IDEAS ABOUT AND METHODS FOR mobilizing missionaries abound, but Western culture is changing rapidly, and these ideas and methods need to be re-evaluated and modified periodically. Paula Harris, acting director for the Urbana Missions Conference in the early 2000s, wrote, “United States culture is changing fast, and we need new missionary recruitment methods” (2002, 44).
ARE THERE REPRODUCING churches in Japan? You must be talking about churches in the U.S.” This and other comments revealed skepticism after reporting my field research that uncovered the existence of dozens of Japanese reproducing churches in Japan.
COMPARTMENTALIZING, categorization, and silo making. You may not realize it, but if you are a North American or a church in North America, you are good at these.
YEARS AGO, I MET A MISSIONARY who had just moved to town. “What brought you here?” I asked, trying to make conversation. “God brought me here,” he said without hesitation or further comment.
WITH PROPHETIC IMAGINATION, Andrew Walls (2002, 202) claimed that the great new fact of our time is that mission is now in reverse: from the non-Western (or Majority World) to the Western world (see Catto 2012, 91-105).
A STORYTELLING EVENT IS HAPPENING. The news of it has been shared from person to person and interest has multiplied. Now a crowd has gathered outside the shelter where the stories will be told.
by John Gibaut & Knud Jorgensen, eds. Regnum Books International, 2014. —Reviewed by Cameron D. Armstrong, church planter, International Mission Board in Bucharest, Romania; PhD Intercultural Studies student, Biola
by Evert Van de Poll and Joanne Appleton, eds. Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2015. —Reviewed by David R. Dunaetz, Azusa Pacific University, Claremont Graduate University, and former church planter
by Don Little Intervarsity Press Academic, 2015. —Reviewed by Roy Oksnevad, director of Muslim Ministries, Billy Graham Center for Evangelism. The body of Christian literature on Islam is growing
by John Bailey WestBow Press, 2015. —Reviewed by Bob Bagley, Africa Area director, Global Partners, the missions division of the Wesleyan Church. The first thing I did after reading
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