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Missions

This category contains 764 posts

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‘Let no one who is not eager for truth and peace enter here’ (Plato)

Articles on this site express varying points of view, to encourage mature thinking on serious issues. The assumption is that you will want to study a controversial topic from various angles before you arrive at a conclusion, rather than simply believe what someone told you when you were impressionable! (So some stuff here is ‘hot’. Proceed at your own risk!). See the Statement of Faith for John Mark Ministries' theological stance.

Missiology: Sodality and Modality: The Two Structures of God’s Redemptive Mission

Sheffield Mission Communities’ Conference Monday, 2 April, 2012 The ecclesial landscape is changing and new mission movements are growing out of, or in some cases, away from traditional church models  ¢â‚¬“ reports Christian Today. The challenge is: how old and new can grow long into the future in a way that allows them to complement, […]

Mission Trends…

From a friend… If you are interested in reading about the recent (last 100 years) historical and contemporary global context and trends in mission, I recommend this journal article: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1758-6631.2011.00066.x/full

Cleansing the Call (Cross-cultural missionaries’ survival)

by Mirjam Scarborough I write about a holy mystery: the call that God extends to some to serve him in ministry or missions. The Catholics call it vocation. For them it would include the call to the priesthood, or the call to the religious life of nuns and monks: that special call that sets the […]

Review: The Faith of Leap: Embracing a Theology of Risk, Adventure & Courage, Michael Frost & Alan Hirsch, Baker, 2011

 ¢â‚¬ËœYou tried your best, and you failed. The lesson is, never try ¢â‚¬â„¢ (Homer Simpson) The Devil in The Brothers Karamazov:  ¢â‚¬ËœEverything would be transformed into a religious service: it would be holy, but a little dull ¢â‚¬â„¢ Title of Philip Yancey best-seller: Church: Why Bother?  ¢â‚¬ËœMost men die at 27; we just bury them at 72 ¢â‚¬â„¢ […]

Why do Ex-College students Leave Christianity?

‘Steve Garber’s book The Fabric of Faithfulness asked: “Why do some Christians leave college, and five to ten years later they have also left Christianity? Why do other Christians complete college and continue to integrate their Christian faith with a new set of life circumstances?” His findings: Without exception, those who successfully integrated with life […]

Effective Evangelism: 18 Obstacles

From Darren Cronshaw: Mark Driscoll’s recent talk in Sydney. Mark Driscoll is an interesting bloke – seems hugely popular in US and increasingly so here. Although I cringe over his apparent chauvinism, I like his appeal for cultural relevance and church planting and entrepreneurism and new models for developing leaders and fresh approaches to church […]

WAS JESUS GOD?

In the 1960s I spent several years wandering around the campuses of Australia (as an InterVarsity Fellowship staffworker). Here’s an evangelistic broadsheet which was reproduced a six-figure number of times, and provided the raw material for a talk I gave in many universities and colleges and church youth-groups. It has an ‘undergraduate’ feel to it […]

COUNTRY CLUB TO MISSION BASE: THE STRATEGIC ROLE OF THE PASTOR

Whichever way we look at it, all the talk about church growth is not being matched by actual on the ground growth in many places. It’s a paradox really. Never have there been so many books, tapes, videos and conferences all focussing energetically on the most effective ways to grow the church. This is the […]

Christian Missionaries: setting the record straight

Dear Geraldine [the presenter] July 20, 2010 My name is Rowan Forster. I was an Australian Broadcasting Corporation employee for almost 30 years from 1978-2007. My roles included radio and television news reporter, current affairs presenter with Radio Australia, sports presenter, AFL football commentator, and for seven years, morning newsreader on 774 ABC Melbourne (formerly […]

Evangelism – Are There Still Lost People Out There?

Oops, don’t look now but our slip is showing. Something is just slightly out of whack, out of shape. There’s just one small problem: we are not correcting the situation. Perhaps it is too hard! According to the latest set of figures for Baptists in the Garden State, not everything is rosy: * Two thirds […]