The Changing Face of World Missions: Engaging Contemporary Issues and Trends (Encountering Mission)
Overview
The latter part of the twentieth century and the early years of the twenty-first have seen dramatic changes, both in global society and within the church. These changes have ramifications for the task of missions in the new millennium. The Changing Face of World Missions identifies and interacts with 12 significant trends that today’s student of missions needs to understand. These trends include globalization, changing demographics, the shift from modernity to postmodernity, the shift from Christendom to global Christianity, changing motivations for missions, the impact of new technologies, and the issue of contextualization. The text is enhanced by case studies to foster individual and group reflection and discussion.
With the Logos Bible Software edition, you have unprecedented access to resources that offer relatable and insightful material on Christian missions. The powerful search tools in your digital library help you locate the specific material relevant to you, whether it is textual or topical. Hours of biblical research can be accomplished with the simple click of a mouse. All Scripture passages in this volume link to your favorite Bible translation in your library. You can perform powerful searches by topic and find what other authors, pastors, and theologians have to say, making this series ideal for studying contemporary missions.
- Offers a contemporary view on missions
- Provides insight on missions’ trends, developments, and issues
- Analyzes the theology of mission
- The Global Context
- Globalization: New York’s in New Delhi, Manila’s in Los Angeles
- Changing Demographics: The Impact of Migration, HIV/AIDS, and Children at Risk
- Religionquake: From World Religions to Multiple Spiritualities
- The Changing Basis of Knowledge: From Modernity to Postmodernity
- The Missional Context
- The Disappearing Center: From Christendom to Global Christianity
- Changing Motivations for Missions: From “Fear of Hell” to “the Glory of God”
- Increasing Awareness of Spiritual Power: The Spiritual Warfare Orientation to Missions
- Innovation in Mission Operations: Creative-Access Platforms
- The Strategic Context
- Working Together: Beyond Individual Efforts to Networks of Collaboration
- The Changing Uses of Money: From Self-support to International Partnership
- The Impact of New Technologies: Life in the Virtual World and Beyond
- Contextualization: From an Adapted Message to an Adapted Life
Top Highlights
“More cross-cultural missionaries from Western and majority world churches are needed who will find ways to live sacrificial lives among the unreached (Jaffarian 2002, 28). At this point, such missionaries are more likely to come from majority world churches. This is because many unreached poor people live in culturally diverse countries like India. Missionaries from these countries can legally move within their own national boundaries to live and witness among those without Christ.” (Page 148)
“Good contextualization is aware of the impact of human sinfulness on the process” (Page 325)
“Good contextualization is concerned with the whole of the Christian faith” (Page 324)
“This supernaturalism makes a lot of Western Christianity look like the Deism of the Enlightenment, in which it was thought that God, if he existed, had started the world and left it to run by immutable natural laws. God is a more distant God in the West than in the rest of the world.” (Page 149)
“However, it can hinder missions by creating patterns of dominance of givers over receivers, jealousy between those supported by the West and those not supported, and parasites whose only desire is for the opportunities wealth brings, such as employment, social power, and authority.” (Page 279)
In a rapidly changing world, we can no longer carry out missions as usual. We need a renewed vision and new ways to reach a world in such desperate need. In this excellent book, Michael Pocock, Gailyn Van Rheenen, and Douglas McConnell relay the unchanging biblical foundations and renew our vision for missions. They also deal with urgent new challenges that confront us. In doing so, they help us both to analyze our world and our mission and to think deeply for ourselves, even as they call us to become involved in God’s work in this world. This book can help all of us in the church grasp the nature and the importance of the mission God has given us in our day.
—Paul G. Hiebert, distinguished professor of mission and anthropology, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
This is a fascinating book that challenges Christians, particularly evangelical Christians, to rethink what they mean by mission and how they put their commitment to spreading the gospel into practice. This is absorbing reading by thoughtful authors who make a real contribution to contemporary thinking about Christian mission.
—Irving Hexham, professor of religious studies, University of Calgary
This is a well-conceived book, surveying and evaluating global developments as they influence and challenge evangelical missions worldwide. It is wide ranging, instructive, motivating, and rich in detail. This book is a commendable cooperative effort of three senior missionary leaders with rich cross-cultural experience and necessary expertise. I recommend it highly as a reliable and helpful guide to all who want to know more about our rapidly changing world and an effective Christian response to it.
—Peter Kuzmic, Eva B. and Paul E. Toms Distinguished Professor of World Missions and European Studies, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary
An excellent resource on the changing realities of our world and the mission movement. A must-read for any pastor, mission leader or group wanting to evaluate the effectiveness of their current mission activities.
—Outreach
[The authors] are well qualified both academically and experientially to engage their assigned topics. . . . The authors are to be thanked for their insightful work that will help evangelical missionaries, future missionaries, and local church supporters understand crucial transformations in world missions.
—Missiology
- Title: The Changing Face of World Missions: Engaging Contemporary Issues and Trends
- Authors: Douglas McConnell, Michael Pocock, Gailyn Van Rheenen
- Series: Encountering Mission
- Publisher: Baker Academic
- Print Publication Date: 2005
- Logos Release Date: 2013
- Pages: 400
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Missions › Theory; Globalization › Religious aspects--Christianity
- ISBNs: 9781441254078, 080102661, 9780801026614, 1441254072, 080102661X
- Resource ID: LLS:CHNGFACEWRLDMSSN
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-29T22:37:02Z
Douglas McConnell is provost and senior vice president, and professor of leadership and intercultural studies at Fuller Theological Seminary.
Michael Pocock is the senior emeritus professor of world missions and intercultural studies at Dallas Theological Seminary.
Gailyn Van Rheenen retired from Abilene Christian University in 2003 to launch Mission Alive, an organization devoted to the training of Christian leaders.
