It’s not easy being an official representative of one nation to another. Diplomatic emissaries often find themselves in difficult situations- delivering bad news to hostile hosts. Miscommunication, even between friendly states, can be costly. Good ambassadors work hard to learn local culture and language in order to be effective communicators, but when the message isn’t what they were hoping to hear, leaders [...]

Believers often look to the life and ministry of the Apostle Paul as the model for missions. He did, after all, travel around telling people about Jesus and leave a trail of networked churches in his wake. But Paul isn’t the best picture of a missionary. Paul didn’t seem to0 concerned with contextualization- mostly because he stayed within his own [...]

Dear Pastor, I’ve always been perplexed by your lack of direct involvement in international missions. It’s not that you shy away from preaching about international issues. You often encourage social action- you’ve led your church’s campaign to help local public schools. You support a child in a poverty-stricken village in Malaysia. You’ve raised money to finance the digging of wells [...]