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Books > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Christian institutions & organizations > Christian mission & evangelism
Christianity started in Jerusalem. For many centuries it was
concentrated in the West, in Europe and North America. But in the
past century the church expanded rapidly across Africa, Latin
America, and Asia. Thus Christianity's geographic center of density
is now in the West African country of Mali-in Timbuktu. What led to
the church's vibrant growth throughout the Global South? Brian
Stiller identifies five key factors that have shaped the church,
from a renewed openness to the move of the Holy Spirit to the
empowerment of indigenous leadership. While in some areas
Christianity is embattled and threatened, in many places it is
flourishing as never before. Discover the surprising story of the
global advance of the gospel. And be encouraged that Jesus' witness
continues to the ends of the earth.
Conversion has played a central role in the history of
Christianity. In this first in-depth and wide-ranging narrative
history, David Kling examines the dynamic of turning to the
Christian faith by individuals, families, and people groups. Global
in reach, the narrative progresses from early Christian beginnings
in the Roman world to Christianity's expansion into Europe, the
Americas, China, India, and Africa. Conversion is often associated
with a particular strand of modern Christianity (evangelical) and a
particular type of experience (sudden, overwhelming). However, when
examined over two millennia, it emerges as a phenomenon far more
complex than any one-dimensional profile would suggest. No single,
unitary paradigm defines conversion and no easily explicable
process accounts for why people convert to Christianity. Rather, a
multiplicity of factors-historical, personal, social, geographical,
theological, psychological, and cultural-shape the converting
process. A History of Christian Conversion not only narrates the
conversions of select individuals and peoples, it also engages
current theories and models to explain conversion, and examines
recurring themes in the conversion process: divine presence, gender
and the body, agency and motivation, testimony and memory, group-
and self-identity, "authentic" and "nominal" conversion, and modes
of communication. Accessible to scholars, students, and those with
a general interest in conversion, Kling's book is the most
satisfying and comprehensive account of conversion in Christian
history to date; this major work will become a standard must-read
in conversion studies.
Why Jesus? is a concise and easy-to-read study of the very real
questions surrounding Jesus that your guests might be thinking
about when first attending your church or Alpha: Who is Jesus? Why
do we need Him? Why did He have to die? Why is He relevant to my
life today? These booklets are an effective evangelistic tool to
pass out to guests at your services or at Alpha, sharing the Gospel
in a warm and relevant way. Alpha is based on a pattern found in
the New Testament of people bringing their friends, family, and
work colleagues to meet Jesus. Alpha is an easy way to say to
friends, "Come and see, come and explore your questions, come and
hear about Jesus, come and see for yourself." Everyone is welcome
at Alpha, but the program is designed especially for people who
would not describe themselves as Christians or church-goers. This
resource is written in Spanish.
The nineteenth century witnessed a flurry of evangelical and
missionary activity in Europe and North America. This was an era of
renewed piety and intense zeal spanning denominations and
countries. One area of Protestant flourishing in this period has
received scant attention in Anglophone sources, however: the French
Reveil. Born of a rich Huguenot heritage but aimed at recovering
the religion of the heart, this awakening gave birth to a dynamic
missionary movement-and some of its chief agents were women. In
Birthing Revival, Michele Sigg sheds light on the seminal role
French Protestant women played in launching and sustaining this
movement of revival and mission. Out of the concerted efforts of
these women arose a holistic mission strategy encompassing the home
front and the foreign field. Parisian women, led by Emilie Mallet,
established schools to provide infants with food, safety, and
religious education. Mallet and her friend Albertine de Broglie led
the women's auxiliary of the Paris Bible Society to design and
carry out a strategy for large-scale Bible distribution and
fundraising. In 1825 de Broglie pioneered the women's committee of
the Paris Evangelical Mission Society, which used the Bible Society
model to promote international missions across their many networks.
In meetings, publications, and reports to the annual General
Assembly, the women reflected on their calling in the work of
mission and fully embraced their identity as "true missionaries."
The success of women teachers and their presence as wives and
mothers in the Lesotho Mission-exemplified by pioneering missionary
wife Elizabeth Lyndall Rolland-proved that married couples serving
together as models of Christian living were essential in opening
the doors to missionary work in Africa. The story, and these
women's legacies, does not end in the field, however. Sigg
demonstrates how the educational work of the missionary wives and
their publications that shared good news of growing faith in
Lesotho sparked local revivals in France. When the enthusiasm of
the Reveil waned in the metropole and divisions mounted among
Protestants, a movement of deaconesses emerged to renew the faith
of French Protestants.
![Buried Seeds (Hardcover): Alexia Salvatierra, Brandon Wrencher](//media.loot.co.za/images/x80/6797145060344179215.jpg) |
Buried Seeds
(Hardcover)
Alexia Salvatierra, Brandon Wrencher
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R1,590
Discovery Miles 15 900
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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