This book analyzes the memoirs of 42 'missionary kids' - the children of North American Protestant missionaries in countries all over the world during the 20th century. Using a postcolonial lens the book explores ways in which the missionary enterprise was part of, or intersected with, the Western colonial enterprise, and ways in which a colonial mindset is unconsciously manifested in these memoirs. The book explores how the memoirists' sites and experiences are exoticized; the missionary kids' likelihood of learning - or not learning - local languages; the missionary families' treatment of servants and other local people; and gender, race and social class aspects of the missionary kids' experiences. Like other Third Culture Kids, the memoirists are migrants, travelers, border-crossers and border-dwellers who alternate between insider and outsider statuses, and their words shed light on the effects of movement and travel on children's lives and development.

For over five hundred years, since the great age of exploration, Western Christians have visited, traded with, conquered and colonized large parts of the non-Western world. In virtually every case this contact has been accompanied by an attempt to spread Christianity.

This volume explores the manner in which Western missionary Christianity has been shaped and transformed through contact with the peoples of Peru, Mexico, Africa, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, China, and Japan. Indigenous Responses to Western Christianity demonstrates how local populations, who initially encountered Christianity as a mixture of religion, culture, politics, ethics and technology, selected those elements they felt suited their needs. The conversion of the local population, the volume shows, was usually accompanied by a significant indigenization of Christianity. Through the detailed examination and comparison of events in a range of countries and cultures, this book points provides a deeper understanding of mission history and the dynamics of Christianity's expansion. The encounter with Western Christianity is vital to the history of contact between Western and non-Western civilizations. Western Christians have visited, traded with, conquered and colonized large parts of the non-Western world for over five hundred years, and their migration has almost always been accompanied by an attempt to create new Christians in new lands. Just as indigenous people have been converted however, so too has Christianity become variously indigenized. Local populations initially encounter a Christian package of religion, culture, politics, ethics and technology. This volume illustrates the ways in which peoples have selected elements of this package to suit their specific needs, and so explores the myriad transformations missionary Christianity has undergone through contact with the peoples of Peru, Mexico, Africa, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, China and Japan. Contributing are Erik Cohen (University of Jerusalem), Yochanan Bar Yafe Szeminski ?, John F. Howes ?, D. Dennis Hudson ?, Daniel H. Bays (University of Kansas), and Eric Van Young (University of California, San Diego). The chapters are linked by their attempt to overcome conventional regional and disciplinary barriers in order to achieve a deeper understanding of mission history and the dynamics of the expansion of Christianity. A remarkable work, this volume will pave the way for entirely new approaches to a particularly complex and demanding subject.

The Alpha Team Guide is recommended for Alpha small group hosts and helpers. It includes notes for the two required team training sessions on how to lead an Alpha small group, and how to lead prayer ministry, that can be found online or on either the Alpha Film Series DVD or Alpha with Nicky Gumbel DVD. It also provides weekly key concept summary and suggested questions to help guide the discussion time for each session of Alpha. Alpha creates an environment of hospitality where people can bring their friends, family and work colleagues to explore the Christian faith, ask questions, and share their point of view. Alpha makes it easy to invite friends to have spiritual conversations which explore life's biggest questions in a safe and respectful way. Alpha's approach to hospitality, faith, and discussion is designed to welcome everyone, especially those who might not describe themselves as Christians or church-goers. Each session includes time for a large group meal, short teaching, and small group discussion.

There is a new trend afoot, one that goes against the prevailing Western model, influenced by the values and principles of international commerce. Presented here are five "signs of life," showcased by this network of movements best referred to as "new friars." God's kingdom in the hands of the people of God, the contributors to this book show us, is first and foremost incarnational, which leads necessarily to gospel witness that is devotional, communal, missional and marginal. With a survey of the history of new friar movements and commentary by forerunner, this seminal book, edited by Scott A. Bessenecker, paints a picture of mission that is new only because it has been neglected for so long, a mission that is truly good news to the people in its path. With contributions from Viv Grigg, Craig and Nayhouy Greenfield, Derek Engdahl, Jean-Luc Krieg, Chris Heuertz, Darren Prince, Jose Penate Aceves, John Hayes and Ash Barker, this book brings together a chorus of voices at the front lines of what God is doing through the new friar community.

Christian dialogic writings flourished in the Catholic missions in late Ming China. This study focuses on the mission work of the Italian Jesuit Giulio Aleni (Ai Rulue , 1582-1649) in Fujian and the unique text Kouduo richao (Diary of Oral Admonitions, 1630-1640) that records the religious and intellectual conversations among the Jesuits and local converts. By examining the mechanisms of dialogue in Kouduo richao and other Christian works distinguished by a certain dialogue form, the author of the present work aims to reveal the formation of a hybrid Christian-Confucian identity in late Ming Chinese religious experience. By offering the new approach of dialogic hybridization, the book not only treats dialogue as an important yet underestimated genre in late Ming Christian literature, but it also uncovers a self-other identity complex in the dialogic exchanges of the Jesuits and Chinese scholars. Giulio Aleni, Kouduo richao, and Christian-Confucian Dialogism in Late Ming Fujian is a multi-faceted investigation of the religious, philosophical, ethical, scientific, and artistic topics discussed among the Jesuits and late Ming scholars. This comprehensive research echoes what the distinguished Sinologist Erik Zurcher (1928-2008) said about the richness and diversity of Chinese Christian texts produced in the 17th and 18th centuries. Following Zurcher's careful study and annotated full translation of Kouduo richao (Monumenta Serica Monograph Series, LVI/1-2), the present work features a set of new findings beyond the endeavours of Zurcher and other scholars. With the key concept of Christian-Confucian dialogism, it tells the intriguing story of Aleni's mission work and the thriving Christian communities in late Ming Fujian.

Christianity is the world's most global faith. Evangelical Christianity, meanwhile, is the world's fastest growing major religion in terms of conversion growth. And yet, at the dawn of the third millennium, the church's primary task ("go and make disciples of all nations") remains undone. Missions in the Third Millennium charts 21 trends both positive and negative with continuing significance for the Great Commission community in the 21st century. Revised and updated with two new chapters on urban missions and evangelizing Muslims, this up-to-date volume offers insights to help students, churches, missionaries, agencies, and Christians from outside the West grasp the big picture and take practical steps for more effective involvement. This edition contains extensive notes, expanded suggestions for further reading, and discussion questions.

Outreach 2019 Resource of the Year (Cross-Cultural/Missional) The ministry of reconciliation is the new whole in holistic ministry. It must be if the Christian mission is to remain relevant in our increasingly fractured world. This book offers a fresh treatment of holistic ministry that takes the role of reconciliation seriously, rethinking the meaning of the gospel, the nature of the church, and the practice of mission in light of globalization, post-Christendom, and postcolonialism. It also includes theological and practical resources for effectively engaging in evangelism, compassion and justice, and reconciliation ministries. Includes a foreword by Ruth Padilla DeBorst and an afterword by Ronald J. Sider.

In 1993, Andrew Brunson was asked to travel to Turkey, the largest unevangelized country in the world, to serve as a missionary. Though hesitant because of the daunting and dangerous task that lay ahead, Andrew and his wife, Norine, believed this was God's plan for them. What followed was a string of threats and attacks, but also successes in starting new churches in a place where many people had never met a Christian. As their work with refugees from Syria, including Kurds, gained attention and suspicion, Andrew and Norine acknowledged the threat but accepted the risk, determining to stay unless God told them to leave. In 2016, they were arrested. Though the State eventually released Norine, who remained in Turkey, Andrew was imprisoned. Accused of being a spy and being among the plotters of the attempted coup, he became a political pawn whose story soon became known around the world. God's Hostage is the incredible true story of his imprisonment, his brokenness, and his eventual freedom. Anyone with a heart for missions, especially to the Muslim world, will love this tension-laden and faith-laced book.

Effectively communicate Christ across Cultures The gospel message transcends cultures, but human communication does not. In Transforming Communication missionary and professor Vee J. D-Davidson provides principles for the intercultural communication of Christ. Using her twenty-five-plus years of experience teaching as a Westerner in Asia as a starting point, Davidson provides transferable principles that encourage awareness of context-specific issues and that see opportunities for intercultural communication as wholly unique opportunities, regardless of any perceived communication barriers. Readers from multiple different cultures will be able to apply the principles presented by use of relevant examples, illustrations, and enlightening insights provided from a wide range of Global South and Global North multicultural and intercultural perspectives. Transforming Communication offers practical principles to encourage and challenge Christian readers to build relationships that might well require engaging with issues that bring them out of their comfort zone but, the book also offers insights and encouraging devotional nuggets that feed into a triad of knowledge-impartation, self-examination and challenge, along with spiritual enrichment for the task.