I was reading a journal article, "Evangelism, Theology, and the Church" by Thorsten Prill (Evangelical Review of Theology, Vol. 29 No. 4 (2005) p. 303-330). It has several models of evangelism. I find it quite valuable. Here is a brief summary of these. I recommend reading the article to get a deeper look at this: #1. Proclamation …
Month: January 2024
The Introverted Socially Awkward Missionary, Part 2
One presumption for missionaries, I can attest to anecdotally at least, is that they love to get out there and interact with people. I recall when my wife and I were looking to be missionaries under a specific mission board--- they said that they were looking for candidates who were passionately and enthusiastically evangelistic. I …
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The Introverted Socially Awkward Missionary— Part 1
Originally, I was going to be writing about being an Introvert as a missionary. The problem was that I was using a sort of folk understanding of introvert. Generally, introversion has to do with how one feels good and charged up. Extroverts want to go out and interact with other people. Introverts like to get …
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Are Social Ministries “Simply Bridges” for Evangelism?
I was reading the ABWE (Association of Baptists for World Evangelism) list of basic qualifications for being a missionary. You can read them by clicking below: Basic Qualifications for Missionary Service with ABWE I find them to be, generally, a good list. I found it interesting that there is no specific mention of "Calling." I assume …
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How Should a Missionary Feel About His/Her Own Culture?
A friend of mine put this thought on his FB page: "A nation dies when its people are taught to hate their own history, heritage and culture." My first thing was to react pretty negatively to this. After all, I was raised in a setting of American Exceptionalism, with a bit of xenophobia mixed in. …
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Is God’s Whole Message to Mankind Simply How to “Get Saved”?
I was reading a quote from Christopher J. H. Wright speaking about the Mosaic Law. Wright was reacting to the premise that Mosaic Law was given to add a ‘central problems--- ensuring “sinful and rebellious people can live in the presence of a Holy God.” (Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert, “What is the Mission of …
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The Perfect Church Never Existed??
I am a Baptist missionary. Baptists have long held, to some extent, Christian Restorationist inclinations. This is also known as Christian Primitivism. This assumes that the "ideal church" or "perfect church" existed shortly after Pentecost, and slowly there was a degradation over time into the mess we are in now. A different variation on this …
My Mission
WordPress has something called Bloganuary in January. It was designed to encourage posting every day of the month to varying questions. This is not my thing. However, one of the questions was, "What is my mission." That is worth answering, even if it is too late to be linked to the Bloganuary event (I assume). …
Intheologization?
I was reading an article by Christina Zaker entitled "Parable as a Lens for Theological Reflection." It is a good article and notes that despite the importance many people place on Theological Reflection, many people (especially students in the context of the article) often are disappointed in the process. She suggests the use of parables …
Missional Presence Proclamation Quotes.
I was reading an article that had been put on Academia.edu. The title of the article is "New Paradigm for Christian Mission: Mission as Christian Presence" by Arun P. John as a project for a course at India Bible College and Seminary. As I was reading it, I saw a quote I rather liked: "The focus …