January 2017

Training, Book Reviews, Prayer, Spiritual Disciplines, Spiritual Formation

Sensible Shoes

Today’s book review was written by Brittany Garrett, who serves with her husband and 3 children in Romania. Sensible Shoes: A Story About the Spiritual Journey by Sharon Garlough Brown is a fictional narrative of four women on a journey toward deeper intimacy with Christ. Each of these women bring their own baggage as they begin their Sacred Journey, and we get to witness their brokenness as well as the beginnings of their healing. I saw part of myself in each of the four main characters. As they learned about some of the spiritual disciplines, I, too, learned practical ways to apply them. I enjoyed watching their stories unfold and felt satisfaction as an onlooker getting to see how God was creating beauty from their mess. You see their struggle and their resistance to some of the disciplines and how God uses even our resistance to show us His faithful… Read the whole post

January 24, 2017November 10, 2021

Brittany Garrett1 min read

Church Planting, Training, Book Reviews, Gospel

Keeping urban church planters centered

This blog post was written by Dr. Rick Perhai, who serves with SEND in Ukraine and teaches at Kyiv Theological Seminary. Timothy Keller, Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012. By Richard J. Perhai, Ph.D. Church planters face many challenges in the God–ordained work of establishing new churches. Cross-cultural church planters face even more challenges that demand serious calling, prayer support, and teamwork all led by the Holy Spirit. Mission agency leadership can spend months and even years mentoring new recruits and retooling missionaries for cross-cultural church planting. But one area is often overlooked, namely that many missionary candidates from rural or suburban upbringings are unprepared for planting churches in the foreign culture of the city. Enter Timothy Keller and his book Center Church. The book is considered by many a compendium of much Keller has written before. For example, his… Read the whole post

January 17, 2017August 28, 2020

Richard Perhai1 min read

Church Planting, Leadership, Evangelism

Plans that seem like nothing

It is that time of year again, when we are asked to develop annual ministry plans for the coming year. We dream about what we would like to see happen in 2017 – and then we face the reality of our limited financial and people resources. We do not want to discount what God can do, and so we seek to set goals that call for faith and utter dependence upon God. But we are also told to make sure that our annual goals are SMART: S – Strategic (How clearly does it propel our vision forward?) M – Measurable (How will we know when we have completed the goal?) A – Ambitious (a faith-stretch) (Does it require us to depend on God?) R – Realistic (Do we have at least a rough idea for how we could work towards accomplishing it?) T – Time-bound (Have we determined a deadline… Read the whole post

January 10, 2017March 5, 2020

Ken Guenther1 min read

Missiology, Book Reviews, Evangelism, Missiological Issues

Review of “Controversies in Mission: Theology, People, and Practice in the 21st Century”

The Evangelical Missiological Society’s 2016 volume, Controversies in Mission, edited by Rochelle Cathcart Scheuerman and Edward L. Smithers contains papers from the 2015 Regional Meetings and National Conference. The book is divided into four parts: Part One, Biblical Perspectives and the Theology of Mission Part Two, The People of Mission Part Three, The Practice of Mission Part Four, Historical and Future Perspectives.… Read the whole post

January 3, 2017November 11, 2021

Gary Ridley1 min read