great deal of heat—to say nothing of light—has been generated by the insistence in some circles that the church should concentrate on the responsive elements of society.

Two articles in this issue are about church-planting and church growth. Ron Fisher makes a strong appeal for better training and more experience in the U. S. David Pickard says one problem encountered in moving into responsive areas is that the missionaries don’t know how to win souls.

The 1971 Green Lake Conference convened to identify points of tension in church-mission relations and to develop guidelines to assist the mission boards in charting future paths.

A few years ago I found myself the only white man in a crowd of several hundred marching along a road in a new suburb of the ancient city of Ife, Nigeria, lustily singing “Onward, Christian Soldiers” in Yoruba.