In my last post I noted the problem of responding badly to criticism. A historical example occurred in the 1600s in Germany. Back in 1651, the faculty of the University of Wittenburg was responding to charges from Roman Catholics that the Lutheran Church was invalid. The person questioning the validity apparently was Erhard, Truchsess of …
Continue reading Responding Poorly to Criticism— Historical Missions Example
I do admit that I rarely criticize a group that I am not part of. As a missionary associated with the Southern Baptists, an Evangelical Protestant Christian Denomination, I feel pretty comfortable critiquing or complaining about missionaries, Southern Baptists, Baptists, Evangelicals, Protestants, and Christians. At least I am more comfortable with critiquing these groups than …
Many years ago, my wife and I were involved in medical mission events in the Philippines. At these events, we would also evangelize. I would track the responses. Commonly, around half of the people who come would "say the Sinner's Prayer," which in Evangelical circles is often equated with converting from unsaved to saved. Should …
Continue reading In Missions, Awesome Stats Can Be a Big Problem
Gehazi was a servant of the prophet Elisha. This role gave him a unique ability to serve as a mediator for the prophet. Also in that role he potentially has the ability to serve as a mediator for God in some sense. Three chapters later, Gehazi served as the storyteller for Elisha to the King …
Continue reading Reconciliation and Gehazi. Pastoral Care Reflections, Part 2
While this is listed as Part 1, it could be thought of as a continuation of a previous post. I use the story of Naaman the Leper from II Kings 5 to illustrate three of the four pastoral care functions as described by Clebsch and Jaekle. These three (which were orignially identified by Steward Hiltner) …
Continue reading Reconciliation and Gehazi. Pastoral Care Reflections. Part 1
I got a notification from Tom Steffen. He is a missiologist whose recent specialization is in Orality Missions—how to reach out to, evangelize, and disciple people who cannot read, choose not to read, or prefer to learn through methods other than reading. His recent book "Character Theology: Engaging God through His Cast of Characters," coauthored by …
Deuteronomy 23:12-14 “You shall have a place outside the camp, and you shall go out to it. And you shall have a trowel with your tools, and when you sit down outside, you shall dig a hole with it and turn back and cover up your excrement. Because the Lord your God walks in the …
Continue reading Doing Some Theological Composting of Excrement Law of Ancient Israelites
So I think I had already talked about this but I keep coming back to a certain thing I read on social media. Was it FB? Can't remember. Anyway, the writer was giving advice to some American Christians (Evangelical I must presume). He said something to the effect... "When evangelizing someone, you don't need to …
Continue reading More Reflections on Evangelical Political Thinking in the USA
Ryan Burge is a professor of practice at the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University (Click Here for his FB> He likes to share data regarding religion in America, with one specialization being looking at the term "Evangelical." A recent post he shared on FB regarding the term Evangelical was regarding different …
Continue reading “Evangelical”— What to Do When a Label Doesn’t Really Fit You Anymore?
I shared before my interview by Barry Phillips on "Not Finished Yet" that is on YouTube. Here is the same interview as podcast on Spotify. https://open.spotify.com/episode/2raQDLNrV55KPI4hJGDSsJ