As a parent of a missionary you may feel that missing your child and your grandchildren signals a lack of faith. Please realize your conflicting emotions have real causes that can and should be talked about. It is possible to stay connected with your missionary and your grandchildren in meaningful ways and you can sustain and build those relationships despite the miles that separate. Not only can you survive as a POM--you can thrive. Whether you're the parent of a missionary recruit or a parent of an experienced missionary, you'll benefit from the authors' research and personal experience as they present a comprehensive plan for understanding missionary life, navigating the holidays, grandparenting long-distance and saying good-bye well. Parents of Missionaries equips you with the understanding, attitudes and skills you need to forge a vibrant new identity as a POM. Combining a counselor's professional insight and a parent's personal journey, plus ideas and stories from dozens of missionaries and POMs, Parents of Missionaries is a valuable tool for missions mobilizers and educators as well as parents. The authors contend that proclaiming the gospel and making disciples was not meant to eclipse the loving family bonds God ordained.The POM experience amounts to a journey through change, pain and adjustment. Wherever you are on that journey, Parents of Missionaries will encourage you and help you thrive and stay connected with your children and grandchildren serving cross-culturally.

This book critically examines David Tracy's well-known methodology of fundamental theology, namely his revisionist model as developed in his Blessed Rage for Order (1975), together with his methodological shifts through the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s. It explores how successful he has been in constructing a methodology for the public theological discourse that he deems so necessary. More particularly, this book asks how serviceable this methodology is for articulating Christian discourse in an intelligible and public way in the contemporary context of religious plurality.

Missions are an important topic in the history of modern Britain and of even wider importance in the modern history of Africa and many parts of Asia. Yet, despite the perennial subject matter, and the publication of a large number of studies of particular aspects of missions, there is no recent, balanced overview of the history of the missionary moment during the last three hundred years.

The British Missionary Enterprise since 1700 moves away from the partisan approach that characterizes so many writers in field and instead views missionaries primarily as institution builders rather than imperialists or heroes of social reform. This balanced survey examines both Britain as the home base of missions and the impact of the missions themselves, while also evaluating the independent initiatives by African and Asia Christians. Also addressed are the previously ignored issues of missionary rhetoric, the predominantly female nature of missions, and comparisons between British missions and those from other predominantly Protestant countries including the United States.

Jeffrey Cox brings a fresh and much needed overview to this large, fascinating and controversial subject.

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.

As Presbyterians, Lutherans, Methodists, Disciples of Christ, and other predominantly European-centered Christian denominations of North America seek to respond as a faith community to the increasingly dynamic ethnic and cultural diversity within our society, this book offers a sobering yet valuable perspective. By understanding the ministry of Christian evangelism as a construct that speaks of the power of divine transformation (personal and communal) and the embrace of a way of life, this work argues for a multi-variant approach that values the philosophical aspects of cultural differences, which are effective and faithful models of Christian evangelism. An analysis of key missiological concepts, such as mission histories, ethno-theologies, worldview, culture, ethnic cohesion, and contextualization is appropriated to illuminate the theological voices and evangelical practices of a specific people, or ethnicity, shaped by a journey of spiritual faith. While the numerical significance of self-identified African-American Presbyterians may appear small, their synergistic encounter of human identity and religious faith, historical experience in the church, and the impact of their evangelical presence provide an excellent case study for discerning the twenty-first-century challenges of evangelism. This thorough study of history, theology, organizational structures, methods, and techniques will serve as a valuable tool in evaluating the impact of the faith journey of African-American Presbyterians and its challenges for today and the future.

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.

The explosive expansion of Christianity in Africa and Asia during the last two centuries constitutes one of the most remarkable cultural transformations in the history of mankind. Because it coincided with the spread of European economic and political hegemony, it tends to be taken for granted that Christian missions went hand in hand with Imperialism and colonial conquest. In this book historians survey the relationship between Christian missions and the British Empire from the seventeenth century to the 1960s and treat the subject thematically, rather than regionally or chronologically. Many of these themes are treated at length for the first time, relating the work of missions to language, medicine, anthropology, and decolonization. Other important chapters focus on the difficult relationship between missionaries and white settlers, women and mission, and the neglected role of the indigenous evangelists who did far more than European or North American missionaries to spread the Christian religion - belying the image of Christianity as the 'white man's religion'.

First Published in 1970. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Christianity Today Book Award Winner Outreach Resource of the Year (Multicultural) ASM (American Society of Missiology) Book of the Year Award Globalization is speeding up our world, extending our relationships globally and bringing us closer together in positive and not-so-positive ways. The church and many Christians, however, remain largely unaware of its seductive power, resulting in a failure of vision for mission in today's world. This up-to-date resource by a veteran leader in global development work with World Vision orients readers to the history of globalization and to a Christian theological perspective on it, explores concrete realities by focusing on global poverty, and helps readers reimagine Christian mission in ways that announce the truly good news of Christ and God's kingdom. Diagrams and sidebars that incorporate the voices of global partners are included. This is the second book in a new series that reframes missiological themes and studies for students using/featuring the common theme of mission as partnership with Christians.

The story of the Dundee mill girl who, inspired by David Livingstone, became a missionary herself in Calabar, a part of Africa known as 'the White Man's Grave'. There she adopted many children who would otherwise have been left to die; when her mediating skills were recognised she became the British Empire's first woman magistrate. Her name lives on in the Mary Slessor Foundation, a charity working in Africa to improve health, skills training and facilitate agricultural projects. Mary Slessor was one of the most remarkable Scotswomen of any generation and the first to be depicted on a Scottish banknote. First published in 2001; this edition has had some material updated and a replacement photograph.

Contributing simultaneously to both British imperial and Indian history, this book demonstrates that missionary understandings and interactions with India, rather than being party to imperial ideologies, often diverged from metropolitan and imperial norms.

Mother Teresa was one of the most written about and publicised women in modern times. Apart from Pope John Paul II, she was arguably the most advertised religious celebrity in the last quarter of the twentieth century. During her lifetime as well as posthumously, Mother Teresa continues to generate a huge level of interest and heated debate.

GAzim Alpion explores the significance of Mother Teresa to the mass media, to celebrity culture, to the Church and to various political groups. A section explores the ways different vested interests have sought to appropriate her after her death, and also examines Mother Teresa's own attitude to her childhood and to the Balkan conflicts in the 1980s and 1990s.

This book sheds a new and fascinating light upon this remarkable and influential woman, which will intrigue followers of Mother Teresa and those who study the vagaries of stardom and celebrity culture.

Today we are facing a global crisis when it comes to families. There is an urgent need
to invest in marriage and family life, for strong societies are built on strong families,
and strong families are built on strong marriages. Marriages today are under more
pressure than ever, and with the amount of marital breakdown we are experiencing,
more people are seeing the need of the need to prepare. The choice to marry-no
longer an assumption in our society-presents a key moment for learning.

The Pre-Marriage Course, developed by Nicky and Sila Lee of Alpha, has been revised
and updated to provide practical tools to help engaged couples build a strong
foundation for a lasting marriage. This update includes talks from experts including
Dr. Gray Chapman, Dr. Henry Cloud, and Dr. Sue Johnson on topics such as money,
sex, love languages, healthy boundaries, and building connections. The course will

• also cover how engaged couples can:
• Express their feelings and learn to listen
• Recognize the importance of commitment
• Resolve conflicts with one another
• Keep love alive and develop a fulfilling sexual relationship
• Talk about goals and values as a couple
  

Sent to Heal traces the development of medical missions, one of the most intriguing, complex, and controversial phenomena in the history of the encounter of Western and Non-Western cultures promoted by Christianity. This groundbreaking study surveys the missions from their earliest beginnings in the fifteenth century until the turn of the twentieth century. Sent to Heal is a defining reference work on the philosophical, theological, missiological, and scientific aspects of medical missions. An extensive bibliography is included.

This book demonstrates that the encounter between Christianity and various African cultures gives rise to a number of problems for Africans who become Christians. It draws attention to certain traditional African beliefs and practices that seem to be incompatible with Christianity and create problems for Africans who embrace Christianity. Against this background it argues for the need to inculturate Christianity. It contends that in this exercise African Christianity can learn from the attempts at inculturation found in the New Testament times and in the early church. It offers examples of how the early church sought to make use of non-Christian categories of thought and elements in its articulation of the Christian message and in worship. It suggests a few areas of Ghanaian and African life where inculturation could and should take place. These include funeral rites, widowhood rites, child-naming rites, the rites of marriage, libation and christology. It concludes by offering some guidelines for use in the process of the inculturation of Christianity in Africa today.

A radical approach to church mission and social action that asks, 'If mission is not the central purpose of the church, then what is?' David Devenish believes that the church exists as a means of taking the gospel message to every people group. He believes that the church is very much at the centre of God's purposes, and in this book presents the church, not as a static pastoral community, but as a vibrant, active body totally committed to world mission. David investigates the importance of church planting to reach the nations, looks at Church-based mission and how to make local churches missional in both thinking and practice. Set within a framework of the Kingdom of God, David demonstrates what the kingdom down to earth really implies for Church-based kingdom social action. Finally, he examines the culture and contextualisation of social action along with some of the dangers and difficulties of apostolic mission, before asking the fundamental question, Who will go?

It illumines the Bible like a searchlight, pointing out the mysteries of god. There still is much confusion and misuse of the office and the responsibilities of the prophet and the intercessor in the Christian arena. John and Paula Sandford explain how prophets are called and trained. With a great passion and urgency, they challenge all intercessors to realize and understand their vital role in the world today and how closely they must work with the prophets. John and Paula Sandford clearly explain: ? What it means to be called and trained as a prophet or intercessor ? How to understand dreams and visions and hear directly from God ? Why it is important for the body to work in unity This book is filled with spiritual discoveries that will effect dynamic changes in every reader.

Though incarnational mission, or 'embodying the message, ' is a popular idea among Christians, it often comes under theological fire. Is it simply trying to follow the example of Jesus in our own strength? Is it arrogant for Christians to compare their mission with the incarnating mission of Jesus Christ? Is the idea of God-becoming-flesh itself sustainable today as a basis for Christian mission? This study is the first to define the meanings attached to incarnational mission across a variety of Christian traditions. It proposes a balanced approach to incarnational approach to mission involving the three dimensions of following Jesus in costly discipleship, conforming to the risen Christ, and co-operating in the universal dynamic of God's self-embodiment.

The Alpha Enterprise explores the development, growth and impact of the most widely used evangelising programme of recent decades. The Alpha course is run in over seven thousand churches in the UK and over five thousand in the USA. Across the world some four million people have graduated through the course in over 80 countries. Alpha is truly the fastest growing evangelising initiative, creating widespread support as well as stirring strong criticism. Stephen Hunt critically examines the content and working philosophy of the Alpha course through the experiences of the churches that have run it, as well as the individuals who have experienced it first hand. Hunt charts the history of the programme, its use of group dynamics and media, how it links with the charismatic movement, how it deals with issues such as homosexuality, how it is run not only in churches but in prisons and universities too, and concludes by measuring Alpha's impact and success. Engaging with debates regarding postmodernity, globalisation, McDonaldisation, consumerism, and secularisation, and based on real-life surveys, The Alpha Enterprise sheds new light not only on evangelism but on contemporary Christianity in general and how it engages with a post-Christian culture.

First published in 1970. This series includes a selection of historically important nineteenth and early twentieth century narratives written about Africa by missionaries and other figures connected with the church. The introductions are designed to place the narratives in their appropriate historical contexts, offer fresh biographical studies of the authors, and provide a critique of modern scholarship. This is number 14 and looks at A.M.Mackay.

How did Christian mission happen in the early church from AD 100 to 750? Beginning with a brief look at the social, political, cultural, and religious contexts, Mission in the Early Church tells the story of early Christian missionaries, their methods, and their missiology. Edward L. Smither explores some of the most prominent themes of mission in early Christianity, including suffering, evangelism, Bible translation, contextualization, ministry in Word and deed, and the church. Based on this survey, modern readers are invited to a conversation that considers how early Christian mission might inform global mission thought and practice today.

Through a series of case studies of major fundamentalist missionary institutions and campaigns in China from 1930 to 1937, this work traces and clarifies the historical process of the movement and its controversy with modernism, the nature of character of the movement, its theological cores, its impact upon missionary thinking and strategies, and its influences on emerging evangelicals within Chinese churches.

Contents:
1. Introduction
2. American Women at Home: The Woman's Board of Missions of the Interior and American Women Missionaries to Japan
3. Missionary Work Launched: Kobe Home, 1873-1877, the Founding Years
4. A Transition to Education as a Profession: Kobe Home to Kobe Girls' School, 1877-1882
5. Missionary Aspirations for Higher Education: Kobe Girls' School to Kobe College, 1883-1909
Epilogue: The Dissolution of Women's Authority: Kobe College, 1910-1927
Appendix
Tables
Bibliography

This work expresses the understanding of the Catholic Bishops of Nigeria/lgbo Church in interpreting Vatican II for the development and communion of the local Churches. The Second Vatican Council is the first council the Nigerian Church has ever experienced. Its influence made it possible that there has not been an organ in the history of Nigeria that is so theological about the development of the local Churches and so diplomatic and out spoken about the situation of the country like the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Nigeria. The Reception of Vatican II in Nigeria/lgbo Church is an on going dynamite for the better understanding and cooperation between the hierarchy and the laity. Since Vatican II the laity in Nigeria/lgbo Church breath the air of aggiornamento and renewal and have a clear vision of their functions in the Church in which they also have full and responsible participation.

At his death on the eve of the 20th century, D. L. Moody was widely recognized as one of the most beloved and important men in 19th century America. A Chicago shoe salesman with a fourth grade education, Moody rose from obscurity to become God's man for the Gilded Age. Evensen focuses on the pivotal years during which Moody established his reputation on both sides of the Atlantic through a series of highly popular and publicized campaigns. In chronicling Moody's use of the press and their use of him, Evensen sheds new light on a crucial chapter in the history of evangelicalism and demonstrates how popular religion helped form our modern media culture.