This book explores how member care is being practiced around the world to equip sending organizations as they intentionally support their mission/aid personnel. The information provided includes personal accounts, guidelines, case studies, worksheets, and practical advice from all over the globe. “This book delivers what it promises! Here are 50 chapters from the widest selection of writers in the member care field to date.” –Brent Lindquist, President, Link Care Center This book was published in partnership with the World Evangelical Alliance.
You've been a sending church for years. You're known as the missions-minded standout in your local community. Each year you host missionaries home on furlough, eager to share their stories from the field with your church and the faithful supporters of their ministry year upon year. Still, you can't help but wonder: Is there more to missionary care than this-writing checks, hosting furloughs, and offering up occasional prayers? There is! And what's missing may surprise you. It goes way beyond support checks and missionary photos on the church wall, instead aiming straight for the heart of God's vision for the nations and His Church's mission to the world. What's more, you'll find it's the missing link between anemic missionaries who burn out and resilient missionaries who thrive. Mind the Gaps compiles firsthand accounts from an experienced and practicing missionary care ream in a local church which seeks to equip your church with the tools it needs to create a system of proactive care for the missionaries you send into the world. Learn how to come alongside those you send, and care for them as they care for others. Don't let those you send get caught in the vicious cycle of burnout and attrition. The stakes are too high. Instead, learn how to mind the gaps. The Missionary Care Team at Trinity Church in Redlands, CA has been developing a system of proactive care for their missionary families since 2008. Trinity's Mission Pastor, David J. Wilson, DMin, received his Master of Divinity degree from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and his doctorate from Campbell University. He has been serving as a mission pastor in the local church since 1996. Book jacket.
With careful biblical exposition and keen cross-cultural awareness, Duane Elmer offers principles and guidance for avoiding misunderstandings and building relationships in ways that honor people in other cultures.
Adjusting to a New World Missionaries must adjust to new cultures, learn languages, work as a team, maintain healthy relationships, and discern best ministry practices. Nothing can fully prepare a person for life as a missionary. However, for almost thirty years, Thomas Hale’s On Being a Missionary has helped to equip cross-cultural workers to not only survive but thrive in their calling. This abridged version of On Being a Missionary remains practical and accessible. It addresses the new realities of the changing missionary force. It also looks at the challenges of bonding with a new culture in an increasingly globalized and technologically connected world. The book is written for everyone with an interest in missions, whether the missionary on the field or the supporter at home. It is written by learners for learners. Drawing from years of experience, the authors provide down-to-earth advice and perspective concerning the problems, struggles, and failures that missionaries often face. At the same time, this book exposes various myths related to missionary life. Find out why a generation of mission workers has benefited from On Being a Missionary.
"Worth Keeping is more than worth just reading. I urge church and missional leaders to reflect on the research and absorb the principles contained in this important volume. I am convinced if we put into practice its recommendations we will see more effective missionaries who feel valued as servants of the living God. Worth Keeping should be required reading for all mission leaders and local church mission teams." - Geoff Tunnicliffe, International Director, World Evangelical Alliance, Canada This book was published in partnership with the World Evangelical Alliance.
Many of us want more from God instead of more of God. Matthew 5:6 says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” This is a promise. No one needs to tell you if the water you drank when you were thirsty made you feel better. So too with experiencing God. When it happens, you will know it for yourself. More of God is about moving beyond faith. It is about getting more of God. Experiencing more of God. Every book in the Bible, especially the books of the New Testament, are written for this purpose. Take the letters; those who are addressed were already saved. But the writers wanted their hearers to experience not just more knowledge about God but more of God. Everything in this book is designed to make you hungry. Thirsty. As you read, keep in mind that the ever-increasing hunger for more of God is from God. Kendall’s advice: “Don’t settle for more mere information about God. Or more theological knowledge. Give yourself no rest until you cross over that crucial line from secondhand knowledge about God to firsthand knowledge of God. There is nothing more exciting than when you see for yourself that God is real, Jesus is real, the Holy Spirit is real, and the Bible is true!”
Women are central to the mission of God. Pastor Tara Beth Leach issues a stirring call for a new generation of women in ministry: to teach, to preach, to shepherd, and to lead. Providing practical advice and encouragement, Leach shows how God not only permits women to minister—he emboldens, empowers, and unleashes them to lead out of the fullness of who they are.
As the world comes to terms with the human-caused destruction of God's sacred creation, whether Global Christianity will celebrate a bi-centennial Edinburgh 2110 becomes a real question. Yet, as Creation Care in Christian Mission shows, the mounting and life-threatening ecological crisis is at the heart of the mission of God. The volume's contributing authors represent a wide range of Christian traditions and geographical regions on which they draw to initiate dialogue on creation care within the wider global Christian community. They explore hard questions relative to climate change, population growth, pollution, poverty, sustainability, economic justice, deforestation, gender, and land issues. Written with academics, missionary and development agencies, and ordinary Christians in mind, this work presents a global unified spiritual and ethical voice on Creation care. The diversity of contributors from established scholars and religious leaders makes this work a unique and critical resource for understanding human responsibility toward God's creation. The book offers hope to all Christians, for Christian mission can positively aid ecological responsibilities and actions. This book is a singular contribution to examining the broader contributions of Christianity in response to our growing environmental challenges. Rather than looking inward, this volume looks outward to relate the Christian missionary tradition to Earth care through the multiple perspectives of theology, ethics, and ritual. It will be an invaluable resource for years to come. Mary Evelyn Tucker, Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology and cowriter of Journey of the Universe. Religion's most important present responsibility is to face the environmental crisis, and this includes much self-examination as well as moral instruction. This important collection, with many leading voices, contributes to the profoundly important ecological transformation of faith and of the faithful. Highly recommended. Roger S. Gottlieb, author of A Greener Faith: Religious Environmentalism and our Planet's Future and Spirituality: What it is and Why it Matters. With the publication of the first papal encyclical on care for the planet this volume brings together in a very timely fashion a set of excellent and highly informative papers on the engagement of the world church in mission to the creatures and habitats of the planet and its deep interconnection with the mission of the church to the peoples of the earth. Michael Northcott, Professor at New College, University of Edinburgh. Kapya J. Kaoma is Visiting Researcher at Boston University's Center for Global Christianity and Mission and adjunct Professor at St John's University College, Zambia. He holds degrees from Theological College of Central Africa (now Evangelical University College), Zambia; Trinity College, England; Episcopal Divinity School, and Boston University in the United States. He is author of The Creator's Symphony: African Christianity and the Plight of Earth and the Poor (2015) and Raised Hopes, Shattered Dreams: Democracy, the Oppressed, and the Church in Africa (2015).
Can the ethical mission of health care survive among organizations competing for survival in the marketplace? This book presents both an analytic framework and a menu of pragmatic answers.