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.

Its momentum building, the "Jesus Movement" is unfolding, with Episcopalians longing to embody our branch of the movement in the world. John Newton's contribution is this look at God's reckless love. His aim is not for the head, but for the heart, to connect people with their passion and love for Jesus Christ, reawakening what may be dormant, because ultimately, it is not clever ideas but passion that mobilizes people. The Jesus Movement is not about our move toward God, but about a God who is for us in Christ Jesus, constantly moving toward fragile and broken humanity, recklessly loving us in all seasons and circumstances. Newton draws heavily from the gospels, and speaks to the grace of God in Jesus Christ. Each chapter begins with a gospel passage used to challenge the way we think about God, love, morality, grace, mission, evangelism, and the church. Three discussion questions in each chapter and the book can be used as a 10-week study, with groups discussing two chapters at a time. Chapters are intentionally short, and each unpacks a specific episode in Jesus's life that illuminates the reckless love of God in Christ.

Scottish theologian, educator, astronomer and popularizer of science, Thomas Dick (1774-1857) promoted a Christianized form of science to inhibit secularization, to win converts to Christianity, and to persuade evangelicals that science was sacred. His devotional theology of nature made radical claims for cultural authority. This book presents the first detailed analysis of his life and works. After an extended biographical introduction, Dick's theology of nature is examined within the context of natural theology, and also his views on the plurality of worlds, the nebular hypothesis and geology. Other chapters deal with Dick's use of aesthetics to shape social behaviour for millennial purposes, and with the publishing history of his works, their availability and their reception. In the final part, the author explores Dick's influence in America. His pacifism won him Northern evangelical supporters, while his writings dominated the burgeoning field of popular science, powerfully shaping science's cultural meaning and its uses.

Just like a space shuttle struggles and strains to re-enter the earth's atmosphere, so those returning from living overseas can find themselves confused and in a state of panic at coming home. While people anticipate that going overseas will require major changes in their lifestyles and thinking, few anticipate the difficulties they will face upon return. Intended to aid the re-entry process, this encouraging, and insightful book deals with these important subjects: adapting to the passport culture identifying areas of potential struggle dealing with the emotional challenges finding a new job, a new place to live, learning the social mores returning is not coming home it is leaving home facilitating a smooth transition for those on the receiving end Expatriates, missionaries, mission executives, mission pastors, mission communities, and supporters interested in easing the re-entry experience will benefit greatly from this book.

In A.D. 597, St Augustine arrived at Canterbury from Rome to preach the gospel to the English; in the same year St Columba died on Iona. Their activities were part of a longer pattern of Christian mission in and around the British Isles and extending to the Continent, that stretched over four hundred years. This book charts the story of this mission and outlines the theology and belief that emerged in the Church in Britain. It therefore embraces both the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon dimensions of that Church, highlighting notable saints such as Martin, Patrick, Gregory the Great, Bede and Boniface. The story ends with the mission of English Christians to Germany and the Low Countries and the work of Alcuin. The Revd Douglas Dales is Chaplain of Marlborough College and author of numerous books on Anglo-Saxon church history and theology as well as other topics, including 'Dunstan: Saint and Statesman' and 'Living through Dying: the spiritual experience of St Paul', both published by the Lutterworth Press. 'Dales concentrates on the fascinating lives of missionaries from 400 to 800 to illustrate their thought and motivation. He examines the theology of the early missionaries through critical analysis of their own works, letters and early lives.' Barbara Mitchell, History Today 'A clear and agreeable account, informed by much recent scholarship, of the conversion of Britain and Ireland, and the English missions to the Continent. This is History informed by theology, but theology remains in the background. A useful addition to the range of introductory guides to be recommended as it succeeds in displaying the history of conversion in Britain and Ireland as a continuous story.' T.M. Charles Edwards, English Historical Review

In this follow-up to Confronting Christianity, Rebecca McLaughlin shares important biblical context to help all readers explore who Jesus really is and understand why the Gospels should be taken seriously as historical documents.

'Faithfulness and the Purpose of Hebrews' offers fresh answers to unresolved questions by employing that branch of social psychology known as social identity theory. Who were the addressees? With the categories of social identity theory, this study argues that the addressees arranged the world into two groups: 'us' and 'them'. They understood their group, the 'us', to be the 'faithful'. They understood 'them' (a symbolic outgroup of 'all others') to be the 'unfaithful'. Faithfulness, then, is the primary identity descriptor for the addressees and plays an essential role throughout the text. How did the addressees understand the faithfulness of Jesus? The author of Hebrews describes the faithfulness of Jesus as 'prototypical'. The faithfulness of all others is described in relation to Jesus' faith, and together they are integrated into an ongoing narrative of devotion. What is the meaning of the promised 'rest'? Utilizing a model of present temporal orientation, the study interprets the dynamic relationship between the 'antecedent' faithfulness of many witnesses and the 'forthcoming' promised rest of the addressees. The addressees of Hebrews were encouraged to 'understand their futures by looking to the past.' What is the purpose of the text? Social identity theorists explain that groups with a negative social identity have two broad options: social mobility or social change. The study concludes that the author of Hebrews provides internal constraints in order to prevent social mobility. Marohl uses social creativity (an aspect of social change) to provide a positive social identity for the addressees. 'Marohl's welcome study represents an accomplished application of social identity theory to the text of Hebrews. His methodological attentiveness is mature and responsible, resulting in an articulate analysis that recognises the faithfulness of Jesus to be the theological centre that informs the socio-religious programme advocated by the author of Hebrews.' - Bruce Longenecker, University of St. Andrews Matthew J. Marohl teaches New Testament at Augustana College, Illinois and is the author of 'Joseph's Dilemma: Honour Killing in the Birth Narrative of Matthew'.

In May of 1868, Elizabeth Bingham Young and her husband of only fivemonths, Egerton Ryerson Young, began a long journey from Hamilton,Ontario, to the Methodist mission of Rossville, at Norway House. Overthe next eight years, Elizabeth supported her husband's work atRossville and then at the newly founded mission of Berens River, on theeast shore of Lake Winnipeg. In these remote outposts, she gave birthto four children, one of whom died in infancy, acted as a nurse anddoctor, and applied both perseverance and determination to learningCree, while also coping with poverty and a chronic shortage ofsupplies, both in the mission and in the community it served. WhenElizabeth died, in 1935, she left behind various reminiscences, notablyan extended account of her experiences at Norway House and BerensRiver, evidently written in 1927. Her memoirs offer an exceedingly rareportrait of mission life as seen through the eyes of a woman. Elizabeth's first child and only surviving son, also namedEgerton Ryerson Young but known in his youth as "Eddie,"was born at Norway House in 1869. Cared for by a Cree woman almost frominfancy, Eddie spent his early childhood immersed in local Cree andOjibwe life, culture, and language, in many ways exemplifying theprocess of reverse acculturation often in evidence among the childrenof missionaries. He, too, left behind hitherto unpublishedreminiscences, one composed around 1935 and a second dictated shortlybefore his death. Like those of his mother, Eddie's memoriescapture the sensory and emotional texture of mission life, a life inwhich the Christian faith is implicit rather than prominently ondisplay, while also providing an intriguing counterpoint to hismother's recollections. Like all memoirs, these are refractedthrough the prism of time, and yet they remain startling in theirimmediacy. Together, the writings of mother and son-conjoinedhere with a selection of archival documents that supplement the mainnarratives, with the whole meticulously edited by Jennifer S. H.Brown-afford an all too uncommon opportunity to contemplatemission life from the ground up.

In the decades before colonial partition in Africa, the Church Missionary Society embarked on the first serious effort to evangelize in an independent Muslim state. Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther led an all-African field staff to convert the people of the Upper Niger and Confluence area, whose communities were threatened or already conquered by an expanding jihadist Nupe state. In this book, Femi J. Kolapo examines the significance of the mission as an African-rather than European-undertaking, assessing its impact on missionary practice, local engagement, and Christian conversion prospects. By offering a fuller history of this overlooked mission in the history of Christianity in Nigeria, this book reaffirms indigenous agency and rethinks the mission as an experiment ahead of its time.

Missio Alliance Essential Reading List One of Seedbed's 10 Notable Books The gospel of Jesus has not always been good news for Native Americans. The history of North America is marred by atrocities committed against Native peoples. Indigenous cultures were erased in the name of Christianity. As a result, to this day few Native Americans are followers of Jesus. However, despite the far-reaching effects of colonialism, some Natives have forged culturally authentic ways to follow the way of Jesus. In his final work, Richard Twiss provides a contextualized Indigenous expression of the Christian faith among the Native communities of North America. He surveys the painful, complicated history of Christian missions among Indigenous peoples and chronicles more hopeful visions of culturally contextual Native Christian faith. For Twiss, contextualization is not merely a formula or evangelistic strategy, but rather a relational process of theological and cultural reflection within a local community. Native leaders reframe the gospel narrative in light of post-colonization, reincorporating traditional practices and rituals while critiquing and correcting the assumptions of American Christian mythologies. Twiss gives voice to the stories of Native followers of Jesus, with perspectives on theology and spirituality plus concrete models for intercultural ministry. Future generations of Native followers of Jesus, and those working crossculturally with them, will be indebted to this work.

The changing dynamics of contemporary church life are well-known, but what's less well-known is how leaders can work most effectively in this new context. In Quietly Courageous, esteemed minister and congregational consultant Gil Rendle offers practical guidance to leaders-both lay and ordained-on leading churches today. Rendle encourages leaders to stop focusing on the past and instead focus relentlessly on their mission and purpose-what is ultimately motivating their work. He also urges a shift in perspectives on resources, discusses models of change, and offers suggestions for avoiding common pitfalls and working creatively today.

The Problem of God explores answers to the most difficult questions raised against Christianity. A skeptic who became a Christian and then a pastor, author Mark Clark grew up in an atheistic home. After his father's death, he began a skeptical search for truth through the fields of science, philosophy, and history, eventually finding answers in the last place he expected: Christianity. In a winsome, persuasive, and humble voice, The Problem of God responds to the top ten interrogations people bring against God, and Christianity, including: Does God even exist in the first place? What do we do with Christianity's violent history? Is Jesus just another myth? Can the Bible be trusted? Why should we believe in Hell anymore today? Each chapter answers the specific challenge using a mix of theology, philosophy, and science. Filled with compelling stories and anecdotes, The Problem of God presents an organized and easy-to-understand range of apologetics, focused on both convincing the skeptic and informing the Christian. The book concluding with Christianity's most audacious assertion: how should we respond to Jesus' claim that he is God and the only way to salvation.

Key Christian leaders from a variety of countries and cultures share Bible teaching and personal testimonies in the context of: 'God in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself'. An excellent contribution to the church worldwide which deserves to be read and referred to again and again. Guaranteed to enlarge your vision of what God can do and what you should be doing.

The Edinburgh 1910 World Missionary Conference was the most famous missions conference in modern church history. A century later, five conferences on five continents displayed the landscape of global mission at the dawn of the third millennium: Tokyo 2010, Edinburgh 2010, Cape Town 2010, 2010Boston, and CLADE V (San Jose, 2012). These five events provide a window into the state of world Christianity and contemporary missiology. Missiologist Allen Yeh, the only person to attend all five conferences, chronicles the recent history of world mission through the lenses of these landmark events. He assesses the legacy of Edinburgh 1910 and the development of world Christianity in the following century. Whereas Edinburgh 1910 symbolized Christendom's mission "from the West to the rest," the conferences of 2010-12 demonstrate the new realities of polycentric and polydirectional mission-from everyone to everywhere. Yeh's accounts of the conferences highlight the crucial missiological issues of our era: evangelism, frontier missions, ecumenism, unengaged and post-Christian populations, reconciliation, postmodernities, contextualization, postcolonialism, migration, and more. What emerges is a portrait of a contemporary global Christian mission that encompasses every continent, embodying good news for all nations.

In 1945, Elsie C. Bechtel left her Ohio home for the tiny French commune of Lavercantiere, where for nearly three years she cared for children displaced by the ravages of war. Bechtel's diary, photographs, and letters home to her family provide the central texts of this study. From 1945 to 1948, she recorded her encounters with French society and her immersion in the spare beauty of rural France. From her daily work came passionate musings on the emotional world of human interactions and evocative observations of the American, Spanish, and French co-workers and children with whom she lived. As a volunteer with the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), Bechtel was part of the war relief efforts of pacifist Quakers and Anabaptists. In France between 1939 and 1948, MCC programs distributed clothing, shared food, and sheltered refugee children. The work began in the far southwest of France but, by the time Bechtel completed her service in 1948, had moved to the Alsace region, where French Mennonites clustered. Bechtel's writings emerged from a religious context that included much travel, but little reflection on the significance of that travel. Yet, religiously motivated travel-an old tradition in southwest France-shaped Bechtel's life. The authors consider her experiences in terms of religious pilgrimage and reflect on their own pilgrimage to Lavercantiere in 2006 for a reunion with some of the people marked by the broader effort that Bechtel joined. To understand Bechtel's experiences and prose, the authors examined archival sources on MCC's work in France, gathered oral and written narratives of participants, and researched other war relief efforts in Spain and France in the 1930s and 1940s. Drawing on these various contexts, the authors establish the complexity, but also the significance, of pilgrimage and humanitarian service as intercultural exchanges.

This Confronting Jesus set pairs Rebecca McLaughlin's book with a companion study to help individuals and groups go deeper into the Gospels to learn more about the person and work of Christ.

Christabel Pankhurst, one of the leading champions of women's suffrage in Britain, entered the evangelical world after the first world war as a preacher of the second coming. Larsen shows that the two causes, far from being automatically antagonistic, could be complementary. Christabel Pankhurst was arguably the most influential member of her famous family in the struggle to win the vote for women in the years before the First World War. Paradoxically, she has also been the most neglected subsequentlyby historians. Part of the reason for this may be that, in the years after women's suffrage had been achieved in 1918, she turned her energies to Christian fundamentalism and carved out a new career as a writer of best-selling evangelical books and as a high-profile speaker on the fundamentalist preaching circuit, particularly in the United States. In this important work Tim Larsen provides the first full account of this part of Christabel Pankhurst's life. He thus offers both a highly original contribution to Christabel Pankhurst's biography and also a fascinating commentary on the relationship between fundamentalism and feminism. His book will be essential reading for anyone interested in the Pankhursts, in the history of the women's movement, or in fundamentalism in Britain and North America. TIMOTHY LARSEN is Associate Professor of Theology, Wheaton College, USA.

A new brand of apostolic ministry for today's world

"The Permanent Revolution" is a work of theological re-imagination and re-construction that draws from biblical studies, theology, organizational theory, leadership studies, and key social sciences. The book elaborates on the apostolic role rooted in the five-fold ministry from Ephesians 4 (apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teacher), and its significance for the missional movement. It explores how the apostolic ministry facilitates ongoing renewal in the life of the church and focuses on leadership in relation to missional innovation and entrepreneurship.The authors examine the nature of organization as reframed through the lens of apostolic ministry.Shows how to view the world through a biblical perspective and continue the "permanent revolution" that Jesus startedOutlines the essential characteristics of apostolic movement and how to restructure the church and ministry to be more consistent with themAlan Hirsch is a leading voice in the missional movement of the Christian West

This groundbreaking book integrates theology, sociology, and leadership to further define the apostolic movement.

Prepare for your guests this Easter with a wonderful evangelistic booklet by Nicky Gumbel. Like Gumbel's Why Jesus?, this booklet is a concise and easy-to-read study of the very real questions surrounding Jesus that people might be thinking about at Easter: Who is Jesus? Why do we need him? Why did he have to die? Why does he matter to my life today? With hearts particularly open in the Easter season, these booklets are an effective evangelistic tool to pass out to guests at your services, 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.

Reggie McNeal's bestseller The Present Future is the definitive work on the "missional movement," i.e., the widespread movement among Protestant churches to be less inwardly focused and more oriented toward the culture and community around them. In that book he asked the tough questions that churches needed to entertain to begin to think about who they are and what they are doing; in Missional Renaissance, he shows them the three significant shifts in their thinking and behavior that they need to make that will allow leaders to chart a course toward being missional: (1) from an internal to an external focus, ending the church as exclusive social club model; (2) from running programs and ministries to developing people as its core activity; and (3) from professional leadership to leadership that is shared by everyone in the community. With in-depth discussions of the "what" and the "how" of transitioning to being a missional church, readers will be equipped to move into what McNeal sees as the most viable future for Christianity. For all those thousands of churches who are asking about what to do next after reading The Present Future, Missional Renaissance will provide the answer.

The resurrection of Jesus is at the heart of the Christian faith, bringing God's power - which will some day heal and renew the world - into our lives now. That power is here only partially, but substantially; and this gives Christians a realistic, but irrepressible, hope. It is a hope for change in our lives and in our society; a hope that changes Christians in every way, shaping every aspect of our lives. But it is only together with the cross that we see the particular way resurrection hope shapes us. We are delivered by a Saviour who triumphed through weakness and loss; who came to riches through becoming poor; and to exalted life through the experience of death. And having coming to new life by admitting our own weakness and inability to save ourselves, we live the rest of our lives according to this pattern: the way up is to go down; the way to true power and influence is to serve; the way to be truly rich is to give all we have; the way to real happiness is to work for the happiness of others. Hope in Times of Fear unlocks the meaning of both the cross and Jesus' resurrection. Here the central message of the Christian faith is revealed - with unshakable belief, piercing insight and a profound message of hope for the world.