Today thousands of people, inspired by tentmaking pioneers like J. Christy Wilson and Ruth Siemens, are using their professional skills as a vehicle for cross-cultural evangelism.
Prior to the Internet, inexperienced church planters often faced the prospect of a lonely job in a new location struggling to know how to launch a church. Today a wealth of tools, resources, helps, and discussion groups is available to anyone in the world with an Internet connection.
Underwriting dot.coms and then going public is but the latest winning formula for hundreds of venture capitalists who have known decades of success in numerous fields. Where are the counterparts to these investors and entrepreneurs in world mission?
Perhaps it is time to move beyond our individual budgets and take stock of the broader financial resources God has given us for the task of world mission.
I want to challenge Christian ESL professionals to formulate a Christian worldview of this discipline and thereby begin influencing research and curriculum.
Are mission societies really necessary? Or are they, at best, “an historical accommodation for accomplishing missions due to the negligence of the church to carry out its mission,” as some assert?
Responding appropriately to requests for money, especially from desperately poor beggars on the streets, is one of a missionary’s most difficult problems.
“Remember your T.P.” That was the code word for “Pack your one suitcase; we are evacuating!” The Evangelical Covenant Church has devised and revised a number of plans to evacuate its missionaries from the Congo/Zaire since work began there in the Ubangi-Mongala in 1935.
Cross-cultural adjustment theories suggest that the longer you live in another culture, the more you learn about that culture, and that your increased knowledge results in greater adjustment. This was not true of me.
Professional involvement in a credible job opens doors to in-depth interaction within our circle of activity and influence.
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