At the bottom of this article is a link on Online Debating. It points out that it is better to seek clarification (understanding) than persuasion. I like to think about 4 major types of conversation: The article points out that debate (or I listed as "apologetics/argument") has problems. Positively, it is likely to be better …
Category: Missions Research
A Burst of Light and a Gentle Fading Away
I have been teaching Missions History this term in Seminary. Since I live and teach in Asia, I like to focus on missions history in Asia. Frankly, there is a lot more missions history in the East than the West anyway. In the first millennium, the churches of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Edessa spread the faith …
Materials for EV-362 Students
Here are some resources for my EV-362 (Principles of Church Growth and Church Planting) students. I normally, put presentation materials in my Slideshare Account or on Scribd.com. However, some of this material was written by others so I did not want to put them there giving the idea that they were created by me. Syllabus …
Dissertations and the Quest for Boredom
I don't really know why dissertations are so soo sooo boring. It seems to me that most dissertations (I have read enough to have an opinion... but not enough to be an expert) fit into one of two categories: A. Take an interesting topic and make it boring. B. Take a boring topic and make …
The Joy of Being Understood
I have been teaching a two-week course on Missionary Member Care. That is a broad topic and can focus on logistics, or life cycle, or fund-raising, or whatever. However, in part since I am an administrator of a Counseling Center, I have focused on the psycho-emotio-spiritual aspects or struggles in missions. One assignment I gave …
Christian Medical Missions Book
Book (or is it booklet? It's not very long) based on my dissertation. Feel free to look it over. Plan to expand it in the next few months and remove some more of the stilted dissertation-ese language.
Newest Article on Medical Missions
Changing Priorities in Christian Missions: Case Study of Medical Missions. This is the third article based on research related to my dissertation. <div style="margin-bottom:5px"> <strong> <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/bmunson3/changing-priorities-in-christian-missions" title="Changing Priorities in Christian Missions" target="_blank">Changing Priorities in Christian Missions</a> </strong> from <strong><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/bmunson3" target="_blank">Bob Munson</a></strong> </div>
Missions Research and Practice, the Great Divide…
WARNING!! A technical story to follow... feel free to skip the blue section if you wish. Many years ago, I was a mechanical engineering student. My expertise was in material science, particularly as it pertained to material response to stress. I did my master's thesis in the creep rupture response of pultruded glass-reinforced polymer-matrix composites …
Continue reading Missions Research and Practice, the Great Divide…
Presentation for Wholistic Ministry
I see that the transfer of my diagram to .odt to .pdf to slideshare got a bit "smudgey." I will try to fix this in the future. However, for now, I think the paper still have value. It is based on a summarization of the literary review portion of my dissertation. <div style="width:477px" id="__ss_11361853"> <strong …
Ethnographic Research #2
A method that is common and respected in the Philippines is Rapid Rural Assessment (or appraisal). It is used primarily for community development. It does not actually have to be "rural," that is just its traditional setting. Additionally, it can be modified to where the researcher is not merely an outside. Rather the "researcher" is …