Mission and Evangelism in a Secularizing World PDF Download

Author: Narry F. Santos
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 153267600X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
Secularization, as a movement away from a religious orientation to life, is strong in Canada and has influence worldwide. In this volume, missiologists and practitioners across Canada consider how an agenda of Christian mission and evangelism can be advanced in a secularizing environment. How can believers be "curious and engaged rather than defensive and fearful"? What changes are required from the evangelical community so that there is productive dialogue and action in ways that maintain faithfulness to the cause of Christ? What should the approach of mission be to a new generation steeped in secular narratives? How do we answer negative caricatures of Christian mission in light of the history of Residential Schools? What examples from the past teach us about developing an irenic approach? What positive trends are currently evident in Canada and around the world that counter the secularizing narrative? These questions and more are considered in this volume by Canadian scholars who recognize the importance of being relevant to society while maintaining integrity with the Gospel message. The essays address secularism in Canadian and worldwide contexts with seriousness, insight, and an underlying theme of hope, recognizing that "God's mission has been accomplished, is being accomplished, and will be accomplished."

Author: W. Jay Moon
Publisher: William Carey Publishing
ISBN: 1645081796
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
With increased globalization and modernization reaching into the furthest corners of the earth also comes the influence of secularization. These three tides of influence impact traditional religious beliefs, practices, and institutions in significant ways. Some modernizing societies see religion on the decline, while others find it thriving in surprising ways. This collection of essays presents the opportunities and the challenges of secularization for the mission of the Church, with hopeful signs and reassurance that God is still at work in a secularizing world. Readers will find both analysis and guidance that will assist the Church in an informed, missional engagement with secularization in a variety of contexts—starting with North America, then Europe, Asia, and Africa. Each local church and mission organization must discern the appropriate missional response for evangelism, discipleship, congregational life, and social involvement. To be Against the Tide means regaining your voice, as a church on mission, informed by your context and inspired by the responses of others in theirs.

Author: John Stott
Publisher: Inter-Varsity Press
ISBN: 1783595221
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
Jesus sends us into the world just as God the Father sent him - and yet Christians continue to disagree on what this involves. Some believe that the focus of Christian mission is evangelizing and 'saving souls'. Others emphasize global justice issues or relief and development work. Is either view correct on its own? John Stott's classic volume, first published forty years ago, presents an enduring view of Christian mission that is just as needed today. Newly updated and expanded by Christopher J. H. Wright, Christian Mission in the Modern World provides a biblically based approach to mission that addresses both spiritual and physical needs. With his trademark clarity and conviction, Stott illuminates how the Great Commission itself not only assumes the proclamation that makes disciples, but also teaches obedience to the Great Commandment of love and service. Wright has expertly updated the original book and demonstrates the continuing relevance of Stott's prescient thinking. This balanced approach to mission encourages current and future Christians to embrace an unconflicted and holistic model of ministry.

Author: Narry F. Santos
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1666730963
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
Crisis is an invitation to both prophetic evaluation and new imagination. In this volume, Canadian missiologists and practitioners consider the past and how the past might enable the church to move forward in Christian mission—in the academy, agency, assembly, and the agora. How can the Canadian church welcome different voices from the periphery? What must be done to empower the next generation? How can we respond in light of the injustices done to our Indigenous brothers and sisters? Where does reconciliation fit into the picture? How might we navigate between secularization and fundamentalisms? How ought we move together in mission and in unity across denominational difference? How can we equip laypeople to live their callings faithfully in the agora? How can work in the marketplace be ministry? And lastly, how is the Spirit at work in our contexts in this day and age? These questions (among others) onboard us into the ongoing conversation about the state of evangelical mission in Canada, and each of these essays adeptly lead us into the beginnings of answers to these questions. These essays address how the past informs our future, and how we might answer the prophetic call with both hope and renewed vigor to participate in the mission of God.

Author: W. Jay Moon
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781645081777
Category : Globalization
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
"With increased globalization and modernization reaching into the furthest corners of the earth also comes the influence of secularization. These three tides of influence impact traditional religious beliefs, practices, and institutions in significant ways. Some modernizing societies see religion on the decline, while others find it thriving in surprising ways. This collection of essays presents the opportunities and the challenges of secularization for the mission of the Church, with hopeful signs and reassurance that God is still at work in a secularizing world. Readers will find both analysis and guidance that will assist the Church in an informed, missional engagement with secularization in a variety of contexts--starting with North America, then Europe, Asia, and Africa. Each local church and mission organization must discern the appropriate missional response for evangelism, discipleship, congregational life, and social involvement. To be Against the Tide means regaining your voice, as a church on mission, informed by your context and inspired by the responses of others in theirs."--Publisher.

Author: Paul Borthwick
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 0830866051
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
Christianity Today Book Award of Merit Winner Outreach Magazine Resource of the Year The world has changed. A century ago, Christianity was still primarily centered in North America and Europe. By the dawn of the twenty-first century, Christianity had become a truly global faith, with Christians in Asia, Africa and Latin America outpacing those in the rest of the world. There are now more Christians in China than in all of Europe, more Pentecostals in Brazil than in the United States, and more Anglicans in Kenya than in Great Britain, Canada and the United States combined. Countries that were once destinations for western missionaries are now sending their own missionaries to North America. Given these changes, some think the day of the Western missionary is over. Some are wary that American mission efforts may perpetuate an imperialistic colonialism. Some say that global outreach is best left to indigenous leaders. Others simply feel that resources should be focused on the home front. Is there an ongoing role for the North American church in global mission? Missions specialist Paul Borthwick brings an urgent report on how the Western church can best continue in global mission. He provides a current analysis of the state of the world and how Majority World leaders perceive North American Christians' place. Borthwick offers concrete advice for how Western Christians can be involved without being paternalistic or creating dependency. Using their human and material resources with wise and strategic stewardship, North Americans can join forces with the Majority World in new, interdependent ways to answer God?s call to global involvement. In this critical age, the global body of Christ needs one another more than ever. Discover how the Western church can contribute to a new era of mission marked by mutuality, reciprocity and humility.

Author: Inus Daneel
Publisher: Rodopi
ISBN: 9789042019713
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
This important book is needed today. The challenges that Christian churches face have changed immensely in the last quarter-century. One of the central issues facing the churches everywhere in the world is their missionary presence in their nations and societies. The authors of this volume are among the world's leading missiological thinkers and represent nearly every major Christian tradition in Europe, Africa, North America and Asia. In this new century, the Christian church faces new situations that include, for example, the fall of communism; the globalization of culture; cultural and religious minorities and multiple religious majorities in nearly every country; ethnic and interreligious tensions; relativism and individualism in Western culture; the rise of a global impact of a postmodern world view; poverty in poor countries and in urban areas in wealthy countries; and the decline of Western cultural authority and, with notable exceptions, of religious authority generally. This book speaks of ways in which Christian churches are seeking to respond to these challenges. The purpose of this book is to describe some of the main challenges facing the churches in mission today, particularly with reference to inter-religious conversations all over the world. The title of this volume has been derived from the theme of the 24th General Assembly of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) at Accra in August, 2004 whose theme is, "That All May Have Life in Fullness." Such Christian witness is more than humanness, because it arises from the fullness of God's grace: forgiveness, reconciliation, and hope that God's will may be done on earth as it is in heaven. Christian presence in a desperately needy world will make the fullness of God's presence known. Such fullness of life permeates the heart, mind and action of Christians. The editors and authors of this volume hope that it will challenge the reader to reflect upon the missionary presence of the churches and their communication of the Gospel in a secularized, religiously plural world filled with struggles, violence and rumors of war. Fullness of life points to the Kingdom of God that is here already and at the same time not yet here. This constitutes Christian expectation and hope. This book is must reading for anyone interested in seeing the Christian Church respond in new and relevant ways to the new situations facing our world in a new century.

Author: Terry C. Muck
Publisher: Baker Academic
ISBN: 0801026601
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
In this major work, two world religion and mission experts present a new relational model for Christians interacting with people of other faiths.

Author: David J. Bosch
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1597529796
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
A great deal of uncertainty exists in the church as to what mission really is. The shifts in political power, away from the traditionally Christian West; the call for a moratorium and the other critical voices from the Third World churches; and the increasing self-assurance and missionary consciousness among adherents of non-Christian religions--all these have given rise to the question whether Christian mission work still makes sense, and if it does, what form it should take. Is mission identical to evangelism in the sense of proclaiming eternal salvation? Does it include social and political involvement, and if so, how? Where does salvation take place: only in the Church, or in the individual, or in society, or in the 'world', or in the non-Christian religions? The picture is one of change and complexity, tension and urgency. The answers we give to these questions must be consonant with the will of God and relevant to the situation in which we find ourselves.

Author: Cyril Okorocha
Publisher: Church Publishing, Inc.
ISBN: 0819224863
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description
Interviews with Anglican clergy and lay people from around the world involved in evangelism, capturing what it means to be evangelists in the 21st century. The authors of Vision Bearers have used broad brush strokes to paint a picture of evangelism and mission in the contemporary Anglican Communion. The result is the creation of a new excitement for the opportunities for witness, evangelism, and advancing the mission of the church. The book is based on dozens of interviews with clergy and lay people from around the world who attended the G-Code Evangelism conference—including the Archbishop of Canterbury. It both inspires and issues a challenge to Christians to move from passivity to an active ministry of evangelism and church-planting. The book describes the many different ways in which evangelism is taking place throughout the Anglican Communion: one-on-one relation ships, preaching, small prayer groups, healing and miracles, church planting, and the catechumenate. Challenges to Christian evangelism are also analyzed. Vision Bearers includes discussion materials for parish and group use, pictures, diagrams, and topics for prayer. It ends with a description of what an evangelistic church looks like: its life, the quality of the community within, its prayer life, mobilization of the laity, compassion, and world vision...and what it means to be a vision-bearer for the kingdom of God in the 21st century. Based on dozens of interviews with clergy and lay leaders from around the world, Vision Bearers captures the essence of what it means to advance the mission of the Church through dynamic witness and evangelism. It both inspires and issues a challenge to Christians to move from passivity to an active ministry of bold proclamation and loving service. Vision Bearers shows how evangelism can be found everywhere, from one-on-one relationships, preaching and small prayer groups, to healings, miracles, church-planting, and the catechumenate. The book also analyzes the challenges to Christian evangelism, including apathy, the rise of militant Islam, secularization and the youth culture. It provides a renewed vision for reaching those in the world who have yet to hear of Jesus Christ. The authors describe what an evangelistic church looks like and what it means to be a vision bearer for the kingdom of God on the 21st century, using examples from every corner of the globe. Discussion materials and prayer topics are included that will help inspire vision bearers everywhere.