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Books > Christianity > Christian institutions & organizations > Christian mission & evangelism
For most people, their 60s is a time to slow down and smell the roses. Not for Alvin and Jean Witten, however. Instead, they went to Mozambique to search for churches.
In relentless heat, by car and by motorbike, on foot, and bicycle, they delved into every corner of this vast country, negotiating swollen rivers and broken bridges, roads that could hardly be called roads, hair-raising overnight accommodations, meals that were hard to stomach, bureaucracy, corruption and incompetence, in order to hunt down and officially count the 1 300+ congregations known to exist there.
For five years they gave up their closeness to family, friends and creature comforts in pursuit of this mission, experiencing joy and pain, learning things about themselves along the way, and forging lifelong bonds.
In recent years the term "religious pluralism" has come to be used
not only in a descriptive sociological sense but also as
theologically prescriptive. Within this new paradigm traditional
Christian understandings of Christ, conversion, evangelism, and
mission have been radically reinterpreted. The Recovery of Mission
explores the pluralist paradigm through the work of three of its
most influential Asian exponents - Stanley Samartha Aloysius
Pieris, and Raimundo Panikkar - subjecting each to a theological
and philosophical critique. On the basis of biblical, patristic,
and contemporary theological writings Vinoth Ramachandra argues for
the uniqueness and decisiveness of what God has done for us in
Jesus Christ. Ramachandra seeks to show that many of the valid
concerns of pluralist theologians can best be met by
reappropriating the missionary thrust at the heart of the gospel.
The book ends with suggestions, challenging to pluralists and
conservatives alike, as to how the gospel needs to be communicated
in a multi-faith world.
In the 1970s Hennie Keyter was an angry young man, fresh out of military service for the apartheid government of South Africa, unsure of his path in life and deeply uneasy about his faith. When God revealed to him that He had a purpose for him and a calling on his life, at first Hennie was not ready to hear it. When he finally accepted and understood his mission, a flame was lit in his heart that nothing could have extinguished.
But nothing could have prepared him either for the extraordinary spiritual journey he was about to embark on which would take him wherever God wanted him to go: from Malawi, "the warm heart of Africa", to Mozambique at the height of its civil war, where he was sentenced to death and faced a firing squad, from a less than welcoming beginning in Zanzibar, to the United Nations base at Lokichokio on the border between
Kenya and Sudan (where on one trip he discovered that he had a price of US 10 000 on his head). Desiring only to do the will of God and to spread the Gospel, Hennie took up the challenge of taking the Gospel to many of the countries on the African continent and in the Middle East, building up leaders and planting churches in poverty stricken areas, lands devastated by years of conflict and deprivation, and war zones where soldiers seemed to have lost everything, even hope.
Through the bushfire of mass evangelism and his dedicated teams of volunteers, supported by the love and faith of his wife Rita and his children Anton and Mari, in His Call, My All: An African Drumbea, A Missionary's Heartbeat Hennie Keyter looks back at his life in the service of the Lord and forward to continuing His work for as long as God requires it of him.
The Method Has Changed, the Message Has Not. After twelve years of
ministering to students on public campuses, Brian Barcelona's world
turned upside down when public schools shut down in March 2020. He
wondered if his ministry was over until two teenagers challenged
him to minister using his smartphone and digital platforms--methods
he had no idea how to use effectively. With passion and humility,
Brian shares the incredible story of how God helped him go from
reaching thousands of students locally to preaching to over five
million globally each month. He gives practical tips and best
practices from his and others' experiences on how you, too, can
instantly reach more people than you ever thought possible, leading
others in salvation, healing, deliverance and even baptisms
digitally! Don't Scroll is the inspiring how-to manual for
powerfully sharing the Gospel using the digital tools already in
your hands, as well as the heart and language for what Jesus is
doing in this generation. "I have seen firsthand the fruit of what
this ministry does. I recommend anyone to read and live out what
this book entails."--NICK VUJICIC, New York Times bestselling
author "May this book open our eyes and break our hearts afresh for
Generation Z and give us bold faith to believe for the Gospel to
save millions."--BRIAN "HEAD" WELCH, New York Times bestselling
author
In a post-9/11 world, Christian. Muslim. Friend. lays out a path
toward authentic friendship between Christians and Muslims. Most
similar books either teach Christians to evangelize Muslims or else
downplay their Christian commitments. The author, who has lived and
worked among and befriended Muslims for more than fifty years,
offers readers a third way: holding onto the Christ-centered
commitments of their faith while cultivating peaceful friendship
with Muslims.
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