The SEND U Blog

Reflections and Resources for Lifelong Learning for Missionaries

Category: Books Page 10 of 19

How do we disciple those of other cultures?

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On October 23, 2018

In Disciple-making, Book Reviews

Walking together on the Jesus Road: Intercultural Discipling by [Hibbert, Evelyn , Hibbert, Richard ]

A book review of Walking together on the Jesus Road: Intercultural Discipling by Evelyn & Richard Hibbert

Evelyn and Richard Hibbert believe that core to the missionary task is discipling those of other cultures. But they note that most of the books on disciple-making are written for the Western church context, and even those books which talk about cross-cultural disciple-making seem to assume that the methodology used in the West can also be used in non-Western contexts. I would concur with their observation. Discipling others to maturity in Christ when those disciples are from a different culture than yours is a significant challenge, and many mistakes can be made if one just follows a programmatic approach to disciple-making used in Western churches.  Their new book, “Walking Together on the Jesus Road” is an excellent book helping to address that challenge and showing us how to avoid the mistakes.

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Book Review: Two Stories of Everything

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On September 15, 2018

In Storying, Worldview, Islam, Book Reviews

Why review another book comparing Islam and Christianity? Two Stories of Everything: the Competing Metanarratives of Islam and Christianity by Duane Alexander Miller take a different approach than most. Rather than comparing Islam and Christianity as religions, Miller compares the metanarratives that Islam and Christianity tell. Metanarratives are the overarching story that includes and defines all the smaller stories of a people. It is the story that communicates the worldview of a group. I find it interesting that Miller never uses the term ‘worldview’ (if he did I missed it). I think he wanted to stay focused on the stories of everything rather than get bogged down in a philosophic analysis. He has lived in the Middle East and has personal experience interacting with Muslims for whom he shows great respect. He explains his approach in the introduction:

People often talk of Islam and Christianity as competing religions, and compare their doctrines and practices. When I moved to the Middle East ten years ago I shared this opinion. But over that time I found this approach to be deficient. Which is not to say it is wrong, but it fails to grasp the genius of either of these collections of doctrines and practices. … In this book I will outline the stories that Islam and Christianity tell. Furthermore, all these stories (or narratives) find themselves included in a great story of everything, which is to say a metanarrative. Islam and Christianity, whatever they may be, certainly do propose to tell a grand story of everything, from creation of the world and time all the way to the consummation of history and the eternal fate of human souls. – Duane Alexander Miller, Two Stories of Everything, xi.

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Book Review: Marks of the Messenger

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On September 3, 2018

In Book Reviews, Evangelism, Gospel

On the back cover of J. Mack Stiles’ book: Marks of the Messenger: Knowing, Living and Speaking the Gospel (Downers Grove: IVP, 2010) D. A. Carson comments:

I do not think I have ever read a book on evangelism that makes me more eager to pass it on than this one – better, that makes me more eager to evangelize than this one. -D. A. Carson.

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Book Review: Prepared by Grace, for Grace.

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On August 22, 2018

In Theology, Book Reviews, Holy Spirit, Gospel

INTRODUCTION:

Prepared by Grace, for Grace: The Puritans on God’s Way of Leading Sinners to Christ by [Beeke, Joel R., Smalley, Paul M.]

Historical theology does not often get a place at the table in missiological discussions. Its neglect can leave us at the mercy of current thinking and trends. Reading theologians from other eras guards us against our blind spots. Other eras have their blind spots too but they are usually different than ours. Historical theology is a safeguard against cultural bias. The book that I was asked to review looks at the Puritans, whose works I have spent a lot of time reading.

Joel R. Beeke and Paul M. Smalley have written a book titled, Prepared by Grace, for Grace: The Puritans on God’s Ordinary Way of Leading Sinners to Christ (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2013). The volume deals with an issue central to missiology. The authors write in the introduction:

 

 

 

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Book Review: Worldview-based Storying

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On August 3, 2018

In Book Reviews, Storying, Worldview

Tom Steffen’s book, Worldview-based Storying: The Integration of Symbol, Story, and Ritual in the Orality Movement, is the first book in the Series “There’s More to the Story” written by the consultants of Worldview Resource Group. I reviewed book two (July 2018) and book three (December 2017) – the books were not published sequentially. Each book stands on its own yet reading them in the order intended would be beneficial to the reader.

In the Preface, Steffen describes the concerns addressed by the series:

Cross-cultural communicators of the gospel all too often neither provide adequate backstory nor sufficiently know whom they address, much less how they story. In fact, some even consider such awareness totally unnecessary! This all too often leads to an ineffective, truncated biblical story. This series “attempts to preempt the rapidly-prepared, quick-fix approaches that tell only small portions of the biblical story, and in their place, present a comprehensive, big-picture, local-culture sensitive, viable, reproducible, and thoroughly biblical alternative.” -Kindle loc. 259

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