Tag: Missions

Blog Entries

Closing the Gaps

Much of the program at last week’s Fourth Lausanne Congress was structured around 25 issue areas, or gaps. Yet some have pointed out that this granular approach to the overall mission effort ignores the context of each of the gaps, as well as the ways in which they interrelate.

Blog Entries

Partners in Faith

Answering the Call to “Come and See” in China

Those of us involved in China ministry since the early 1980s have been eye-witnesses of China’s rapid changes on the surface. As China opens again after COVID-19, I believe we are asking the same question again—what is our role as Christians from the West in China?

Blog Entries

Ministering Cross-Culturally

Perspective and Spiritual Maturity

When our own cultural perspective is extremely limited, our capacity for ministering cross-culturally will likewise be significantly constrained. A perspective growing out of spiritual maturity—more and more of us and fewer and fewer of them—will go a long way toward effective ministering cross-culturally.

Blog Entries

Who’s in Charge?

As with many Christian China narratives, the questions we ask shape the storyline. If “Who’s in charge?” is not the right question, attempts to answer it will undoubtedly prove unsatisfactory. Perhaps a better starting point would be, “How shall we lead together?”

Blog Entries

Crossing Cultures: The Promise and the Blessing

As with Abram, so with us: we are the beneficiaries of that promise and blessing. We are invited to leave, to go, to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth with Jesus Christ, the living image of our living God. Going includes learning to minister cross-culturally. That is our blessing, our calling, our mission.

Blog Entries

Sharing the Gospel: Franchise or Indigenization?

Nothing succeeds like success, and many Christian ministries have adopted a franchise-like pattern based on a founder’s compelling vision facilitated by a highly structured and quality-controlled delivery system…[But] can the gospel be franchised? I think not.

Blog Entries

From the Forbidden City to NYC

Outreach among the Tibetan Diaspora

What is needed is people who know Jesus and love Tibetans enough to find ways to engage them personally, enough to walk with them through faltering steps of faith, and enough to endure long enough in the field that seeds sown find their way to good soil, hearts God has already prepared.

Editorials

The Evolving Tapestry of the Chinese Diaspora

The dispersion of Chinese populations will continue to grow in the near future and the missional implications of this are enormous. The recent growth of Christianity in China and the country’s political upheavals are pushing a record number to migrate overseas. Many have…embraced the Christian faith in foreign lands and cultures.

Supporting Article

Partnership to Welcome Hong Kong Newcomers

Chinese churches and local churches in the UK are working hard to welcome and shepherd the vast number of Christians from Hong Kong as soon as possible, giving them opportunities to serve, and mobilizing them to reach out with the gospel of Jesus Christ to non-believing Hong Kong newcomers and others in the Chinese diaspora.

Book Reviews

The Chinese Church in Transition

Navigating Mission in the Diaspora

This book showcases mission attitudes and activities among Chinese churches in the US. The detailed data provide in-depth explanations that simultaneously confirm the impression of a same-ethnicity focus in mission while offering more nuanced reasons why such a focus can be advantageous.