For the fifteenth anniversary of its publication, this revised edition features a new introduction from the author on the state of the church and its "radical welcome" today, along with new reflections on how it continues to reshape the church. This book is at once a theological, inspirational, and practical guide for congregations that want to move beyond diversity and inclusion to present a vision for the church of the future: one where the gifts, voices, and power of marginalized groups bring new life to the mainline church. Based on two years of work and over 200 interviews with people in congregations all around the United States-in urban, suburban, and rural settings-it asks the question: How do we face our fears and welcome transformation in order to become God's radically welcoming people? Each chapter introduces a particular congregation and the challenges it faced, and lays out the theological underpinnings of tackling fears head-on to embrace change as a welcome part of community life. This new edition features essays from Michael B. Curry, Mark Bozzuti-Jones, Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows, and Mark Richardson.

An important work for the nineteenth century history of East Africa. It contains a new introduction with a biographical sketch of Krapf.

As incredible as it may seem, the American missionaries who journeyed to China in 1860 planning solely to spread the Gospel ultimately reinvented their entire enterprise. By 1900, they were modernizing China with schools, colleges, hospitals, museums, and even YMCA chapters. In Cultures Colliding, John R. Haddad nimbly recounts this transformative institution-building-how and why it happened-and its consequences. When missionaries first traveled to rural towns atop mules, they confronted populations with entrenched systems of belief that embraced Confucius and rejected Christ. Conflict ensued as these Chinese viewed missionaries as unwanted disruptors. So how did this failing movement eventually change minds and win hearts? Many missionaries chose to innovate. They built hospitals and established educational institutions offering science and math. A second wave of missionaries opened YMCA chapters, coached sports, and taught college. Crucially, missionaries also started listening to Chinese citizens, who exerted surprising influence over the preaching, teaching, and caregiving, eventually running some organizations themselves. They embraced new American ideals while remaining thoroughly Chinese. In Cultures Colliding, Haddad recounts the unexpected origins and rapid rise of American institutions in China by telling the stories of the Americans who established these institutions and the Chinese who changed them from within. Today, the impact of this untold history continues to resonate in China.

Ever wonder why people fall asleep in church? It happens. We?ve all seen it. We shuffle into rows of seats that grow more comfortable with every new fundraising campaign. We slouch down and settle in for an hour or so, as singers and storytellers and preachers and teachers take their turns filling our ears. And almost without fail, at least one of us nods off while listening to the greatest story ever told. The church was not meant to be like this. The church was meant to be on its feet, in the world, making all things new. The church was meant to be sent. Kim Hammond and Darren Cronshaw want to help us--all of us--rediscover our sentness. Dive into Sentness, and explore the six postures of a church that's keeping pace with God's work in the world. Rediscover the gospel that first quickened your pulse and got you up on your feet, ready to go wherever Jesus called you. Get Sentness, and prepare to get sent.

Missionaries and their medicine is a lucid and enthralling study of the encounter between Christian missionaries and an Indian tribal community, the Bhils, in the period 1880 to 1964. The study is informed by a deep knowledge of the people amongst whom the missionaries worked, the author having lived for extensive periods in the tribal tracts of western India. He argues that the Bhils were never the passive objects of missionary attention and that they created for themselves their own form of 'Christian modernity.' The book provides a major intervention in the history of colonial medicine, as Hardiman argues that missionary medicine had a specific quality of its own - which he describes and analyses in detail - and that in most cases it was preferred to the medicine of colonial states. He also examines the period of transition to Indian independence, which was a highly fraught and uncertain process for the missionaries. -- .

From the New York Times bestselling author of Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved, a fascinating look at the world of Christian women celebrities Since the 1970s, an important new figure has appeared on the center stage of American evangelicalism-the celebrity preacher's wife. Although most evangelical traditions bar women from ordained ministry, many women have carved out unofficial positions of power in their husbands' spiritual empires or their own ministries. The biggest stars-such as Beth Moore, Joyce Meyer, and Victoria Osteen-write bestselling books, grab high ratings on Christian television, and even preach. In this engaging book, Kate Bowler offers a sympathetic and revealing portrait of megachurch women celebrities, showing how they must balance the demands of celebrity culture and conservative, male-dominated faiths.

In Tropical Idolatry, R.L. Green examines how thinkers within the Society of Jesus attempted to convert indigenous peoples of New Spain, the Philippine Islands, and the Mariana Islands to Catholicism during the early modern period. Through the close readings of Jesuit authored theological treatises and historical texts, all placed firmly within a rich, vibrant, and nuanced Catholic intellectual tradition, the evolution of ideas on the topic of indigenous religion within an imperial context becomes apparent. The purpose of this book is to demonstrate the importance that both religious and political beliefs played in the establishment of the Church in the Spanish Pacific world. The intent is to reconsider some commonly held assumptions regarding the Jesuit missionary enterprise and its role in the origins of global Catholicism.

This book presupposes that pastors and seminarians deeply desire to answer the question of all questions: how do I make disciples of Jesus Christ? The Great CoMission: Making Sense of Making Disciples is a helpful guide for pastors in the field, yet "meaty" enough for seminarians in the classroom. In The Great CoMission, readers will encounter useful principles for discipleship and solid biblical theology for ministry. This unique book approaches the Great Commission from a rite-of-passage framework, therefore allowing for serious consideration of the internal mechanisms of Matthew 28:16-20 by focusing on the relationship between initiation, instruction, and Jesus' promise to be with the church to the end of the age. Morton writes from a Wesleyan, cross-cultural, and missiological perspective, avoiding the popular method of using the Great Commission merely as a holy launching pad for retelling the story of a mega church.

This book represents the first critical edition and scholarly annotated translation of a pioneering report on the predicament of cross-cultural understanding at the dawn of globalization, titled "A Brief Response on the Controversies over Shangdi, Tianshen and Linghun" ("Resposta breve sobre as Controversias do Xamty, Tien Xin, Lim hoen"), which was written in China by the Sicilian Jesuit missionary Niccolo Longobardo (1565-1654) in the 1620s and profoundly influenced Enlightenment understandings of Asian philosophy. The book restores the focus on Longobardo's own intellectual concerns, while also reproducing and analyzing all the Chinese-language annotations on the previously unpublished Portuguese and Latin manuscripts. Moreover, it meticulously modernizes all romanizations with standard Hanyu pinyin and identifies, on the basis of archival research, most of Longobardo's Chinese interlocutors, thus providing new insights into how the Jesuits networked with Chinese scholars in the late Ming. In this way, it opens up this seminal text to Sinologists and global historians exploring Europe's first intellectual exchanges with China. In addition, the book presents four introductory essays, written by the editors and two prominent scholars on the Jesuit China mission. These essays comprehensively reconstruct the historical and intellectual context of Longobardo's report, stressing that it cannot be viewed purely as a product of Sino-European cultural exchange, but also as an outgrowth of both exegetic debates within Europe and of European experiences across Asia, especially in Japan. Hence this critical edition will greatly contribute to a more globalized view of the Jesuit China mission.

Praise for "Church Unique"

"There is a screaming need today for leaders who will rise above quick fixes and generic approaches. Now, Will Mancini has brought an indispensable book to the church leader's toolbox, providing a thoughtful and creative process that will galvanize your team to unleash God's vision for your church."
--Howard Hendricks, chairman, Center for Christian Leadership;distinguished professor, Dallas Theological Seminary

"Will Mancini's vision for vision is contagious. "Church Unique" doesn't hold back--challenging existing paradigms, yes, but also providing new maps for churches to engage in God's mission."
--Ed Stetzer, director, LifeWay Research; coauthor, "Comeback Churches" and "Compelled by Love"

"If leaders are to steer the church through the challenges of the twenty-first century successfully, they will need help to negotiate the complexities of the spirituality, culture, history, and institutional structures that make up organizations. Will Mancini is a savvy navigator and "Church Unique" is an impressive blueprint for organizational renewal."
--Alan Hirsch, author, "The Forgotten Ways" and "The Shaping of Things to Come"; founding director, Forge Mission Training Network

"Will Mancini has done us all a great favor in releasing the practical ways he helps church leaders envision their own unique future.?His insights provide you the coaching you need to prepare for your next ministry chapter."
--Reggie McNeal, author, "The Present Future"

"If you don't know the unique purpose of your church, read this book now!"
--Jim Tomberlin, founder, Third Quarter Consulting; former regional pastor, Willow Creek Community Church

"Will Mancini's love for the local church and skill for facilitating vision makes this a must-read. He is a Sherpa, not a travel agent. He has the experience; he knows the trail."
--Lance Witt, founder, Replenish Ministries; former executive pastor, Saddleback Community Church

The first comprehensive study of the role of gender in British Protestant missionary expansion into China and India during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This is the first comprehensive study of the role of gender in British Protestant missionary expansion into China and India during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Focusing on the experiences of wives and daughters, female missionaries, educators and medical staff associated with the London Missionary Society, the China Inland Mission and the various Scottish Presbyterian Mission Societies, it compares and contrasts gender relations within different British Protestant missions in cross-cultural settings. Drawing on extensive published and archival materials, this study examines how gender, race, class, nationality and theology shaped the polity of Protestant missions and Christian interaction with native peoples. Rather than providing a romantic portrayal of fulfilled professional freedom, this work argues that women's labor in Christian missions, as in the secular British Empire and domestic society, remained under-valued both in terms of remuneration and administrative advancement, until well into the twentieth century. Rich in details and full of insights, this work not only presents the first comparative treatment of gender relations in British Christian missionary movements, but also contributes to an understanding of the importance of gender more broadly in the high imperial age. RHONDA A. SEMPLE is Assistant Professor ofHistory at the University of Northern British Columbia, Canada.

This book presupposes that pastors and seminarians deeply desire to answer the question of all questions: how do I make disciples of Jesus Christ? The Great CoMission: Making Sense of Making Disciples is a helpful guide for pastors in the field, yet "meaty" enough for seminarians in the classroom. In The Great CoMission, readers will encounter useful principles for discipleship and solid biblical theology for ministry. This unique book approaches the Great Commission from a rite-of-passage framework, therefore allowing for serious consideration of the internal mechanisms of Matthew 28:16-20 by focusing on the relationship between initiation, instruction, and Jesus' promise to be with the church to the end of the age. Morton writes from a Wesleyan, cross-cultural, and missiological perspective, avoiding the popular method of using the Great Commission merely as a holy launching pad for retelling the story of a mega church.

'Christian Warfare in Rhodesia-Zimbabwe' takes a hard look at the history of the Salvation Army in Rhodesia-Zimbabwe and its long history with both the government and the rest of the church. Norman H. Murdoch examines in-depth the parallels between the events of the First Chimurenga, an uprising against European occupation in 1896-97, and the Second Chimurenga in the 1970s, the civil war that led to majority rule. At the time of the first, the Salvation Army was barely established in the country; by the second, it was fully entrenched in the ruling class. Murdoch explores the collaboration of this Christian mission with the institutions of white rule and the painful process of disentanglement necessary by the late twentieth century. Stories of martyrdom and colonial mythology are set in the carefully researched context of ecumenical relations and the Salvation Army's largely unknown and seldom accessible internal politics.

In recent decades scholars have rediscovered a handwritten source of historical documentation from the eighteenth-century transatlantic religious movement known as "The Great Awakening." The McCulloch Examinations manuscripts contain more than a hundred first-person conversion narratives from the Cambuslang Revival of 1742 that have never before been published in their entirety. Collected and compiled by Reverend William McCulloch in what was Scotland's first oral history project, these personal accounts open a unique window into the early modern Scottish soul and shed new light upon an important chapter of British and American history. In this first complete, unabridged and fully annotated edition of the Examinations, the editor offers an introduction and analysis of these fascinating narratives, and provides supplementary resources that will illuminate the text for the reader. In addition to preserving the narrative accounts in their original frame, the edition includes the proposed redactions and marginal comments of four prominent Church of Scotland clergy who assisted McCulloch with the project. Keith Edward Beebe is Professor of Church History in the Department of Theology at Whitworth University, Spokane, Washington, and an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church, USA.

A True-Life Thriller That Will Leave You Breathless! In the anniversary edition of this electrifying real-life story, readers are gripped from the first page by the harrowing account of a young man who risked his life to smuggle Bibles through the borders of closed nations. Now, sixty years after Brother Andrew first prayed for God's miracle protection, this expanded edition of a classic work encourages new readers to meet this remarkable man and his mission for the first time. Working undercover for God, a mission that continues to this day, has made Brother Andrew one of the all-time heroes of the faith. His narrow escapes from danger to share the love of Jesus will encourage and embolden believers in their own walks of faith.

The church can be uncertain of itself in our digital age. Some Christians denounce the twenty-first century's media culture while others embrace the latest gadgets and apps as soon as they appear. Many of us are stumbling along amidst the tweets, status updates, podcasts, and blog posts, wondering if we have ventured into a realm beyond the scope of biblical wisdom. Though there is such a thing as 'new media', Andrew Byers reminds us that the actual concept of media is ancient, theological, and even biblical. In fact, there is such a thing as the media of God. 'TheoMedia' are means by which God communicates and reveals himself - creation, divine speech, inspired writings, the visual symbol of the cross, and more. Christians are actually called to media saturation. But the media that are to most prominently saturate our lives are the media of God. If God creates and uses media, then Scripture provides a theological logic by which we can create and use media in the digital age. This book is not an unqualified endorsement of the latest media products or a tirade against media technology.Instead, Byers calls us to rethink our understanding of media in terms of the media of God in the biblical story of redemption.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. Here's an astonishing claim. John 3:16 appears on everything from fridge magnets to sports stars' faces. But what does it actually mean? And how does it relate to you and me? With warmth, personal stories and humour, the author explains God's love, his Son, his sacrifice, and the all-important connection with us today. This is an invitation for anyone to dive straight in and take the first step in an exciting, life-transforming journey of faith.

Now revised and updated to incorporate numerous new materials, this is the major source for researching American Christian activity in China, especially that of missions and missionaries. It provides a thorough introduction and guide to primary and secondary sources on Christian enterprises and individuals in China that are preserved in hundreds of libraries, archives, historical societies, headquarters of religious orders, and other repositories in the United States. It includes data from the beginnings of Christianity in China in the early eighth century through 1952, when American missionary activity in China virtually ceased. For this new edition, the institutional base has shifted from the Princeton Theological Seminary (Protestant) to the Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural Relations at the University of San Francisco (Jesuit), reflecting the ecumenical nature of this monumental undertaking.

For many, missions is the story of heroes, martyrs, and the advance of the gospel. For others, it's the story of colonialism and missionary disasters. So how do we respond to God's call to love our neighbors as a new era emerges? Subversive mission is submission-to God and local leaders. Subversive mission offers a new way forward for outsiders called to crosscultural ministry by serving as humble alongsiders. Join Craig Greenfield on this inspiring journey in Asia and beyond as he rediscovers the fivefold missional gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher, and demonstrates how each of these must look radically different in a crosscultural context. Along the way, you'll discover your own missional type through the Missional Type Inventory and come face to face with the five most common pitfalls that Westerners face in crosscultural settings. By the end of this story, you'll be inspired by a radically different way of working for change in the world. Come alongside. And join God in what he is already doing.

A story of Florence's mission to the Kanakas in Australia and the Solomon Islands.