Education: BA Gordon College 1973; M.Div. Trinity Evangelical Divinity School 1977; DMiss Trinity Evangelical Divinity School 1990.
Ministry: SEND Missionary 1977-present. Faculty at Alaska Bible College 1978-2013. SEND U Missiologist 2013-present.
Family: Married, 3 children, 6 grandchildren.
Review of The Missionary Family: Witness, Concerns, Care, Dwight P. Baker and Robert J. Priest, eds.
No. 22 of the Evangelical Missiological Society Series was published by the William Carey Library in the fall of 2014. It “points to a feature – the missionary family – often considered to be a distinctive of the Protestant missionary movement” (xi). The book is divided into three main sections:
The latest book in Baker’s Encountering Missions series, Effective Intercultural Communication: A Christian Perspective by A. Scott Moreau, Evvy Hay Campbell and Susan Greener, became available at the end of 2014. The authors state their “task is to walk you through the critical elements that comprise an introduction to intercultural communications for Christian workers of all types” (p3). The book is divided into four major parts.
Part one is an introduction to intercultural communications providing “an overview of the historical development (both secular and Christian) of intercultural communication and deal with implications that are important for people who cross cultures to communicate Christ.” (p3) Chapter 1 defines terminology of culture and communication theory briefly. Chapter 2 touches on secular and Christian development of the discipline. Chapter 3 notes theoretical and methodological approaches to intercultural communications along with a discussion of the purpose of communication from a Christian perspective.
Would the Apostle Paul fill out an Individual Growth Plan (IGP)?
YES!
The Apostle Paul was committed to life-long learning. We see this very clearly in Philippians 3:12-16. I will start quoting from verse 7 to pick up the context:
But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ, and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that comes from faith – that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection of the dead.
Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained. (ESV)
Paul’s example of lifelong learning in Philippians 3:12-16 spells out the reality: we have not arrived. Twice Paul states that he has not arrived: in verse 12, “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect” and in verse 13, “I do not consider that I have made it my own.” He recognizes that he has room to grow. Going through the IGP process begins with this recognition that we have room to grow. In verse 17, Paul urges us to “join in imitating me.” Imitation must start at this foundational level that we all can grow, we are not already perfect.
In my last post we looked at Sills’ book Reaching and Teaching: A Call to Great Commission Obedience. This book is clearly a follow up to this work. It is in essence an application in practice of the principles in the earlier book. “This book explores how the Lord led missionaries to minister effectively among a specific people whom he called to himself: the Highland Quichua people of Andean Ecuador.”(pp. 2, 3).The book highlights the challenges of reaching and teaching an oral people group with a long history of syncretism:
A review of M. David Sills, Reaching and Teaching: a Call to Great Commission Obedience, Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2010.
This book has sought to bring awareness to those who have been lulled into thinking that God wants us to simply reach them. He doesn’t. He wants us to reach and teach – reaching them with the saving gospel message and teaching them to observe everything that He has commanded. (220).
So ends Sills’ book.
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