Christianity is the world's most global faith. Evangelical Christianity, meanwhile, is the world's fastest growing major religion in terms of conversion growth. And yet, at the dawn of the third millennium, the church's primary task ("go and make disciples of all nations") remains undone. Missions in the Third Millennium charts 21 trends both positive and negative with continuing significance for the Great Commission community in the 21st century. Revised and updated with two new chapters on urban missions and evangelizing Muslims, this up-to-date volume offers insights to help students, churches, missionaries, agencies, and Christians from outside the West grasp the big picture and take practical steps for more effective involvement. This edition contains extensive notes, expanded suggestions for further reading, and discussion questions.

In The Great Omission, respected missions thinker Robertson McQuilkin answers the question, "How is it--with so many unreached peoples, there are so few Christians going?" He investigates the reasons so few attempt to carry the message of Christ to the multitudes who have never heard of him. Not only is McQuilkin well-versed on trends and strategies in world missions, he also knows how to present the challenge of world evangelism in an unforgettable way.

'You don't honestly believe all that stuff in the Bible!' Challenged by her friends, and later as a student by theological teachers, Amy Orr-Ewing was determined to leave no stone unturned in her eagerness to prove that the Bible was unique and wholly reliable. Her passion drove her to complete an in-depth study of the answers to ten of the most frequently raised objections she encountered, including: * Isn't it all a matter of interpretation? * Can we know anything about history? * Are the original manuscripts reliable? * What about the canon? * What about other holy books? * Isn't the Bible sexist? * What about all the wars? * Isn't the Bible out of date on sex? * How can I know? Sensitively yet convincingly, the author addresses the issues and the arguments, showing that we have every reason to trust the Bible today.

"One problem with evangelistic sermons is that they look and sound like evangelistic sermons." So says Craig Loscalzo, respected preacher and teacher of preachers. He believes in the gospel and its unique power, but knows that today's pastors no longer proclaim the gospel in a more or less "Christian" culture. Our pluralistic setting means that the evangelistic sermons of yesterday--which assumed a common premise and deep respect for Christian authorities--can no longer work so smoothly. So here you will find invaluable guidance in shaping evangelistic sermons that are fresh and appealing to today's unbeliever. Evangelistic Preaching that Connects includes a rationale for evangelistic preaching, sample sermons and practical direction, making it ideal for working pastors and seminary students alike.

A 2001 Christianity Today Award of Merit winner "Arguably, the church's greatest challenge in the next century will be the problem of the scandal of particularity. More than ever before, Christians will need to explain why they follow Jesus and not the Buddha or Confucius or Krishna or Muhammed. But if, while relating their faith to the faiths, Christians treat non-Christian religions as netherworlds of unmixed darkness, the church's message will be a scandal not of particularity but of arrogant obscurantism. "Recent evangelical introductions to the problem of other religions have built commendably on foundations laid by J. N. D. Anderson and Stephen Neill. Anderson and Neill opened up the "heathen" worlds to the evangelical West, showing that many non-Christians also seek salvation and have personal relationships with their gods. In the last decade Clark Pinnock and John Sanders have argued for an inclusivist understanding of salvation, and Harold Netland has shed new light on the question of truth in the religions. Yet no evangelicals have focused--as nonevangelicals Keith Ward, Diana Eck and Paul Knitter have done--on the revelatory value of truth in non-Christian religions. Anderson and Neill showed that there are limited convergences between Christian and non-Christian traditions, and Pinnock has argued that there might be truths Christians can learn from religious others. But as far as I know, no evangelicals have yet examined the religions in any sort of substantive way for what Christians can learn without sacrificing, as Knitter and John Hick do, the finality of Christ. "This book is the beginning of an evangelical theology of the religions that addresses not the question of salvation but the problem of truth and revelation, and takes seriously the normative claims of other traditions. It explores the biblical propositions that Jesus is the light that enlightens every person (Jn 1:9) and that God has not left Himself without a witness among non-Christian traditions (Acts 14:17). It argues that if Saint Augustine learned from Neo-Platonism to better understand the gospel, if Thomas Aquinas learned from Aristotle to better understand the Scriptures, and if John Calvin learned from Renaissance humanism, perhaps evangelicals may be able to learn from the Buddha--and other great religious thinkers and traditions--things that can help them more clearly understand God's revelation in Christ. It is an introductory word in a conversation that I hope will go much further among evangelicals." (Gerald McDermott, in the introduction toCan Evangelicals Learn from World Religions?

"Mission agencies have different strategies, and even within a mission or church there can be tension and division over strategy and details of how things should be done. Must we be so dogmatic on matters that the Bible is not clear about? Can't we accept that God works in different ways among different groups of people? The work of God is bigger than any fellowship or organization." Respected missionary and Christian leader George Verwer sums up his life experience with mission workas a sender, a doer and a trainerand talks straight about what is really needed in missions in the 21st century. To get the job done, mission workers and organizations need a grace-awakened approach. No longer should mission agencies compete with each other or dwell on minor theological differences. In Out of the Comfort Zone Verwer identifies the key elements for working together to win lost souls for Christ.

For over five hundred years, since the great age of exploration, Western Christians have visited, traded with, conquered and colonized large parts of the non-Western world. In virtually every case this contact has been accompanied by an attempt to spread Christianity.

This volume explores the manner in which Western missionary Christianity has been shaped and transformed through contact with the peoples of Peru, Mexico, Africa, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, China, and Japan. Indigenous Responses to Western Christianity demonstrates how local populations, who initially encountered Christianity as a mixture of religion, culture, politics, ethics and technology, selected those elements they felt suited their needs. The conversion of the local population, the volume shows, was usually accompanied by a significant indigenization of Christianity. Through the detailed examination and comparison of events in a range of countries and cultures, this book points provides a deeper understanding of mission history and the dynamics of Christianity's expansion. The encounter with Western Christianity is vital to the history of contact between Western and non-Western civilizations. Western Christians have visited, traded with, conquered and colonized large parts of the non-Western world for over five hundred years, and their migration has almost always been accompanied by an attempt to create new Christians in new lands. Just as indigenous people have been converted however, so too has Christianity become variously indigenized. Local populations initially encounter a Christian package of religion, culture, politics, ethics and technology. This volume illustrates the ways in which peoples have selected elements of this package to suit their specific needs, and so explores the myriad transformations missionary Christianity has undergone through contact with the peoples of Peru, Mexico, Africa, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, China and Japan. Contributing are Erik Cohen (University of Jerusalem), Yochanan Bar Yafe Szeminski ?, John F. Howes ?, D. Dennis Hudson ?, Daniel H. Bays (University of Kansas), and Eric Van Young (University of California, San Diego). The chapters are linked by their attempt to overcome conventional regional and disciplinary barriers in order to achieve a deeper understanding of mission history and the dynamics of the expansion of Christianity. A remarkable work, this volume will pave the way for entirely new approaches to a particularly complex and demanding subject.

God is up to something And his plans are far greater than you might imagine. Christianity is not merely about isolated individuals going to heaven. It's about God transforming the entire world and making things right. Sicknesses will be healed, sins will be forgiven, injustice will be eradicated, and all creation will be redeemed. But this is not merely a distant future. It's happening now through what Jesus came to establish--the kingdom of God. Allen Wakabayashi reawakens you to the world-changing reality of the kingdom of God. With clear, biblical insight, he unpacks what Jesus proclaimed about the good news of the kingdom and spells out the implications for you today. Focusing on the kingdom of God will revolutionize how you live out your faith, how you think about your world and how you explain the good news about Jesus. Ultimately, understanding yourself as a citizen of the kingdom will empower you to be one of God's change agents in the world. God is at work to restore everything to be the way he intended it to be, and you can be a part of what he is doing Get a glimpse of the kingdom coming, and experience his will being done--on earth as it is in heaven.

In 1993, Andrew Brunson was asked to travel to Turkey, the largest unevangelized country in the world, to serve as a missionary. Though hesitant because of the daunting and dangerous task that lay ahead, Andrew and his wife, Norine, believed this was God's plan for them. What followed was a string of threats and attacks, but also successes in starting new churches in a place where many people had never met a Christian. As their work with refugees from Syria, including Kurds, gained attention and suspicion, Andrew and Norine acknowledged the threat but accepted the risk, determining to stay unless God told them to leave. In 2016, they were arrested. Though the State eventually released Norine, who remained in Turkey, Andrew was imprisoned. Accused of being a spy and being among the plotters of the attempted coup, he became a political pawn whose story soon became known around the world. God's Hostage is the incredible true story of his imprisonment, his brokenness, and his eventual freedom. Anyone with a heart for missions, especially to the Muslim world, will love this tension-laden and faith-laced book.

Christian dialogic writings flourished in the Catholic missions in late Ming China. This study focuses on the mission work of the Italian Jesuit Giulio Aleni (Ai Rulue , 1582-1649) in Fujian and the unique text Kouduo richao (Diary of Oral Admonitions, 1630-1640) that records the religious and intellectual conversations among the Jesuits and local converts. By examining the mechanisms of dialogue in Kouduo richao and other Christian works distinguished by a certain dialogue form, the author of the present work aims to reveal the formation of a hybrid Christian-Confucian identity in late Ming Chinese religious experience. By offering the new approach of dialogic hybridization, the book not only treats dialogue as an important yet underestimated genre in late Ming Christian literature, but it also uncovers a self-other identity complex in the dialogic exchanges of the Jesuits and Chinese scholars. Giulio Aleni, Kouduo richao, and Christian-Confucian Dialogism in Late Ming Fujian is a multi-faceted investigation of the religious, philosophical, ethical, scientific, and artistic topics discussed among the Jesuits and late Ming scholars. This comprehensive research echoes what the distinguished Sinologist Erik Zurcher (1928-2008) said about the richness and diversity of Chinese Christian texts produced in the 17th and 18th centuries. Following Zurcher's careful study and annotated full translation of Kouduo richao (Monumenta Serica Monograph Series, LVI/1-2), the present work features a set of new findings beyond the endeavours of Zurcher and other scholars. With the key concept of Christian-Confucian dialogism, it tells the intriguing story of Aleni's mission work and the thriving Christian communities in late Ming Fujian.

What does it mean to evangelize ethically in a multicultural climate? Following his successful Evangelism after Christendom, Bryan Stone addresses reasons evangelism often fails and explains how it can become distorted as a Christian practice. Stone urges us to consider a new approach, arguing for evangelism as a work of imagination and a witness to beauty rather than a crass effort to compete for converts in pluralistic contexts. He shows that the way we lead our lives as Christians is the most meaningful tool of evangelism in today's rapidly changing world.

Ride the subway or a bus in New York, London, Los Angeles, or any number of other cities around the country or around the world, and you will be impressed by a cacophony of languages, a crazy quilt of skin colors and a ceaseless array of cultural histories. Excitingly and sometimes confusingly, this is the world the church now serves. Pastor Stephen Rhodes, in whose congregation thirty-two nationalities gather weekly, fervently believes Christians should embrace the varied cultures that now surround us. In Where the Nations Meet he sets forth a biblical, ministry-tested pastoral theology of multiethnic ministry. He shows how God's creation was always intended to be multicultural, how the church is called to evangelize, serve and include all ethnicities, how the church can bring healing to increasing conflict in a world of so much difference, and much more. Peppered his prose with inspiring and challenging stories from multicultural congregations, Rhodes not only provides a theological basis for multicultural ministry but also suggests how such ministry can be successfully conducted in all churches. He offers a valuable guide for all pastors and laypersons who want their church to be a place of unbounded celebration where the nations meet.