Missions and World Christianity Commons^™

Latina Mothering As Diaspora Mission : The Role Of Latina Immigrant Mothers In The Religious Identity Formation Of The Next Generation, Rebekah R.S. Clapp

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Church Planting As Evangelism : How People Are Influenced And Worldview Assumptions Impacting Church Plants And Church Multiplication, W. Bud (Walter Bud) Simon

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Christian Leadership Development's Contribution To Transforming Zimbabwean Society : A Study Of Faith Ministries' First-Generation Leaders And Their Successors (1994-2023), Dwight S.M. Mutonono

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Impact And Challenge Of Religious Syncretism To The Christian Faith And Discipleship In The Anglican Diocese Of Kabba, Kogi State, Nigeria, Akobe Steven Kayode

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Effectively Ministering To A Church In The Midst Of Syncretism, Nelson O. Adewole

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Knowledge, Attitude And Behavioral Change : A Study Of Youth In Deliverance Church Ong'ata Rongai, Peter Keffar Njogah

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Congregation As Hermeneutic Of The Gospel : Investigating Lesslie Newbigin's Answer To Questions About The Credibility Of The Gospel In A Pluralistic World, Shawn P. Behan

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Towards A Theology Of Bi-Vocational Mission With Missiological Applications To Creative Access Cities, Abner Perez Dizon

Journal of Adventist Mission Studies

"Bi-vocational mission is not only an innovative and useful model to use in creative access cities. Even though this approach may not be for everyone, and even though Paul himself saw the need for church-supported mission, this chapter has shown that the model itself is biblical. In order for this approach to be effective, however, it needs to be grounded on a strong belief in the mission of God, an understanding of the Great Controversy, willingness to obey the Great Commission, an implementation of the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, and a sound theology of work."

Jewelry In Hinduism: A Mission Challenge, J. L. Samir

Journal of Adventist Mission Studies

"The issue of adornment and jewelry is a point of contention between Western and Eastern Christians. When Hindus accept Jesus Christ, they are expected to dispose of all adornment and jewelry before becoming members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. To Hindus, this is one of the confirmations that the Seventh-day Adventist Church is an agent of Western culture trying to replace their Eastern values and way of life. The Adventist position on adornment and jewelry is a challenge to many Hindus because of the different cultural ideals and meanings behind adornment within the South Asian context."

Sinolization Of Christianity: Increasing Gospel Relevance Or Distorting The Gospel Message?, L. Asher

Journal of Adventist Mission Studies

"This study aims to address the concept of the Sinolization of Christianity in light of cultural studies, biblical principles, and the Great Controversy perspective. It will then set forth some ideas on how it could affect the communication of the gospel in the Chinese context. It will attempt to see if Sinolization makes the gospel more relevant or further distorts the Christian message through the lens of the Chinese culture. The answers to these questions should help Chinese Christians, and especially Adventists, better understand their mission in China."

Reaching Thai Buddhists And Those With A Background In Thai Buddhist Beliefs, Warren A. Shipton, Jared Wright, Tonya Wright, Nilubon Srisai

Journal of Adventist Mission Studies

"One of the greatest challenges for those working across cultures is to understand the unique features of the host culture and the dominant religious beliefs and practices found in the society represented. If this is to be done acceptably, the written and spoken language must be mastered and personal friendships formed with community members. Much damage has been done by Western missionaries arriving with preconceived ideas on evangelism taken from their home country and with an attitude of being holders of superior knowledge in many areas of thought beyond that held by the host culture. Catholic missionary activity has been …

Can I Get An “Amen”? Affirming The Contemporary Ghanaian Usage Of Amen, Agana-Nsiire Agana

Journal of Adventist Mission Studies

"Altogether then, the claim that amen as used in the instances we have discussed is inappropriate is found to lack firm biblical or etymological foundation. Neither does the suggestion that if it is a vestige of African worship culture then that provides a reasonable ground for thus condemning it. While it is recognized that amen is often babbled from mental laxity, it is suggested that the problem lies not in amen, as a word, but in the person, as a worshipper. Amen is a rich word, capable of communicating a spectrum of positive human intellectual and emotional responses to worship; …

Christian Versus Heathen Ways Of Praying: A Look From The Age Of Postmodernity, Yuri N. Drumi

Journal of Adventist Mission Studies

"In many respects, postmodernity resembles paganism, but certainly it does not totally overlap with it. People around us are searching, but they do not search for answers and explanations as much as they are searching for people who are living answers. If prayer is a metanarrative, then my life must be a metanarrative too. In this context, I find helpful the analogy drawn by Crossan between Paul’s metaphor of spiritual maturation and that of an individual Christian growing in prayer. Paul says, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as …

Contextualization Of An Indian Christian Marriage: A Case Study, Chanchal Gayen

Journal of Adventist Mission Studies

"In this case study the Pheras ceremony was reinterpreted, but many of the cultural elements were retained. Biblical meanings were substituted for the cultural meanings that went against the teachings of Scripture. When doing this type of contextualization it is important to constantly pour Christian meanings into the cultural practice. Good biblical teaching is the antidote to syncretism, a danger that is always present while doing contextualization. The local people appreciated the fact that the wedding ceremony incorporated local cultural elements that were important to them. This approach also communicated the idea that Christianity is not a Western religion, but …

African Christian Leadership: Realities, Opportunities, And Impact, David K. Penno

Journal of Adventist Mission Studies

"African Christian Leadership is a well-organized, well-written report on some very significant research about leaders and the practice of leadership in the African church. The methodology allowed the researcher to hear from a broad spectrum of African Christians. One criticism of the study could be that a sample of church leaders and members in majority Muslim countries of North Africa were not included in the study, but this might be understandable due to the already vast scope of the project. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in leadership in the Christian context, and especially as practiced …

The Reality And The Apparent: Worldviews And Missiological Strategies, Cristian Dumitrescu, Hatsarmaveth Venkaya

Journal of Adventist Mission Studies

"Worldview is an abstract concept used for identifying a set of assumptions people use to organize their view of reality. Conceptualizing worldview is a challenging task. Nobody has seen a worldview, but everybody has one. A worldview informs a person’s interpretation of reality, their cosmology, and determines their actions and reactions. Charles Kraft (1988) considers worldview as the “center control box” of a person’s life and communal culture. Most assumptions reflect one’s unverified beliefs and answers to fundamental questions, such as who they are and who others are, how people should relate to each other, what causes things to happen, …

Critical Contextualization: A Case Study Of Lobi Funeral Rites In Burkina Faso, Boubakar Sanou

Journal of Adventist Mission Studies

"It is very difficult to be relevant in our Christian witness if we do not know and address the issues with which the people we are trying to reach are wrestling. For the gospel to meaningfully engage recipients with the purpose of transforming their worldviews, Christian witnesses must always encode the biblical message in such a way that its content remains faithful to biblical principles but also makes sense to its receptors in terms of its relevance. Such new experiences often challenge them in their social location. The rationale for this is that because the gospel is always received from …

Critical Contextualization: Case Studies From Cambodia, Bruce L. Bauer

Journal of Adventist Mission Studies

"Those of us involved in world mission must be at the forefront to encourage local people to develop local expressions of their faith. When I hear people rejoice about the fact that regardless of where they travel in the world the Sabbath school and church service order of worship, the songs sung, and the way of doing church is the same, I do not rejoice, I groan. For that means that the foreign visitor is comfortable, but how about the local people? Are they comfortable with the often foreignness of Adventist worship? We can and must do better to allow …

Japanese Baptismal Vows, Bruce L. Bauer

Journal of Adventist Mission Studies

"Initiation ceremonies are important in most cultures; however, they need to be carried out in culturally sensitive ways. The changes suggested above did not change in any way the purpose or content of the baptismal day. The only thing that was changed was a strong emphasis on groupness. The missiological implication from this case study is that one size does not fit all situations. There is more than one way to do most church ceremonies, so church leaders need to be encouraged to rethink what they do and do everything in culturally sensitive ways."

Insider Movements Among Muslims: Reflections On Their History, Identity, And Theology, Richard Doss

Journal of Adventist Mission Studies

"The enormity of the task still facing Christian missions is almost incomprehensible. Nearly 4.1 billion people are still in need of the gospel (Johnstone 2014:65). In some ways, the task of reaching the unreached is most difficult among Muslims. With nearly 1.3 billion adherents, Islam represents a significant challenge to the spread of the gospel. Or does it? Given the complex nature of the relationship between Christianity and Islam, could it be that the inability of Christian missionaries to shed the social, cultural, and political trappings of the West and Christendom have limited the effectiveness of the gospel? Might the …

The Effect Of Mentoring On Interns In A Cross-Cultural Setting To Produce Incrteased Missional Engagement, Timothy G. Meier

Journal of Applied Christian Leadership

"the purpose of writing The Effect of Mentoring on Interns in a Cross- Cultural Setting to Produce Increased Missional Engagement is to examine the relationship between mentoring and mission. this is accomplished through interviewing interns who have served with c&Ma/Envision in a cross-cultural setting for a minimum of two months. for a minimum of 45 minutes, 17 interns were interviewed, and the results show a strong correlation between high mentoring and high missional engagement."

Developing Leaders For Effective Cross-Cultural Christian Leadership In East Asian Ccontext, Scott Seong-Cheon Bang

Journal of Applied Christian Leadership

Dissertation Notice

Full Text of the Thesis available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global

Will the increased understanding of effective Christian leadership practices in the East Asian context increase the confidence of leaders who intend to lead within that culture? In order to discover the answer, leaders of Los Angeles United Church were invited to participate in a training seminar which focused on strengthening theological understanding of Christian leadership and raising anthropological awareness of culture in a leadership situation.

A Capacity To Serve And To Lead Across Cultures: Inter Cultural Leadership And The Experience Of American Missionaries

Journal of Applied Christian Leadership

"Eight evangelical christian missionaries from the United States were interviewed using a protocol designed to identify critical incidents in their experiences in leading people of cultures different from their own. the core findings are written descriptions of key experiences of these leaders that focus upon ways they were influenced by those they lead. the lived experience of the missionary leaders in this study informs prevalent leadership theories including transformative leadership, servant leadership, and cross-cultural leadership."