By David R. Dunaetz | Understanding acculturation strategies helps missionaries know what they personally experience and what members of a diaspora community experience. It also provides several insights relevant to diaspora church planting.
By Collin Cornell | Does God’s faithfulness end when our usefulness runs out? While most Christians would deny this, the way we tell the story of God’s mission reveals otherwise. This places a significant question mark over God’s faithfulness, and it threatens our spiritual formation and our evangelistic integrity.
By Tamie Davis and Moyra Dale | Patronage relationships are common in many cultures. Western missionaries in these environments are often viewed as patrons by default. This can be an uncomfortable role. However, when we understand how reciprocity works in these contexts, we can participate in ways that strengthen local relationships.
By Grant Klinefelter | Do we know the story of what God is doing today? Often, we know how God has worked in the past and we have hope for what God will do in the future. But do we really know what God is doing here and now in the present? Across America, giving to missions is declining. And across the West, missionary attrition is rising. I believe one reason for this is that we have not done well telling stories of what God is doing around the world today.
By Charis Jackson and Lynn Green | To say Loren Cunningham reshaped missions is not an overstatement. It’s a fact. From the vision of waves turning into young people on every shore, to the last catalytic call to see every native tongue have an oral translation of the Bible, Loren was a man who loved the Lord and inspired peoples from every nation to join in on the adventure of God.
By Stan Parks | Globally, 1,965 church planting movements (CPMs) are being reported, with approximately 90% of these among current or former unreached people groups. These reports have been compiled by the 24:14 Coalition. Our primary goal has been to find out where the unreached are being reached so we can identify the gaps where the unreached are not being reached. But in the process, we have shared information about movements, globally and regionally, which has led to some people feeling frustrated when they cannot know more.
By Gene Daniels and Emanuel Prinz | Healthy self-awareness is a key quality of effective pioneer missionaries such as movement catalysts because cultural awareness relies heavily on healthy self-awareness. Research shows that effective movement catalysts demonstrate mature self-awareness concerning their personal traits and ministry competencies, and are especially aware of their own shortcomings.
By Ronald and Carolyn Klaus | Over time, the church has repeatedly devolved into structures more geared to attracting and inspiring people than to transforming and mobilizing them. Unless we take deliberate steps to prevent it, many of the movements toward God among unreached people groups that we now celebrate could follow the same pattern. Redemptive communities can prevent or at least postpone this process.
By David Greenlee and Greg Kernaghan | George Verwer, founder of Operation Mobilisation, passed away on April 14, 2023. His impact in global missions reverberated far beyond the boundaries of OM. God used him to help shape its multicultural and multinational the future.
By Phil King | Michael Stroope’s book, Transcending Mission, offers a semantic challenge on the use of the words mission, missionary and missional. He believes we distort history when we use these words to describe biblical people and activities. Using a cognitive linguistic lens, we can evaluate his claims .
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