Contextualization Can Be Messy
By John Devalve | My wife and I lived in a remote predominantly Muslim region of West Africa with few believers for more than a decade. Not long after we arrived, I faced a new challenge: contextualizing a rite of passage ceremony for a new community of Christ followers.
Missionaries as Needy Patrons
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.
The Nigerian Church and Global Missions
By Adeoluwa Felix Olanrewaju | The Nigerian church has been engaged in cross-border and cross-cultural missions for more than 150 years. Since then, it has played an important and growing part of the global missions movement. And Nigerians are eager to play a bigger role in collaboration with global partners.
Enduring Redemptive Communities
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.
Now What? Utilizing Medical Missionaries From Africa
By Matthew Loftus and Bruce Dahlman | After much time and a great deal of investment, those of us who have been working in medical education missions are starting to see the fruits of our labor as African doctors graduate from their residency programs ready to go to whatever mission field to which God has called them.
How to Help without Hurting in the African Context
Reviewed by Bob Bagley | Africa has a long history of receiving agencies coming from the western world with well-intentioned ministries of compassion aimed at alleviating poverty and its accompanying ills. Despite good motives, the track record of such efforts overall has been less than stellar.
African Christianity and African Independent Churches
Reviewed by George F. Pickens | The demographic shift of Christianity to the Global South has both fascinated and bemused scholars, yet one result is certain. Africa is now the most Christianized continent, and for students of African Christianity, it is clear that African Independent Churches (AICs) have been central to Christianity’s growth and spread throughout the continent.
Shrines and the African Worldview
Africans, including Christians and Muslims, generally believe in Western medicine; however, they often add traditional healing practices to it due to their familiarity. Most African Independent Churches use scriptures like Ezekiel 47:12 which mentions healing leaves to support their practices.
Ministry and Education Principles in the Middle East and North Arica
This book is a passionate, heartfelt, and resourceful treatise on leadership training, experiential learning, and contextual practices in the Middle East and North Africa.
Conceptualizing a Mission to the Chala Peoples of Sub-Saharan Africa
By Alrena V. Lightbourn and Richard K. Kronk