Here are two interviews with some Western workers serving the church in Taiwan and other nearby settings.

Phil Nicolson, with OMF, describes "Shopkeeper Churches" and their ministry among the underclass. Few of us have to worry about doing ministry among people who are not available at normal respectable church times. Listen to how they work through these issues:

"Garth," who works with my "company," explains his work and why he is there. The video is intentionally dark and "Garth" is filmed from behind because he goes to some other areas in the region.

"Garth" and I have known each other for a long time. He has planted in more than one place and his story is worth hearing.

If you or your church wanted to partner in planing churches in the area, "Garth" is the person who can help make the connections.

I was humbled and burdened to talk to these men-- and it made me wonder, am I doing enough?

I will have one more post on Taiwan... so stay tuned.

I am writing this post from Taiwan. As I have been working with both local leaders and American pastors, I have been struck by a few things and thought I would share them with you.

First, I have traveled to Taiwan as a part of the Upstream Collective. The reason is to accompany American pastors with a desire to be missional on a cross-cultural, international encounter. (You can scroll down the last few posts to learn what we are doing in Taiwan.)

Each person on the trip has the missional impulse as part of their DNA, and they are here to consider how they might join God on his mission globally. While I admire the faithfulness of these men, I must admit my surprise to see that there is not a bigger interest in such global concerns among American pastors in general. My fellow travelers seem to be rare of a breed in ministry.

Second, when I blogged about this on Sunday, two readers contacted my hosts-- one working with the Presbyterian Church in America and one from the Oversee Missionary Fellowship (OMF). Why? Well, according to one email, the author explained, "I'm particularly interested in attracting young missional church planters here."

Third, I was recently told by a pastor who called himself "missional" that his church needed to pull back on their global mission support to help their people "be missionaries right here."

All this provokes me to ask, "Why are so many missional Christians uninvolved in God's global mission?" As the missional conversation continues and deepens, what has occurred that has led to our blindness to the lost world around us?

There are five reasons I think this has happened:

1) In rediscovering God's mission, many have only discovered its personal dimensions.

I don't mean they have somehow localized mission into their interior, "private" life-- that would make little sense. Rather, the encouragement for each person to be on mission (to be "missional") has trended toward a personal obligation to personal settings, rather than toward a global obligation to advance God's kingdom among all the nations.

"Missional" has merged with privatized Christianity to serve as the reason for personal projects carried out in personal spheres. This is not bad, necessarily. But when the missional impulse is not expanded to include God's global mission, it results in believers moved only to minister in their own Jerusalems with no mind toward their Judeas, Samarias, and uttermost parts of the earth (Acts 1:8).

2) In responding to God's mission, many have wanted to be more mission-shaped and have therefore made everything "mission."

Missions historian Stephen Neil, responding to a similar surge in mission interest (the missio dei movement of the 1950s and following), explained it this way: "If everything is mission then nothing is mission." Neil's fear was that the focus would shift from global evangelization (often called "missions") to societal transformation (often called "mission"). He was right.

Recently John Piper echoed these same concerns, differentiating between evangelism and missions. He reminded us that when "Every Christian is a missionary" equals "missional," then we have diluted the need for and specialness of missionaries to foreign lands. (Although I would want to nuance John's language a bit, I agree with his point.)

One American church's website recently identified their ministry as missional, which they proceeded to define as "reaching out to the community to invite them to come" see what is happening in the church. Another's young adult community service project consisted of landscaping the church grounds. Inviting people to church and cleaning up the church are noble endeavors, but passing them for "missional" and "service" is ministerial naïveté at best. It demonstrates the fuzziness that creeps in when labels become catch-alls. And as the outer edges of the missional label gets fuzzy so does mission to the outer edges of the world.

3) In relating God's mission, the message increasingly includes the hurting but less frequently includes the global lost.

One only needs to watch the videos to see the emphases: global orphan projects, eradicating AIDS, Christmas shoeboxes, etc. All of these causes now have advocacy groups, and rightly so, as they are important. However, their vocabulary and frames of reference do not frequently make room for evangelizing the very people they touch. The message of world evangelism, actually, seems more common in legacy/traditional churches than in missional churches. Missional churches seem to speak more of unserved peoples rather than unreached peoples. As we engage to deliver justice, we must also deliver the gospel regardless of anyone's status in a culture.

4) In refocusing on God's mission, many are focusing on being good news rather than telling good news.

St. Francis allegedly said,"Preach the gospel at all times; when necessary, use words." Interestingly enough, Francis never actually said this, nor would he have done so due to his membership in a preaching order. But it is a pithy quote tossed into mission statements and vision sermons in missional churches all around my country. Why? It seems that many in the missional conversation place a higher value on serving the global hurting rather than evangelizing the global lost. Or perhaps it is just easier.

I am not urging a dichotomy here, only noting that one already exists. It is ironic, though, that as many missional Christians have sought to "embody" the gospel, they have chosen to forsake one member of Christ's body; the mouth.

5) In reiterating God's mission, many lose the context of the church's global mission and needed global presence.

For whatever reason-- the admirable one of commitment to the local church or the ignoble one of commitment to personalized consumeristic Christianity-- we have lost the grand scope of the entire family of God. While Christ calls people from all tongues, tribes, and nations, we have become content with our own tongue, tribe, and nation. Many churches are wonderfully embracing the missional imperative, but as they seek to "own" the mission by adapting their church into a missional movement in their local community, some inadvertently localize God's mission itself and lose the vital connection all believers share together. A hyper-focus on our own community results in a, have lost vision for the communion of the saints.

So how do we fully embrace missional without losing the mission? The Mission Exchange (formerly the Evangelical Foreign Mission Society) asked me to talk to their global leaders on the topic "How to Put 'Missions' Back into Missional." In my talk, I proposed four principles we needed to consider:

First, recognize it is God's mission, and we need to be passionate about the mission as He describes it. We don't own mission and it is not ours to define. A church vision statement is fine, but God's mission is better and bigger. Our first task is to submit to God's mission.

Secondly, evangelicals have understated the call to serve the poor and the hurting and need a stronger engagement in social justice. This sounds counterintuitive if we are seeking to remedy the loss of concern for articulated evangelism. But social engagement entails relational engagement, and relational engagement entails opportunities to share the gospel. The successes and experiences in our communities should awaken hearts and minds to global needs. We just need to maintain the reason for social justice: the glory of God in the worship of Jesus.

Third, share God's deep concern about His mission to the nations-- that His name be praised from the lips of men and women from every corner of the globe. Feel the Great Commission in your bones. Ask God to turn your heart to those you cannot see. As Paul did, develop ways to "struggle personally" (Colossians 2:1) for those far away.

Fourthly, churches that are serious about joining God on his mission will obey his commands to disciple the nations. The end product of missional endeavors should be a thriving Christian ready to produce more thriving Christians.

It appears to me that many missional churches are missing the Great Commission in the name of being missional. That makes zero sense. It is a huge (but historically common) mistake.

If we are truly interested in being missional-- in joining God on His mission-- our efforts should actually reflect His stated mission. We are bound to the Great Commandment as the fullest human expression of God's love. But the Commandment is not hermetically sealed off from the Great Commission. Rather, the Great Commission provides the what of mission, while the Great Commandment provides part of the how. Answering the age-old question of "Who is my neighbor?" should result in the desire to "make disciples of all nations."

Video number 4 from the Jet Set Vision Trip in Taiwan all goes down during a cab ride through Taipei as Ray Chang and I talk about how second generation immigrant churches in America can be involved in God's global mission. Ray is the pastor of Ambassador Church (an Evangelical Free congregation) in Brea, CA.

Watch and listen as a second generation Asian American leader talks about his vision for the nations. It's worth your time!

If you missed the earlier videos, they are listed below.

Taiwan Video 1: Meeting and Learning from Pastor Chen
Taiwan Video 2: Ancestor Worship and Taiwanese Christians
Taiwan Video 3: Knowing Taiwan

We have been here in Taiwan for about half the week and we have seen some remarkable settings, fruitful ministry, and spiritually hungry people.

Be sure to check out the posts thus far:

Taiwan Video 1: Meeting and Learning from Pastor Chen

Taiwan Video 2: Ancestor Worship and Taiwanese Christians

As we talk to pastors, local leaders, and just everyday people, we regularly hear two things:

1. Taiwan is a difficult field. Operation World explains:

Taiwan remains the only major Han Chinese population in the world where the spiritual breakthrough has yet to come. During the 1990s the influence of Buddhism grew markedly with a large increase in adherents (800,000 in 1983 to 4.9m in 1995). Many of their outreach techniques have been adapted from Christians. Ancestor worship is one of the major barriers to faith in Christ. Added to this is the materialism stimulated by the rapid rise of living standards. Pray that every obstacle to the reception of the gospel may be broken down.

2. The heart religion is primarily animism and ancestor worship.

Take a look at this video to better understand the situation in Taiwan.

Please pray for the people of Taiwan so that the name and fame of Jesus might be more widely known here.

One of the fundamental challenges with evangelistic cultural engagement is how far to go to engage culture. It is always easy for unengaged people to sit on the sidelines and throw rocks at people who seek to engage cultures. I see it every day. But, people who care about God's mission also care about engaging culture.

The fact of the matter is this: in every missional cultural engagement, some go too far and some don't go far enough. It is the nature of contextualization. It is hard. It takes a commitment to biblical principles. It takes wisdom. It takes listening to each other. And, those outside the culture need to listen to those inside. And, those inside the culture need to learn from those that have gone before them.

In this video, Robert Young, a local Taiwanese believer who trains visiting personnel, explains to us how he has worked through issues of contextualization in regards to the veneration of ancestors. As you will see in tomorrow's post, animism and ancestor worship is much more significant in this culture than Buddhism and Taoism.

Listen as Robert Young (his anglicized name) explains in this video shot by our team member, Ray Chang. Listen as he explains the issues and how his family has addressed them:

Why does this matter? Well, at the Madras missionary conference, way back in 1938, they explained that churches had to be "indigenous," or be rooted and related to their own cultural context:

An indigenous church, young or old, in the East or in the West, is a church which, rooted in obedience to Christ, spontaneously uses forms of thought and modes of action natural and familiar in its own environment. Such a church arises in response to Christ's own call. The younger churches will not be unmindful of the experiences and teachings which the older churches have recorded in their confessions and liturgy. But every younger church will seek further to bear witness to the same Gospel with new tongues" (International Missionary Council, "The Growing Church: The Madras Series," Papers Based upon the Meeting of the International Missionary Council, at Tambaram, Madras, India, December 12-29, 1938. Vol. 2, (New York, International Missionary Council), 276.)

Such a value is not easy to uphold and there are dangers on both sides.

Dean Gilliland explains:

Contextualization [is] a delicate enterprise if ever there was one... the evangelist and mission strategist stand on a razor's edge, aware that to fall off on either side has terrible consequences... Fall to the right and you end in obscurantism, so attached to your conventional ways of practicing and teaching the faith that you veil its truth and power from those who are trying to see it through very different eyes. Slip to the left and you tumble into syncretism, so vulnerable to the impact of paganism in its multiplicity of forms that you compromise the uniqueness of Christ and concoct "another gospel which is not a gospel." (Dean S. Gilliland, ed., The Word Among Us (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1989), vii.)

An organization I serve recently put out some helpful guidelines on contextualization that are worth your time and consideration:

PRINCIPLES OF CONTEXTUALIZATION

1. We affirm that the Bible is the only infallible text that exists. It is appropriate to evaluate all other books by the Bible. We encourage our personnel to search the Scriptures daily to see whether the principles presented by any text or teacher are true (Acts 17:11). Content that is in accord with biblical truth should be embraced. What is contrary to sound doctrine should be rejected.

2. We affirm that there is a biblical precedent for using "bridges" to reach out to others with the Gospel (Acts 17:22-23). The fact that Paul mentioned an aspect of the Athenians' idolatrous worship was not a tacit approval of their entire religious system. He was merely utilizing a religious element of their setting (an altar to an unknown god) to connect with his hearers and bridge to the truth. Similarly, our personnel may use elements of their host culture's worldview to bridge to the Gospel. This need not be construed as an embracing of that worldview. It should be noted that Paul not only used their system to connect, he also contrasted elements of it with the truth. Our evangelism must go beyond bridges to present the whole unvarnished truth of the Gospel (1 Corinthians 15:1-4).

3. We affirm an incarnational approach to missions that is bound by biblical parameters. Following the example of Him who became flesh (John 1:14), it is appropriate that our personnel continue to tailor their ministry to their setting. The apostle Paul likewise embraced this approach, "I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some" (1 Corinthians 9:22b). We advocate the learning and appropriate utilization of language and culture. Constant vigilance is required lest contextualization degenerate into syncretism. Where linguistic categories and cultural mores are deficient, these must be challenged and corrected with biblical truth.

4. We affirm both the sufficiency and unique nature of biblical revelation (2 Timothy 3:14-17). We deny that any other purported sacred writing is on a par with the Bible. While reference to a target people group's religious writings can be made as a part of bridge building, care should be exercised not to imply a wholesale acceptance of such.

5. We affirm the need to be ethically sound in our evangelistic methodology (2 Corinthians 4:2). Becoming all things to all men in an incarnational approach does not necessitate an ethical breach. Jesus instructed His disciples to be as "wise as serpents, and harmless as doves" (Matthew 10:16). We are to be wise in our bridge building. We are to be harmless in our integrity as we hold forth the truth.
(Footnotes specific to another religious tradition were dropped from the guidelines as I posted them here.)

More on this over the next couple of days... but please weigh in below, specifically on Robert's comments and missions in this culture-- where not worshiping one's ancestors to be both dishonoring and spiritually dangerous.

One of the funny elements in my video interview with Pastor Chen included a reference to a Bluegrass concert (he calls it Greengrass in the video).

Phil Johnson (of Grace to You and John MacArthur fame) made a comment about it. Phil and I have traded tweets twice, both in regards to contextualization, so he is enthusiastic about the subject. ;-) Anyway, Phil tweeted:

OK, Ed Stetzer seems excited by this, but but I don't get how bluegrass helps contextualize the gospel for Taiwan: http://bit.ly/25TivB

I don't remember being excited or saying it "helps contextualize the gospel," but Phil and I like to tweet about contextualization, so I responded:

@Phil_Johnson_ LOL. I was a bit surprised, but he said it was a great outreach. Bluegrass in Taiwan-- who knew? ;-)

Well, here is the rest of the story.

People in Taiwan have no context for bluegrass music (there's not a term in Mandarin for bluegrass), but they love music and American culture. So, it led to an interesting outreach event.

A team of "young missional Calvinists" (thought Phil would like that) from Southern Seminary has been sent to Taiwan for five months to proclaim the Gospel alongside career missionaries. In America, they are known as "The Long Run Players" here their Chinese name translates as "Mighty River Music Group."

Sarah Morrison, Matt Shirley, Cameron Beckerdite, Paul Martin, and Jeff Gayhart are learning Mandarin, engaging the Taiwanese culture, meeting people, building relationships, and sharing the Gospel--all through the use of guitar, banjo, fiddle, mandolin, and upright bass. Jeff says, "People always asked us before we came, 'Do they like bluegrass in Taiwan?' I would say, 'Not yet.'"

The ultimate goal is to make something much greater than bluegrass music fans; they want to lead people to Christ and make disciples. So, not really contextualization, but a neat opportunity for connection. (Though a bit surprising to me!)

Now, in regards to contextualization, you won't want to miss my next post. It will deal with contextualization and ancestor worship-- and it will be fascinating.

I am in Taiwan right now and will be blogging the trip all week. Other bloggers will also be weighing in over the next few days. See my last post for a list. (The guys at the Upstream Collective made a nifty little graphic that our "official commentators" will use a bit later, but you can see it at the top of this post.)

During the week, we will talk to local leaders, workers living here permanently helping local churches, and also some of those who came with me. You will meet leaders from different cultures, denomination, and ages.

For our first video, I talk with Pastor Chen. He pastors a traditional Baptist church and tells a bit about the context and ministry here.

Take a moment to listen and begin to hear about ancestor worship, the growth of the church on the mainland compared to the slower growth in Taiwan, and a bluegrass concert.

I will be posting more in the days to come, but enjoy:

Please feel free to comment below, but if you have friends working over here, be sure they would want their name mentioned before you do so.

I want to tell you about a mission / vision trip that I am putting together with the Upstream Collective and the International Mission Board to Taiwan this Fall. We will depart from the states on September 19, arrive the next day on the 20th, and will complete the trip on September 26th.

Each day we will be taking a look at various ministry venues for church planting in that part of the world. I will be leading a session each morning with the group. We will also hear from some of the leaders of the Upstream Collective network each day as we talk about missional living in an urban and cross cultural context. We have some slots left for this trip. If you have an interest in going you need to fill out an application on theupstreamcollective.org and they will be in touch with you.

Hope to see you in Taiwan.

I recently was in Rome, Italy and Marseille, France connecting pastors in the states with church plant opportunities in Europe. I was there with The Upstream Collective and the International Mission Board.

Daniel Ott was part of our team. Daniel is on staff of Southland Community Church, an independent Christan church in Lexington, KY.

Here is my interview with Daniel:

As I mentioned on Twitter last week, I received an email from Barb Winter that the great American missiologist Ralph D. Winter passed away Wednesday night May 20th. Ralph had been battling the resurgence of the multiple myeloma that has plagued his body since 2002 and the lymphoma diagnosed in early February of this year. Several mini strokes plus drop foot in both feet following his surgery in March complicated his recovery. Ralph was 84.

His influence in the church and the world for missions is unrivaled. Time Magazine tagged Winters as one of America's 25 most influential evangelicals. His book, Perspectives on the World Christian Movement, is an essential read, proving formative and motivational for thousands of believers who begin to see God's heart for world evangelization.

I had the chance to know Ralph when he contributed an essay to a forthcoming book I am editing with David Hesselgrave. His keen insights are, as always, challenging.

He will be missed.

It's mission week. Be sure to check out the posts so far:

Post 1: Why We Are In Europe.

Post 2: Vision and Video from Europe.

Post 3: Planting in Budapest and Beyond.

Today, we talk about some new mission technology. This resource was released at Catalyst just last week-- and it is live now.

I've pointed to Barna's research that reveals growing evangelical churches are increasingly tech savvy, and our recent series of interviews with megachurch pastors highlighted this data. (eg. interview with Joel Hunter and Perry Noble). But what might happen if we could use technology just as effectively between churches, across denominations, to work and network for the spread of the gospel?

Enter OneApp.

Check out the video below for an introduction to this ambitious project which seeks to be an online missional hub connecting churches, church plants, ministries and projects around the world.

Be sure to sign up for updates at oneapp.net, and follow their blog at missionleader.com. For more detail check out this post.

More from Poland later today and tomorrow... and some from Rome later in the week.

I am in Lynchburg, VA today spending time with the leadership of Thomas Road Baptist Church, so I won't be around to comment much. But, here are an unusually long Friday is for Friends update.

Dave Ramsey

Michael Edwards, a friend and my most recent commenter here on the blog, invited me to come speak to the staff of the Financial Peace University folks. I was surprised at just how many people they employ. I guess I knew Dave Ramsey was famous, but I did not know they had such a large ministry. I had the chance to talk with Dave and was impressed with his (and their) focus on using finances as a "bridge" to share the gospel. I think they are onto something-- and appreciate their ministry.

Mark Dever

I interviewed each of the speakers at the recent Whiteboard Conference. It was a good group with some interesting dialogue.

However, I have been (pleasantly) surprised by the response to my interview with Mark Dever. As of now, almost 2500 people have downloaded the video, more than all the other interviews from Whiteboard combined.

The video shot up when the king-of-all-Reformed-bloggers, Justin Taylor posts it with commentary including:

This is a great interview of Mark Dever by Ed Stetzer, who asks great questions. They cover worship (Capitol Hill and Sovereign Grace), contextualization (MacArthur, Driscoll, Mahaney), the seeker-sensitive movement, partnership with those you disagree with, whether the gospel is too big (Dever admits he was being provocative at T4G, that some qualifications are needed, and that euangelion is semantically larger than the God-man-Christ-response scheme), and whether working for Habitat for Humanity is necessarily kingdom work.

In the spirit of keeping my humble, you will notice that Justin does not know how to spell my name (in the title). :-)

You can watch the interview in two parts: part one // part two

Let me also encourage you Reformed folks that it is OK to watch (and even glean some nuggets of wisdom from) the other interviews as well. Dever did not come to the conference just to talk, he also stayed and listed to the other speakers. And, watching his kind interaction and learning spirit with the other speakers would be a good example and something many could emulate. (Click here for the conference channel videos.)

And, one more thought. As one who speaks in a lot of different settings, I believe that conversations like these are essential. There is much we can learn from each other. There is only one body of Christ... and we need each other.

Michael Kelley and The Tough Sayings of Jesus II

Check out the interview with Michael Kelly, the author of a new curriculum through Lifeway called, The Tough Sayings of Jesus II. In the interview Kelly explains why he wrote the material.

We like a picture of Jesus where among other things, He's "nice.�? So we gravitate towards those passages. But that leaves us with an incomplete and mishapen view of Jesus and doesn't allow us to examine the fullness of what He taught and lived. So I wanted to write something that engaged people at a lot of levels - emotionally, intellectually, as well as spiritually.

Be sure to stop by the website to see all you get with the Leader's Kit and download a sample. Michael has become a friend at LifeWay and I think he has much to say.

OneMission.tv

A few years ago I was privileged to plant a new church north of Atlanta with some very good friends. One of those was Doug Keesey, a media guy I had worked with in the past. Doug and his team have just launched a new website that offers a unique variety of video resources for the local church. The website, www.OneMission.tv, is almost a "one-stop video shop�? for nearly every church video need. They have a growing library of high quality videos for worship, including a number of creative video sermon illustrations, countdowns and motion backgrounds. They also offer 55 downloadable TV & radio spots, something I've not seen anywhere else on the web. All of the spots are customizable and very affordable. And finally, the guys at OneMission.tv have partnered with several Southern Baptist entities to deliver downloadable missions videos free to the local church. Although the site is less than a month old, it's worth a bookmark to watch as the list of video resources grows.

Paul Chitwood and the International Mission Board

My friend Paul Chitwood is the Chairman of Trustees at the International Mission Board (the largest Protestant mission board in the history of the world with over 5000 missionaries). In a great article he recently reminded me and my fellow denominationalists that God is at work around the world. Yes, we may have slipped into decline in the states, but there is powerful news from around the world.

Paul shares:

The work of the IMB is the primary thing that brings us together. While the statistical analysis -- and the analysis of the analysis -- of the current state of the Southern Baptist Convention continues, I fear the most important statistics are escaping.

Is there any good news to tell concerning the work that brought us, and yet holds us, together? Indeed there is.

The number of Southern Baptist missionaries serving overseas is 5,359. Our most recent statistical analysis reveals overseas baptism totals at an all-time high of 609,968. The number of new believers being discipled overseas totaled 567,413, another all-time high. Last year's new churches overseas totaled 25,497. You guessed it -- an all-time high.

When it comes to missions, the sky is not falling. It is exploding -- with opportunity.

So get on a plane, take to the skies and help spread the Gospel among the nations. It's still a good day to be a Southern Baptist. In fact, analyzing the statistics, it's the best day to be a Southern Baptist.

Please note his important comment, "The work of the IMB is the primary thing that brings us together."

Let us not forget that our convention was once defined by missions... and I believe it is a uniting around missions and evangelism that will unite us again. I am Southern Baptist because of missions-- starting as a Home Mission Board Mission Service Corp church planter in the inner city of Buffalo. NY to today working part-time for the IMB.

Paul and I dialogued a bit about the article and he reminded me that the first thing the SBC did was found what is now called the International Mission Board. What a great idea. Perhaps the first thing we need to do this year at the SBC in Indy is to get excited about God's global mission.

Thanks, Paul, for that reminder.

David Dockery and The Future of the SBC

Over the last few years, David Dockery has become a friend. I have blogged on him before (link) and look forward to preaching in Union University's chapel this Fall.

David has a new and thoughtful book out with some solutions to get Southern Baptists to the "other side" of our denominational challenges. I read the book on the plane yesterday on my way to Lynchburg.

The book is a good read and points to a bright potential future for our convention. You might want to check out an interview with David via the InSight Podcast of the North Carolina Baptist State Association.

Denny Burk also gives a brief word about the book here.

David shared this with me via email:

My new book, SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONSENSUS AND RENEWAL: A BIBLICAL, HISTORICAL, AND THEOLOGICAL PROPOSAL, will be released by B&H Publishing Group in May (2008). I am grateful that B&H will initially make the book available for $9.99 to help provide a wide circulation for the book. I am hopeful that the book might help move us forward as a Convention in our work, witness, as well as in our cooperative efforts.

SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONSENSUS AND RENEWAL does not attempt to deal with every issue or wrestle with every intramural squabble that can be named among us as Southern Baptists at this time. Instead, by reflecting on our history and our heritage, particularly our theological heritage, we call for renewed commitments to our shared cooperation around the truthfulness of Holy Scripture and the uniqueness of the Gospel message. We then look for avenues that point us toward a new consensus, with a focus on overarching issues like missions, worship, education, and leadership. Other key theological and ethical issues are addressed along the way, together with a reminder of our Baptist distinctives and identity. The proposal for a consensus is grounded in a biblical, historical, and theological framework.

Outline for SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONSENSUS AND RENEWAL

INTRODUCTION: Southern Baptists: Past, Present, and Future

CHAPTER ONE: Renewing Markers of Southern Baptist Identity: Scripture, Global Missions, and Cooperation

CHAPTER TWO: Focusing on the Gospel: Toward a Southern Baptist Consensus

CHAPTER THREE: Giving Glory to God: Baptist Worship Then and Now

CHAPTER FOUR: Serving Church and Society: A Vision for Baptist Education

CHAPTER FIVE: Rediscovering Our Theological Heritage: Learning from the Past as We Look to the Future

CHAPTER SIX: Praying for Church and Convention Leaders: Character, Conviction, and Cooperation

Just about everyone seems to have endorsed the book:

Alvin Reid Wins an Award

Congratulations to my friend Alvin Reid whose new book was recently honored. Kregel announced:

Outreach Magazine announced the finalists for their Outreach Resource Awards in February of this year... and this year's finalists included... Join the Movement: God Is Calling You to Change the World by Alvin L. Reid (Kregel 2007) in the Youth Outreach category.

Congrats to Alvin.

Joe Thorn Needs to Learn Boundaries

This weekend we were struck with the very real prospect of violence and missions as a gunman attacked a Youth With a Mission training facility and New Life Church.

Although it makes bigger news when it is on U.S. soil, mission work takes place in violent contexts every day-- and missionaries and nationals lose their lives.

Today, when I came home, I found that my copy of Keith Eitel's timely book had arrived. I cannot find a graphic or a link, but I will update it when I can. The book is called, Missions in the Contexts of Violence.

I have skimmed the book and it looks like an important new read with a breadth of contributing authors.

This book is part of a series published by the folks at the Evangelical Missiological Society. You can find the whole series, minus this new book, here (click on publications).

I believe that such violence will get worse, and not better, in the coming years. But, as IMB spokesman (at that time) Mark Kelly said:

Missions has always been a dangerous enterprise... In 1845, it was shipwrecks and malaria. Today, it's bandits and car wrecks. There simply aren't any safe places, even here in the United States. While safety is important, every missionary decides as part of obeying the missions mandate that it is better to serve God where he calls than it is to disobey and remain where it is 'safe.'

Keith Eitel quotes martyred missionary Karen Watson, who wrote a letter before she was killed along with three other missionaries in an ambush in Iraq. She wrote a letter before she left that would have profound significance after her death.

Keith reports that she told her pastor to put the letter in a safe place in case she did not return. She did not.

Karen's letter included this credo:

The Missionary Heart

Cares more than some think is wise.

Risks more than some think is safe.

Dreams more than some think is practical.

Expects more than some think is possible.

May we all learn from the missionaries that our lives are not our own, and Christ may call us to make the greatest sacrifice.

One of the fundamental challenges with cultural engagement is how far to go to engage culture. It is always easy for smug people to sit on the sidelines and throw rocks at people who seek to engage cultures. I see it every day. Come to think of it, I get calls about it pretty regularly.

It seems that everyone is an expert on how far to go with engaging culture-- and the fact that you have no real experiencing in a certain culture does not keep you from opining on the subject. Sigh.

But, the fact of the matter is this: in every missional cultural engagement, some go too far and some don't go far enough. It is the nature of contextualization. It is hard. It takes a commitment to biblical principles. It takes wisdom. It takes listening to each other. And, those outside the culture need to listen to those inside. And, those inside the culture need to learn from those that have gone before them.

At the Madras missionary conference, way back in 1938, they explained that churches had to be "indigenous," or be rooted and related to their own cultural context:

An indigenous church, young or old, in the East or in the West, is a church which, rooted in obedience to Christ, spontaneously uses forms of thought and modes of action natural and familiar in its own environment. Such a church arises in response to Christ's own call. The younger churches will not be unmindful of the experiences and teachings which the older churches have recorded in their confessions and liturgy. But every younger church will seek further to bear witness to the same Gospel with new tongues" (International Missionary Council, "The Growing Church: The Madras Series," Papers Based upon the Meeting of the International Missionary Council, at Tambaram, Madras, India, December 12-29, 1938. Vol. 2, (New York, International Missionary Council), 276.)

Such a value is not easy to uphold and there are dangers on both sides.

Dean Gilliland explains:

Well, I am not very good at getting my "Meanings of Missional" series out on Monday. My new post is done, but I am waiting to get a couple of quotes confirmed. So, as soon as I hear back, I will post it... hopefully very soon. In the meantime... let me share about an upcoming project.
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I think it is a good thing to understand and engage popular culture and practical ministry. I talk a lot about biblical fidelity, cultural relevance, local church ministry, and leadership. And I try to write some things to help pastors and leaders. But, I also think it is a good thing to engage in scholarly discussion of the issues that undergird such conversations. As such, I am co-editing a forthcoming missiology book with David Hesselgrave.

I just finished a two hour conference call with a group of IMB leaders gathered in England. They came from five regions around the world to strategize about how to engage our churches in global mission. Great people. Great heart for God's mission.

Here is an example of some of the great things the IMB is doing to connect with what they call "multi-affinity churches" at Catalyst.

Be sure to introduce yourself to Mark Morris via his email at the end of the announcement.

And, while you are thinking about international missions, watch this and then do this!

Every Monday, I will post something about mission, missions, missional, or missiology.

Here is the first-- a guest blog from a missionary living in a Muslim country. He cannot use his name because, well, many people in the world are not excited about what he is doing. So, we will call him Bob.

Feel free to interact with him in the comments.

Ed

"Bob" wrote:

For a little more than a decade my family and I have been living in Asia. Our desire has been to "model and multiply missions and ministry among Muslims." By that, we mean that we want to be directly involved in praying for and sharing the gospel with Muslims, seeing them discipled and brought into the fellowship of the saints. And we want to be teaching and encouraging others to do the same thing.

Often people ask us why we do it. Why have we left our families, our culture and our homes to live in the third world with Muslims? Why are we not back in America where life is "easier," our boys can get a "good" education, where it is "safe" and we can care for our ageing parents? Honestly, sometimes I ask myself the same question.

Perhaps you have heard the following complaints, "Mission work is expensive and dangerous. Besides, most people don't want to hear the gospel anyway, otherwise why would missionaries have to go into these places undercover." Today many people are accusing mission boards of being reckless for sending people to share their faith in a dangerous, hostile world.

And it is not just foreign work that is so dangerous. Papers carry the story of a student being killed for her faith in a Colorado school. I have had a gun pulled on me in Louisiana when inviting someone to a church function. If people are not interested, why bother? Why not just join with people like Hasan (not his real name) who recently said, "I pray that there are no Bridge People in heaven--they are just evil, hateful people who deserve to go to Hell."

So, how can we answer these questions? What is the point of communicating the Gospel with non-Christians? I have a brother who is an atheist. He told me once that he was sure I was too smart to believe in the gospel so I must be doing this for the money. Now, we have been extremely blessed by the generosity of Southern Baptists through the Cooperative Program and Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, but we took a fifty percent salary reduction to come here, so I couldn't be that smart if money was my motivation!

Johannes Bavinck, in An Introduction to the Science of Missions defined the aim of missions as "To glorify God, establish the kingdom, and convert the heathen." In practice, this process is generally accomplished in reverse order. We share the gospel with those who have not heard it in a way they can understand. Then we gather them into congregations where they can be discipled and join others in worship. Those congregations become a part of the Universal body of Christ, reflecting God's glory throughout eternity.

Bavink was not the first missiologist to make this correlation between evangelism and the glory of God. In John 15:8, Jesus said "This is to my Father's glory that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples."

If you are a Christian you know the greatest joy available to human kind--a personal relationship with the Almighty Creator. We do not share our faith to "stem the Islamic tide" or "defeat the postmodern agenda." We share our faith with others out of a sense of love for God and those who are separated from Him. We share out of a concern for His glory.