Secondary Religious Literacy Assessment : Disciples, Martyrs And Witnesses

Flemming shows how the mission of God was lived out by the apostles and the call placed on the community of the early church to live out that mission. Once again, the themes of being and doing come to the surface followed closely by the mandate to proclaim the gospel. The examination of Revelation is particularly interesting in a book about mission. Flemming aptly points out, “John’s vision of heaven and the end set the agenda for the church.” Consequently, living out the mission God is eschatological in its participation in the inbreaking of the coming New

In Let the Nations be Glad, the emphasis in the first chapter is that missions is not the most important aspect of the church, but worship is. Worship is the glorification of God by man and creation, and anything that gives God glory is attributing to worship. The fall however, ruined the intended perfect worship that man mas designed to give to God, in eating of the forbidden fruit Adam and eve distanced themselves and all of their offspring from God until the end of the age. Missions exists only because worship does not, because of the fall, missions must take place in order to share the love of Christ with those who are distanced from him by sin, and show them that a reparation of this separation is possible in Christ alone. Missions can work as an aid to worship, in that it brings glory to God by introducing the nations to him, and

What many western missionaries began to figure out was “they were powerless without indigenous partners who could express the gospel in their own framework.” With that being said, the western missionaries who decided to spread the gospel and to do God’s work, based on God’s agenda did, in fact, serve a very good purpose in spreading the gospel. Throughout the history of time, there have been missionaries who have been very successful in spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ. There is a “pressing need for his (Jesus) followers to become agents of the Good

My personal view of mission revolves around Servant Leadership or what can be better called “Incarnational leadership”. This is rooted in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, as “He took a towel” (John 13:2-5) and washed Peter’s feet. He was efficient with people, had goals in sight, but was also relational over being task-driven. This kind of leadership produces new churches filled with real purpose and motivation as people are called, appreciated, loved, encouraged, discipled, involved by mentoring and discipleship before they are deployed in ministry (Prov. 27:23; Mark 10:35-45; Luke 22:26; John 13:2-17; 1 Cor. 3- 4; Eph. 4:1-16; Col. 3:13; 1 Thess. 5:13-14; 1 Peter 3:8;

Jesus was the perfect missionary. Jesus went to different places and taught the word of God. Jesus drew people unto him. Jesus told his disciples, that if they follow him, he would make them fishermen of men. Jesus taught anywhere. Jesus delivered the word so profoundly.

The book being discussed is Roland Allen’s Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours? Allen was an Anglican minister who worked as a missionary in China between the years of 1895 and 1903 and eventually moved his work to Easy Africa. His experience on the foreign mission field developed a keen sense of the Holy Spirit’s place in the ministry of the missionary and his book reflects a desire to awaken others to the same understanding of the Spirit.

In the first chapter of “Christianity Rediscovered” by Vincent J. Donovan he is introducing us to the idea that missionaries now have a poor reputation due to their history. He says “History has offered the opportunity to deflect and distort the meaning of missionary work in every age”. For a long time a missionary was a person spreading the word of God and after years of doing so we have diminished many different beliefs, practices, cultures and history. At the time it was thought to be the right thing, to spread out and share the gospel to help people find meaning and acceptance. In today’s age a missionary is a lot of different things, in many cases it is more focused on the health and physical wellbeing of the people. Many people still share the gospel through missionary work, but in other cases it is more of a material aid. Donovan introduces the book as a voyage of discovery he wants us to put our normal beliefs aside to see his perspective of living a missionaries life and struggling with the fact of if you are helping or hurting.

It has been said that worship is the core or center of mission. The ultimate goal of any missionary is to bring people (entire people groups) into a passionate, relationship with God. John Piper states,

These people have faith in the message God has given them, and they demonstrate their faith through telling others. Mission as love in action is demonstrated first by Jesus’ death and the forgiveness of sin he embodies. It is also demonstrated by the relationship between Jesus and believers. For Jesus, part of love was being united to better proclaim the kingdom of God. The mission of Jesus is the mission of the church.

Many missionaries of that time would spread the word by reaching Jews. They often went to Jewish synagogues. Later in the era, it was more popular to hear/spread the gospel in private homes, rather than in synagogues. Antioch was the first place where believers were first called “Christians,” and this was important because it separated Christianity from

Missions is seen as an “add-on” ministry of the church. In fact, it is the essence of the church.

“Mission is rooted in the nature of God” (Van Rheenan p. 14). My personal theology of mission starts here. Mission is an attribute of God and this story is told throughout the Bible. First, He created the heavens and the earth. Next, the pinnacle of God’s creation was man, made in His image and likeness. Just as Psalm 19:1 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” and according to Van Rheenen God, “is the spring that gives forth living water—the source of mission” (p. 14). God continued that mission in the New Testament when God became flesh and the mission of our Lord started to proceed to humans through Jesus (Heb. 1:1-2). In the book, Let Nations Be Glad, John Piper wrote “Missions exists

When the church started, the disciple were hit with a huge identity crisis. There was the need to preach Jesus to clearly show a sharp demarcation or distinction from Judiasm. At a point they were even going to the temple to “pray” Act 3:1-2. Sometimes too, they used the temple to preach and get converts.

My personal mission theology is disciplining and proclaiming the pure word of God in the correct context to those that claim to be abiding in Jesus Christ. This includes pointing out and warning them against false doctrine and belief systems. Contrasting what the modern institutions preach about what it means to be a child of God against what scripture actually says it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ.

Missionary expansion throughout the centuries has taken a hard, often violent road. The expansion of Christianity begins with the adherents of Jesus Christ and ended with the premature demise of many of the disciples. In the centuries following the disciples, many missionaries were faced with percussion and death as the gospel was proclaimed. As missionary expansion occurs throughout the centuries, often times facing trial and difficulty, the question comes up; is the capital cost of missionary expansion worth the monetary value? This paper will highlight many trials that have been faced by three missionaries in particular and explain often by the words of these missionaries why the enormous cost of missionary expansion is worth the cost. The thesis of this paper is: everyone is called to preach the gospel; the calling of the missionary is called to live by faith even when facing difficulty.