Western Christians In Global Missions Chapter Summary

Dana Roberts, in her book, Christian Mission; How Christianity Became A World Religion, makes a multitude of statements and provides very useful insight into how mission, specifically Christian mission, has historically been engaged through politically charged issues. Throughout this paper, I will use several of her examples to explain how Christianity has wiggled its way into the form of mission throughout the world. Examples will be show as to how some mission is indeed, following the statement that Jeremy Besset made in his class, COS Mission 423 in the spring of 2016 that the goal of God’s mission is the restoration of creation to the shape in which God originally made it. The paper will also address areas where mission is not necessarily

Galindo analyzes that the fundamental “mission” of a congregation is the same as any other congregation that exists in any part of the world. He argues that though every congregation has a mission and a vision, at the same time, it shares a basic common mission. (43) This reminds me of my home church The First Church of Evanston and my Field Site, The Evanston Vineyard Church. Both churches have a common mission of welcoming people to the church, irrespective of their ethnic, cultural, racial, and economic and, gender backgrounds. The mission is to help people be received in the house of God with due and deserved Christian love so that they feel loved and welcomed. Both these churches encourage church attendees to attend the service and receive the Eucharist.

This book calls the church to rethink and modify its practices, by providing a middle path between the emerging church and the conservative that aims to benefit all. There are major shift happening in the Western Church that has people talking. The problem is that churches fail to follow a mission-centered approach. Chester and Timmis have found that in order to refocus the churches

“I have carefully and thoroughly read the entire book as assigned.” Throughout David Platt’s book, “Radical : Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream”, he encourages the reader to take a look at their life and see whether or not Christ is all they need to impact their life for Jesus in a radical way. He asks the reader to carefully examine their life, and see if there are areas that perhaps the Lord would desire for change to take place. Platt challenges the Church to step up and see the urgency in missions realizing that this is the way God designed the lost and dying world to hear the Good News of the Risen and Glorified Savior Jesus Christ.

The overall purpose of the Roland Allen’s book is to convey the dramatic differences between the methods of modern day missionary organizations

With the lenses of a good historian, Noll has given us the role American Christianity has played in the changes that occur in global Christianity today. Terms like “American experience”, “American Christianity”, “American Mission”, “American power”, etc., undoubtedly express the American role in the expansion of Christianity. As they attempted to spread the gospel, Americans, by large, decontextualized neither their theology nor their understanding of missions. Hence, Noll rightly described in his book“…How American Experience Reflects Global Faith.” Both American orthodoxy and orthopraxis were taught and reinforced as a golden standard in various parts of the world.

In The Next Christians, Gabe Lyons presents how the next generation of Christians turns the tide by bringing the truth of the Gospel to bear on our changing, secular society. While many Christians are worrying about the growing disregard for Christians and deviation from our faith, Gabe holds an optimistic attitude and believes now we are restorers, and Christianity’s best day are yet to come

In the book, “Breaking the Missional Code,” Ed Stetzer and David Putman lay a foundation for church leaders and pastors to break the missional code that has caused so many churches today to decline or worse, shut their doors. It is not easy to grow a church because there are many factors that have to be dealt with when dealing with people. This book does a great job to connect the dots in showing how churches can achieve their mission to connect the message of the gospel with the community at large. It is also evident that others are equally frustrated, following the exact same model for outreach but with lesser results. The authors go to great detail to show that just because a missional breakthrough occurs in one place that does not mean

Van Gelder describes, “the kingdom of God, and the redemptive reign of God in Christ, gives birth to the missional church through the work of the Spirit.” Therefore, one needs to have the understanding of the term missional church. W.Rodman Macllvaine a writer of What is the Missional Church Movement, defines the missional church as a unified body of believers, intent on being God’s missionary presence to the indigenous community that surrounds them, recognizing that God is already at

Think about the poverty and problems that all countries around the world are facing today and every day. As Americans we have an urge to go into these countries to help as much as possible because of that we have begun a revolution. Americans began going on mission trips around the 1960s but did not really pick up until the 1990s. The trend grew after multiple natural disasters, Americans saw and need and went, since then short term mission trips show no sign stopping anytime soon. As the popularity of leaving our comfort zones, many people have found issues with the way the trips are led to the extent of questioning whether or not these trips are really worth the amount of money and time that they consume. Through periodicals, interviews, narratives, and articles, I will show the issues and improvements that could be made to the living situations, attitude of the Americans, and relationships that are acquired during the short term mission trips.

God has a plan to reconcile His relationship with man after sin entered the world. This plan revolves around making His name known throughout all tribes and nations. From the Old Testament to the New Testament, the Bible presents God’s missionary purpose for humanity. For this reason, Christians involved in missions will travel to dangerous places to proclaim God’s name and saving power.

Reflecting on the past few weeks of reading, I would say that the most significant historical movement that has impacted global missions would have to be the Protestant mission movement, specifically during the 19th century. Because of the explosive advancement of the gospel into every geographic area, this century has been dubbed, “The Great Century.” This advancement into unreached areas was only the beginning, but it was an excellent start. Before this, the Protestant movement, “did nearly nothing to bring the gospel to the nations.” It was Rufus Anderson who used the mandate of making disciples of all nations and the example of the Apostle Paul who focused on the gospel and not social change to inform his ideology that the local

David Wesley’s main idea is a set of best practices, or what he terms “healthy patterns,” in congregational mission partnerships. Wesley observes that in the emerging “third way” of missions that began at the end of the 20th century and is coming into its own in the early 21st century is focusing on congregational partnerships. As such, Wesley seeks to lay out “common patterns for healthy global partnerships observed in these congregational partnerships.” Consequently, Wesley presents five healthy patterns around which common mission can flourish.

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.

We believe that the normal way to think about global missions is that missions = discipleship. A lot of people believe that global missions is only about evangelism, but to be effective evangelists, we are to be devoted disciples first. A fully devoted disciple will naturally be an evangelist from the overflow of their hearts and souls as they are grounded in the Word and attuned to the Sprit of God. If you are a disciple, then missions is your DNA and you will live daily on mission with Jesus. It is who you are and how you choose to live: living radically, passionately, sacrificially for a God who wants all to be saved.