Changing Face of World Missions (Encountering Mission)

Michael Pocock, Gailyn Van Rheenen, Douglas McConnell

Description

The dramatic changes that have taken place both in global society and in the church have implications for how the church does missions in the twenty-first century. These trends include the rise of postmodernism, the spiritual decline in the West and the advance of the gospel in the rest of the world, and the impact of technology on society and missions. The Changing Face of World Missions is for the mission-minded church leader or lay person who wants to understand these trends. Each chapter identifies and evaluates a trend, examines it in light of Scripture, and proposes a practical response. Important terms are defined, and sidebars help readers think through the issues on their own.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2005
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781441200853
• Langue: English

Extrait

T HE C HANGING F ACE OF W ORLD M ISSIONS
A. Scott Moreau, series editor
Also in the series:
Introducing World Missions: A Biblical, Historical, and Practical Survey
A. Scott Moreau, Gary R. Corwin, and Gary B. McGee
Encountering Missionary Life and Work: Preparing for Intercultural Ministry
Tom Steffen and Louis McKinney Douglas
Christianity Encountering World Religions: The Practice of Mission in the Twenty-first Century
Terry Muck and Frances S. Adeney
Encountering Theology of Mission: Biblical Foundations, Historical Developments, and Contemporary Issues
Craig Ott, Stephen J. Strauss, and Timothy C. Tennent

© 2005 by Michael Pocock, Gailyn Van Rheenen, and Douglas McConnell
Published by Baker Academic a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.bakeracademic.com
Ebook edition created 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means for example, electronic, photocopy, recording without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-4412-0085-3
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com
Scripture quotations labeled KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.
Scripture quotations labeled NRSV are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
The internet addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers in this book are accurate at the time of publication. They are provided as a resource. Baker Publishing Group does not endorse them or vouch for their content or permanence.
Contents
Preface
Introduction
Part 1 The Global Context
1 Globalization: New York’s in New Delhi, Manila’s in Los Angeles
2 Changing Demographics: The Impact of Migration, HIV/AIDS, and Children at Risk
3 Religionquake: From World Religions to Multiple Spiritualities
4 The Changing Basis of Knowledge: From Modernity to Postmodernity
Part 2 The Missional Context
5 The Disappearing Center: From Christendom to Global Christianity
6 Changing Motivations for Missions: From “Fear of Hell” to “the Glory of God”
7 Increasing Awareness of Spiritual Power: The Spiritual Warfare Orientation to Missions
8 Innovation in Mission Operations: Creative-Access Platforms
Part 3 The Strategic Context
9 Working Together: Beyond Individual Efforts to Networks of Collaboration
10 The Changing Uses of Money: From Self-support to International Partnership
11 The Impact of New Technologies: Life in the Virtual World and Beyond
12 Contextualization: From an Adapted Message to an Adapted Life
Reference List
Contributing Authors
Preface

T he Changing Face of World Missions appears at a moment when sufficient time has passed to determine whether developments in the late twentieth century have continued as trends in the context and conduct of missions in the twenty-first. This volume is the second of an eight-volume series titled Encountering Mission. As noted in Introducing World Missions (2004) , J. Herbert Kane’s textbooks such as Understanding Christian Missions (1976), Life and Work on the Mission Field (1980), The Christian World Mission: Today and Tomorrow (1981), and Wanted: World Christians (1986) were widely used in schools to introduce a generation of students to missions. Those works, however, are now dated, and Baker decided the time had come to develop a new series of books to replace them.
The Changing Face of World Missions is intended for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students preparing for a career in intercultural service and for laypeople and church leaders wanting to understand the changing world that forms the context in which missions are now conducted. Missionaries on home assignment will find this volume helpful in providing an understanding of the developments beyond their specific fields of service.
We the authors join in expressing our appreciation to our wives and families, who encouraged and bore with us in the production of this book. We also extend our thanks to Brian Bolger of Baker Academic for his patience, grace, and encouragement; to the series editor, Scott Moreau, for giving us the opportunity to produce what we hope is a significant help to the mission community; and finally to those entering cross-cultural service for Christ, for whom the Great Commission is as compelling today as it was when Christ gave it.
We also offer thanks for specific technical and research assistance provided by Angel Crow (administrative assistant, Dallas Theological Seminary), Mark Heavener (research assistant, Dallas Theological Seminary), and Kevin and Jenny McGill (manuscript alignment and coordination). Larry and Carol Jeffus and Dave and Wendy Chavanne provided vacation homes that served as quiet havens for planning and writing the text.
Finally, without the help and encouragement of the academic communities in which we work and the prayers of many friends, the work of finishing this volume would have been impossible. For them we give thanks to God.
Introduction

C ROSSING THE M ILLENNIAL D IVIDE
Toward the end of the twentieth century, evangelical missiologists put on their reflective hats and attempted to summarize and evaluate the past and to anticipate what lay ahead in the new millennium. Keenly aware of the number of years since Christ gave his Great Commission and conscious of the possibility that he could come again at any moment, they pondered how best to respond to the global developments around them.
The sovereign hand of God had been apparent throughout the chaotic movements of the twentieth century, including the rise and decline of two major ideologies (Marxism and national socialism), two world wars and countless regional conflicts, the closing and opening of huge areas (e.g., the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe), and the appearance of life-changing technologies (e.g., the airplane and the Internet) as well as life-saving medicines (e.g., antibiotics and vaccines). The twentieth century was one of tremendous numerical growth and geographical spread for Christianity. Against a backdrop of incredible resistance to the program and the people of God and the near collapse of Christianity in some of its Western strongholds, God continued to fulfill his promise to Abraham to bless all peoples (Gen. 12:3). But still the task of world evangelization remained unfinished by the year 2000, despite much prayer and bold initiatives. What were missiologists thinking as they approached the end of the last century and the beginning of the new? Where are they now that we are several years into the new millennium?
P LANNING FOR C OMPLETION OF THE G REAT C OMMISSION
Their desire to finish the task stimulated soul-searching and research to discover how the barriers to evangelism could be overcome. The first Lausanne Conference on World Evangelization was called by Billy Graham in 1974. Church and mission leaders from around the world attended the conference. They were challenged by men such as Donald McGavran and Ralph Winter to adopt a church-planting focus on people groups rather than on geographic or national entities and to think afresh about closure, actually finishing the task committed to them by Christ (Douglas 1975). The Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization (LCWE) created a Strategy Working Group to focus on unreached peoples rather than on countries. The group prepared profiles of the major segments of unreached humanity, while World Vision’s Missions Advanced Research and Communication Center (MARC) created a list of individual unreached people groups, published descriptions of them, and advocated strategic planning to engage them (Dayton and Fraser 1990). But all the targeting and strategizing would not help if Christian workers lacked the spiritual power to overcome the barriers of revitalized world religions Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism and the spiritual opposition of Satan epitomized in Paul’s declaration: “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Cor. 4:4).
The Fuller School of Intercultural Studies championed an emphasis on prioritizing church planting and church growth among the responsive peoples of the world (McGavran 1979). Later, some of its faculty developed an emphasis on power encounter (the demonstration of God’s power to heal and to overcome demonic opposition) to overcome barriers among the more resistant peoples (Kraft 1989, 1992; Wimber 1986; Wagner 1996). The spiritual warfare orientation to missions became a trend during the latter part of the twentieth century and focused efforts on stimulating prayer and offsetting satanic opposition through identifying and “binding” demons thought to control resistant people groups.
Ralph and Roberta Winter founded the U.S. Center for World Missions in 1978 to coordinate research on unreached peoples and to mobilize Christians to minister to them. At Edinburgh in 1980, focus on closure became clearer, and by 1986, Thomas Wang was calling for “A Church for Every People by the Year 2000” (1989). Later the theme was enlarged to include “and the Gospel for Every Person” (Bush 2003, 19). Patrick Johnstone continued the periodic update of Operation World, a guide to prayer for all the nations of the world (Johnstone and Mandryk 2001). The database behind much of this effort was made available through Dav