Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Church-Supported Esl Ministry In Canada: A Look At The Church’S Mission In Action, Gordon Moulden

Great Commission Research Journal

English is a dominant business, academic, and communicative language throughout the world. Immigrants and refugees coming to the West have a great need to learn the language but often do not have the funds or time to pursue studies full-time. Churches often offer English classes to minister to not only their language needs but also to their relational and spiritual needs. This mixed-methods survey and interview research investigates the state of church-supported English as a Second Language (ESL) programs across Canada following the COVID-19 pandemic. Approximately 50 teachers and program coordinators completed the survey, which revealed needs relating to training …

Sampling Methods And Sample Size In Church-Based Research, David R. Dunaetz

Great Commission Research Journal

An underlying assumption of most church-based research is that the sample from which the data is collected is representative of a wider collection of church members, church leaders, small groups, churches, denominations, or whatever is the focus of the study. To increase the likelihood that this assumption is met without making the research an impossible undertaking, various sampling strategies are used ranging from random sampling to convenience sampling, each with advantages and disadvantages. After a sampling strategy is chosen, an appropriate sample size should be pursued, depending on the nature of the study. The sample size of quantitative studies seeking …

The Bible For All: Biblical Interpretation As A Grassroots Movement, Hannah L. Hopkinson

The Asbury Journal

In Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza’s proposed emancipatory paradigm, the biblical scholar must both analyze how the Bible is used to subjugate and imagine how those texts could form a more just world. If tenants of this emancipatory paradigm were practiced in the local church, the Bible’s power could nurture a more just society. This paper explores how an emancipatory paradigm could be applied in local churches through analyzing the structure of its grassroots inspiration, Consciousness Raising Groups of the American Women’s Liberation Movement, and also a similar South African method, Contextual Bible Study. In contrast to other models like the pastor …

Forming Saints In A Digital Context, Mark R. Teasdale

Great Commission Research Journal

Biblical and scholarly sources agree on the importance of forming Christians to seek after holy living to make them more effective evangelists, such that the ministries of evangelism and spiritual formation are intertwined. They also agree that one of the primary roles of the church is to provide for this formation. However, the practices for doing this have been complicated by the heavy move toward digital ministry because of COVID-19. Congregations can continue this formational work even in highly digital contexts by helping Christians tell their story through lifelogging, providing rituals and disciplines to sanctify time and physical spaces, and …

Gerontic Evangelism, Yakubu Jakada

Great Commission Research Journal

Gerontic Evangelism focuses on sharing the gospel with senior adults. Many evangelism ministries are focusing on children, youth, women, and other adult members of society, but few focus on the elderly. Senior adults in most cases are not seen as a peculiar group that needs to be strategically reached with the gospel. Their importance in society and their growing population worldwide should attract the attention of evangelists and missionaries to target them as a special group for gospel witness. This paper argues that winning the senior adults to Christ is a necessity and may open doors for the evangelization and …

Competing Notions Of Humility: Why Korean Americans Do Not Need To Abandon Confucius To Get To Christ, Eunice Hong, Max Botner

Great Commission Research Journal

Korean Americans often go to church not only for religious reasons, but also for social and cultural reasons. Due to the close tie between the Korean immigrant church and cultural traditions, second-generation Korean Americans often struggle with trying to balance Eastern and Western cultural values. In particular, tensions arise for second-generation Korean Americans between competing notions of humility. Such tensions, however, provide opportunities to reflect on the particular nature of Christian humility. This article presents biblical humility as one that is neither the maintenance of cultural traditions nor the personal growth of individual disciples; rather, Christ-shaped, Spirit-filled humility is the …

Church-Based Research: Using Theories, Concepts, And Operationalizations, David R. Dunaetz

Great Commission Research Journal

Church-based research requires working with abstract concepts ranging from sin to sanctification. Theories, concepts, and operationalizations allow us to work with these abstractions. Theories are sets of statements describing how specific concepts relate to each other. Concepts are broad ideas that exist in our thinking that can be used to describe phenomena, both within and exterior to the church. If we measure the concepts in our theories among multiple people, we can determine to what degree the relationships in our theories are true or discover under what conditions they are true. Sometimes concepts can be measured directly; other times they …

Narcissistic Pastors And The Making Of Narcissistic Churches, Darrell Puls

Great Commission Research Journal

Can churches take on the pathological behaviors associated with narcissism through the influence of a narcissistic pastor? While there is a large body of literature on narcissistic individuals, and a smaller body of research into narcissistic organizations, there is little research on the prevalence of toxic narcissism in clergy and little to none on narcissistic churches. This paper is written from the perspective of currently available research and the author’s experience in working with churches suffering from severe internal conflicts in which both the pastor and church evidenced toxic levels of narcissism. The intent is to increase awareness, open a …

The Power Of Faithfulness In Relational Evangelism, Lance C. Hahn

Great Commission Research Journal

Many evangelistic efforts bear little fruit. It may be due to our inability to convey the right information, but it may also be due to an inappropriate environment for the information to be interpreted correctly. This article describes a process that God may use to engage a person whose heart has been prepared, so that the seed sown is received, not only as truth, but with joy. Relational evangelism carried out faithfully allows consistent sowing until chaotic moments open the heart.

Growing Up In America's Segregated South: Reminiscences And Regrets, Mark R. Elliott

The Asbury Journal

In this personal essay, originally given as an address delivered at the Sakharov Center, a human rights NGO in Moscow, Russia, on June 2, 2017, the author contemplates a lifetime of experience in the Southern United States and the prejudices and racism that he saw during that time. He relates these experiences to similar issues in Russia today, adding a Christian plea for equality and fair treatment for all people by the Christian community, and also calling on the Church to stand in opposition to racism and anti-Semitism wherever it appears.

The Nature Of The Church's Mission In Light Of The Biblical Origin Of Social Holiness, Ban Seok Cho

The Asbury Journal

This paper intends to find missiological implications that the biblical origin of social holiness has for the church’s mission. In order to accomplish this purpose, this paper, first, identifies the biblical origin of social holiness in the Old Testament narrative and its development in the New Testament narrative. Then, the relationship between the image of God in Genesis 1 and the development of social holiness in the biblical narrative will be discussed. Lastly, in light of the biblical origin of social holiness, missiological implications for the church’s mission are suggested. The thesis of this paper is that social holiness- as …

Counseling: An Expression Of The Ministry Of The Church, Javier Sierra

The Asbury Journal

This introductory article is designed to introduce the concepts of pastoral counseling to the Hispanic community, which frequently does not have a developed ministry of pastoral counseling in their churches. This article discusses the biblical basis for this ministry and helps define it in light of the strong relational nature and existing practice of advice giving found within Hispanic cultures. Seeing pastoral counseling as an extension of community care and as more closely related to the informal practice of giving advice, helps make the ministry of pastoral counseling and pastoral care more accessible to ministries within the Hispanic community.

Lessons Of The Jerusalem Council For The Church’S Debate Over Sexuality, Bill T. Arnold

The Asbury Journal

The Jerusalem Council (Acts 15) gets widespread attention today as a model for decision-making in the church, especially with regard to the changing cultural mores related to same-sex practices. This study investigates hermeneutical assumptions in two scholarly treatments of Acts 15 in light of the literary and historical context of the Jerusalem Council, including a few exegetical details. The study focuses especially on the specifics of the Apostolic Decree in verses 28-29. The aim of the investigation is to evaluate the chapter’s use in current debates over sexual ethics, and to propose appropriate lessons of the Jerusalem Council based on …

Contextualizing Inductive Bible Study (Ibs) In A Postcolonial Filipino American Setting, Peter Tan-Gatue

The Asbury Journal

This article seeks to contextualize the application of Inductive Bible Study (IBS) to a postcolonial setting: the Filipino American Church in Los Angeles.1 As part of the process of doing so, this essay narrates a short history of colonization and Christianity in the Philippines, the migration of Filipinos to the United States and the challenges Filipino Americans encountered as a people living in a foreign land. Included in this story is the importance of Filipino American churches and some contemporary challenges and postcolonial issues (such as “colonial mentality” or internalized oppression) that affect a particular segment of Filipino Americans in …

Ships Of The Fleet: An Essay On The Weltanschauung Of The Apostolate And The Mission Of The Spirit, Art Mcphee

The Asbury Journal

In honor of Bishop Sundo Kim

This paper was presented in Asbury Theological Seminary, on November 14, 2012, at Dr. Art McPhee’s installation in the Sundo Kim Chair for Evangelism and Practical Theology Expertise: Evangelization Studies. In this essay, he explores the role of the Holy Spirit in mission and evangelism as an often-overlooked subject in the Church today.

Engaging Witchcraft Accusations Among Christians As A Vehicle Of African Traditional Religious Self-Advocacy In African Contexts, Robert Magoola

The Asbury Journal

That African Christianity is growing in numbers has become a familiar fact; testimony to the commitment of African preachers and adherents to the gospel of Christ. However, a disturbing trend is sweeping over many parts of sub-Saharan Africa in places such as Uganda. It is the increased number of witchcraft accusations that are being leveled against Christians and Christian leaders. In this paper, Robert Magoola acknowledges this unfortunate predicament facing the African church as it maligns Christian gospel proclamation and enhances African traditional religion’s self- advocacy. He evaluates the possible credibility of field-based evidence on the basis of a parable …

Life In The Spirit: An Overview Of Lesslie Newbigin’S Pneumatology Of Mission, Rob Hughes

The Asbury Journal

British missionary Lesslie Newbigin (1909-1998) was a highly influential missionary theologian, a bishop in the Church of South India, and a leader in the twentieth century ecumenical movement. His writings regarding the missionary nature of the church, the engagement of the post-Christendom West as a mission field, and the theological understanding of mission from a Trinitarian perspective have been foundational for both the missional and emerging church movements. This article presents an overview of one aspect of Newbigin’s thought, which, though constituting a key element of his Trinitarian theology of mission, has often been overlooked—his grasp of the role of …

Justification By The Faithfulness Of Jesus Christ, Chad Harrington

The Asbury Journal

This essay focuses on Paul's description of justification by faith in Galatians 2:16. Scholars such as J.D.G. Dunn and N.T. Wright have recently challenged more traditional perspectives on justification. This essay appropriates some of these challenges to Paul's letter to the Galatians. The problem for Paul is that some Christians are distorting the gospel (Gall:7) and excluding Gentiles Christians (2:12-13). Paul's solution is gospel reorientation. Instead of being a Torah-focused church, he instructs the Galatian church to be Christ-centered. This essay examines justification, works of law, and faith/fulness to reveal Paul's rhetorical purposes by analyzing socio-rhetorical backgrounds and literary, grammatical, …

John Wesley In Conversation With The Emerging Church, Patrick S. Franklin

The Asbury Journal

As the Emerging Church is one of the most significant developments in current popular Western ecclesiology, it is important that it be engaged theologically. As part of this engagement, this paper brings the Emerging Church into a constructive dialogue with John Wesley, a theologian who shared similar passions and faced comparable challenges. It maintains that Wesley would applaud the spirit and creativity of the Emerging Church, especially its mission to reach contemporary seekers and its desire to recapture an ancient-future faith. However, he would also challenge some potentially harmful tendencies and exhort the Emerging Church toward maturity in these areas. …