Look at Christian mission work through the centuries
This is not an area of great study on my part, so I am welcome to hearing from others on this one. When I was young, the answer was simple... It was Adoniram (and Ann) Judson. They traveled to India under the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (a Congregationalist missions entity) in 1812. …
Continue reading Who Was the First American Missionary to Foreign Lands?
I did a class at Faith Bible College (Norfolk, VA) a few years ago. Sadly, they no longer exist, so I strung the presentations together into one file. These were not meant to be shared without an instructor talking through it so I apologize if it is a bit incomplete in parts. Also because they …
This relates to the congress we joined a couple of weeks ago. More on that gathering by clicking on https://munsonmissions.org/2025/08/13/at-the-6th-triennial-congress-for-global-missions/
In my first post I noted the tendency of Baptists generally not to be interested in church history. Exceptions tend to be few and far between. I also note the belief of some people (generally Roman Catholics or Orthodox believers) that studying church history would, almost invariably, lead people to join one of the ancient …
Continue reading Appreciating Church History as a Baptist, Part Two
There are those who might say that being a Baptist and being a lover of Church history is a contradiction. Perhaps the most famous to say this, in essence, was John Henry Newman (1801-1890) when he stated “To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant.” Obviously this observation is autobiographical for Newman …
Continue reading Appreciating Church History as a Baptist (Part One)
The book, title above, edited by John D. Massey, Mike Morris, and W. Madison Grace II (Kregel Academic, 2021) is an important book of missions history for the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) and to a lesser extent the Baptist movement. Baptists, especially as it relates to the American form, developed a group identity out of …
I have been reading a book on Southern Baptist missions history ("Make Disciples of All Nations," edited by Massey, Morris, and Grace. Review will be posted in a few days). In it, they quote from and summarize the characteristics sought for a missionary candidate drawn from the 1944 Annual of the Southern Baptist Convention. I …
Continue reading Character of a Missionary Candidate (In 1944)
I always liked history. I like to think chronologically and to see causal relations. In Sixth Grade, our Social Studies teacher, Mrs. Mattocks, was teaching Greco-Roman history. She gave a test. At the end of the test, she gave an extra credit question. She said she would give 25 extra credit points (!) to any …
I serve as a professor of missions in the Philippines, and administrate a Christian counseling center. Some would say that this makes me a "missionary." Others might say that this makes me a "cross-cultural minister." I don't really care what term one wants to use--- I hardly care about the term that I myself use. …
Continue reading Is It Okay for a Missionary or Minister to Retire?
Paul and Barnabas Ministering in Cyprus Roland Allen wrote his influential book "Missionary Methods: St. Paul's or Ours," published in 1912. The book challenged colonial mission strategies. He suggests that we would gain greatly from following Paul's mission strategies. And generally I agree that there were many problems with the traditional way missions was being …
Continue reading Maybe St. Paul Was NOT a Good Mission Strategist?