Dirty, sick orphans living in garbage dumps in South America. Malnourished children in desolate African villages. Underground house churches in outer Chinese provinces. Sex slaves lining the street in a Thailand slum. A burgeoning pub church in Western Europe. What do these scenes have in common? Streams of Christians on mission trips. In an effort to raise awareness and develop [...]

Contextualization is the active work of translating the gospel into a culture that doesn’t have an indigenous expression of Christianity. The problem is that we all seem to be “contextualizing” for a culture that we don’t live in. We all look alike because we were all mentored by the same six guys (John, Rick, Mark, Brian, Tim, and Andy). We [...]

“If you really cared about the unreached peoples of the world, you’d be more involved in missions.” “If you truly understood the Great Commission, you’d be a missionary.” “If only you were made aware of the opportunities to share the gospel, you’d go on a mission trip.” “If you honestly saw the need, felt the urgency, or recognized the importance [...]

We’ve got to stop distinguishing between “missions” and, well, “not missions.” The old paradigm was this: ministry is sharing the gospel. If you preached to believers, you were called a “pastor.” If you preached to non-Christians in your own culture, you were an “evangelist.” If you needed a passport to get there, you were a “missionary.” If those distinctions were [...]

Syncretism is a key missiological concept that refers to the all-too common practice of overlaying one set of beliefs with another, disparate one. People often go to great lengths to reconcile different, even opposing, belief systems in order to make sense of the world around them. When African tribes were (forcibly) “converted” to Christianity by imperialist missionaries in the 18th [...]

For many would-be ministers, missionaries, and church planters, a full-time, paid position is not going to happen. Some might intentionally reject the paid-clergy model. Others might just not be able to raise the kind of funding that would allow them to quit their day jobs. Either way, lots of ministers are looking for ways to support themselves. Here’s the problem, [...]

Previously: Impractical Worship Megachurches don’t just happen. And they’re certainly not the inevitable result of God’s blessing. They are the results of decisions throughout the lifetime of a church. Say a church plant starts out with three couples meeting in a living room. That’s six people meeting regularly to worship God and be a local expression of His body. Say [...]

PREVIOUSLY: Distribution So far, three parts into my multi-part series on the counterintuitive nature of life in Christ, and I’ve yet to receive any comments accusing me of being too negative or of harboring jealousy over the megachurch’s success. Clearly, I’ve either offended (or bored) away everyone who disagrees with me, or I’ve not been clear. Let’s be sure it’s [...]

PREVIOUSLY: The Counterintuitive Church Despite the Church’s current tendency toward extreme pragmatism, much of the life that Jesus calls us to is counter-intuitive. But that doesn’t seem to stop us from depending (almost entirely!) on our human logic when it comes to our missiology. Why is that? Why would we assume that a counterintuitive God would leave us to do [...]

Most of the people who call themselves “missionaries” will tell you about their passion for the unreached people group they’re working with. Algerian Berbers. The Dong people of Nigeria. The Bondo Poroja of India. People you’ve never heard of. Dark-skinned people in funny hats, living in places you couldn’t find on a map. The missionaries have grown to love their adopted [...]