One of the biggest challenges in global mission work is money?not merely the need for it, but working through cross-cultural differences surrounding how funds are used and accounted for. Cross-cultural missteps regarding financial issues can derail partnerships between supporting churches and agencies and national leaders on the ground. North Americans don't understand how cultural expectations of patronage shape how financial support is perceived and understood, and Western money often comes with subtle strings attached. So local mission work is hampered by perceived paternalism, and donors are frustrated with lack of results or accountability. How do we build financial partnerships for effective mission without fostering neo-colonialism? Cross-cultural specialist Mary Lederleitner brings missiological and financial expertise to explain how global mission efforts can be funded with integrity, mutuality and transparency. Bringing together social science research, biblical principles and on-the-ground examples, she presents best practices for handling funding and finance. Cross-cultural partnerships can foster dignity, build capacity and work toward long-term sustainability. Lederleitner also addresses particular problems like misallocation of funds, embezzlement and fraud. This book is an essential guide for all who partner in global mission, whether pastors of supporting churches or missionaries and funding agencies.

While the world was reading one story, God was writing another. In 1977, amidst the bitterly cold days of the frigid Cold War, a young couple responded to God's dramatic call on their lives to go and live covertly behind The Iron Curtain. Filled with faith and buffeted by fear, they left the familiarity of family and the security of NATO to locate behind enemy lines inside Communist Poland in order to establish a Kingdom beachhead of evangelism and discipleship. From award-winning author Debby Thompson, Pulling Back the Iron Curtain is a collection of personal and intimate stories revealing a firsthand account of that unique assignment. Now, with authenticity and vulnerability, this pioneer missionary makes known to the world the tender and dramatic workings of God even behind the Iron Curtain.

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.

Spurgeon was one of the most effective evangelists of all time. Under his ministry Victorian London saw revival on a scale never seen since. Yet Spurgeon would be the first to point your finger away from himself to the true author of repentance and reformation - he realised that without God at work, he could do nothing.Many people sought Spurgeon's advice on evangelism and preaching and so he addressed a wide variety of different groups of people on the subject. Here is a collection of his lectures and talks to take people away from human inspired gimmickry and slavish mimicry to think through for themselves how to enable God to work in their lives and ministry.Spurgeon was the minister of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London during the Victorian era. The author of numerous books, his sermons were reprinted and sold in tens of millions. Thousands gathered to hear him preach, but he was not just an eloquent man, he was a man driven to taking the gospel to the people with the utmost urgency.

Behind the scenes at a creationist theme park with a mission to convert visitors through entertainment Opened to the public in July 2016, Ark Encounter is a creationist theme park in Kentucky. The park features an all-timber re-creation of Noah's ark, built full scale to creationist specifications drawn from the text of Genesis, as well as exhibits that imagine the Bible's account of life before the flood. More than merely religious spectacle, Ark Encounter offers important insights about the relationship between religion and entertainment, religious publicity and creativity, and fundamentalist Christian claims to the public sphere. James S. Bielo examines these themes, drawing on his unprecedented behind-the-scenes access to the Ark Encounter creative team during the initial design of the park. This unique anthropological perspective shows creationists outside church contexts, and reveals their extraordinary effort to materialize a controversial worldview for the general public. Taking readers from inside the park's planning rooms to other fundamentalist projects and diverse Christian tourist attractions, Bielo illuminates how creationist cultural producers seek to reach both their constituents and the larger culture. The "making of" this creationist theme park, Bielo argues, allows us to understand how fundamentalist culture is produced, and how entertainment and creative labor are used to legitimize creationism. Through intriguing and surprising observations, Ark Encounter challenges readers to engage with the power of entertainment and to seriously grapple with creationist ambitions for authority. For believers and non-believers alike, this book is an invaluable glimpse into the complicated web of religious entertainment and cultural production.

Two respected pastors make a compelling case for the need to recover the five fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith.

We live in an age of weak theology and casual Christianity. And this situation will continue as long as God's people insist on substituting intuition for truth, feeling for belief, and immediate gratification for enduring hope.

Yet if evangelicalism will again denounce this self-centered faith and place Christ and his cross at the center of its vision, the church will see great days once more. According to authors James Montgomery Boice and Philip Graham Ryken, this will happen when believers specifically return to the gospel foundation with its doctrines of radical depravity, unconditional election, particular redemption, efficacious grace, and persevering grace.

As these two noted pastors provide a compelling exposition of these essential truths, they also consider the current challenges, leaving no doubt that the church suffers when the doctrines of grace are neglected. Only in a faith that is practical-minded, kindhearted, and Bible-based will Christians recover what they have lost in this postmodern age. Now in paperback.

From Cannibals to Christ-Followers--A True Story In 1962, Don and Carol Richardson risked their lives to share the gospel with the Sawi people of New Guinea. Peace Child tells their unforgettable story of living among these headhunters and cannibals, who valued treachery through fattening victims with friendship before the slaughter. God gave Don and Carol the key to the Sawi hearts via a redemptive analogy from their own mythology. The "peace child" became the secret to unlocking a value system that had existed through generations. This analogy became a stepping-stone by which the gospel came into the Sawi culture and started both a spiritual and a social revolution from within. With an epilogue updating how the gospel has impacted the Sawi people, this missionary classic will inspire a new generation of readers who need to hear this remarkable story and the lessons it teaches us about communicating Christ in a meaningful way to those around us.

All mission is local?the people of God joining the work of God in a particular place. In Starting Missional Churches Mark Lau Branson and Nicholas Warnes introduce us to seven missional churches while examining common challenges regarding their genesis. Using stories, interviews with pastors and a look at common preconceived notions of church planting in the West, this guide brings together resources of the missional church conversation with the creativity and energy of those who are experimenting with diverse planting activities and practices across the country. Curated by a pastor and a professor, this work highlights diverse modern examples of congregations focused on reaching their communities with a missional mindset. Learn from these stories how to build a vibrant, engaging church--one that generates redemptive witness in our neighborhoods and in our world.

The conversion of Spanish Roma to Pentecostal Evangelical Protestantism is one of the most unknown yet important religious movements of the past century. Its current transnational extension and its spectacular boom are due, among others factors, to the fact that it is directed, organized and composed of gypsies. This volume provides an important historical, theological, and ethnographic account of the Pentecostal Revival movement that has been sweeping through the Southern European Roma/Gypsy communities of France and Spain especially. Written by Manuela Canton-Delgado, an anthropologist from the University of Seville, together with three others collaborators, it is a fascinating and careful account of the social impact of this movement in contemporary Europe. As such, it represents one of the first serious analyses of a religious, ethnic and political movement largely unknown in North American, to be made available in English.

One minute after you die you will either be enjoying a personal welcome from Christ or catching your first glimpse of gloom as you have never known it. Either way, your future will be irrevocably fixed and eternally unchangeable. Those who find themselves in heaven will be surrounded with many friends they have known on earth. Every description of heaven they have ever heard will pale in light of reality. But others will find themselves shrouded in darkness in a region of deprivation and unending regret. For them, death will be far worse than they ever imagined. So while relatives and friends plan your funeral, you will be more alive than you have ever been. You will either see God on His throne surrounded by angels and redeemed humanity, or you will feel an indescribable weight of guilt and abandonment. There is no destination midway between these extremes. Unaware of Danger I once read a tragic account about people enjoying themselves on the top stories of a tall apartment building not knowing that there was a fire burning on the lower floors. In a similar way, many people are enjoying life now, comfortably ignoring the fact that their death is not only inevitable, but much nearer than they think. Indeed, this world and all we have accumulated will eventually be burned up (2 Peter 3:10). Don't imagine for a moment that you will get to heaven without the right credentials. You will not be there because your wife has a right to enter. You will not be there because you have a child who is already there. No, this is an individual matter, and only those with the right credentials will be allowed entry. Our problem, of course, is that God will not accept us on our terms. We cannot arrive at heaven's gates hoping for leniency. "It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment" (Hebrews 9:27). We cannot come pleading for special favors once we have slipped from this life into eternity. Our Only Hope Our only hope is for God to give us credit for righteous perfection we could never attain on our own. Once such righteousness is credited to our account we can enter heaven immediately at death without so much as an intermediate stop. As the Bible says, "away from the body and at home with the Lord" (2 Corinthians 5:8). Here's how that's possible: When Christ died on the cross, He offered himself as a sacrifice for sinners, which God accepted. "For our sake he [God] made him [Christ] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21). Though Christ was perfect, God made Him legally guilty of all of our sins. In turn, those who believe that Christ did this for them receive credit for his righteousness before God. Christ was considered to be a sinner when he took our sins on himself. In turn God considers us to be saints when we receive Christ's righteousness. God has exceedingly high standards, but thanks to him, he meets them for us through this amazing exchange. It's the only way we could ever enter God's heaven! A New Nature When we receive Christ's righteousness, God also changes our whole perspective. Christ said, "Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3). So, how can we receive the gift of righteousness and be "born again"? The answer is to admit our helplessness and sinfulness to God, and to acknowledge that we are dependent on his mercy. We must have a complete change of mind about whatever we were believing would make us acceptable to God. Instead we must transfer all of our trust to Christ as our sin-bearer. We must believe in Him as the One who did all that we will ever need to stand in God's holy presence. To "believe in Christ" means that as best we know, we trust Him alone for all that we need to please God in this life and to live with him forever in heaven. Here is a prayer that you may want to use if you desire to transfer your trust to Christ alone for your eternal salvation. And if you pray in faith, God will receive you. Dear God, I know I'm a sinner and there is nothing that I can do to save myself. I confess my complete helplessness to forgive my own sin or to work my way to heaven. At this moment I trust Christ alone as the One who took on all my sins when he died on the cross. I believe that he did everything necessary for me to live someday in your holy presence. I thank you that Christ was raised from the dead. As best as I know how, I transfer my trust to him. I am grateful that you have promised to receive me despite my many sins and failures. Father, I take you at your word. I thank You that I can face death now that Christ is my Savior. Thank you for the assurance that you will walk with me through death's door. Thank you for hearing my prayer. In Jesus' name, amen." Where will you be...one minute after you die?

Respectful, thoroughly documented answers to twenty-eight of the weightiest theological objections progressively reveal how belief in Jesus is deeply rooted in Jewish concepts and teaching.

The president of the Brownsville Revival School of Ministry in Florida presents an honest, fair, and thorough discussion of the issues raised by Jewish Christian apologetics, covering 35 objections on general and historical themes.

"Conflict, Conquest, and Conversion" surveys two thousand years of the Christian missionary enterprise in the Middle East within the context of the region's political evolution. Its broad, rich narrative follows Christian missions as they interacted with imperial powers and as the momentum of religious change shifted from Christianity to Islam and back, adding new dimensions to the history of the region and the nature of the relationship between the Middle East and the West.

Historians and political scientists increasingly recognize the importance of integrating religion into political analysis, and this volume, using long-neglected sources, uniquely advances this effort. It surveys Christian missions from the earliest days of Christianity to the present, paying particular attention to the role of Christian missions, both Protestant and Catholic, in shaping the political and economic imperialism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Eleanor H. Tejirian and Reeva Spector Simon delineate the ongoing tensions between conversion and the focus on witness and "good works" within the missionary movement, which contributed to the development and spread of nongovernmental organizations. Through its conscientious, systematic study, this volume offers an unparalleled encounter with the social, political, and economic consequences of such trends.

"Reforming the World" offers a sophisticated account of how and why, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, American missionaries and moral reformers undertook work abroad at an unprecedented rate and scale. Looking at various organizations such as the Young Men's Christian Association and the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions, Ian Tyrrell describes the influence that the export of American values had back home, and explores the methods and networks used by reformers to fashion a global and nonterritorial empire. He follows the transnational American response to internal pressures, the European colonies, and dynamic changes in global society.

Examining the cultural context of American expansionism from the 1870s to the 1920s, Tyrrell provides a new interpretation of Christian and evangelical missionary work, and he addresses America's use of "soft power." He describes evangelical reform's influence on American colonial and diplomatic policy, emphasizes the limits of that impact, and documents the often idiosyncratic personal histories, aspirations, and cultural heritage of moral reformers such as Margaret and Mary Leitch, Louis Klopsch, Clara Barton, and Ida Wells. The book illustrates that moral reform influenced the United States as much as it did the colonial and quasi-colonial peoples Americans came in contact with, and shaped the architecture of American dealings with the larger world of empires through to the era of Woodrow Wilson.

Investigating the wide-reaching and diverse influence of evangelical reform movements, "Reforming the World" establishes how transnational organizing played a vital role in America's political and economic expansion.

There are around 8,000 people incarcerated in Scotland. For 40 years, Prison Fellowship Scotland has been working with prisoners and their families, providing practical help and care, and sharing the good news about Jesus. 40 Years Behind Bars tells the stories of the work of Prison Fellowship Scotland, from the perspective of the people closest to the work - prisoners, volunteers and prison workers, amongst others. These uplifting first-hand accounts give voices to many who are unheard, and an insight into the real difference God makes in the lives of those trapped in cycles of addiction and abuse. From weekly groups where anyone and everyone is welcomed, to the Sycamore Tree course, encouraging victim awareness and restorative justice Prison Fellowship Scotland, and other Prison Fellowships around the world, show the love of God in a tangible way to prisoners and their families. Learn more about the impact this incredible organisation has had in 40 Years Behind Bars.

Finalist, Fourth Annual Outreach Resource of the Year (2006) Sometimes talking about Jesus with your friends can feel like trying to close a deal on a sales call, pushing something on people they may not really want. But what if you thought of it more like inviting them on a spiritual journey? Imagine being free to be yourself and free for the Spirit to work in you. Imagine that it doesn't depend on you alone but that you can be an important part of a witnessing community. Imagine telling people stories instead of trying to download content. Here is your invitation to reimagine what evangelism could be for you.