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 …
Continue reading Are Social Ministries “Simply Bridges” for Evangelism?
I have heard the question posed to the effect of, "What should we be doing if Christ returns today?" Or sometimes it is worded regarding tomorrow. There seem to be different things that come up. Usually suggestions come along like: We should be REALLY HOLY for the next few hours. We should be rather frantic …
Continue reading But What If Jesus Is Coming Two Millennia From Now?
Being raised in a conservative evangelical baptist tradition, the issue of idols has been pretty simple for me. Images or statuary that one shows a worshipful attitude before is an idol. And idols are absolutely forbidden in the Bible. The logic for people in my faith tradition for being "iconoclasts" (destroyer of icons... or items that …
I have written some on different forms of Christian counseling. My wife is a Board Certified Clinical Chaplain and Board Certified Pastoral Counselor, as well as a Diplomate in Pastoral Supervision. Obviously, she is more of an expert on this topic than I am, but I am the one who likes to write. Anyway, I …
You can look at PART 1, if you haven't read that yet. I would like to give three formative stories on my thoughts on this one. Story #1. This is the least story-ish. I was reading T4T: A Discipleship Re-Revolution. It is a so-called CPM strategy. CPM stands for "Church Planting Movement" and refers to …
I have been watching a series of Webinars on the Orality Movement. It is a partnership between Lausanne Movement and International Orality Network (ION). The focus has been on the recent work of Tom Steffen and Bill Bjoraker, particularly in terms of Oral Hermeneutics and Character Theology. It is available on Youtube at "Lausanne Orality"---- …
One of the big trends in recent years in Christian missions has been to think about contextualization for cultures that place a higher value shame than on guilt. As work in contextualization for honor/shame cultures, three things happened. First, there was a growth in the realization that the Bible not only focuses considerably on honor …
Continue reading Six Robust Foundations for Contextualized Christian Theology?
St. Anselm (1033-1109 AD) had a well-known motto--- "fides quaerens intellectum." This is Latin and translates as "Faith Seeking Understanding." This can be seen as a good explanation of Theology. I believe that Theology must draw from a place of Faith. One can study Christian Theology without having Christian faith. However, that should be thought …
I am not a video game person. I am pretty much limited to "Match 3" games. I was addicted to Bards Tale back in the 1980s. However, I have been talking to my daughter who is very interested in video games. She is interested in playing them, but also has a considerable interest in their …
Continue reading Internationalization and Localization of Theology. Part 1
I took my latest book on Mission Theology (Go to the Welcome for this website to access the "Beta" Version of the book) and I turned one of the chapters into an article to share on Academia.edu. If you are interested in reading this topic of Anti-missions theology in Protestant Church History, but don't want …