by Gary Tyra IVP Academics, P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515, 393 pages, 2013, $30.00. Reviewed by Daniel Shinjong Baeq, adjunct professor and director, Paul G. Hiebert Global
The Evangelical Missions Quarterly was conceived in an ice cream bar called the Eskimo Inn at Winona Lake, Indiana. After the day’s evening session at the first joint meeting of the Evangelical Foreign Missions Association (EFMA) and the Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association (IFMA) in October 1963, a small group of us sat around the table talking about what we would like to see as lasting outcomes of this historic gathering.
EVERY MEMBER ON MISSION! Every member on mission!” These words by Pastor Rick Warren captured the hearts of three thousand Saddleback Church members attending the first offering of the famous first Class 401 in 1999. That day and event began a new era of church-to-church missions that would transform not only Saddleback, but countless other churches around the world. Saddleback would ultimately commission hundreds of career missionaries and church workers, plant thousands of churches, and send out over 23,800 of its congregation on PEACE plan missions to 197 nations.
For agencies to thrive in the future, partnerships must be more and more at the core of strategy, and those partnerships must focus on deeper involvement with local churches.
Just as a building is only as strong as its foundation, a ministry is only as strong as the vision and resources behind it.
In large parts of North America, there is not only a new public ignorance or casual disregard of Christianity, but there is a disdain for Christianity and its perceived record of judgementalism and divisiveness within the culture. Christianity is no longer the consensus religion it once was in the West.
Hospitable cross-cultural ministries go beyond simply providing a warm and inviting atmosphere.
There is one unreached people group that surpasses all of the above: the orphaned children.
In the postmodern West, however, it has become increasingly common not only to question what is true, but also what we mean by truth in the first place.
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