Resources for Awareness

Few things are as powerful as a picture. Help people literally see the need for the love of Christ. This CD-ROM of 154 photos brings you face-to-face with people from a diverse range of unreached people groups, in many different countries - Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Tunisia, Burkina Faso, and many more! Professionally taken and in a format that is perfect for multi-media presentations, newsletters, and bulletins, this CD can be one of the most influential tools in your arsenal. Photos can print to a maximum of 8" x 10". Designed for churches, schools, and missionaries.

"If God has something in mind that he wants to accomplish in the world, through our church, how do we know what it is?" Prepare yourself, through this 6-step quest, to see his desires accomplished through your church. By David Mays. Published by ACMC. 73 pages, 2005.

Rips apart the old, traditional understandings of God's plan and purpose for our lives. In eight lessons, author and global activist, Jeff Lewis, lays bare the heart and mind of God as he combines powerful Bible passages with challenging and provocative questions. Each lesson is followed by a time of meditation and focus on an unreached people group. If you really knew the heart and mind of God, would you dare to follow him? By Jeff Lewis. 52 pages, 2008.

What is the state of the world? What is the state of your heart? What will it take to finish the Great Commission? Shaping Eternity Infobytes answers these questions and more while encouraging you and your church to be involved with God's work among unreached peoples. Ten Infobytes (about two minutes each) and the flash animation "Satan's Undoing" (7:35 minutes) are designed for large congregations, small groups, or homeschool settings. The simple, yet powerful presentations are perfect for use with a sermon or discussion. These 11 presentations will educate and challenge Christians to find their part in shaping eternity.

This resource has been developed for the missions leadership team to work through the process of understanding its responsibilities and how to carry them out. This handbook covers key areas of missions ministry in the local church with examples from actual churches. By ACMC.

A comprehensive resource which explores the vast array of peoples who live here - giving adults and children an impactful exposure to their cultures and religions. Discover how you can make a difference in the lives of unreached peoples.

MAP your church's journey to maximum effectiveness in missions.The Missions Assessment Profile from ACMC (Advancing Churches in Missions Commitment) is a culmination of years of experience with thousands of churches. We hope you find it useful and challenging to your church missions vision and ministries. 11" x 17" poster, 2005.

A simple, story-style, easy-to-use manual for developing fresh methods of communicating missions and recruiting individual involvement. Each chapter includes key quotes, bullet lists of the main points, and a fill-in-the-blank worksheet. The primary value of the book is that it provides a few practical ways to think about how to get fresh, creative ideas. By David Mays. Published by ACMC. 37 pages.

Through this video you'll journey with several modern Brahmins through an intimate look at their lives, their beliefs, and the challenges they face in connecting with Christ's love. The Brahmins are an unreached Hindu people group in India. There are few known believers among the millions of modern Brahmins spread throughout the cities of India. As the traditional priests and religious leaders of Hindu peoples, the Brahmins held a great deal of sway among the people of India's caste system. Today, Brahmins are struggling with the changes of modern India, seeking the true value of their beliefs.

This unique resource highlights churches throughout the country that have developed excellent missions programs using the particular gifts and abilities of their members. Through their examples and Tom Telford's practical suggestions for implementation, your church will discover a variety of unique ideas for enhancing your missions program, improving the support of current missionaries, and working effectively with missions agencies. By Tom Telford. Published by Baker Books. 173 pages.

Tunisia, a long wedge of land between Algeria and Libya, has long been a gateway from the Mediterranean to the African continent. Christianity flourished in Tunisia during the fourth century A.D. Today, Islam permeates the heart of Tunisian culture. While Tunisia still has the problems of a developing country, the people seem generally content with their lives and Islamic traditions. Today's Tunisians are working to reconcile their Muslim heritage with their reputation as one of the Arab world's most progressive countries, especially in the areas of education and freedom for women. 2005.

Many churches have used this guide to produce a comprehensive, written missions policy in order to bring focus, consistency, and continuity to their missions outreach. This handbook can turn a long-dreaded job into a convenient and orderly process. By ACMC. Third edition, 77 pages.

Getting started as a church planter? Want to gain more insight in your existing church-planting efforts? Trent and Vivian Rowland lead a church-planting team in Asia. In this handbook they articulate their experiences to help guide and inspire teams. Some items covered include: basic requirements and practices of a team leader; screening and assessing candidates; preparing new team members; research, networking, and strategies; articulating ministry philosophy; setting goals for initial years; and implications for mobilizing new workers. See how others have approached this challenging task! 100-page e-book. 6 MB.

365 faith-building devotionals arranged Sunday through Saturday. Daily scriptures are illuminated by stunning accounts of God's faithfulness, mercy, and power in the lives of Christians working in places such as science labs, shepherd's fields, and college classrooms, from places like Canada, European inner cities, Asian rice paddies, and Amazon villages.

We are living in the Business Age. The historic role of nation states is rapidly being replaced by the corporation. Like never before, Christian business leaders have the chance to play a pivotal role in transforming society and spreading the gospel. But seizing this opportunity requires thinking differently about God, about his kingdom, about his purposes in the world, and about business.

While some Christian professionals dream of being "freed from business" to go into the ministry or see business as enemy territory to be invaded for Christ, others are convinced that Christian principles simply don't work in the "real world". In this book, Michael Baer challenges each of these positions. He rejects the unbiblical thinking that ministry and business are by definition separate activities - that our lives can be compartmentalized into the sacred and secular. Instead he guides business leaders in developing the vital characteristics of a kingdom business - the kind of business that will free them live fully integrated lives and lead organizations that significantly impact the world.

Our world needs courageous leaders who will recognize the need for God-motivated action and follow through with a God-led plan.Whether your vision for change is local or global, for your home, business, or ministry, simple or complex, this book will help you remain on a true course and reach the goal set before you.

Whether at home or abroad, communicating with people of other cultures is difficult. It requires new ways of thinking and interpreting the world. When conflict arises, as it often does, the issues become even more confusing. Without a good understanding of how different cultures handle conflict, our best intentions may only make matters worse.

With a particular focus on Asian and Hispanic cultures (at home and around the world) and on African culture, Duane Elmer walks readers through various types of conflict and shows how they can be handled effectively and appropriately. Elmer gives numerous stories and examples from his experience and from others' to show how handling conflict well builds solid relationships. With an eye out for biblical principles, he looks at a variety of sticky questions in Scripture. This is a book not just of theory but of practical models for conflict resolution.

Pastors, evangelists, business executives, missionaries, students - anyone who wants to communicate more effectively with neighbors and colleagues - will find this book immensely helpful.

Living by faith is not the domain of only those Christians called to "full-time" ministry. Every Christian can enter into the adventure. What is important is not our vocation, but whether we are committed to obeying God's will in our lives. If you are willing to step out in faith and trust in God, doing whatever it is He has asked you to do, then you will see His provision.Once you have experienced this, you will be spoiled for the ordinary.

International statesman and conference speaker Loren Cunningham and his wife, Darlene, are the founders of Youth With A Mission. They currently live at the YWAM University of the Nations center in Kona, Hawaii. Loren speaks and teaches internationally. His extensive missionary travels have taken him to every country on earth.

The power of the gospel to transform individual lives has been clearly evident throughout New Testament history. But what of the darkness and poverty that enslave entire cultures, even nations? Have Christians underestimated the power of God's truth to transform entire societies?

In Discipling Nations, Darrow Miller builds a powerful and convincing thesis that God's truth not only breaks the spiritual bonds of sin and death but can free whole societies from deception and poverty.

Jesus' final words to his disciples ring down through the ages: preach the gospel to every individual and disciple every nation. Preach the gospel? Got it, but what does it mean to disciple the nations? Do I preach or teach? To individuals or groups of people? What exactly does Jesus want me to do?

Come explore these questions through Scripture, history, and the ideas and experiences of those who are actively engaged in discipling nations. You'll discover that God's kingdom comes in and through many ministries, vocations, and locations - from university campuses to developing regions, in kitchens and boardrooms, through government, journalism, and the arts. All followers of Christ are needed to bring God's grace and truth to individuals, cultures and nations today and to do the works God prepared in advance for us to do.

Jesus' words are for each of us, wherever we are and whatever God has gifted us to do. What does it look like for you and for the body of Christ worldwide? How can we respond passionately and creatively to the call of God to see every person and every nation transformed?

Piper's Let the Nations Be Glad! has provided thousands of missionaries, pastors, and church leaders with a biblical basis for missions. Piper now offers a revised and expanded tenth anniversary edition of this sound, readable, and passionate defense of God's supremacy in all things.

Drawing on texts from the Old and New Testaments, Piper demonstrates that worship is the ultimate goal of the church and that proper worship drives missionary outreach. He describes prayer as the fuel of missions work because of its focus on a relationship with God rather than the needs of the world. He goes on to illustrate that while suffering is the price of missions, God is worthy of any sacrifice. He examines whether Jesus is the only way to salvation and discusses the extent of the missionary enterprise, seeking to define the scope of the task and the means to reaching "all nations."

This revised and expanded edition contains updated references to contemporary literature and debates and new illustrations and quotations. This edition also boasts a new preface and a final section devoted to the practical outworking of compassion and worship. Included in this new section is a chapter encouraging passion for God's supremacy and compassion for man's soul, based on Jonathan Edwards's musings on the unity of motives for world missions. Concluding this section is a chapter containing Piper's reflections on New Testament worship as an inner reality more than an external form.

Let the Nations Be Glad! is essential reading for all those involved in or preparing for missions work and provides inspiring theological reflection for college and seminary students. This book also offers enlightenment for pastors, youth workers, those involved in campus ministries, and all who want to connect their labors to God's global purposes.

We spend 50 to 75 percent of our waking hours and 60 to 90 percent of the years of our lives working. Yet many of us never invest even a fraction of that time exploring the vision that drives our lives and work. We've lost the framework in which it is understood that our lives and work are in relationship - in relationship to God through worship, to others through service, and to creation through stewardship. Our lives and work have largely been separated from their mission, and this ultimately stems from a loss of the biblical worldview.

LifeWork lays out the thought background for each of us to establish a meaningful, integrated understanding of our life and work. Whatever our work or vocation, God calls each of us to a new way of living - fully in His presence.

Explores God's unchanging purposes and investigates how His global plan is unfolding in our generation. Designed to mobilize God's people to connect their lives to His Kingdom purposes. Pathlight is being used wherever Gods committed people gather. Ideal for Sunday-school classes, short-term teams, church-based training, or interdenominational courses, this thought-provoking material develops global vision in practical and world-changing ways.

An in-depth study with writings from some of the most respected authorities on the subject of missions. This fascinating course is designed for those who desire to strengthen their understanding of Gods plan for the nations. This 468 page course includes 13 case studies, an appendix, glossary, maps, charts, graphs, diagrams, sidebars and illustrations. Needs a 2" or 3" binder, not included.

As global urbanization continues in the twenty-first century, Christians cannot ignore the importance of cities in spreading the good news of Jesus Christ to every people in every nation on earth. United intercession is an essential part of this mission, and every Christian can be involved.

This book provides essential, up-to-date information on one hundred key cities in the world’s least evangelized area—the window that extends from West Africa across Asia, between 10 and 40 degrees north of the equator. Whether you are new to missions and global prayer initiatives or have been involved for years, this book will help you pray effectively for the most strategic missions areas in the world.

Floy McClung shows us why we can face the city without fear and with a sense of hope. When we see the city as a grouping of cultures and communities, we discover its more human face. And when we understand God's purposes for urban life, it will change the way we feel about the city.

This is a book for anyone prepared to be more impressed with the greatness of God than with the sin of the city. McClung argues convincingly that cities, although under siege by the enemy, are actually God's idea. Using clear scriptural principles, he urges believers not to abandon the city, but rather to learn how to transform it by the power of God.

An estimated 95% of the world's unreached people and 85% of the world's poorest of the poor live in an area referred to as the 10/40 Window. This region spans the globe from West Africa through East Asia between 10 degrees and 40 degrees north of the equator. Of its staggering 3.6 billion people, as many as 1.4 billion have never had the chance to hear the Gospel.

This intercessor's guide features maps and information on each nation, covering trends, religions, people groups, and historical background.

Pray with accuracy for the needs of the people, and break down the strongholds of the 10/40 Window.

Our cities are the keys to winning the world for Christ. They are encumbered by staggering problems, and opposed by cosmic spiritual forces, yet these vast urban centers hold millions of people whom God loves.

You can make a big contribution to winning your city for God. In this original and useful book John Dawson give you the strategy and tactics for the job. Explore dynamic and life-changing strategies to help tear down the strongholds that hold your community back from its' full spiritual potential.

Includes a 13-lesson study guide.

Our practice of sending a few highly specialized troops to fight the enemy while leaving the vast majority of Christians out of the spiritual battle is our great omission. In this powerful call for the inclusion of indigenous believers in the Great Omission, Steve Saint, the son of Nate Saint, shows how current missions strategies have unwittingly harmed the indigenous church and kept millions of believers from fulfilling their roles in God's kingdom - and millions of others from hearing the Good News.

In the same spirit as his father, Steve Saint picks up the torch as he shares his strategic insight concerning world missions.

This thrilling and faith-building book shows how God is supernaturally revealing himself in this "prayed for" part of the world. Endorsed by over 25 key global mission leaders worldwide, including Paul Eshleman, Director of the Jesus Film Project; Ralph Winter, Gen. Dir., US Center for World Mission; and Vonette Bright, Co-Founder, Campus Crusade for Christ.

An estimated 95% of the world's unreached people and 85% of the world's poorest of the poor live in an area referred to as the 10/40 Window. This region spans the globe from West Africa through East Asia between 10 degrees and 40 degrees north of the equator. Of its staggering 3.6 billion people, as many as 1.4 billion have never had the chance to hear the Gospel.

This prayer guide brings to life the goal of "a church for every people and the gospel for every person." The 10/40 Window is the primary spiritual battleground in the world today. The very cradle of civilization is now the Church's final evangelistic frontier. In this window over 1 billion Muslims, 800 million Hindus, and 300 million Buddhists live in almost total isolation from the gospel of Christ.

This is a book that will inform and inspire the whole family. This beautifully presented yet practical book is the ideal accompaniment to Operation World. Stunning photographic visuals complement this AZ of countries and people groups providing an exciting learning experience and guide for prayer.

Short stories about featured countries or people groups help relate foreign lands and people to children in the West. Each page includes a small map putting the country into perspective with neighboring countries, as well as a fact box with essential country, and people information and prayer points that children can ask God for as well as thank God for.

This invaluable resource develops cultural, political, and geographical awareness through a Christian lens. Families, churches, and schools will all benefit from this book and in turn be able to pray more effectively for their world.

We are living in a new era of missions. God has been at work in the world from history’s beginning and is advancing the good news of Jesus Christ globally, leading to a thrilling climax. Combining four decades of fieldwork with cutting-edge research, Ron Boehme charts the waves of missions in history and reveals how the fourth wave will be unlike anything the world has ever seen. No matter who you are or what you do, it is time to take your place in the fresh missional task of the church.

Living by faith is a frightening idea for many people. It certainly was to Peter Jordan, who had a good job, a beautiful home, two newer cars, a growing family, and a respectable position in his church. In fact, entering missions was the last thing he thought he’d ever do. But God called him and his family out of the ordinary and into an uncertain, but ultimately fulfilling, life of trust and obedience.

This true story of a family who shocked friends and family by leaving their comfortable life to follow God’s call will challenge your assumptions and inspire you to new endeavors. Faith can be a frightening place, but nothing compares to the adventure of entrusting yourself to the capable and loving arms of the Father.

In a mission minded family, there's a God-infused energy. There's a focus on God's worldwide purpose and there's a passion for the lost. There's a spiritual depth and hunger that reaches beyond the maintenance mode of cultural Christianity. A mission minded family emphasizes leadership, calling and destiny. There's a prevailing attitude of self-sacrifice and an emphasis on total submission to Gods will. There's an unmistakable and contagious joy.

Dunagan, who wrote The Mission Minded Child, brings the same perspective to what it means to be a mission minded family. This book includes suggested activities for families to participate in together as well as resources to help families develop the desire to be more missions focused. She discusses the need for families to balance and prioritize their everyday lives and delves into what a family's finances would look like if they were focused on missions.

This practical book is the perfect companion to The Mission Minded Child. Families who read and practice principles from this book will receive a rekindled closeness as they participate in ministry together.

It's exciting to realize the next generation of godly leaders and missionaries can be found among the children in our homes, classrooms, and churches. But what daunting challenge for those involved in raising these young people. This well-needed resource will be an encouragement to Christian parents and teachers placed in the strategic position of impacting the next generation. As a guide to world missions, The Mission-Minded Child is filled with facts, information, and tools for teaching. It focuses on the "why" of missions, including the biblical basis, historical heritage, and the world's need.

With over twenty-five missionary biographies; dozens of motivational mission stories, hymns, and classic poems; and hundreds of easy-to-use ideas, you'll want to refer to this book again and again as you introduce your child to an exciting world of mission possibilities.

The Mission-Minded Child will inspire all those involved in a child's life to teach and raise that child to fulfill God's purposes for the world.

No country is too poor, to filled with crime, too divided by war, or too dark to be changed. God has given us basic principles that are keys to every problem we face in the twenty-first century. The answers lie between the covers of one book - the Bible. The Book That Transforms Nations demonstrates how, together, we can use the Bible to change the whole world. Loren Cunningham's fifty years of ministry have taken him to the world's poorest and neediest as well as to kings and presidents. Here he offers a solid reason to hope and work for a better future.

Every pastor experiences feelings of inadequacy or loneliness at some time in ministry. Serving others and serving God is not an easy task. Warren Wiersbe, the "pastor's pastor," knows the struggles and triumphs a life of service brings. On Being a Servant of God invites you to listen in on thirty short "armchair chats." With candor and sensitivity, Wiersbe shares what he wishes he had known about ministering to others when he began his own Christian pilgrimage. Let his years of experience and wise counsel bring comfort to your soul and energy to your tasks.

In Footprints in Time, Jeff O'Leary invites you to meet seven people who did, seven path makers who fulfilled their destinies and whose lives will be remembered forever. Exploring these extraordinary lives, O'Leary brings to light the spiritual application of their inspiring legacies. He investigates how the idols of our times- wealth, fame, power, the endless pursuit of happiness, cause us to lose sight of God's Plan. He shows how you can seek, find, and fulfill God's special calling and make your own Footprints in Time.

You will be inspired by the lives of men and women, just like you, with faults and fears, just like you. You will be amazed at how God took their simple willingness and fulfilled His great will. You will be challenged to see the idols that now rule countless hearts in our culture and how they are keeping so many from their heavenly promise. Finally, you will be encouraged to ask yourself, "If God could do it with these other men and women, why can't He do it with me?"

Footprints in Time will change how you view your hours, days and years and the way you spend them. It will inspire you to lift up your eyes and fulfill your heavenly destiny.

In Compelled by Love, Heidi Baker gives you a glimpse of total dependence and authentic Christian community by taking a fresh look at the Beatitudes. Throughout she shares many examples from her and her husband's ministry in the war-torn country of Mozambique. Time and again they have seen the miraculous power and provision of the Lord to the "poor in spirit," showing that the Kingdom of Heaven does belong to such as these.

Reaching a Lost World will challenge you to dig deeply into the Word of God for answers to these questions and many more. In twelve weeks you’ll be equipped as a more effective witness for the Lord. You’ll feel more confident to talk to members of cults and world religions about your faith and be ready to stand up for the truth.

Why should you study cults and world religions? Because our world is no longer divided into isolated parts. A century ago most Westerners would not have known a Hindu, Buddhist, or Muslim. Mormonism and Jehovah’s Witness were small fringe groups, and the New Age movement had not officially begun. Today people of every major cult and world religion are nearby, living in our neighborhoods, sitting next to us in class, and working with us at our jobs. We can bring the light of the gospel to people from every belief system, and we need to prepare ourselves through study and prayer.

Each volume in the Intensive Discipleship Course series is a twelve-week, life-changing exercise of commitment and learning. Developed from years of student ministry experience, the course is designed specifically for high-school and college students, as individuals or in groups.

Developed from years of student ministry experience, the Intensive Discipleship Course is designed specifically for high-school and college students - individuals and groups - whose answer is yes to these questions. In Developing Godly Character, students will establish a firm foundation for effectively studying the Bible, developing a strong prayer life, serving in humility, overcoming sin, and growing spiritually.

In this course, students explore attitudes that will challenge them to prepare their hearts to serve the Lord and allow his nature to be expressed through them. They gain specific guidance in giving godly counsel and ministering to people with common problems. Finally they learn about Bible study preparation, biblical evangelism, discipling new converts, and recognizing their ministry calling.

Today the world is as close as an airplane flight. Thousands take advantage of this, going for short visits to other countries to be more involved in God's worldwide mission. How can you prepare for such a trip? What are the hazards to avoid and the opportunities to embrace? Here is field-tested advice you should not leave home without!

Mack and Leeann Stiles are veteran leaders of more than a dozen two-month mission trips that have taken them around the globe. Their practical advice, hard-won lessons and hilarious stories will help you know what to expect as you get ready to see God in action in new ways.

Beginning with Genesis, the Bible is the story of God pursuing his people. In this study guide, you'll explore how God reaches out--through Jesus and through human ambassodors like us. You'll discover that the call to "missions" is not for a select group but is a part of God's call to every Christian. And you'll begin to understand your own part in God's plan.

This LifeGuide Bible Study features questions for starting group discussions and for meeting God in personal reflection. Leader's notes are included with information on study preparation, leading the study and small group components as well as helps for specific Bible passages covered in the study. Presented in a convenient workbook format and featuring the inductive Bible study approach, LifeGuides are thoroughly field-tested prior to publication; they're proven and popular guides for digging into Scripture on your own or with a small group.

Going on a short-term missions trip can be a life- and faith-transforming experience. It can enrich the way you view the world. It will cause you to rely on God more fully. It is an opportunity to develop deep relationships with your team and the people you serve.

A short-term missions experience can also involve weeks of physical and spiritual distress. An unprepared team can wreak havoc on each other and the people they intend to serve.

To get the most out of such a missions trip, you need to go prepared. Whether you are going on your own or with a team, the keys to preparation are here in Tim Dearborn's workbook.

In recent decades global missions have been revolutionized by such movements as microenterprise development efforts and tentmaking professionals working in restricted access countries. But little has yet been said about the new missions opportunities created by today's globalized economy. Nor has much been documented about the role that corporations and businesses can have in the missionary enterprise.

Economist Steve Rundle and missiologist Tom Steffen offer a new paradigm for the convergence of business and missions--the Great Commission Company. These companies intentionally create businesses in strategic locations, pursuing profits while remaining unabashedly Christian in their purpose. By establishing authentic businesses that employ local workers among the least-reached peoples of the world, they contribute to the economic health of the immediate community and also provide avenues for both physical and spiritual ministry.

Based on a five-year study of groundbreaking enterprises like Pura Vida Coffee, this book offers keen analysis of the principles and practices of these companies. In an era where multinational corporations have global influence and impact, the Great Commission Company opens up new possibilities for missions-minded entrepreneurs and businesspeople who want to change the world to the glory of God.

How is it that a first-generation Jewish messianic movement undertook a mission to the pagan world and rapidly achieved a momentum that would have a lasting and significant impact on world history? This momentous question has surprisingly eluded the concentrated focus of historians and New Testament scholars.

Perhaps it is because the story of early Christian mission encompasses so much of the history of early Christianity. And to tell that history is to traverse a broad spectrum of issues in contemporary New Testament studies, all of which have been investigated in specialized depth, though frequently unconnected to a unified picture. On the other hand, as Eckhard Schnabel comments, those who have attempted to paint "the portrait of early Christian missions" have "often painted with brush strokes too broad." As a result, an "undifferentiated picture of early Christian mission" is widely held.

In this monumental study, Schnabel gives us both a unified and detailed picture of the rise and growth of early Christian mission. He begins with a search for a missionary impulse in the Old Testament and Second Temple Judaism. He then weighs the evidence for a mission of Jesus to Gentiles. But the center of focus is the apostolic missionary activity as it is related in Acts, Paul's letters and the rest of the New Testament.

Here is a study that seeks to describe all the evidence relevant to the missionary strategy and tactics of the early church, to explain the theological dimensions of the early Christian mission, and to integrate the numerous studies published in the last decades into a synthetic overall picture. Schnabel’s detailed and immensely informed analysis will reward careful reading and reflection, and form a solid basis for a new understanding of the rise of Christianity and the nature of Christian mission--both then and now.

Most of us would rather have a root canal than ask for money. Raising support is one of the most difficult challenges facing Christians in ministry. Fears of rejection, concerns about biblical validity, feelings of not being deserving, anxiety about limited resources can all block us from obtaining the means to fulfill our calling.

This book both affirms that God uses the Christian community to send us into ministry and demystifies the process.

Christian mission is no longer a matter of missionaries from the West going to the rest of the world. Rather, the growth of Christianity in Latin America, Africa and parts of Asia is eclipsing that of the Western church. In the third millennium of the Christian era, Christian mission is truly global, with missionaries from all places going to all peoples.

Veteran missiologist Samuel Escobar presents this introduction to Christian mission today. He explores the new realities of our globalized world and assesses the context of a changing mission field that is simultaneously secular and syncretistic. He also sets forth a thoroughly biblical theology of missions, considering how God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are at work around the world, with implications for how Christians are to go about the task of global mission.

Considering a career in crosscultural ministry? Veteran mission professionals Steve Hoke and Bill Taylor offer a practical guide for preparing for intercultural missions. They provide resources for personal spiritual preparation as well as crosscultural skills and hands-on missionary training. They outline the process for finding actual placement with a sending church, mission agency or organization, with key questions you should be asking along the way.

In recent decades mission theology has quietly undergone a remarkable reorientation. No longer the exclusive enterprise of the West, like the global Internet, Christian mission has become decentralized. While places such as Pasadena, Wheaton and New Haven still represent important nodes of mission thinking in the United States, these are now part of a network that includes locations such as Nairobi, Manila and São Paulo. Christian mission now radiates from everywhere to everywhere, and mission theology has been enriched and shaped by this new reality.

The Dictionary of Mission Theology is the first reference book of its kind to reflect this new world of mission. With the majority of its 160-plus articles written by contributors from the Majority World, it reflects a variety of global contexts. The missiological implications of central Christian doctrines are explored, and a range of new perspectives are highlighted and weighed. Along with affirmations of time-tested foundations, one will find here original contributions to missiological thought, challenges to traditional views of mission, and an invitation to creatively integrate evangelism, liberation, healing and justice.

More than simply a look-it-up reference work, the Dictionary of Mission Theology is a handbook for church leaders and missionaries, and a textbook for teachers and students of mission theology worldwide. In every context where Christian mission is learned and practiced, the Dictionary of Mission Theology will set a new benchmark for mission theology.

Few biblical topics are as important as mission. Mission is linked inextricably to humanity's sinfulness and need for redemption, and to God's provision of salvation in the person and work of Jesus Christ. This "good news" of salvation must be made known! The saving mission of Jesus constitutes the foundation for Christian mission, and the Christian gospel is its message.

According to Andreas Köstenberger and Peter O'Brien, this significant theme has rarely been given its due attention in biblical theology. Motivated by their passion to see God's mission carried out in today's world, they offer a comprehensive study of the theme of mission. In Salvation to the Ends of the Earth they explore the entire sweep of biblical history, including the Old Testament, the second-temple period, each New Testament Gospel, Paul and his writings, and the General Epistles and Revelation.

Among other questions, Köstenberger and O'Brien examine whether or not Old Testament Israel was called to mission, whether second-temple Judaism should be characterized as a missionary religion, whether Jesus limited his earthly mission to Israel or also embarked on a Gentile mission, and whether or not there is continuity between the missions of Israel and the missions of Jesus and the early church. They write, "It is our sincere hope that our Christian mission, which is first of all God's, will be founded on a biblical theology that takes its cue from the scriptural revelation as a whole." To that end, they offer this work as a service to the worldwide church.

Business as mission (BAM) is a mission strategy whose time has come. As global economics become increasingly interconnected, Christian business people and entrepreneurs have unanticipated opportunities to build kingdom-strategic business ventures. But Christian companies and business leaders do not automatically accomplish missional purposes. BAM requires mastery of both the world of business and the world of missions, merging and contextualizing both into something significantly different than either alone.

C. Neal Johnson offers the first comprehensive guide to business as mission for practitioners. He provides conceptual foundations for understanding BAM's unique place in global mission and prerequisites for engaging in it. Then he offers practical resources for how to do BAM, including strategic planning and step-by-step operational implementation. Drawing on a wide variety of BAM models, Johnson works through details of both mission and business realities, with an eye to such issues as management, sustainability and accountability.

Business as mission is a movement with enormous potential. This book breaks new ground in how faith and work intersect and are lived out in crosscultural contexts, where job creation and community transformation go hand in hand. Come, participate in what may well be one of the most strategic mission paradigms of the 21st century.

Duane Elmer asked people around the world how they felt about Western missionaries. The response? "Missionaries could be more effective if they did not think they were better than us." The last thing we want to do in cross-cultural ministry is to offend people in other cultures. Unfortunately, all too often and even though we don't mean it, our actions communicate superiority, paternalism, imperialism and arrogance. Our best intentions become unintentional insults. How can we minister in ways that are received as true Christlike service?

Cross-cultural specialist Duane Elmer gives Christians practical advice for serving other cultures with sensitivity and humility. With careful biblical exposition and keen cross-cultural awareness, he shows how our actions and attitudes often contradict and offend the local culture. He offers principles and guidance for avoiding misunderstandings and building relationships in ways that honor others. Here is culturally-savvy insight into how we can follow Jesus' steps to become global servants.

Whether you're going on your first short-term mission trip or ministering overseas for extended periods, this useful guide is essential reading for anyone who wants to serve effectively in international settings with grace and sensitivity.

Eckhard Schnabel's two-volume Early Christian Mission is widely recognized as the most complete and authoritative contemporary study of the first-century Christian missionary movement. Now in Paul the Missionary Schnabel condenses volume two of the set, drawing on his research to provide a manageable study for students of Paul as well as students and practitioners of Christian mission today.

Schnabel first focuses the spotlight on Paul's missionary work--the realities he faced, and the strategies and methods he employed. Applying his grasp of the wide range of ancient sources and of contemporary scholarship, he clarifies our understanding, expands our knowledge and corrects our misconceptions of Paul the missionary.

In a final chapter Schnabel shines the recovered light of Paul's missionary methods and practices on Christian mission today. Much like Roland Allen's classic Missionary Methods: St. Paul's or Ours? of nearly a century ago, Schnabel offers both praise and criticism. For those who take the time to immerse themselves in the world of Paul's missionary endeavor, this final chapter will be both rewarding and searching.

Thousands of North American Christians teach overseas every year. International teaching experiences can be tremendously rewarding. But often teachers are not fully prepared for the challenges of crosscultural life, and many are jolted and disillusioned by the realities of the overseas classroom.

Veteran educators Mike Romanowski and Teri McCarthy provide an essential guide for Christians teaching in overseas contexts. They explain how good teaching requires preparation, self-understanding and cultural skills, as well as a solid philosophy of education and grasp of worldview. Providing both the theoretical framework as well as practical tools, the authors offer concrete advice and real-life examples for classroom instruction, daily life and much more.

Get a more global picture of the kind of transformation your educational work can accomplish. Whether you are a recent college grad or a seasoned veteran educator, this book is an essential companion for your teaching journey.

With characteristic rigor and insight, in this book Mark Noll revisits the history of the American church in the context of world events. He makes the compelling case that how Americans have come to practice the Christian faith is just as globally important as what the American church has done in the world. He backs up this substantial claim with the scholarly attentiveness we've come to expect from him, lucidly explaining the relationship between the development of Christianity in North America and the development of Christianity in the rest of the world, with attention to recent transfigurations in world Christianity. Here is a book that will challenge your assumptions about the nature of the relationship between the American church and the global church in the past and predict what world Christianity may look like.

Throughout the world today, Christians continue to face intense persecution, and Christian women are often the most vulnerable. In Pakistan, Christian girls are systematically kidnapped, tortured and raped. In China, underground church leaders are sent to labor camps for hosting illegal home meetings. In Sudan, Christian women are captured and sold into slavery or mutilated and left to die. And in many Muslim countries, a woman can be killed by her husband or father for converting to Christianity.

In this deeply moving book, Kay Marshall Strom and Michele Rickett tell the stories of persecuted Christian women from around the world. From Africa to the Middle East to Asia, they give voice to our sisters persevering under the yoke of oppression and injustice. Each section provides specific prayer points and practical action steps to equip us to respond to the issues at hand.

Above all, these stories remind us that suffering is part of the call of followers of Jesus. The challenges do not mean that God has abandoned us. Rather, God is active and present with his suffering people. Do not be discouraged. Take heart from these daughters of hope.

In our anonymous and dehumanized world, the simple practice of friendship is radically countercultural. But sometimes Christians inadvertently marginalize and objectify the very ones they most want to serve.

Chris Heuertz, international director of Word Made Flesh, and theologian and ethicist Christine Pohl show how friendship is a Christian vocation that can bring reconciliation and healing to our broken world. They contend that unlikely friendships are at the center of an alternative paradigm for mission, where people are not objectified as potential converts but encountered in a relationship of mutuality and reciprocity.

When we befriend those on the margins of society by practicing hospitality and welcome, we create communities where righteousness and justice can be lived out. Heuertz and Pohl's reflections offer fresh insight into Christian mission and what it means to be the church in the world today.

Business as mission has emerged as a significant new model for mission in the twenty-first century. Today's globalized economy has created strategic opportunities for Christian business enterprises in some of the most unlikely corners of the world.

In this landmark book, economist Steve Rundle and missiologist Tom Steffen offer their paradigm for the convergence of business and missions--the Great Commission Company. Such companies intentionally create businesses in strategic locations, pursuing profits while remaining unabashedly Christian in their purpose. By establishing authentic businesses that employ local workers among the least-reached peoples of the world, they contribute to the economic health of the immediate community and also provide avenues for both physical and spiritual ministry.

In an era where multinational corporations have global influence and impact, the Great Commission Company opens up new possibilities for missions-minded entrepreneurs and businesspeople who want to change the world to the glory of God.

This revised and expanded edition provides new and updated case studies of Great Commission Companies in diverse contexts around the world.

From Cairo to Calcutta, from Cochabamba to Columbus, Christians are engaged in a conversation about how to speak and live the gospel in today's traditional, modern and emergent cultures. The technical term for their efforts is contextualization. Missionary theorists have pondered and written on it at length. More and more, those who do theology in the West are also trying to discover new ways of communicating and embodying the gospel for an emerging postmodern culture. But few have considered in depth how the early church contextualized the gospel. And yet the New Testament provides numerous examples.

As both a crosscultural missionary and a New Testament scholar, Dean Flemming is well equipped to examine how the early church contextualized the gospel and to draw out lessons for today. By carefully sifting the New Testament evidence, Flemming uncovers the patterns and parameters of a Paul or Mark or John as they spoke the Word on target, and he brings these to bear on our contemporary missiological task.

Rich in insights and conversant with frontline thinking, this is a book that will revitalize the conversation and refresh our speaking and living the gospel in today's cultures, whether in traditional, modern or emergent contexts.

Think of the little girls you know: your daughter, a niece, a friend's child. And then think about this: little girls are tossed away every day. In fact, statistics show that the world's most oppressed are overwhelmingly female. Moved by their plight, Kay Marshall Strom and Michele Rickett took a trip across continents to partner with ministries working to help females and to interview girls in some of the most difficult places in the world.

These pages hold those girls' stories: stories of deep pain and suffering, inspiring courage, and incredible hope. They are the stories of girls who have discovered their value in God's eyes, in the midst of cultures that have rejected them. They are stories of rescue and redemption by God working through compassionate people--people like you.

These pages might hold pieces of your story as well, as the authors invite you to pray and speak on behalf of the millions of women and girls who still need to know how much they're worth. For each of the five sections of the book--physical suffering, education, sexual protection, prison and war, and spiritual life--the authors provide specific, practical action steps and prayer points that allow you to get involved as God leads.

Opening these pages will open your eyes to situations you couldn't imagine, to places you've probably never been and to young girls--not so different from the ones you know--who are dearly loved by God. And our powerful God will help us as we read, speak and pray on their behalf, that the forgotten might become free.

When Jesus commissioned his followers, he was not just inaugurating the historical church, he was founding a missionary movement.Originally released by Missional Press and now revised and expanded to include a multi-session discussion guide, Steve Addison's Movements That Change the World draws from biblical, historical and contemporary case studies to isolate the essential elements of a dynamic missionary movement. The church fulfills its mission today to the extent that it honors these essential elements, modelled perfectly in Jesus’ missionary enterprise.

Throughout the ages Jesus' followers have been called to continue his movement in the power of the Holy Spirit. Like many such movements, it changed the world. Unlike most movements, which have their historical moment and then fade away, Christianity is actively, continually changing the world for the better.

Most Christians would agree that the Bible provides a basis for mission. But Christopher Wright boldly maintains that mission is bigger than that--there is in fact a missional basis for the Bible! The entire Bible is generated by and is all about God's mission.

In order to understand the Bible, we need a missional hermeneutic of the Bible, an interpretive perspective that is in tune with this great missional theme. We need to see the "big picture" of God's mission and how the familiar bits and pieces fit into the grand narrative of Scripture.

Beginning with the Old Testament and the groundwork it lays for understanding who God is, what he has called his people to be and do, and how the nations fit into God's mission, Wright gives us a new hermeneutical perspective on Scripture. This new perspective provides a solid and expansive basis for holistic mission. Wright emphasizes throughout a holistic mission as the proper shape of Christian mission. God's mission is to reclaim the world--and that includes the created order--and God's people have a designated role to play in that mission.

When you give money to a charity, what happens to it? Does the money actually reach a person who is in need? Does a small gift really make a difference to anyone? Several years ago Kay Marshall Strom discovered a new avenue for giving that especially intrigued her: gift catalogs. The catalogs, put out by various organizations, offer opportunities to provide specific material, educational and medical provisions for people all over the world, such as a year of school for a Chinese pastor's child, tuberculosis medicine for a patient in North Korea or animals for a family in Cambodia.

But Kay wanted to find out for herself what happened when the families actually received the gifts purchased. So, working with Partners International, she set out on an eye-opening expedition around the world. What she found was financial integrity, fulfilled promises and radically changed lives.

Through these pages you can travel with her on her journey. See the delight of families, and enter the stories of hope in the midst of struggle. Kay offers here an invitation to discover the power and joy of giving that changes lives--yours, and the lives of people all over the world.

In 2003 Kent Annan left behind his prosperous, comfortable upbringing to face the world beyond its gates, where people wear his cast-off clothing and seek comfort from the heat in the long shadow of his homeland. Haiti, apparently, was where God wanted him. Of course, just because God wants you somewhere doesn't mean it's going to be easy.

Little did he know how important his work would be. Now, in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake, Annan's experience living and working in Haiti has become a powerful resource for those looking to learn more about this amazing country and find out how they can help Haiti rebuild and thrive.

In this book you'll enter into Annan's experience traveling and working in Haiti, and ultimately you'll be challenged to follow God into uncharted territory on a path that may lead to your local soup kitchen--or to a Haitian relief settlement. Either way, you'll learn what it means to become vulnerable in order to help others and share the embodied love of Christ.

Read Following Jesus Through the Eye of the Needle for a vivid picture of the Haiti Annan knows, the good work happening there through organizations like Haiti Partners, and the ways you can get involved. Whether you go or stay, you'll get a fresh sense of what it means to love God and love our neighbor when love is uncomfortable, even dangerous; to see what happens when God stretches you beyond your borders into his kingdom.

Theologian and veteran missionary Bernard Adeney addresses in-depth what may be the stickiest crosscultural communication problem of our day: differing approaches to morality. In this comprehensive treatment, he considers ethics across cultures, addresses the ethical import of other religions and gender relations, explores how the Bible and culture interact to produce ethical stances, and includes particular case studies. Strange Virtues will benefit not only missionaries, ethicists and students, but all Christians who want to better understand their neighbors here at home.

(Ebook edition) In 2003 Kent Annan left behind his prosperous, comfortable upbringing to face the world beyond its gates, where people wear his cast-off clothing and seek comfort from the heat in the long shadow of his homeland. Haiti, apparently, was where God wanted him. Of course, just because God wants you somewhere doesn't mean it's going to be easy.

Little did he know how important his work would be. Now, in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake, Annan's experience living and working in Haiti has become a powerful resource for those looking to learn more about this amazing country and find out how they can help Haiti rebuild and thrive.

In this book you'll enter into Annan's experience traveling and working in Haiti, and ultimately you'll be challenged to follow God into uncharted territory on a path that may lead to your local soup kitchen--or to a Haitian relief settlement. Either way, you'll learn what it means to become vulnerable in order to help others and share the embodied love of Christ.

Read Following Jesus Through the Eye of the Needle for a vivid picture of the Haiti Annan knows, the good work happening there through organizations like Haiti Partners, and the ways you can get involved. Whether you go or stay, you'll get a fresh sense of what it means to love God and love our neighbor when love is uncomfortable, even dangerous; to see what happens when God stretches you beyond your borders into his kingdom.

The last century has seen the revolutionary remaking of Christianity into a truly world religion. How did it happen? What triggered the emergence of this new global faith no longer dominated by the West, full of new and vital forms of devotion?

Mark Shaw's provocative thesis is that far-flung revivals are at the heart of the global resurgence of Christianity. These were not the quirky folk rituals associated with rural America and nineteenth-century camp meetings that belong more to an age of plows and prairies than of postmodernity and globalization.

Rather they were like forces of nature, protean, constantly adjusting their features and ferocity to new times and to new places, speaking Spanish, Portuguese, Yoruba, Korean, Mandarin and Gujarati. They crossed the equator. As they traveled abroad they grabbed hold of missionaries, Bible translations, national evangelists, globalization and glossolalia and turned them into a religious revolution.

In this engaging book we read the stories of Joseph Babalola and the Aladura Revival in Africa, of Kil Sun-Ju and the great Korean revival of 1907, of Paulo Borges Jr. and explosion of neo-Pentecostalism in Brazil, and of V. S. Azariah and the mass conversions of the Dalit people in India. As Shaw paints portraits of these and many more, his gallery fills, and we begin to see beyond isolated pictures to the sweeping landscape that we didn't realize was before our eyes all the time.

Some emphasize Christian mission as verbal proclamation and "saving souls." Others focus on global justice issues or relief and development work. Can we do both? In this classic book, John Stott shows that Christian mission must encompass both evangelism and social action. He offers careful definitions of five key terms--mission, evangelism, dialogue, salvation and conversion. Through a thorough biblical exploration of these concepts, Stott provides a model for ministry to people's spiritual and physical needs alike.

Ultimately, Stott points to the example of Jesus, who modeled both the Great Commission of proclamation and the Great Commandment of love and service. This balanced, holistic approach to mission points the way forward for the work of the church in the world.

The worldwide church is more interconnected than ever before, with missionaries going from everywhere to everywhere. Africans work with Australians in India. Koreans plant churches in London and Los Angeles. But globalization also creates challenges for crosscultural tension and misunderstandings, as different cultures have conflicting assumptions about leadership values and styles.

James E. Plueddemann presents a roadmap for crosscultural leadership development in the global church. With keen understanding of current research on cultural dynamics, he integrates theology with leadership theory to apply biblical insights to practical issues in world mission.

Savvy discernment of diverse cultural underpinnings allows multicultural teams to work together with mutual respect for more effective ministry. The author shows how leaders can grow from an individualistic egocentric practice of leadership to a more global-centric approach.

The future of the global church depends on effective multicultural leadership. God has called people from various contexts to minister and lead in every land for the sake of the gospel. Whether you are teaching English in China, directing information technology in Africa or pastoring a multiethnic church in North America, discover how you can better work and lead across cultures.

Environmentalists have pleaded with Christian leaders to take up the challenge of caring for the environment. How should Christians respond to the environmental crisis? What does the Bible have to say about creation care and the responsibility of Christians?

Edward Brown offers a biblical framework for creation care as well as practical steps that ordinary Christians can take to exercise good ecological stewardship. As a pioneering leader of the evangelical creation care movement, Brown provides a new model for "environmental missions," in which Christian organizations respond to ecological crises in ways that transform both the people and the land that sustains them.

This book is filled with ideas that students, churches, mission agencies and all concerned Christians can implement at home and around the world.

Many think evangelism is rooted in a method. It is rooted in something much deeper. It is found in what makes us whole and healthy messengers of God's truth about Jesus. Mack Stiles has lived the life of the healthy evangelist in homes and coffee shops, at universities and farms. He has lived out and spoken about the gospel to Kenyans, Koreans, Arabs and North Americans. What he has learned around the world and at home is summarized here in a few basic truths that can shape any of us into faithful people who bring good news to needy and hurting friends.

The whole gospel changes much more than our relationship with God. Stiles shows how it changes all of who we are and what we do. It means learning the whole gospel without shaping its message to meet our tastes. It means not just going through the motions of accepted behaviors. It means showing the unity of witness and justice. It means love. It means community.

Join Mack Stiles in a life-giving adventure of boldly knowing, living and speaking the gospel.

Over the last fifty years God has used InterVarsity Christian Fellowship to shape the lives of thousands of students. This fascinating chronicle begins with the early influences that shaped university witness since its founding. Eventually these influences coalesced to form InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in the United States fifty years ago. From those early beginnings with only a few staff covering the whole country and a world war breaking out, the work grew and flourished beyond human expectation.

From the Urbana conventions to a new approach to Christian witness called friendship evangelism to in-depth inductive study of the Bible, InterVarsity was constantly innovating and growing. From work among nurses to promotion of missions to creative use of media, InterVarsity became a multifaceted ministry. The setbacks that are part of any human endeavor are found in this book too. But here is a story of what God did through a handful of people with a big idea.

In some circles public evangelism has fallen out of favor. Many churches are daunted by the prospects of reaching the unchurched out in the open, beyond the walls of their sanctuaries. And many Christians assume that the days of mass public evangelism have passed and instead rely on outreach through private, individual efforts.

But the gospel of Jesus Christ has always been a matter of public proclamation. From the earliest days of the church, in every age, the growth of Christianity has been tied to the public preaching of the good news.

In this landmark book, evangelists Lon Allison and Mark Anderson issue a stirring call for the revival of public gospel proclamation. They show how God has used evangelistic preaching in the past and how it can be practiced with relevance and effectiveness today. Recovering public proclamation, they argue, is key to the vitality and ongoing mission of the church.

An essential resource for evangelistically minded Christians from the local church to specialists in international missions organizations, this guide offers hope that Christianity can again reach the masses in the public square.

Jonathan Edwards has been recognized as the most influential evangelical theologian of all time. Before his death at the age of fifty-four, he had sparked a new movement of Reformed evangelicals who played a major role in fueling the rise of modern missions, preaching revivals far and wide, and wielding the cutting edge of American theology. He has never gone out of print, and Christians today continue to flock to seminars and conferences on him.

In this biography of the great preacher and teacher, historian Douglas Sweeney locates for us the core and key to Edwards' enduring impact. Sweeney finds that Edwards' profound and meticulous study of the Bible securely anchored his powerful preaching, his lively theological passions and his discerning pastoral work. Beyond introducing you to Edwards' life and times, this book will provide you with a model of Christian faith, thought and ministry.

It was the perfect irony. To lose God at a missions conference. What's worse, Matt Rogers will tell you, is that it all felt like fate. Years later, even after Matt's depression subsided, the feeling of being forgotten had not left him. So he knew he had to write it down.

Recounting his own experience with depression, Matt Rogers explores the question of how, in a world of suffering, we can call God good. This challenging question can manifest itself as a conspiracy of doubt, so that our emotions and our intellect come under attack. Without appealing to easy answers, Rogers offers understanding and a ray of hope for those who suffer from depression, encouraging them never to give up.

What does it mean to be white? When you encounter people from other races or ethnicities, you may become suddenly aware that being white means something. Those from other backgrounds may respond to you differently or suspiciously. You may feel ambivalence about your identity as a white person. Or you may feel frustrated when a friend of another ethnicity shakes his head and says, "You just don't get it because you're white."

In this groundbreaking book, Paula Harris and Doug Schaupp present a Christian model of what it means to be white. They wrestle through the history of how those in the majority have oppressed minority cultures, but they also show that whites also have a cultural and ethnic identity with its own distinctive traits and contributions. They demonstrate that white people have a key role to play in the work of racial reconciliation and the forging of a more just society.

Filled with real-life stories, life-transforming insights and practical guidance, this book is for you if you are aware of racial inequality but have wondered, So what do I do? Discover here a vision for just communities where whites can partner with and empower those of other ethnicities.

Their clothing is often distinctive. Their values are strongly held. They love their families. They comprise nearly one-tenth of the world's population, and they live everywhere around the globe. These are women of Muslim background. Many still belong to Islam, but some now belong to Christ.

In Daughters of Islam Miriam Adeney introduces you to women like Ladan, Khadija and Fatma. You'll learn about their lives, questions and hopes. You'll learn how they are both representative of and unique among their Arab, Iranian, Southeast Asian and African sisters. And you'll discover what has drawn them to Christ.

"If you have faith as small as a mustard seed," Jesus says in the Gospel of Matthew, "nothing will be impossible for you." That sounds good, but does it work in a world where seeds are genetically altered by an impatient few and hard to come by for countless others? In a world where the gulf between the very rich and the profoundly poor is constantly growing, can a mustard-seed faith make any difference? And can such a little bit of faith be sustained in a world whose future is so uncertain on so many fronts?

Tom Sine says yes, and he has the audacity to try to prove it in his latest book. In The New Conspirators Tom surveys the landscape of creative Christianity.

Individuals and communities of faith are coalescing in, and drawing energy from, these four streams to retrofit the church as it leads, serves and gives witness to the kingdom of God in the turbulent times facing us. Read the book and you'll want to-and be prepared to-join God's conspiracy to create a better future.

Author and theologian Dewi Arwel Hughes's conviction is that the suffering, through poverty, of such a vast number of people in our day is overwhelmingly the result of the misuse of power by others. In this wide-ranging, challenging book he unpacks a convicting thesis: that poverty has to do with the way in which we human beings use and abuse the power God gave us when he created us.

Hughes challenges you to reconsider your assumptions regarding power, poverty and Christian identity, and he provides biblical perspectives to enable you to both understand the causes of poverty and help in overcoming it.

C. Stacey Woods was a moving force in mid-century American evangelicalism. The Australian-born, Brethren-bred Woods came to Canada to head InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at the age of 24. He went on to become as well the first general secretary of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in the United States. He started the influential student magazine HIS in the early 1940s and was instrumental in the founding of the worldwide umbrella organization of indigenous student movements--the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. His global vision inspired many of the most outstanding Christian leaders of the 1960s and 1970s from around the world.

He was a brusque, outspoken entrepreneur whose whirlwind style achieved much but was not always suited to administration. A man of great strengths and weaknesses, perhaps his most striking achievement was challenging the anti-intellectualism of conservative American Christianity, encouraging an active engagement with the university. He confronted a fundamentalism that had abandoned to liberalism the very educational institutions its forebears had founded. Woods turned this approach on its head, encouraging active engagement with the students and faculty of the university as well as with the institution itself.

This story is an important chapter in understanding the ways evangelicalism has interacted with culture in North America and around the world.

We often regard the author of the Gospel of Mark as an obscure figure about whom we know little. Many would be surprised to learn how much fuller a picture of Mark exists within widespread African tradition, tradition that holds that Mark himself was from North Africa, that he founded the church in Alexandria, that he was an eyewitness to the Last Supper and Pentecost, that he was related not only to Barnabas but to Peter as well and accompanied him on many of his travels.

In this provocative reassessment of early church tradition, Thomas C. Oden begins with the palette of New Testament evidence and adds to it the range of colors from traditional African sources, including synaxaries (compilations of short biographies of saints to be read on feast days), archaeological sites, non-Western historical documents and ancient churches.

The result is a fresh and illuminating portrait of Mark, one that is deeply rooted in African memory and seldom viewed appreciatively in the West.

How do you see the world? As lots of great vacation spots? As millions of people with problems too big to imagine? Missionary Paul Borthwick just might expand your view--or even explode it. He asks six dynamite questions that challenge you to look more closely at other countries, other cultures, other ethnic groups and other ways of acting on your faith.

Don't be fooled. Borthwick's questions may seem obvious. But have you really thought about your answers to them before? Have you thought through how your answers are connected to work, family, money, friends, or education?

Don't panic. Answering the questions Borthwick poses won't result in your immediate departure for the jungle or the desert--probably. But answering will very likely cause you to reorder your priorities, refocus your interests and even change your everyday choices: what to read, what to buy, what to do over the weekend. That's why reading this book is dangerous.

But, then, Jesus never promised that following him would be risk-free. Only that there would be joy.

According to some estimates, Africa will soon have the highest concentration of Christians in the world. But African Christianity has had a long and conflicted history. Even today, modern misinterpretations of Scripture argue for God's curse upon the dark-skinned peoples of Africa.

In this comprehensive study, Keith Burton traces the story of biblical Africa and the place of the Bible in the land of Ham. Beginning with the Old Testament, he explores the geography of biblical Africa and moves beyond stereotypical discussions of African ethnicity and identity. He then chronicles the African presence in the church from the New Testament onward, paying particular attention to the growth of Islam in Africa as well as the impact of European colonialism and the slave trade. Coming to the modern era, he examines the achievements of African Christianity and visionary efforts to adapt and reclaim Christianity for the African context.

Burton invites readers to discover anew the relevance of the biblical narrative for African Christians as well as Scripture's influence on African Christianity. This invigorating work places the story of the Bible and African Christianity in a wider global context and challenges readers to think differently about history and the biblical world.

Doing what’s right has never been more confusing. The complexities of 21st-century life can be bewildering. We all need a map for negotiating the intricacies of competing priorities and values. What can help us decide what is right and wrong?

David W. Gill finds "Ten Words" that God originally spoke to Israel to be just as pertinent today as they were when Moses first heard them. As Christians what we long for is not damage control, but mission control. The Ten Commandments offer a sound set of ethical principles that takes us beyond mere damage control to mission control, a guide that shows us how we can be proactive in fulfilling our dual purposes of loving God and others.

This rich, scriptural teaching will help Christians from every walk of life--whether engineers, bus drivers, managers, restaurant workers, PTA members, parents, neighborhood volunteers, nurses, teachers, coaches, attorneys, journalists or physicians--fulfill their calling to be salt and light within their own spheres of influence. A must-read book for a chaotic world.

The twenty-first century has opened with a rapidly changing map of Christianity. While its influence is waning in some of its traditional Western strongholds, it is growing at a phenomenal pace in the global South. And yet this story has largely eluded the corporate news brokers of the West. Layered as it is with countless personal and corporate stories of remarkable faith and witness, it nevertheless lies ghostlike behind the newsprint and webpages of our print media, outside the camera's vision on the network evening news.

Miriam Adeney has lived, traveled and ministered widely. She has walked with Christians in and from the far reaches of the globe. As she pulls back the veil on real Christians--their faith, their hardships, their triumphs and, yes, their failures--an inspiring and challenging story of a kingdom that knows no borders takes shape.

This is a book that coaxes us out of our comfortable lives. It beckons us to expand our vision and experience of the possibilities and promise of a faith that continues to shape lives, communities and nations.

Immigration is one of the most complicated issues of our time. Voices on all sides argue strongly for action and change. Christians find themselves torn between the desire to uphold laws and the call to minister to the vulnerable.

In this book World Relief staffers Matthew Soerens and Jenny Hwang move beyond the rhetoric to offer a Christian response to immigration. They put a human face on the issue and tell stories of immigrants' experiences in and out of the system. With careful historical understanding and thoughtful policy analysis, they debunk myths and misconceptions about immigration and show the limitations of the current immigration system. Ultimately they point toward immigration reform that is compassionate, sensible and just, as they offer concrete ways for you and your church to welcome and minister to your immigrant neighbors.

"We would never give Picasso a paintbrush and only one color of paint, and expect a masterpiece," writes Randy Woodley. "We would not give Beethoven a single piano key and say, 'Play us a concerto.' Yet we limit our Creator in just these ways." Though our Christian experience is often blandly monochromatic, God intends for us to live in dynamic, multihued communities that embody his vibrant creativity.

Randy Woodley, a Keetowah Cherokee, casts a biblical, multiethnic vision for people of every nation, tribe and tongue. He carefully unpacks how Christians should think about racial and cultural identity, demonstrating that ethnically diverse communities have always been God's intent for his people. Woodley gives practical insights for how we can relate to one another with sensitivity, contextualize the gospel, combat the subtleties of racism, and honor one another's unique contributions to church and society. Along the way, he reckons with difficult challenges from our racially painful history and offers hope for healing and restoration.

With profound wisdom from his own Native American heritage and experience, Woodley's voice adds a distinctive perspective to contemporary discussions of racial reconciliation and multiethnicity. Here is a biblical vision for unity in diversity.

An encyclopedia of all the things you wanted to know about doing missions but didn't know where to look. This is a compilation of one-page concepts, lists, outlines, forms, samples, and resources - covering everything from Becoming a World Christian to Missions Web Sites.
Church leaders and missions pastors have called it the best resource available to missions committees.

Four volumes and cumulative index are available on this CD-ROM in Microsoft Word format. THIS CD INCLUDES VOLUMES I-IV. Compiled by David Mays, ACMC. 2005.

This is a collection of more than 200 documents developed or used by local churches for doing mission trips. It includes samples, forms, guidelines, procedures, policies, tips and hints - everything from Application Forms to Standards of Excellence. Trip Stuff: Stuff You Need to Know About Doing Mission Trips in Your Church is available only on CD in Microsoft Word format. Compiled by David Mays, ACMC, 2006.

An easy-to-read book filled with practical helps for the missions team. Tom Telford's baseball stories and analogies make missions come alive for the reader. This would be a great book to give every new member on your missions committee. By Tom Telford. Published by United World Mission. 171 pages.

T.J. MacLeslie wrestles with this question on his journey from childhood faith through the wilderness and back again. Having been abused in the church, MacLeslie turned his back on God and looked for fulfillment in many places. His search led him to drink from many wells along the way, none of which quenched his thirst. All the while he was being pursued by One who loved him unconditionally.

This book is not for the faint of heart, but it is an authentic story that tackles issues of abuse, addiction, and personal failure. It also raises difficult questions about leadership, cross-cultural adjustment, and disappointment in ministry. MacLeslie's prodigal pilgrimage serves as a cautionary tale, but ultimately a hopeful one.

Pursuit of a Thirsty Fool is a book for those who thirst, those longing for more. It is a reminder of our deepest desire and the Spring where they can be satisfied. It is for those who are in need of hope. Finally, it is for those caught in the dangerous pattern of doing things for God and who may have forgotten their first call: love God.

This is a story about a man who had achieved success, but wasn’t content. Ted had a vision for the world, a vision for all people to have an opportunity to learn about Jesus. Ted reasoned, "Why should some hear the life-giving message many times before some had the chance to hear it once?"

Ted and his wife, Peggy, applied to become missionaries, but were declined. They were too old, had too many kids, and did not have the right education. All avenues for personal involvement in world evangelization seemed closed, so the Fletchers founded their own organization. Drawing on Ted’s experience as a Marine and as a corporate executive, they stepped out in faith to send others to places in the world where missionaries were not welcome. Despite the odds, the mission grew beyond any of their expectations.

This updated edition of When God Comes Calling includes two new chapters by Pioneers’ cofounder, Peggy Fletcher, who writes about the growth of the mission among the unreached since the first edition was published in 2001 and since Ted’s homegoing in 2003. 170 pages, 2010.

The fight for survival is real. You serve—or are preparing to serve—in the spiritually desolate areas of our world. The elements you face each day are intense. What can you do to prepare for the challenges? Dr. Robert Miller presents a preparedness strategy for surviving the wilderness of ministry that is helpful for the new and the experienced alike.

Developed by the Pioneers Member Development Team with pastor and author Dr. Robert Miller, the Spiritual Survival Handbook combines insight from cross-cultural church planters with contributions from theologians and thinkers in the area of spiritual formation and leadership. The handbook begins by exploring the world of identity and works outward to practical topics of spiritual warfare, relationships, leadership, and team-building.

Steve Richardson, president of Pioneers-USA, notes in the foreword, “I fully expect that the Spiritual Survival Handbook becomes one of a small number of key handbooks that will be used widely in Pioneers to guide and encourage our workers.” 111 pages, 2011.

What motivates us in mission? What’s an unreached people group and how do we reach them? Get to know the heart of Pioneers through this DVD of 10 short films.

The city presents serious challenges that cry out for answers: poverty, racism, human exploitation and government corruption. How can the church move ahead in the midst of these demands with the gospel of hope?

Here, in one comprehensive volume, Harvie Conn and Manuel Ortiz, two noted scholars and proven practitioners of urban ministry, address the vital work of the church in the city. Their dual goal: to understand the city and God's work in it.

Through four great waves of development, Conn and Ortiz trace the history of the city around the world. Then they tackle the critical issue of a biblical basis for urban mission. How does the Bible view the city? Are we closer to God in the country than the city? Does the Bible have an anti-urban bias? These questions are given a thorough analysis that unveils God's urban mandate as reflected in both Old and New Testaments.

From this foundation the authors unpack the multifaceted nature of the city as place, as process, as center, as power, and as a place of change and stability. They move us beyond fragmented stereotypes to a new way of seeing that is holistic enough for a fully biblical ministry to develop.

In addition, Conn and Ortiz lay out what the social sciences have to offer urban mission, including ethnographic and demographic studies and they focus on the particular issues and needs of urban leadership, including a plan for developing and mentoring leaders while equipping the laity for ministry in the city.

This is the essential text for bringing God's kingdom to the city through the people of God. Now in paperback!

There is a new trend afoot, one that goes against the prevailing Western model, influenced by the values and principles of international commerce. Presented here are five "signs of life," showcased by this network of movements best referred to as "new friars."

God's kingdom in the hands of the people of God, the contributors to this book show us, is first and foremost incarnational, which leads necessarily to gospel witness that is devotional, communal, missional and marginal. With a survey of the history of new friar movements and commentary by forerunner, this seminal book, edited by Scott A. Bessenecker, paints a picture of mission that is new only because it has been neglected for so long, a mission that is truly good news to the people in its path. With contributions from Viv Grigg, Craig and Nayhouy Greenfield, Derek Engdahl, Jean-Luc Krieg, Chris Heuertz, Darren Prince, Jose Penate Aceves, John Hayes and Ash Barker, this book brings together a chorus of voices at the front lines of what God is doing through the new friar community.

The church has been called to participate in God's mission in the world. But without a robust, biblical sense of the Spirit's action, how can we be sure we're fulfilling that call? Gary Tyra employs a biblical theology of the Holy Spirit to deepen and inform our understanding of life as the church, the people of God. Since the church's mission to and into the world is both evangelistic and prophetic, the task calls for the working of the Spirit in our preaching, proclamation and service. Tyra brings together both charismatic and evangelical emphases resulting in a theological and practical synthesis that is richer than when either is taken separately.

In this comprehensive study, G. K. Beale argues that the Old Testament tabernacle and temples were symbolically designed to point to the end-time reality that God's presence, formerly limited to the Holy of Holies, would be extended throughout the cosmos. Hence, John's vision in Revelation 21 is best understood as picturing the new heavens and earth as the eschatological temple.

Beale's stimulating exposition traces the theme of the tabernacle and temple across the Bible's story-line, illuminating many texts and closely-related themes along the way. He shows how the significance and symbolism of the temple can be better understood in the context of ancient Near Eastern assumptions, and offers new insights into the meaning of the temple in both Old and New Testaments.

The world is filled with religions. That is not a new observation. But the way we think about religious diversity, argues Harold Netland, is new. In this book Harold Netland traces the emergence of the pluralistic ethos that now challenges traditional Christian faith and mission. Identifying theologian and philosopher John Hick as the most influential apologist for religious pluralism, Netland interacts extensively with his thought. His incisive analysis leads to a sustained response to the philosophical questions raised about the nature of religious truth, the criteria for adjudicating rival truth claims and the implications for doing Christian apologetics. In his conclusion, Netland provides us with a framework for developing a comprehensive evangelical theology of religions.

This book is essential reading for students, teachers and scholars wanting a thorough analysis of our contemporary religious context and guidance for responding to it faithfully for the sake of Christian truth and mission.

Everyone has something to say about Jesus. Sorting through the numerous books of recent years, you may find yourself lost in a thicket of viewpoints, some troubling to faith, some puzzling to the intellect. But John Stott, one of the outstanding evangelical voices of the last half century, offers in The Incomparable Christ an enriching vision of Jesus that defies measurment.

In this newly Americanized, paperback edition Stott invites you to view Jesus from four perspectives.

The Original Jesus: How the New Testament witnesses to Jesus in the Gospels, Acts and the Letters.

The Ecclesiastical Jesus: How the church has presented Jesus historically, from Justin Martyr, Benedict and Anselm, to Thomas à Kempis, Martin Luther and Thomas Jefferson, to Gustavo Guitiérrez, N. T. Wright, and the Edinburgh and Lausanne missionary confessions of the twentieth century.

The Influential Jesus: How people from St. Francis to Tolstoy, from Gandhi to Roland Allen, from Father Damien to William Wilberforce have taken inspiration from him.

The Eternal Jesus: How he continually challenges today's men and women through ten visions from the book of Revelation.

This is the Jesus who is like no other--worthy of your worship, your confession and your obedience as you follow him into the future.

If all of the earth is God's domain, why are Christians so terribly provincial? We rarely leave our church buildings, and our spirituality rarely takes us beyond ourselves. Veteran church leaders Roger Helland and Leonard Hjalmarson observe that Jesus begins his mission in the temple, where he wows the religious elite and chides his parents by saying, "Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?" But Jesus doesn't stay in the temple; indeed, in Christ the temple of the Lord is on the move--even to the ends of the earth.

In this book the authors helpfully reconnect spirituality and mission, showing you how the spiritual life, when lived properly, follows a similar progression: we "come home" to Christ, loving him from our heart and soul and mind and strength. And then we set forth to love our neighbors as ourself. Discover how through this process you can reclaim the whole of God's kingdom for his glory and the fulfillment of your heart's longing.

Mission is not an optional "extra" for those few volunteers who "like that sort of thing." The church is called to be God's agents and representatives, a community shaped by the cross and mandated to reproduce and grow so that Jesus Christ may be more and more glorified.

This exposition of fifteen passages of Scripture observes mission from the underside, giving attention to the connections between mission and suffering and even martyrdom, and to the historical importance of the church's conducting mission out of weakness.

All Christian mission has its fountainhead in the God revealed in Scripture, who sent his Son for us, sends his Spirit to us and summons all people to himself. In a unique East-West partnership, Howard Peskett and Vinoth Ramachandra explore the missional privilege and responsibility of the church: to testify by its words and deeds to Jesus Christ, God's unique Son, crucified, risen and ascended.

These aren't bad things, of course. But they're safe and comfortable and easy. And there's a reason they're not satisfying your desire for something more significant and meaningful--we're created by God for adventure.

International Justice Mission president Gary Haugen has found that engaging in the fight for justice is the most deeply satisfying way of life. This book shows how we too can be a part of God's great expedition.

As Christians, we are to love God with all of our being--heart, mind, soul and strength. But many of us tend to overemphasize one aspect or another, and as a result, our faith becomes imbalanced. Some of us have an intellectual faith but lack compassion or spiritual discipline. Others of us have a vibrant, heartfelt relationship with God but lack commitment to truth or doctrine. And many of us overlook translating our faith into service and ministry.

In this book ethicist Dennis P. Hollinger presents a holistic, integrative vision for reuniting Christian thought, passion and action. He shows how individuals, churches and movements throughout history have focused on either the head, or the heart or the hands--often to the exclusion of other expressions. But by linking our intellect, emotions and actions, Hollinger points us toward a whole faith for the whole person, where each dimension feeds, nurtures and sustains the others.

The first-century Christians had to sort out Jesus from Judaism in order to become a people for all nations. Today, we have to sort out Jesus from religious traditions in order to make Him available to our nation. That’s the challenge this book tackles: Will we be the church without walls, communicating a gospel free of traditional and cultural trappings?

Who you follow says a lot about you. If you’re tired of working to control your life and long to surrender to Jesus, Follow Me will challenge you to examine your life and submit to Christ.

The Pastor's Resource Kit a companion resource to the not a fan™small group study. not a fan™ is a serious small group study that powerfully communicates this challenging but central message of the Gospel, and the Pastor’s Resource kit is designed to help you as a pastor in your mission to raise up a generation of completely committed followers of Jesus. If you’re ready to lead a movement of first century-like Christ followers, then dig deep into the not a fan™ small group materials, and take your church on the journey.

Not a Fan is a serious small group study that powerfully communicates this challenging but central message of the Gospel, and The Pastor’s Resource kit is designed to help you as a pastor in your mission to raise up a generation of completely committed followers of Jesus. If you’re ready to lead a movement of first century-like Christ followers, then dig deep into the Not a Fan™ small group materials, and take your church on the journey.

In Radical, David Platt’s plea for Christians to take back their faith from the American Dream resonated with readers everywhere and quickly became a New York Times bestseller. Now in Radical Together, the author broadens his call, challenging us to unite around a gospel-centered vision.

Writing to everyone who desires to make an impact for God’s glory—whether you are an involved member, a leader, or a pastor—Dr. Platt shares six foundational ideas that fuel radical obedience among Christians in the church. With compelling Bible teaching and inspiring stories from around the world, he will help you apply the revolutionary claims and commands of Christ in fresh, practical ways to your community of faith.

Real-Life Discipleship explains what should happen in the life of every Christian and in every small group so that the church becomes an army of believers dedicated to seeing the world saved. With the overriding goal to train disciples who know how to make more disciples, this book offers proven tools and strategies from Real Life Ministries, one of America’s fastest-growing churches.

Discover what the Bible says about true and effective discipleship with these strategies and practices.

This companion training manual to Real-Life Discipleship provides unique guidance and insight to pastors, church leaders, and their disciples as they work to create an effective discipleship program. With a thorough, results-oriented process that can be applied in other contexts and cultures, this manual explains the necessary components of disciple-making so that every church member can play a part in reaching others for Christ.

This leader's resource shows you how to cultivate new leaders for the future and equip them to make disciples.

The EvangeCube: (7cm) An evangelism tool for everyone. Parents, kids, pastors, youth leaders, Sunday school teachers, missionaries, and others can easily share the Gospel message of Jesus. Every member of a mission team can quickly learn to share the Gospel of Christ using the EvangeCube — get one for each of your team members, and order several more to leave behind with your field hosts so that they can continue to carry on evangelism efforts. EvangeCubes can be purchased individually, or in a box of 24, or in a case of 96 (contains 4 boxes).

Each "1" quantity of the EvangeTracts comes in a pack consisting of 25 tracts (a quantity of "2" = 50 tracts; a quantity of "20" = 500 tracts). Couple the power of the written word and powerful images and you have a dynamic presentation of the Gospel. EvangeTracts are designed to step-by-step walk someone through the plan of salvation in Christ showing the images from the EvangeCube as they read the Gospel message. (also available in more than twenty other languages)

This video tape shows creative ways to give your testimony (you don't have to be an Evangelist or speak the language), and fun ideas on how to share, teach, and show God's love.

This comprehensive tool enables short-term mission leaders and organizers to plan and conduct short-term trips for long-term impact (pre-field, on-field, and post-field). Includes resource CD with sample forms, meeting and activity resources, bulletin inserts, a Road Map Poster, and much more.

Ready to go on a missions trip? This is a time to listen to God as you pack your bags and travel. To be a disciple of Jesus in a foreign culture is a challenge and as you use each day for the Lord, the events and the messages the Lord gives you need to be recorded in a journal. This journal will help you understand the path the Lord has ahead for you. Included are challenges to help you be different and to do different since you have been with the Lord on this trip. It will also help you to challenge others to want to know how the Lord is leading and changing you. This journal is a must for anyone going on a missions trip. It changes your time from a trip to an experience with the Lord.

Jesus' words in John 17 represent one of the church's highest values: "May they all be one as you and I, Father, are one." Yet divisions occur from the highest levels of the church to street level projects, often neutralizing effectiveness and undercutting the credibility of Jesus' message. This book helps any believer turn the ideal of John 17 into reality. It provides solid grounding in the principles of partnership, abundant case histories, and empowering "how to" suggestions for lay person and ministry leader alike.

This intriguing faith experiment begins with a question: What would happen if we allowed Jesus to fully inhabit every part of our being? The startling answer, chronicled in detail, will encourage and inspire you to impact your world one person at a time.

By walking you through a simple yet effective approach to explaining the gospel to others, this study will help you become a fruitful member of God’s family. With its biblical and practical approach to discipleship, this workbook will yield long-term, life-changing results.

Bridges on the Journey will help you and your discipleship group learn the basics of the Christian life—Bible study, living in community, sharing your faith, memorizing Scripture—that will keep you going for a lifetime of relationship with Jesus.

Through fundamental spiritual disciplines, you’ll get started on the right path to begin a discipling process in your life and the lives of other women.

Written by several Navigator authors especially for women, this Bible study will help you form habits and attitudes that will result in a deeper relationship with God and spiritual growth.

The final court of whether or not you are becoming like Jesus is not attending another church program but how you act in daily life. Christlike aims to change outward actions by inner spiritual growth through uncomplicated obedience in our relationship with God.

Author Bill Hull uses his experience as a pastor and his background in disciplemaking and spiritual formation to show how Scripture memory plays an integral role in your discipleship. Explore what it means to be a Christian and what your role is in the kingdom of God.

As your understanding of biblical truth grows, you can begin connecting things from God's point of view. Knowing His truth will invite you into a deeper experience of God Himself.

Start your journey to becoming more like Jesus with this topical Bible study. By learning more about Jesus' life and character, you'll learn the essentials of the Christian life as you continue growing spiritually.

God longs for an intimate relationship with each of us. But what does it mean to be friends with the Lord? This study highlights a God who can always be trusted and who is forever faithful.

God delights to give wisdom to those who passionately seek it. This study encourages readers to not only pursue this gift but also to apply God’s higher wisdom in every area of their lives.

This classic Bible study helps believers grow in discipleship by helping them explore.

In the dark world of Brazilian street children, toddlers and teenagers search trash cans for food, steal knives to protect themselves at night, and live in fear of being beaten or ever killed by the police. For these desperately needy children, nothing was free — until they encountered the love of Jesus through the compassion of Jeannette and Johan Lukasse.

When this young Dutch couple asked God if He could use them to do something about the immense suffering they saw in the world, He led them on a winding path from their home in the Netherlands to the coast of Greece and eventually to the streets of Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Their calling was clear: millions of orphaned and abandoned children were living and dying on the streets, caught in the deadly grip of drugs, violence, prostitution, and abuse.

What followed the Lukasses' step of faith is a stunning example of how God miraculously uses the surrendered lives of believers to transform the lives of others with His hope and healing. 224-pg paperback.

In A Vision of the Possible, Daniel Sinclair thoroughly covers practical whys and how-to's concerning pioneer church planting among unreached people groups, with applicable discussions from Scripture along the way. Its emphases include resistant environments and church planting in teams. It also includes the newly revised seven "Pioneer Church Planting Phases" which is widely used by mission agencies working among unreached peoples.

Asia — where two-thirds of the world’s population live. See Asia from a biblical Christian worldview: its geography as God’s creation, its history as God’s plan unfolding, its religions as a Christian challenge, its culture as part of God’s diversity, and its contemporary issues as opportunity. Stimulating and challenging reading for every Christian. 180-page paperback.

Cry of the Urban Poor analyzes the need for transformational churches to impact the slums of the mega-cities of the world. The urban poor now constitute an unreached people group that is the third largest in the world—one that is doubling every decade and among the most responsive to the gospel. The most strategic and needed actions to reach this growing population with the gospel relate to breaking the bonds of injustice—sin, oppression, and poverty—and modeling Jesus' approach for social change by establishing movements of disciples among the poor. This revised edition of Cry of the Urban Poor reports the findings by Viv Grigg and his co-workers after years of living and working in the slums of some of the largest cities in Asia, Latin America, and the United States. It describes their efforts to discover universal principles for church-planting among the poor. This combination of anthropological and sociological reflections, integrated with principles drawn from practical experience, will challenge the missing emphasis on mission in the world's great city slums.

Viv Grigg coordinates the Encarnacao Network of Urban Poor Mission Leaders and directs Urban Leadership Foundation. He is a graduate of Fuller School of World Missions and is working on his doctorate in Theology of Transformative Revival at Auckland University. Viv and his wife, I'da, have pioneered work in mega-cities around the world.

This book examines the culture we now live in and suggests principles upon which mission in the future should be conducted. It contains real life stories of churches effectively engaging in mission within their culture, with cameos of personal experiences of how individuals have found faith. The failures and difficulties faced are examined as well as the encouragements and successes.

Climb Another Mountain tells two stories, unquestionably and intricately intertwined, but still two stories. The first story is autobiographical and tells us of two persons who hear God's call to go beyond the normal way of life, into an exciting and personal pilgrimage that carries them literally around the world. It is the story of Chuck and Donna Thomas and their life devoted to connecting God, people, and need in healthy and demanding international ministry.

The second story is the inspirational account of the founding and development of a para-church organization that has grown from a family commitment to a widely respected and highly prized international network of relationships promoting practical hands on missions.

These stories reads like epic fiction, but are, instead, the stuff of real-life lived in a New Testament world This real message confirms when fully devoted followers walk in the footsteps of Jesus, you just never know what’s going to happen. But you can be real sure that it is going to be a good thing! A very good thing! Here are stories of faith, blessing, achievement, perseverance, and triumph.

Viv Grigg challenges us to reexamine our strategies and design new approaches that will build Christ's kingdom among the poor—who comprise nearly half the world. When he entered the Manila squatter settlement of Tatalon in 1979, Grigg knew what he wanted to do but not how to do it. The need was obvious—to establish a Christian church among Asia's forgotten people, the impoverished slum dwellers of its vast megalopolises. The challenge was to find a way that did not treat people's spiritual needs in isolation from their poverty, without simply becoming another economic or social relief program with no evangelistic component. This book is the enthralling story of how the author met and solved this problem. But in a sense, it is an unfinished story. What has begun is but the beginning of the founding of a Christian community in a dark place. This is not Viv Grigg's story alone, but God's story. For it is God who is working in Tatalon and urban slums like it, and giving people a hope that affects all of life. 240 page paperback.

Jeffery and Chalke recognize the new and exciting opportunities the Christian church has to work together as a global network. In a globalized, interconnected world we have the tools we need to truly be part of God's community—learning and growing together. Connect! presents a new paradigm of mission for the 21st century church.

This book contains real life stories—church case studies—that put flesh on the bones of theory. As so many of the stories illustrate, if you want to breathe life into your church, go global! This book will inspire and encourage you to think again about the role of your church in global mission and offer you a wealth of new ideas.

Church leader and missionary David Lundy explores the changing face of "doing mission" today. He offers answers to key questions such as "How can the church better interact with the global and local community?" and "What's a borderless church and how do we become one?"

His case studies of churches around the world help with these questions—churches such as Mars Hill in Michigan with 10,000 members, a shopping mall meeting place, lively services, a sense of community, and most of all, a true passion for local and global outreach.

Think your family just doesn't have time to share its faith? THINK AGAIN. The sheer volume of activities competing for your family's time and energy can make it hard to focus on one of the most important tasks of all, fulfilling the Great Commission.

Becoming a World Changing Family will show you how to see the world as Jesus does and brings his transforming message to those around you. It's packed with ideas that are fun and practical for even the busiest of families. Discover how you can connect to people of other cultures by eating ethnic cuisine, writing letters, taking trips, enjoying festivals and parties, playing games, and more.

Let God open your eyes to all the amazing possibilities surrounding you, and get ready to share a world-class adventure with your family.

Representing over twenty nations, a group of nearly fifty missionaries and practitioners gathered to consider how Muslims are coming to faith in Jesus Christ. They shared an interest in understanding how God is at work in drawing people into the faith journey from the way of Islam to faith in Jesus Christ. From the Straight Path to the Narrow Way is a compilation of papers presented at this consultation.

The contributors point to the various ways in which God is at work in the lives of Muslims. While the papers reflect diverse global settings, three core factors seem to repeat: a demonstration of God's love, a sign of God's power, and an encounter with the truth of God's Word.

A tragedy that shocked the world. A vision that refused to die. Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Pete Fleming, Roger Youderian, and Ed McCully chose to lay down their lives on a sandy beach in Ecuador. Their lives and sacrifice come full circle in the breathtaking true story of Dayma.

Violent, unexpected death was a way of life for the mysterious Waorani tribe living deep in the Ecuadorian jungle. When her father is brutally speared, young Dayuma is faced with a clear yet frightening choice: flee to the outside world to those thought to be cannibals or stay in the jungle to face certain death from the spears of the tribal killers.

Dayuma: Life Under Waorani Spears is the unforgettable story of one girl's odyssey into the unknown. Her eventual encounter with Christ ultimately changed her life and forever altered the destiny of her people. Dayuma is a vivid, lasting testimony to the power of the love of God and the cross to reach beyond any barrier.

Pages: 208 (paperback)

On every continent, in every nation, God is at work in and through the lives of believers. From the streets of Manila to mysterious Albania to the jungles of Ecuador and beyond. This and every title in the International Adventures series emerges as a dramatic episode that could be directed only by the hand of God.

"We write this account of the Taliban with probably a unique experience and perspective on them. We have a story that intertwines our lives with theirs long before the twin towers were destroyed and the appalling attacks on America had wreaked their havoc. For much of the Western press, the Taliban were just another fundamentalist regime, renowned for their treatment of women, and their ultra-orthodoxy. They are a group now ingrained upon the visual imagination of the western world."

Going Glocal (102-pg paperback) takes a fresh look at how local churches can accomplish global ministry regardless of their size, location and resources. It challenges traditional ideas about mission and ministry, and offers practical ideas for reaching the world from the local congregation.

This book argues that the church, as the visible community of God, is given the task of blessing the poor. Asserting that what people do flows from what they believe, Hughes explores the place of religion in perpetuating poverty. From this foundation, kingdom principles are applied to the worlds of economics, politics, ethnic identity, and gender.

The author integrates all of the positive teachings in Islam (concerning the Christian faith and Jesus Christ) to help Muslims believe the gospel and to see the divinity of Jesus Christ and the salvation He wants Muslims to experience. The book highlights parallel passages in the Qur'an and the Bible about the person of Jesus Christ, such as His unique sinlessness and His unique virgin birth.

Lift the Label starts with a call to be a good neighbor to the global poor—particularly those who supply our food and clothes. It tells the stories of some of our neighbors who work in the garment and food industries for our benefit but at great personal cost to them.

Taking you on a journey into the Bible to expose western Christianity's great blind spot, we discover how much the poor matter to God. The action we are called to ties in with worship, evangelism and time-honored discipleship.

Written to inspire and empower, this contains creative and practical ways to shop differently. It explains fair trade and provides a much-needed directory of ethically-minded shops to help you to "stop shopping quietly."

The decisions we make with our money can have farreaching consequences. Don't you need to know more?

When thousands of young people checked out of Western society and sought enlightenment in the East, Floyd and Sally McClung set aside the comforts of American suburbia and answered God’s call to reach out to them with the gospel.

In Kabul, Afghanistan, a key stop on the hippy trail, and later in Amsterdam, Holland, the West’s own window to that trail, the McClungs committed themselves to meeting the penniless, the drugged, the sick, and the disillusioned right where they were. Whether among hippy seekers or the addicts and prostitutes of Amsterdam’s infamous Red Light District, the McClungs lived out a message of hope.

Living on the Devil’s Doorstep is a dramatic example of the difference one family can make when they are willing to trust God and walk in obedience to His call for their lives. 196-pg paperback.

In God's design, the manpower for global mission comes, not from one small group of Christian disciples (vocational missionaries), but from every believer. This book demonstrates how the local church can use its diverse gifts and ministries to strategically reach the unreached people groups of the world. Planting churches amid unreached peoples is a complex process. It calls forth every ministry gift and the contribution of every believer. Imagine a businessman, a construction worker, a schoolteacher, and an engineer all working together to support the development of a local church amongst an unreached people group in another part of the world. Church members must be affirmed, developed and released right where they live, in the context of their local church.

The psalmist chose to bless the Lord and remember all His benefits. This powerful tool will help you do the same. God wants to be a relevant, penetration Presence in your everyday life. In the real world, life is filled with everyday struggles. You need an everyday God who makes a real difference in your everyday life. Remembering God's benefits helps you live victoriously in all things. 176–page paperback.

God's love is stronger than fear! This book chronicles Dan Bauman's experience in Iran in 1997, when he was wrongfully accused of espionage and thrown into the most infamous high- security prison in Iran. Imprisonment in Iran, the threat of execution, and God's hand moving in the lives of the guards make this a thrilling addition to the International Adventures series.

Pages: 192 (paperback)

On every continent, in every nation, God is at work in and through the lives of believers. From the streets of Manila to mysterious Albania to the jungles of Ecuador and beyond. This and every title in the International Adventures series emerges as a dramatic episode that could be directed only by the hand of God.

As the world around us changes, our methods also need to adapt in order to fulfill the unchanging vision of reaching the lost. Multiple authors (Jim Reapsome, Roger Peterson, Ellen Livingood, Kurt Wilson, Paul Heidebrecht, and others) cover imperative 21st Century mission issues like technology in mission, partnerships, short-term mission, African theological education, resourcing Spanish ministry materials for Latin America, member care, church mobilization, media missionaries, post modernism, and others.

Mission Now is about having a passionate heart to know Christ as well as a passionate heart for all the people of this world. It challenges the readers to make sure that their professed beliefs match their daily actions and reminds us that we can all make a difference - across cultures, across the street, and across international boundaries. In a clear and lively way, the writers draw on their extensive experience of mission to fully explore the topic. We discover what exactly a mission lifestyle is, how to get one, and the way mission and the church interrelate. Mission has changed and this book will tell you how.

Revised and updated with two new chapters on urban missions and evangelizing Muslims, this volume offers insights to help students, churches, missionaries, agencies, and Christians from outside the West grasp the big picture and take practical steps for more effective involvement. This edition contains extensive notes, expanded suggestions for further reading, and discussion questions.

James Fraser was only twenty-two when he abandoned a promising career and went to China. At first sight of the Lisu tribes people of Yunnan province he felt an immediate affection for them, and for the rest of his life he labored to bring them to Christ and to Christian maturity. Eileen Crossman has brought him to life for today’s readers in this superb biography which reveals the secret of his success.

With little doubt, this handy, nearly exhaustive book is the “bible” of any and all overseas-related mission construction projects. Complete with helpful drawings and simulating (but not complex) illustrations, this hard-cover handbook is an immense work drawn from multiple years of building experience in some of the most challenging construction situations in the world — well-organized through the author’s formal academic training in construction management. The author’s desire is that we build “well enough so that our work will last for eternity … we are working in construction as members of the body of Christ … to affect the lives and hearts of people in response to Christ’s Great Commission.”

Outstanding ideas and resources that can help stimulate missions involvement in your church! This exceedingly helpful booklet is for everyone in your church — mission committee members, families, individuals, Sunday school teachers, homeschoolers — everyone who is committed to seeing the Great Commission of Matthew 28:20 fulfilled.

Missions education should be permanently integrated into the life of every individual in your church, from toddler to retiree. You want to inform people of all ages about world missions and motivate them to become involved. This is the publication that can help you do so! 86-pg booklet packaged in report cover.

Building a healthy missions program takes time. Each church is unique. The missions program for your church people will not necessarily look like the program for another congregation. The ideas, projects, and helps provided in this publication are tools to help you strengthen your current program, or to initiate a new plan for your congregation. Keep your program fresh — keep what works but try new ideas, too.

Applying the great insight from this publication can help you keep missions visible in your church. That visibility will in turn stimulate a vision of what God is doing in the world and motivate a response.

From the Men and Women of Faith Series. 144 page paperback. The thrilling story of a man whose simple obedience continues to help change the world! As a boy during World War II, Brother Andrew was a messenger for the Dutch resistance movement, helping night and day to sabotage the Nazi control of Holland. Years later, while attending Bible college, he was challenged to the dangerous task of delivering Bibles in Eastern Europe. That story, as told in "God's Smuggler," kindled a remarkable movement in the West to find ways to take the gospel where doors were considered shut. As the Founder and International President of Open Doors, Brother Andrew and his worldwide mission organization support persecuted and threatened Christians in many places. For any reader who thinks the missionary age is over, the story of Brother Andrew will change their minds. This is the challenging testimony of a man who refuses to believe that any country is closed to the gospel.

From the Men and Women of Faith Series. 128 page paperback. Gladys Aylward is the "Little Woman" whose great faith carried her to the people of China. Her life is remembered around the world as one that defied all expectations. Despite a poor education, a family that had no money, and the disappointment of being told that the China Inland Mission considered her too old to learn the Chinese language, her desire to be a missionary refused to surrender its call. She scraped and saved every penny she could earn and booked an overland rail passage to China on October 15, 1930. What followed was one of the most remarkable missionary careers imaginable. Over twenty years of service would be given for the people of China, including remaining with her people through the torturous was with Japan. Before her death she would meet the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh; in Europe she met the head of every state she visited, and a movie was eventually made about her. One of the great missionaries of this century!

With Jesus as our mentor and role model and an emphasis on personal character, Dr. Krallmann walks the reader through the training Jesus did with His disciples. The author demonstrates how the leadership skills Jesus developed in His disciples can be used in current day ministry.

Overwhelming Minority could be about you. Read how a regular family got mixed up in something beyond what they were ready to encounter. Journey with the Eslers as they take a leap of faith into unknown, enemy territory. Discover what happens when we make ourselves available to God.

Having served as a missionary for eighteen years with his family in Brazil, the author knows all too well the importance of being prepared to serve the Lord overseas. Sharing the gospel is one thing, but living out the life of Jesus on a day-to-day basis is quite another. And how do you do that? Ed works in interesting, profound, and very practical ways with Romans 6–8 and other texts to explain the crisis and process of how to live a genuine life of holiness that will be evident to those with whom we come in contact.

Anecdotal evidence of the personal experience of Gen Xers shows that they do not find it easy to fit into the culture and structures of much of the contemporary Western church, especially in its organizational forms such as mission agencies. If Generation Xers do world mission their way, what would it look like? Are new strategies, structures and methodologies needed or can the existing structures be changed to allow the Xer worldview to exist alongside others?

Researcher and author Paul Hattaway graphically presents prayer profiles of more than 200 Buddhist people groups around the world, beautifully illustrated with color pictures throughout. In addition, experts have contributed articles on various aspects of Buddhism, helping the reader to learn, pray, and work until that day when "the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever" (Rev. 11:15).

A stone age tribe’s encounter with the gospel …… Imagine sharing the gospel with the tribe of cannibals who admire Judas’s betrayal more than Jesus’ sacrifice. Among the headhunting Sawi of Irian Jaya, treachery was an ideal that generations of their people had perfected. The heroes of Sawi legend weren't those who took the greatest number of head in battle or ambush, but those who were the most deceitful in befriending their victims before they took their heads.

When missionaries Don and Carol Richardson searched for the key that would open the gospel to the Sawi, God moved in a stunning way. He revealed His true Peace Child — the ideal fulfillment of the Sawi's own redemptive analogy. Peace Child chronicles the agony — and the triumph — of the Richardsons' unforgettable sojourn among this people loved by God. 240-pg paperback.

In our society dominated by technology, have we lost the ability to understand fully what Jesus meant when he used the words sowing, reaping, and harvesting in relation to evangelism? There is a timelessness in the teachings of Jesus as he purposely chose agrarian language—sowing, reaping, harvesting—when he taught his disciples. We recognize these words but have lost first-hand experience with them in our urban lives. Jesus used these words not only because they came from the culture of the time, but because they were vital to illustrate the organic nature of growing God's kingdom.

Sometimes the best way forward is to go back. The best way to move forward in evangelism is to go back to an agrarian mindset that is all but lost in our fast-paced, technocratic world—a paradigm lost.

Dr. Foltz is in no way advocating that we move back to the farm, but he wants us to view Scripture through a farmer's paradigm. In Paradigm Lost, he explains how technology has reshaped our worldview, and then he takes us back through agricultural processes, giving them spiritual application. This book is a call to the church to restore the harvest mentality of Jesus' words and gives step-by-step examples of how to implement this farming paradigm for more effective evangelism in our neighborhoods, our country, and the world.

Cargo cult villagers march in formation at the base of a rumbling and fiery volcano. Their ancient prophecies predict the return of a mysterious messenger. Are there prophecies about to come true? Sail with the crew of a medical mission ship the middle of the hopes and history of this unreached Pacific people group.

Pages: 192 (paperback)

On every continent, in every nation, God is at work in and through the lives of believers. From the streets of Manila to mysterious Albania to the jungles of Ecuador and beyond. This and every title in the International Adventures series emerges as a dramatic episode that could be directed only by the hand of God.

David Livingstone, once said, “This generation can only reach this generation.” But will we raise our children to effectively impact their generation for Jesus Christ? The Mission-Minded Child is a practical book to encourage Christian parents and teachers placed in the strategic position of impacting the next generation. As a guide to world missions, The Mission-Minded Child is filled with facts, information, and tools for teaching. It focuses on the “why” of missions—including our Biblical basis, historical heritage and the world’s need—and contains over 25 mini-missionary biographies, motivational mission stories, classic poems, hymns, and hundreds of easy-to-use ideas.

The Mission-Minded Child will inspire teachers and parents to look for God’s potential in their child, “release” their little one to God for His purposes, and “raise” their child to ful?ll God’s specific mission. As a resource tool, this book will be referred to again and again.

More Christians were martyred in the twentieth century than all previous centuries combined, and this onslaught has continued unabated into the new century. As Christians living in the twenty-first century, it is our duty to be knowledgeable and be compelled to take action on behalf of those who are persecuted. One of the most essential actions we can take is to stand in the gap for them through prayer.

The Persecuted Church Devotional lists over sixty countries that are in desperate need of prayer. It describes the past and present situation in each country and the challenges and opportunities for the future. Prayer points help the reader focus on specific areas of intercession once he or she is well informed.

This excellent source of prayer for the persecuted church will be beneficial for churches, mission supporters, and mission agencies as a way to become informed and involved with the global church.

Looks at the recent history of the church and mission in the former Soviet Central Asian States, Turkey, and Iran. Highly readable, concise information to highlight the Christian church, giving believers everywhere the opportunity to pray meaningfully for this region. Complete with photographs, diagrams, and maps.

Why are so many people still poor, and what—if anything—can be done to help them? The Skeptic’s Guide to Global Poverty provides answers to the challenging questions many people have about the poor. Ranging from how poor people feel to ways governments keep their people poor, the book discusses various aspects of poverty and its affects. It also considers various approaches to solving issues relating to poverty, including child labor, malnutrition, sex trafficking, refugees, and national debt. The book looks at institutions such as the World Bank and USAID and explains what they do, how they do it, and why some people criticize them.It redefines current events such as the minimum wage, immigration issues, health insurance, and debt forgiveness. It helps explain many of the issues humanitarian organizations are seeking to address, such as infant mortality, food security, and child development, and will be a useful tool for donor education.

Motivated by the obvious need for a manageable tool, Dale Hanson Bourke has compiled the essential information in a simple and straightforward way, explaining medical and political issues in everyday language. This book will prove to be an invaluable resource for your education and involvement in the global AIDS crisis.

The Chamulas of southern Mexico had little hope. Descendants of the once-proud Maya Indians, they were enslaved by Spanish conquistadors to build a great city and its cathedrals. Centuries later the majority Ladino population continued to discriminate against them.

Chamulas kept themselves poor and wretched by practicing witchcraft and ritual alcoholism within a system designed to keep any one man or woman from rising above the rest. To protect themselves, the tribe kept outsiders at arm’s length and violently guarded their traditions.

Fear was perhaps the greatest price Chamulas paid for the counterfeit comfort of tradition—fear of fellow Mayas and fear of gods who required unwavering obedience and sacrifice.

Then it happened. Chamulas finally met their own written language—written words in their own mother tongue. These startling words caused tens of thousands to abandon their allegiance to death and poverty. These words forged prosperous new lives and permeated communities with uncompromising hope. For the Chamula people, These Words Changed Everything.

We must rethink the interplay of dollars dependency and what it means to 'do the right thing' with our money as we pursue twenty-first century missions. This book answers the questions whether Westerners ought "To Give or Not to Give?" in support of global evangelism and encourages maximun generousity as the path most reflective of God's heart on the matter.

Reona Peterson Joly and Evey Muggleton Heckman never dreamed of the adventure and danger that lay before them as they attended a short-term missions school in Switzerland. Then, as the two young women sought God, they began to sense a burden for the mysterious, isolated nation of Albania - a nation unlike any other.

In the 1970s Albania's leaders boasted that theirs was the first completely atheistic nation in the world. Closed to almost all outsiders, Communist Albania particularly wanted no contact with Christians. In this nation that had sealed Christian citizens in barrels and rolled them into the sea, preaching the gospel was punishable by death.

Willing participants in God's plan, yet unsure of how He would lift their burden, Reona and Evey took the first small steps of faith. Through a miraculous set of events, the two young believers were drawn into the danger and intrigue of being God's undercover agents in a nation that officially despised Him.

Pages: 160 (paperback)
br>On every continent, in every nation, God is at work in and through the lives of believers. From the streets of Manila to mysterious Albania to the jungles of Ecuador and beyond. This and every title in the International Adventures series emerges as a dramatic episode that could be directed only by the hand of God.

In 1960 the twenty-five thousand Dani tribespeople hidden away in the remote Toli Valley of Irian Jaya used only stone tools and had no written language. Then, in one generation, they took the always dangerous, sometimes fatal, leap from the Stone Age into the twentieth century.

At this critical time John and Helen Dekker gave themselves to the Dani, helping them discover the gospel of Jesus Christ and their destiny as helpers of other tribes. Today the seventy-nine churches of the Toli Valley, with thirteen thousand baptized believers, have sent out sixy-five couples to other tribes needing the gospel.

A chapter from a present-day Book of Acts, Torches of Joy is a model for cross-cultural mission strategy and one of the twentieth century's most striking chronicles of God's grace and power.

Pages: 192 (paperback)

On every continent, in every nation, God is at work in and through the lives of believers. From the streets of Manila to mysterious Albania to the jungles of Ecuador and beyond. This and every title in the International Adventures series emerges as a dramatic episode that could be directed only by the hand of God.

With danger on every side, would she live to fulfill her destiny? "I'm going to see Jesus now," the little girl whispered, "and I want to show Him that I suffered for Him, too." Moments later, she was in God's arms... This image, and countless like it, resonated in the heart and soul of Christina Davis as she shared and lived out the gospel in a remote, danger-filled jungle of the Philippines.

Her three-month mission trip grew into a six-year labor of love. Surrounded by threats from militant rebels, witch doctors, and the hostile jungle, Christina used any opening to proclaim the one true God who had freed her from the prison of her own pain and fear.

Christina's incredible story is a captivating adventure of how one woman's determination to answer God's call forever changed her own life and altered the destiny of a people enveloped in a web of fear, darkness, and oppression.

Pages: 160 (paperback)

In days of increased concern about terrorism and fundamentalism, how inspiring it is to learn that Muslims are coming to Christ in increasing numbers in the Arab World! Through stories of Muslim background believers and the stories of tentmakers who often introduced them to Christ, we learn about how spiritual life is forming in the deserts of the Arab world in the face of adversity. This book will give you a new appreciation of the power of Christ to transform lives in the most unlikely places.

George Verwer, who recently celebrated 50 years of ministry, has inspired and encouraged thousands in their Christian discipleship. Now three of his best-loved books, The Revolution of Love, No Turning Back, and Hunger for Reality are brought together in this three-in-one collection.

This uncomplicated yet challenging trilogy points us to see love as the central theme of the Christian life, calls us to effective service, and revolutionizes our lives so that they are consistent and productive.

The Global Bible for Children was created to give children a global perspective and broaden children's horizons beyond their own culture and country. With over 300 photographs from 7 continents and 50 countries, this Bible accurately represents the ethnic diversity of the world. It is the full Bible text with a translation children all over the world will be able to read for themselves and understand. It is a photographic journey around the world, featuring pictures of other children, adults, places and animals. Visit www.theglobalbible.com for more information.

The enormity of the global AIDS pandemic threatens to overwhelm us. More than 3 million people died of AIDS last year—about 8,000 per day—and another 5 million were infected with the pernicious HIV virus. And the numbers are growing. So what role do we, the Church play in this growing crisis? The church must continue to give hope to the hopeless—those languishing alone. We must use the HIV/AIDS crisis to demonstrate the love of Christ by caring for AIDS sufferers, their family members, and their communities by whatever means available.

To this end, in November 2003, over 3000 participants gathered to address the issues of the church and the HIV/AIDS crisis. The Hope Factor captures the findings of some of the world's top minds and hearts dealing with the issue of AIDS. It shows how we in the Western church can come alongside and help people impacted by AIDS. Academicians, pastors, AIDS patients, and physicians from around the world share hard-won insights that will help you and your church or organization make a difference in practical ways.

At nearly 3-times the size of the EvangeCube, the BIG CUBE folds out to 16” tall. Perfect for group training or sharing the Gospel with an entire classroom or any other group gathering you encounter during your short-term mission trip. Un-assembled is ideal for packing in luggage. Every mission team that is looking for creative, effective ways to share the Gospel should have one or two BIG CUBES, in addition to several standard size EvangeCubes.

Those who are unfamiliar with the world of tentmaking will find valuable information to introduce them to the concept and to help in getting started. Designed to be a manual, Tentmaking is more than just an overview of questions and issues. This work will serve as an in-depth reference for existing tentmakers.

This thoroughly researched collection is the result of interviews from over 450 people serving in the 10/40 window. It provides a unique viewpoint on missions, sharing proven, workable alternatives to conventional missionary life.

Tentmaking provides an important and much needed resource to this specialized area of world missions.

The Terry Snow Story: The Gospel’s Triumph Over Fear in Haiti … Facing death, enduring false accusations, and becoming a prisoner himself, missionary Terry Snow moved out in faith and boldness to share the gospel with the town of St. Marc in Haiti.

Amidst the tumult of civil war, gang-fighting, and terrorism, Terry’s powerful ministry to the people of St. Marc took him from having a gun pointed to his head to being invited to pray in the presidential palace. His inspiring story shows how one man’s obedience to God brought miraculous healing to gang leaders, prisoners, government officials, and the transformed town of St. Marc. 154-pg paperback.

Simply one of the best books on spiritual warfare available! God has called Christians to overcome the world and drive back the forces of evil and darkness at work within it. Spiritual warfare isn't just casting out demons; it's Spirit-controlled thinking and attitudes. Dean delivers a no-nonsense, both-feet-planted-on-the-ground approach to the unseen world. Over 300,000 copies sold!

Part one of the book assesses past theologies, drawing both on scholarly research and the thinking of key church leaders such as John Wimber, who have influenced the Anglican charismatic movement in Britian. Part two addresses different issues that need considering in a holistic theology of mission, including the holistic content, experiental nature, contextual grounding, community focus and spirituality for mission. Spirit-Shaped Mission develops a framework for understanding the 'mission of the Spirit' that contributes to Pentecostal, evangelical and ecumenical thinking on the subject.

What is keeping you from becoming involved in the Great Commission? Fears such as loss of friends, loss of money, disapproval of parents, and inadequate experience surfaced as common hurdles? Missionaries, from many organizations and from around the world who have experienced these same fears, share their personal stores of how God overcame and met their needs in ways they could have never expected.

Humanity has existed on earth for thousands of years, yet we are just now beginning to experience a kind of community that has never before existed—the slum community. As the number of slum communities and those living in them continue to rise at an alarming rate, Christians need to examine their role in sharing the hope, joy, healing, and servanthood of Christ to those in despair.

Quest for Hope in the Slum Community is a collection of the diverse dialog that exists in the area of urban transformation. Everything from housing to street children along with a healthy collection of articles around a theology of urban poverty is addressed. This material is designed to stimulate the imagination of those exploring the question of how to address with compassion and conviction the stark realities of urban poverty.

This book examines the keys to missionary retention. How can we ensure that missionaries are enabled to serve for as long as God calls them to serve and to serve effectively? Fifty-eight case studies and twenty-nine issue-based chapters form the core of the book, including recruitment, call, leadership, finance, ministry, and education/training.

Worth Keeping is the product of years of work by the Mission Commission task force called ReMAP II, charged with the job of carrying out the attrition follow-up research of Too Valuable to Lose: Examining the Causes and Cures of Missionary Attrition. The book presents the outcome of that twenty nation study, led by a team of international researchers and global cadre of associates.

Worth Keeping is an absolute must read for agencies and church leaders, and member care providers. It asks your questions — for your use and follow through. Applying the information gleaned through the study may significantly change the way you recruit, train, and retain the missionary force of the future.

Avoiding and overcome unhealthy dependency in the Christian movement. The book contains a description of the dependency syndrome, its historical development and how to overcome it. Though unhealthy dependency is widespread, it does not need to be considered an incurable illness.

Learn about churches that were once victims of unhealthy dependency but learned themselves how to overcome it, along with many practical illustrations and suggestions for those in Christian service who face the challenge of avoiding or overcoming unhealthy dependency. Other items include medical mission institutions, short-term missions, and, most significantly, long-term missionary service. Several chapters are a basic introduction to cross-cultural issues for missionaries and church leaders. Author Glenn Schwartz welcomes interaction with those who want to seriously deal with the mentality of dependency in the Christian movement. 373-pg paperback.

Art and Ellen Sanborn arrived on the mission field confident in the power of Jesus - even when surrounded by danger. Years later, after serving in Asia and beyond, Art would rely on the truth of Jesus' power in a new way when doctors told him that he might never walk again.
Pages: 304 (paperback)

101 True Stories from North America to South America, Africa, Europe and Asia, God has heard... Over 35 years ago, pastor, teacher, and missionary Wentworth Pike realized the value of encouraging others by telling how God had worked through prayer in the lives of his people. He started collecting stories of people from all walks of life, miracles to disappointments. From these, Wentworth compiled 101 true accounts from all over the world.

WorldVentures is the individual achievement plan for Girls in Action. Girls will learn about missions, pray for missions, give to missions, do missions, and participate in the work of the church through hands-on activities included in each book. In addition, girls will participate in Scripture learning activities. WorldVentures 5 is for girls in the fifth grade.

This book gives you the opportunity to surrender to God's presence and enjoy just being with Him. Find contentment, peace, and encouragement from practicing spiritual disciplines, and learn simple, tangible insights into practicing God’s presence in everyday life.

Simple leaflet in Spanish gives a word of thanks along with a gospel message. Leave a copy with your tip, in hotels, restaurants, and taxis.

A Chance to Die is a vibrant portrayal of Amy Carmichael, an Irish missionary and writer who spent fifty-three years in south India without furlough. There she became known as "Amma," or "mother," as she founded the Dohnavur Fellowship, a refuge for underprivileged children. Amy's life of obedience and courage stands as a model for all who claim the name of Christ. She was a woman with desires and dreams, faults and fears, who gave her life unconditionally to serve her Master. Bringing Amma to life through inspiring photos and compelling biographical narrative, Elisabeth Elliot urges readers to examine the depths of their own commitment to Christ.

United by their love for Christ and their studies at the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, these twenty-one men and women set out to bring the gospel to those in need. From the jungles of South America to the parched African plain, and from the dark cloud of Communist China to the dangers of the Middle East, they revealed the character of God through service and love. In A Martyr’s Grace, Marvin Newell tells the individual stories of these faithful men and women who made a difference in the places they served. He also describes—in many cases for the very first time—how Jesus called them home. Their legacies live on in the rainforests, villages, churches, and cities where they served. What is it that compels ordinary people to sacrifice their lives in this way? Only Christ. They didn’t go expecting to die. But they went—having already given their lives.

Written by a group of women conference leaders, this book contains 30 warm and inspiring devotional stories that celebrate God's miraculous nature and His almighty sovereignty in people's lives.

Debra Berry looks at the Book of Nehemiah and offers parallels between the lives of Hebrews rebuilding Jerusalem and those of present-day African Americans.

In Beyond Me readers will have ten chapters of thought-provoking text that helps them see clearly the distinction between their ever-increasing clash of cultures—the clash between life and death or, in other words, you and me. Written in a warm, personal, and easy-to-read-and-understand style, Beyond Me is an invitation to pursue true discipleship. In poignant, humorous, but always vulnerable and meaningful examples, readers will find current, historical, and biblically documented insights and teachings to support this call to walk in the footsteps of Jesus.

Discover how the missions work of Lottie Moon inspired Southern Baptist Women, through WMU, to begin one of the most influential giving and prayer networks known to the modern missions movement. This leaflet is affordably priced so the entire congregation can learn more about how the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering started.

Born to Be Wild is a delightful story-driven invitation to hop onto your “inner Harley” and live life as an adventure instead of a dreaded succession of midlife responsibilities and losses. Jill Baughan uses bite-size chapters that include wonder-filled stories, humor, and relevant Scripture to take us on such an adventure. The chapters are organized chronologically according to the stages of life, with stories that relate to childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, midlife, and old age. Baughan emphasizes that great joy and deep sorrow can walk hand in hand in a life in which an intimate relationship with God is the first priority. Each chapter has “takeaways,” making this book suitable for use as a focus book for a weekend retreat or a five-week group study.

The opportunity for spiritual depth this book provides will foster in readers a desire to spend more consistent time in prayer. As a result, readers will begin to experience a sense of renewal and peace. More importantly, readers will gain a deeper understanding of how to become touchstones for others—“living stones” that point the way toward Jesus. Others around them will be impacted as they see the change in the reader who has been challenged to sort the precious from the worthless in their lives.

Sure to be a classic, Called & Accountable 52-Week Devotional: Discovering Your Place in God’s Eternal Purpose is a timely and easy-to-read devotional that will keep you grounded in your accountability to God’s call. This conveniently sized book is carried easily in a briefcase, purse, or soccer bag for those days when your schedule is packed. The format makes it ideal for individual use or perfect for weekly leadership meetings.

This six-week workbook study will lead men and women to explore the life-transforming, world-changing call that God gives every follower of Christ. Just as He did throughout the Bible, God is still calling His people, at this very hour, to accomplish His eternal purposes in redeeming the lost. Chapters include: What Is a Call? Who Are the Called? How Am I Called? When Am I Called? and How Do I Live Out the Call?

Every believer is called by God, and His call is life-transforming. When this truth grips a person’s heart, he or she is never the same again. Immediately there comes into that life a deep sense of meaning and purpose and a devoted sense of accountability to God.

Authors Henry Blackaby and Norman Blackaby lead men and women to explore the life-transforming, world-changing call that God gives every follower of Christ. Just as He did throughout the Bible, God is still calling His people, at this very hour, to accomplish His eternal purposes in redeeming the lost. God has a unique plan for each of His followers to be a part of His mission. Called and Accountable thoughtfully explores these questions: Why does God call us? What is a call? Who are the called? How am I called? When am I called? How do I live out the call?

Trusted missiologist Ed Stetzer and coauthor and pastor Philip Nation bring missional thinking to everyday believers in Compelled by Love. The 2008–2009 emphasis book for WMU®, a million-member missions nonprofit organization, Compelled by Love is a basic theology-and-application platform to help believers understand what missional living is all about—that is, our calling to love others.

The time to get out from the four walls of the church is now! We learn about missions and pray for missions, but the best-kept secret is actually doing missions. Women of all ages and stages of life desire to get involved. They just don’t know where to start. This download takes you from A to Z in planning missions and ministry projects that the women of your church can do throughout the year, helping them to develop a missional lifestyle. Achieve this goal by coordinating projects, and conclude the year with a missions and ministry fair.

Does trying to follow God’s call in your life leave you feeling directionally challenged? God rarely tells us where He’s taking us or exactly how to get there. Instead, like a compass, He points us in the general direction we are to go.

In Directionally Challenged, trusted pastor Travis Collins helps Christians discern God’s compass for their lives. Collins offers help to Christians who have gotten sidetracked and encouragement for those whose priorities have been overturned and life’s callings set aside. In his warm and engaging way, Collins provides sound, biblical teaching on finding the courage, conviction, and character needed to discern and live God’s call.

This book will help Christian men and women learn how to discover God’s distinct calling in their lives and boldly and courageously live it.

Where in the world is Molly? She’s wherever the missions team is. Follow Molly as she learns what church missions teams do on missions trips. The last page features a picture of Molly to be cut out, laminated, and sent with the church’s missions teams on their trips for pictures at the scene of missions activities.

Whether you like to admit it or not, you serve in a leadership role in your life. Whether it’s at church, home, or work, someone is looking for you to lead. An your response can be competent, biblical leadership with a spirit of servanthood.

In this newly revised edition of the popular "A Woman's Guide" series, Rhonda Kelley offers 12 weekly lessons with biblical insights that challenge women to honestly examine their own hearts. Servant Leadership provides a comprehensive look at leadership, including discerning your call, discovering a vision, prioritizing, and identifying leadership styles.

Spiritual Leadership in the Global City is a contemporary study of the extraordinary spiritual leaders God has called out to be a sphere of influence in the global city of New York. Recognized voice and spiritual leader Mac Pier has compiled the stories of these leaders and the churches that are collaborating at historic levels to transform lives in the city and the city itself. Engulfed in stories from the mayor’s office to the lesser-known homeless shelters in the Bronx, readers will experience a sense of transformation. Although written primarily for lay and professional church leaders, this book will benefit any believer with a passion for people and transforming lives. It is also appropriate for institutions equipping people to serve and work in the cities.

This book looks at the data that enables leadership to thrive within these environments and provides the serious reader with the theology, history, and practice of leadership within the urban context. Through this book, readers will be pointed toward training and educational resources as well as places to get started where they are.

The life of Annie Armstrong is examined as she begins a missions movement in the United States in the early twentieth century.

The life of Lottie Moon is examined as she begins a missions movement in China in the late nineteenth/early twentieth century.

Go with martyred missionary doctor Martha Myers as she devotes her life and medical skills to the people of Yemen.

Discover the history of WMU through this engaging, easy-to-read book that reads more like a novel than a dry volume of history. Through the pages of this book you will meet the missions pioneers who forged new roles for women in the church.

Have you ever doubted your ability, lacked courage, or felt undervalued, overlooked or limited in what you could do for God or others? Wonder Women of the Bible will revolutionize your ordinary outlook by connecting you with an extraordinary God. This book brings to life the remarkable women of biblical times and brings to light their incredible accomplishments. Their stories will heighten your awareness of what God can do through ordinary peole and inspire your own trust and confidence in God.

Thirty spiritual travelogues that take readers on an adventurous journey around the globe, as well as on an inner pilgrimage toward a better understanding of God and themselves.

23 creative ways to revive your zest for following Christ. Great for churches and small groups.

Learn how to effectively communicate the gospel with the Acts 29 evangelism kit. This kit is an effective outreach-equipping tool, perfect for leaders and lay people. Use in a Sunday school class, a ministry, or to further your study into the Great Commission.

Simon Peter was an ordinary man of no social standing. And yet Jesus chose him to be the "rock" upon which the church would be built. This apparent incongruity begs the question, What does Christ see in you?

In this book and Bible study for men, Stuart Briscoe retells the gospel account of Simon Peter's interactions with the Master and explores how God wants to use your potential just as He used Peter's.

Chasing after God can feel like driving with three flat tires. Consider this Bible study a quick pit stop for tuning up your pursuit of God.

Missionaries are called by God to tell the story of Jesus to people of other cultures. To do their job effectively, missionaries need a thorough theological education, and they need to learn the language of the people among whom they will be working. But there is more to effective missions than theology and language learning. In this introduction to missions and missiology, Glenn Rogers explains the interdisciplinary nature of missions studies and illustrates why it is essential for missionaries to be educated in a broad range of disciplines including anthropology and history as well as theology.

In North American Cross-cultural Church Planting, Dr. Glenn Rogers explains how to plant churches cross-culturally… Of the 300 million people who call America home, nearly 100 million of them are unchurched people. America has one of the highest unchurched populations in the world. Many of those 100 million unchurched people are non-Anglo people who have immigrated to this country. They need to hear the story of Jesus. Planting churches cross-culturally is the best way to reach ethnically-other people, sharing with them the story of Jesus, leading them into a reconciled, renewed relationship with God.

In Becoming A Multiethnic Church, Dr. Rogers offers insightful information and helpful suggestions to church leaders struggling to respond appropriately and effectively to America's growing ethnic diversity. From ethnocentric Anglo assumptions to the role of worldview in shaping ethnic perspectives, from the cultural aspects of spirituality, to strategies and models for meeting the spiritual needs of an ethnically diverse society, to the unique challenges church leaders face in leading healthy, growing multiethnic churches, Rogers explains the challenges and offers workable solutions that can help churches, large or small, respond effectively to the spiritual needs of America's ethnically diverse population.

Evangelizing Immigrants is an investigation into why so many immigrants become Christians after immigrating to America. After discussing immigration trends and statistics, as well as the challenges of immigration, Dr. Rogers discusses the results of 50 interviews he conducted with immigrants from seven different cultural contexts who were converted to a conservative protestant expression of the Christian faith after arriving in the U.S. Each interviewee explains why he or she was converted and offers advice to church leaders who want to work effectively with immigrants. Ministers who lead immigrant churches are also interviewed and provide advice for effective outreach in immigrant communities. In synthesizing the results of his research, Dr. Rogers provides a foundational way for church leaders to think about how to serve this important and growing segment of the American population.

No longer is it necessary to travel abroad to be a missionary. With the proliferation of ethnic communities across North America, it is now necessary for almost all churches to build bridges across cultural divides so the Good News can be carried to ethnic minorities. Rather than provide a lock-step program, Dr. Glenn Rogers offers guiding principles for building bridges to ethnic communities. His research is based upon interviews with immigrants who converted to Christianity upon their arrival in America. The insights are strategically startling, making this book required reading for any church that wants to reach the wonderful mosaic of cultures that has become contemporary America.

Satisfying spiritual formation is something that seems to elude many Christians. We want to grow. We want to be better than we are. But we are frustrated by the presence of sin in our lives and an apparent disconnect from God. Following The Spirit To The Heart Of God is a study of what Peter and Paul have to say about the process of spiritual formation. It is about giving control of our lives to the Holy Spirit, allowing him to recreate us in the image of God so we can be the people God wants us to be.

This missiological text provides a thorough, readable and engaging analysis of the foundational concepts of ministry and mission in the early church as presented by one of the earliest Christian historians, Luke. Luke's skill as a storyteller and teacher become evident as he weaves his ministry and mission themes and agenda throughout the text of his two-volume work--The Gosple of Luke and The Book of Acts. This very readable text is appropriate for college students, missionaries or ministers interested in a biblical perspective on mission and ministry in today's global, multicultural society.

Tens of thousands of Christians go on short-term mission trips around the world each year. Those believers are a blessing to the churches where they worship and serve and to the people in the cultures they visit who are served, saved and strengthened through their loving efforts. Those who go on short-term mission trips are often changed by the experience, committing themselves to the financial support of a mission effort or making a commitment to become missionaries themselves. May God bless everyone involved in short-term missions.

This book is designed to provide short-term missionaries with insight into: 1) a biblical theology of mission, 2) a biblical but contextualized message, 3) a basic understanding of the role of culture in cross-cultural missions, and 4) some basic guidelines for short-term mission that will help make the experience more pleasant and fruitful for everyone involved.

In The Mission of the Church: A Biblical Theology of Mission and Ministry, Glenn Rogers identifies the underlying metatheme of Scripture and traces it through the Old and New Testaments to reveal the mission of the church, which he concludes is participation with God in his mission in the world… the reconciliation of all people. In this thorough but readable missiological text, Rogers discuses: the creation narrative, the covenants, the symbolic language of Scripture, the incarnation, and the ministries of Jesus and Paul.

The anthropological study of Worldview as the foundation of culture is a missiological concentration of great significance. In his text, Glenn Rogers explains worldview from an anthropological/missiological perspective, illustrating how a people’s deep-level unconscious assumptions about life and about how the world works provide the underlying foundation for cultural structures and behaviors. Rogers also illustrates that understanding a people’s worldview is the key to effective cross-cultural communication in foreign missions or North American multiethnic ministry.

Janet Pope has memorized an amazing 90 chapters of the Bible, including 11 New Testament books. In His Word in My Heart, she enthusiastically shares with readers why memorizing Scripture is so important to the walk of the believer.

A social worker from New England...a Texas airline pilot...a homemaker from California...a lawyer who has lived everywhere...a quilter in Oregon. What do they have in common? All are on the adventure of their lives.

Like many others among the 77 million baby boomers, these men and women don't want to retire from contributing when they retire from their careers. So they are using their time, skills, and resources to make a difference. Written in conjunction with Finishers Project, an umbrella organization that encompasses more than 100 mission organizations, this book will help baby boomers discover a second-half adventure that fits them and counts for eternity.

David Murrow's book, Why Men Hate Going to Church, has heightened awareness of an epidemic. Patrick Morley offers the solution. No Man Left Behind is the blueprint for growing a thriving men's ministry that has the power to rebuild the church as we know it, pulling men off the couch and into active involvement as part of the body of Christ.

A solitary woman. A foreign country. An unknown language. An impossible dream? No. With no mission board to support or guide her and less than ten dollars in her pocket, Gladys Aylward left her home in England to answer God's call to take the message of the gospel to China. With the Sino-Japanese War waging around her, she struggled to bring the basics of life and the fullness of God to orphaned children. Time after time, God triumphed over impossible situations, and drew people to Himself. The Little Woman tells the story of one woman's determination to serve God at any cost.With God all things are possible!

Into the Mud takes readers below the headlines, into real stories of real people living neck-deep in some of Africa's most difficult issues -- but with hands, minds, and hearts rooted in God's kingdom. Each of the interwoven stories and related discussion questions addresses a broader issue of missions and development, including evangelism, literacy and education, microfinance, health services, urbanization and refugee assistance, and more. Reflection questions at the end of each chapter help readers to apply lessons from the chapters to their own ministry contexts.

Where the world sees despair, author Christine Jeske sees God writing stories of hope. Study groups, development students, mission teams, and everyday activists alike will be challenged by her stories to enter more deeply into the thick of life's mud.

What happens when Christian believers take the Word of God literally and begin to apply it where they spend 60 to 70 percent of their waking hours? What happens when Christians move in a spiritual dimension in their work lives as few have endeavored to do before now? What happens is that lives, workplaces, cities and nations become transformed by the power of Jesus Christ. Called the "next great movement of God," ministry in the workplace is like a sleeping giant that is starting to take the nation by storm. In The 9 to 5 Window, Os Hillman, one of the leading authorities on "faith at work" today, introduces you to the new breed of worker who has gone beyond the status quo to become a transformer. Learn the facts on the current movement, how to bring the presence of God into your workplace, how to develop an intercessory prayer team at work, how to transform your workplace, city and nation for Christ, and much more. Chapters include:The Move of God Today and Why He Is Calling You, The Role of Adversity in Your Call, My Skill Versus His Power, You Can Transform Your Workplace.

Rediscover the Foundational Principles of Our Faith One of the finest expository teachers helps readers restore the fire and conviction of their first love for Christ by helping them to better understand His character, His Glory and His love for them. MacArthur counsels all who want more love for Christ to pursue Him by making Christ their focus each day - in every activity, every contact, every thought. Previously published as First Love, by Victor Books.

Faith is trust. It is a confidence in the power and goodness of God that leads us to make good decisions and allows us to surrender our lives to Him. As we strive to mature spiritually and lead lives pleasing to God, we all want more faith. Hebrews 6:12 says that we are to be “imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” One of the best ways to grow in faith is to imitate the lives of people who have shown great faith. Hebrews 11 guides us through the lives of men and women – like Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Rahab, David and others – who have done just that. Real people with real lives and real problems, who had faith in a great God and trusted Him at pivotal moments in their lives. By drawing on some of the greatest lives of faith in the Bible, readers will come to see that God was worthy of these men’s and women’s trust and faith during biblical times in the same way that He is worthy of ours today.

Worship is always a choice. In Blessed Be Your Name, Matt and Beth Redman use the words of their inspiring song to explore how to stand in the place of praise even in the face of hardship and pain. Focusing on the Psalms, many of which were written out of struggle, the Redmans share from their own experience and show how painful circumstances and our choices can either

Ten years ago a groundbreaking book called The Frog in the Kettle changed what we believe about the evangelical Church and its influence in America. Subsequent books by George Barna have become must reading for church leaders and concerned Christians everywhere. Now Barna takes a fresh look at the Church--where we stand and where we are headed--at the dawn of the new millennium. With revealing statistics from cutting-edge research that illustrate the changing beliefs and attitudes in our society today, this book will clearly show the Church is at a crucial juncture in history--a time of rapid change in which we must begin to anticipate the world's needs in order to meet them.

This book is a training manual for Christian soldiers, motivating believers to not give up and encouraging them that God's Word is true when it claims that He will come through for them as long as they do not quit. Dr. Jerry Savelle, who admits that he was once a quitter himself, writes candidly about his own experiences and challenges God's army to stand on the Word of God until victory is achieved. 224 pages.

How to Right the World’s Wrongs From a Place of Weakness. The God who set aside power in order to live out love—fully expressing that love on Calvary’s tree—is at the core of the Christian message to the world. Yet in the centuries since Christ’s refusal to yield to Satan’s temptation to establish His kingdom through economic, political and religious power, the Church has struggled to make the same refusal. In Choose Love, Not Power, scholar, activist and modern-day prophet Tony Campolo explores the relationship between love and power, beginning with an examination of Jesus’ life and working toward a “theology of power” for Christians today. He surveys the implications of choosing love over power when it comes to the global community’s most pressing issues—environmental degradation, economic inequality and instability, and perpetual war. Dr. Campolo suggests that the choice between love and power begins close to home: Christ-followers who choose love over power in marriage and in parenting will likewise opt for love in their churches, communities and governments. The growing number of believers seeking a more authentically Christ-like way to be “Christian” in a diverse, pluralistic society will be challenged and encouraged by this unflinching look at Jesus’ example of love.

Be inspired by the practical strategy & real-life stories of servant evangelism. Learn how washing windows, cleaning toilets, putting coins in laundry machines & giving out soda has impacted communities with the life-changing love of God.

All over the world and in your community people are lonely, hungry, sick, struggling to make ends meet, bitter, imprisoned, dying. Do you feel powerless to make a difference? You don't have to be helpless! From the simplest acts of kindness to more complex works of mercy, you'll find more than 100 practical ideas for compassionately responding to the needs of others. It's all here, from suggestions about working with the poor to honoring and assisting the elderly; helping immigrants assimilate and supporting the sick; respecting and serving the disabled, showing compassion to those in prison, and caring for the environment. You'll discover practical ways to begin making a difference in your community today, and helping others catch a vision for changing the world! A leader's guide makes this adaptable for group study, as well as individual reading. Jesus calls us to creatively and courteously share the good news by loving our neighbor. It's time to begin!

Followers of Christ yearn to see the world changed in compassionate, positive, effective ways. As prophetic voices, Shane Claiborne and John Perkins lead the way in this move to be the hands, feet and heart of Jesus. One is young; the other is decades older. One is a self-proclaimed reformed redneck who grew up in the hills of Tennessee and now lives in inner-city Philadelphia; the other is an African-American civil rights leader who was almost beaten to death by police in Mississippi, and went on to found a reconciliation movement and counsel three American presidents. Claiborne and Perkins draw on more than a century of combined following and learning, activating and leading. Together they craft a timely message for ordinary people willing to take radical steps to see real change happen. They start with Moses as a model and proceed to re-imagine the roles of leading and following in a world desperate for freedom.

Winning the Tug-of-War for Future Generations This book is a passionate presentation of what our society is producing in children. The authors first present a code blue alarm for the need of paramedic and ambulance for at-risk children; then they provide some practical suggestions about how to save the children. The book contains statistics, stories, societal illustrations and hope-filled solutions, calling the reader to become what God has always called the Church to be: a change agent for the spiritually needy in every strata of society. Given the realities of our world catastrophes on every news broadcast, an epidemic of fragmented families, a severely coarsened society we can still make a difference in the lives of children by teaching them to value the right things. To do that, we must become a strategic force in the lives of the children we influence by counteracting the devastating forces that would destroy them. Theauth2s provide specific suggestions for what the church can do as a whole and what we can do as individual believers to bring about these changes.

Enter into Your Prophetic Destiny God has a wonderful destiny for every life, but many Christians will die never having realized all that God has for them. Why is it that so many believers fall short of their divine calling? In God's Now Time for Your Life, Chuck Pierce and Rebecca Wagner Sytsema give dynamic, life-giving answers to help believers reach their potential. This book is full of rich, fresh insight for finding God's direction in your life, your family and your territory. As you read, you will understand how to press toward prophetic fulfillment and gain new hope that the best is yet ahead!

God's plan is exciting and timely and God's Word is relevant today! Miss Mears' vital concern was for people - that they might have a comprehensive grasp of the Bible and realize that God has a wonderful plan to reveal to each one who seeks Him. In God's Plan, the reader discovers that God does have a plan, and His plan is eternal. His plan predates creation, and continues forever, without limits. The essence of God's plan is love, pure unrequited love, by the Almighty God for people. This love prompted God to create the heavens and the earth, to select a chosen people, to reveal the plan of salvation, to establish the church, to direct the activities of that which He has created, and one day to return in glory. Readers will discover that God's plan provides an opportunity for all mankind to enjoy the abundant life.

Seeing the Season of Your Life Through God's Eyes Best-selling author Dutch Sheets will inspire and encourage readers with this clear, revelatory study of God's appointed times and seasons. Going beyond the basic definitions of kairos and chronos, Dutch brings fresh insight to the subject, examining Scripture to show how kairos (strategic) times and chronos (general) times are not two separate and unrelated seasons in our lives but, rather, are often simply different phases of the same process. Dutch looks at how God brought about His divine shift in the lives of men and women throughout the Bible, and the many ways in which God used these seasons of change to deepen His people's understanding of Him. God has an intense desire to bring about the divine shift in our lives on the earth today, and we must be prepared and willing to move with Him according to His will.

A Field Manual for Advancing the Kingdom of God Chuck Pierce will continue to empower Christians to face the exciting present (and future) for the Church that he began to lay out in The Future War of the Church. Yes, we are in the midst of a battle that will only increase in strength, but the victory has already been promised. Outlining the next 7-year period of spiritual war, 2008-2015, Pierce shows how God will advance His kingdom, causing the faithful to rise up and God's will to be done here on Earth as it is in Heaven. God's Unfolding Battle Plan offers a glimpse into what's ahead, as well as encouragement to triumph over the attending forces of lawlessness, hopelessness, and violence. Discover what God has said to Pierce about the upcoming period and learn how to prosper through strategic intercession, worship warfare, and a powerful new weapon of intercession, the four watches of the night.

This book is packed with twenty-first-century lessons and practices, highlighting real-life success stories from the African-American church experience. Here the strengths of the African-American church are celebrated, and its best practices explored through the study of large and small churches alike. Half of the chapters in High Impact African-American Churches feature African-American history from the inception of slavery to present day, revealing the influences that have shaped these churches. Readers from any church, in any culture, will learn specific steps they can take and apply to their own churches, achieving successes similar to those found in the African-American Church.

The gravedigger thesis can be put simply: The Christian faith contributed decisively to the rise of the modern world, but has been undermined decisively by the modern world it helped to create. The Christian faith has become its own gravedigger. In the 25 years since philosopher and social critic Os Guinness first published The Gravedigger Files, much has happened: the fall of the Soviet Union, the rise of the computer age, the re-emergence of China and India, the rise of Islamic terrorism, and the worldwide revitalization and politicization of religion. But the central mystery of Dr. Guinness' spy novel, inspired by his affection for John le Carr thrillers, remains unsolved: Can Christians regain the full integrity of faith in Christ while fully and properly engaged in the advanced modern world? This new edition of The Last Christian on Earth, which includes previously unpublished top-secret memos, is Dr.Guinness' parable about the future of the Christian church in the West. Written in the grand tradition of le Carr, Fleming and Clancy, this thriller pays homage to the genre while transcending it - because the real-life ending has yet to be written!

How does a Christian lead? By following today's secular business models, or by simply studying the life of Christ and pursuing a servant-based style? In this insightful, practical book, George Barna has pulled together some of today's top Christian leaders to talk about the subject of Christian leadership. Articles include: The Tasks of a Leader by Ken Gangel, The Character of a Leader by Jack Hayford, Prayer in Leading People by Peter Wagner, and much more. See what today's leaders have to say about leadership, and learn what it takes to serve the Church as a Christ-centered change agent.

In a world of three-day diets and game-show millionaires, we can easily lose sight of the importance of the spiritual disciplines the Lord has given us for victorious living in Christ. Jack Hayford invites readers to rediscover the power and the blessing that come from such disciplines as prayer and fasting, feeding on God's Word, submission to His will, daily worship and experiencing the release of repentance and forgiveness. Pastor Jack examines and celebrates what it really means to be an effective disciple of Christ in modern times.

As a hippie and drug user who had grown-up in a dysfunctional family, Greg Laurie knew what it was to be lost. A seventeen-year-old, long-haired Greg soon discovered his passion for seeing people rescued from hopelessness and transformed into renewed beings with a saving faith in Christ. Laurie quickly became a wonder and an example as to how God could use someone with a sordid past to impact the world with the gospel. Throughout Greg's autobiography, be encouraged by the trials he overcame and the far-reaching impact these lessons have had. The Lord's influence in Greg's life has been thoroughly evidenced by the fruit seen from the ministries Greg has planted, watered and grown; namely, Harvest Christian Fellowship (one of the 8 largest churches in America) and the Harvest Crusades. Greg Laurie's legacy has been seasoned with trials and questions, butif God can take a hippie from a severely dysfunctional family and raise him to be one of the nation's leading evangelists and pastors, what can God do with you?

John M. Perkins was born 80 years ago in the deep South. His mother died when he was an infant, his father left when he was a child, he dropped out of school after the third grade to work with his family of bootleggers and he witnessed police shoot and kill his brother. Years later, John M. Perkins was the object of violent racism, and in 1970 he was almost beaten to death in a Mississippi jail. He had every reason to respond with bitterness, anger and rage. Instead, he forgave those who had tormented him and showed love to all. In the ensuing years, John M. Perkins has built a remarkable resume, founding the Christian Community Development Association, having a college reconciliation studies center named after him, consulting three presidents, serving on the board of directors of many organizations and having his book Let Justice Roll Down named one of the top 50 books that shaped evangelical Christianity by Christianity Today.

As he approaches his 80th birthday, Perkins’s pace has not slowed. He has launched a Mississippi Delta project to help revitalize a forgotten region. He visits young men in prison. He travels extensively to challenge people, particularly the young generation, whom he calls “post-racist.” Whether teaching from the Bible or digging deep into his memories of the Civil Rights movement, when John M. Perkins speaks, people listen. In these new memoirs, he revisits the racism which was the crucible of his own life, peers deep into the power of love to overcome all evils and tells stories of the most unique characters you will ever meet. He stands up in the wake of Katrina, stands by his wife’s side through the toughest days of their lives and casts a vision that has the potential to transform every city in America.

In Pursuit of God A.W. Tozer's spiritual legacy continues today as his writings challenge readers to a deeper relationship and worship of God in reverence and adoration. To understand this continued and far-reaching ministry it is important to know who he was, including his relationship with God. Here is Tozer's life story, from boyhood and his conversion at the age of seventeen, to his years of pastoring and writing more than 40 books, at least two regarded as Christian classics that continue to appear on best-seller lists today. Learn from a prophet with much to say about the compromises he observed in contemporary Christian living and the hope he found in his incredible God. The Life of A.W. Tozer gives a behind the scenes look at the man and his message. We see God at work with hammer and chisel to shape Tozer's life into a vessel capable of influencing all who desire to walk with God.

Indispensable Wisdom for Successful Living How should I live? What am I supposed to do with my life? Sometimes, in this frantic, noisy world, it is difficult or down right impossible to tune in God to hear what He wants. However, He's left us examples in the Bible; men and women who lived holy lives and those who fell far short of holiness. Popular pastor and author Wayne Cordeiro offers seven life lessons from some famous characters in Scripture: Mary: Learning to Listen David: When is Enough Enough? Nicodemus: Going Public Judas Iscariot: Self-Righteousness Invisible & Fatal Absalom: A Case of Unforgiveness Herod: Swayed by the Crowd Abigail: Maintaining Healthy Relationships To these character studies, Cordeiro adds his own experiences and stories that will help you apply each particular life lesson. Discover sound biblical guidance and wise counsel for living life more fully!

Imagine following Jesus along the road, listening in on His conversations and gleaning from the lessons He taught in the holy places. Join author Wayne Stiles as he walks in the steps of Jesus: through Bethlehem, Samaria, Jerusalem, Nazareth, Galilee and beyond. Experience the places where Jesus met a lonely woman, a den of hypocrites, a Pharisee still searching for truth, fishermen with a sea of false expectations, and a hometown ashamed of Him. Entering the Holy land through the settings, sights and sounds of Stiles's engaging travelogue, you will not only discover more about these sacred places, but also learn practical lessons that will find their way into your heart.

Help People Discover and Use Their Spiritual Gifts - As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. 1 Peter 4:10 (NKJV) You can help others discover their true purpose in life by leading them to an understanding of the unique spiritual gifts that God has given them. Once people recognize their spiritual gifts, they'll be able to use them to help the Church grow and reach out to the community. This easy-to-use study provides you with the tools you need. Through this course, participants will learn: The difference between gifts, talents and roles How to tell real gifts from counterfeit ones Five steps for using spiritual gifts to build God's kingdom In these 12 sessions you will help people discover their spiritual gifts and learn how to use them in ministry. This study provides biblical principles and insight drawn from C. Peter Wagner's more than 30 years of experience in studying and teaching on spiritual gifts. Help guide others to their God-given destiny with this life-changing study.

In The Mission of God’s People, part of the Biblical Theology for Life series, author Chris Wright offers a sweeping biblical survey of the holistic mission of the church, providing practical insight for today’s church leaders. Wright gives special emphasis to theological trajectories of the Old Testament that not only illuminate God’s mission but also suggest priorities for Christians engaged in God’s world-changing work.

This practical guide to the biblical art of sharing your faith offers refreshing insight into the many ways, spoken and silent, that all Christians can be involved in spreading the good news about Jesus.

With characteristic humor and insight, author and pastor John Ortberg invites us to follow the biblical story of Esther and her example to courageously choose to embrace the mission God gives. Like Esther, we can lead without fear—even in threatening circumstances—because we know God is always at work in unseen, unknown, and unlikely ways.

This innovative small group series, winner of the Silver Medallion award, combines insightful study questions with Closed Captioned DVD teaching from well-known Bible teachers such as John Ortberg, Bruce Wilkinson, and Joe Stowell. Doing Life Together is based on the five biblical purposes that form the bedrock of Saddleback Church. The DVDs and small group study guides are available individually or can be conveniently purchased in one complete kit.

In Engaging Post-Christian Culture: Our Mission in a New Context, part of the Q Society Room experience, your group will explore the post-modern, post-Christian, and post-American world, where the church is no longer placed at the center of society. What should the church look like, and how does the mission of the church adapt within this context? In this Q Society Room experience, your group will be challenged to investigate the mission of Christians in a new reality.

Beyond summer mission trip, child sponsorship, and personal piety - justice is the next step in doing what Jesus would do. The curriculum is interactive, though-provoking to engage youth groups in God's call to seek justice on the earth.

Want to go on mission trips in jungles with no plumbing and eat at pot lucks where you are the main dish? Laugh along with the creators of the popular Black Lagoon series as they explore possible misconceptions about local mission trips.

Paige Ryan and Nick Gilbert are trapped in an overpopulated African refugee camp where an outbreak of measles erupts and renegade soldiers block their only way out. Desperate for vaccines, they must put their own lives in the hands of God as they fight for the safety of the refugees under their protection.

As an introduction to the study of missions, this book equips present and future missionaries to understand the theological, cultural, and strategic foundations for effective mission work.

Beyond summer mission trip, child sponsorship, and personal piety—justice is the next step in doing what Jesus would do. The curriculum is interactive, thought-provoking to engage youth groups in God's call to seek justice on the earth. Includes 1 leader's guide and 1 DVD.

The Story reveals the unfolding, grand narrative of the Scriptures. Using portions of the clear, accessible text of the NIV, this dramatized audio download of Chapter 29 — Paul’s Mission from The Story, NIV allows the stories, poems, and teachings of the Bible to come together in a single, compelling read.

Jesus gives us a mission to change the world, and it can seem overwhelming at times. But the potential to complete the Jesus mission lies within each of us, as we learn to reproduce our faith as individuals and as reproducing churches.

How Christian is evangelism? How biblical is it? In Call and Response: Biblical Foundations of a Theology of Evangelism, Walter Klaiber seeks answers to such provocative questions. After reviewing the different understandings of evangelism abroad today (fundamentalist, charismatic, pietist, liberationist), he articulates the conviction that evangelism is a central part of the church's mission. At its most basic level, asserts Klaiber, evangelism is the announcement of the good news of salvation to those both outside and inside the church. This understanding of the nature of evangelism provides the basis for the two major themes of the work. The first is a discussion of evangelism in the New Testament in terms of its original contexts and meanings. Here Klaiber examines the rich variety of New Testament images for the task of evangelism, which range from the announcement of glad tidings to the poor, to the revelation of God's righteousness. The second is the question of the significance of personal decision in evangelism. Here the biblical evidence provides the foundation for the author's discussion of the nature and necessity of conversion.

"A beguiling image for the mission of the Church in our time. It combines the Samaritan parable's deceptive simplicity with a realism about what the Church is up against in this world."--Mark Trotter, Pastor, First United Methodist, San Diego. After describing the biblical mandates for the mission of ministry, Dr. Messer calls church leaders to: -understand the world as God's body -live as a covenant of global gardeners -work as bridge builders -form a company of star-throwers and peacemakers -embrace a community of fence movers.

Many churches want to make the transition from an inward to an outward focus, from catering to the needs of members to reaching out into the world to make disciples of Jesus Christ. Too often they try to accomplish this radical change by taking half steps and partial measures, initiating a new program here or adding a new staff members there.

Yet this kind of change requires more. To succeed in changing its core focus this way, a congregation must learn strategic thinking; it must commit itself to seeing the big picture, and to taking the steps necessary to paint that picture afresh. Everyone, including pastors, lay leaders, key teams and groups, and the congregation as a whole must be involved in a process of transformation. Paul D. Borden, author of Hit the Bullseye and Direct Hit, knows that this transformation will not be easy. But if the target is bringing more people into saving relationship with Jesus Christ, what could be more worthwhile?

Hunter discusses the rebirth of the apostolic congregation, Christianity's vision of what people can become, how small groups shape an apostolic people, how lay ministry advances the Christian movement, and how apostolic churches reach secular people.

A comprehensive guide to the theology and practice of evangelism within the Wesleyan tradition. No one would deny that evangelism stands at the heart of the Wesleyan/Methodist movement. Yet ask any number of representatives of that movement what evangelism means, and you will get an equal number of definitions. Is it bringing the lost to saving faith in Christ? Working to conform the social order to the Kingdom of God? Deepening the commitment of disciples to the work the Gospel? This important new volume answers that evangelism is all these, and more. Drawing on the work of prominent theologians and church leaders, it examines both the theory and the practice of evangelism among the people called Methodist, charting a course for a faithfully Wesleyan fulfillment of the Great Commission.

Something is not working. Despite the church's place of prominence in American culture and the ubiquity of the church in every American town, misconceptions about the faith of Jesus Christ run rampant today. Christians are known more for exclusivity than for love, more for potlucks than for solving world hunger.

It's time for churches to get over the cruise-ship mentality of being a program provider, and reconnect with the true message and mission of Jesus: to bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, and freedom to the oppressed.

Pastor Mike Slaughter challenges church leaders to look at the future of their congregations and make tough but necessary choices.

For churches participating in the Change the World event April 24-25, 2010, we have a developed this helpful overview of Mike Slaughter's Change the World: Recovering the Message and Mission of Jesus. Selections from Change the World is geared toward the lay people of the congregation, specifically those who are participating in the event. Packaged in sets of 10, church leaders can use this booklet to inspire, motivate, and encourage individuals to take the church into the world.

Change the World Bulletin, regular size (package of 50) "Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God." Micah 6:8. Features the cover image from the book by the same title written by Michael Slaughter.

Mission is not just the task of one committee in the congregation or one line item on the church budget. Mission is our response to Jesus' call to serve the least, last, and lost in his name. Mike Slaughter's book, Change the World: Recovering the Message and Mission of Jesus, helped leaders examine various areas of church life to show how worship, education, fellowship, budget, facilities, and more all play a part in orienting our congregations toward global mission.

In this four-session video resource, Mike Slaughter guides leaders in visioning for themselves ways to transform their congregation of believers into a movement of disciples living out Jesus' mission in the world. Use this program for a weekend intensive leadership retreat or a four-week study for pastors, staff, lay committee members, and other key congregational decision-makers. Together you can lead your congregation to focus its time, its energy, and its budget to work for real change in a hurting world.

Everybody wants to change the world, and it all starts with a changed heart. As we grow closer to the heart of Christ, we learn to love others the way he did. Passion for justice and desire to serve flows naturally from a faith centered on the message and mission of Jesus: to bring good news to the poor, release to the captive, and sight to the blind.

Linking Bible study to global mission and local service projects, this six-session small group resource enables congregations to discuss and act on the imperatives of scripture. Each week, participants will read and discuss a gospel story, watch a video profiling an inspiring, world-changing mission effort, and envision together how they can change the world locally and globally. Participants won’t just read about Jesus feeding the 5000 or healing the lepers, but will be inspired by contemporary ministries feeding the poor and preventing malaria. Participants will be challenged to take a leading role in the congregation’s missional efforts, serving in a homeless shelter as a group, raising funds for disaster relief, or planning a church-wide day of service.

Change the World: A Study for Small Groups links Bible study to global mission and local service project. This six-session small group resource enables congregations to discuss and act on the imperatives of scripture.

Each week, participants will read and discuss a gospel story, watch a video profiling an inspiring, world-changing mission effort, and envision together how they can change the world locally and globally. Participants won’t just read about Jesus feeding the 5000 or healing the lepers, but will be inspired by contemporary hunger-relief and medical missions. Participants will be challenged to take a leading role in the congregation’s missional efforts, serving in a homeless shelter as a group, raising funds for disaster relief, or planning a church-wide day of service.

Unmasks the hidden "worldviews" that stand in the way of congregational vitality and mission. They are problems with which every pastor is familiar: dwindling attendance in Sunday school classes; high levels of gossip and dissatisfaction; widespread apathy; weak financial support; inability to reach out to the unchurched. These and similar difficulties confound congregational leaders every day. Why are they often so difficult to address? Why do the programs put in place to remove these problems sometimes wind up adding to them? It is because these are not the problems themselves, but rather their symptoms.

If you wish to get to the real problem, you have to address the underlying assumptions, perspectives, and attitudes that cause these symptoms. You have to root out the false, unbiblical worldviews that lie at the heart of the problem. Discovering those worldviews is what Kent R. Hunter's proposal Discover Your Windows is all about.

Through years of working with individual congregations, and in the process of conducting nearly 15,000 interviews with individual church members, he has discovered the underlying perspectives that prevent churches from becoming the centers of witness and ministry God calls them to be. In this new book he summarizes what he has learned into 10 destructive worldviews, and demonstrates the biblical alternative. For example, to the prevalent yet false worldview that the main purpose of Christians in the church is to provide a place of fellowship and share God's love with each other, he posits the biblical worldview that the main purpose of Christians in the church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ.

Many congregations are declining due to an inward focus, and see their pastor as someone who should only minister to their needs. But pastors must anticipate a better future. Direct Hit offers hope to leaders of congregations that have lost their outward focus. By preparing for and leading systemic change, pastors can bring new life into the culture of a congregation, guiding it to answer God’s call to reach people with the good news.

Direct Hit offers practical explanations for how to: Develop a vision and communicate a strategy for its implementation-Motivate a congregation to embrace the vision-Develop resources, ideas, and personnel to prepare for change-Embrace and implement change-Embed a new DNA into the life of a congregation

Accurately counting the right things can profoundly impact ministry effectiveness. Knowing “the story in the stats” can inform decisions and lead to the things that produce the results most pleasing to God. Gathering and studying the right numbers can help a church wisely invest its resources of time, effort, people, money, and facilities. Effectiveness by the Numbers will help ensure that your church is measuring the right things for the right reasons. Counting what counts enables a church to fulfill its mission--making mature followers of Jesus Christ.

Cultivating Fruitfulness is a congregational resource that inspires participants through 5 weeks of prayer and devotion. Each day includes a Scripture, a short story or concept from book, a personal question and a prayer.

As a part of the FaithQuestions study series, “How Does Reading the Bible Help My Faith?” is designed to meet the needs of people who have questions about the Christian faith and who desire a deeper engagement with scripture and with discipleship as they explore studies of issues in theology, ethics, missions, Bible interpretation, and church history. It seeks to equip a new generation of church leaders to appreciate the eternal message of the gospel and to develop the skills to articulate its relevance in our contemporary context.

Every year, more than 100,000 people serve in the United Methodist Volunteers In Mission programs. Walter and Betty Whitehurst, longtime leaders in the program, have gathered the thoughts and comments of several dozen long-term individual volunteers and presented them in this compelling book.

Changes in denominational life in North America have left congregations with two difficult choices. On one hand, they can choose to act as though their ministries and programs can still best be established by national denominational offices. On the other hand, they can choose to act as though their denominational identity is completely irrelevant to their mission.

Underlying these difficult choices, writes Lyle E. Schaller, is the tremendous flux in the relationship between national denominations and their member congregations over the last forty years. The fact that relatively few visitors choose to affiliate with a congregation on the basis of denominational identity leads some to conclude (incorrectly) that the interdependence and cooperation between congregations of similar heritage and background is unimportant. At the same time, others conclude (also incorrectly) that there is nothing wrong with current denominational structures and that congregations need simply to align themselves with their denomination's directions more thoroughly.

To these bad choices, Schaller proposes an alternative. He observes that many congregations already seek to extend their mission and make their ministries more effective by participating in affinity networks--groups of congregations that share particular goals and visions. Schaller suggests the establishment of such networks within, rather than outside of, denominations. He argues that they should be established on the judicatory level. Rather than making state or regional boundaries the organizing principle by which congregations within a denomination align themselves, why not form judicatories around a particular sense of mission, or distinctive theological stands?

Schaller concludes that allowing and encouraging the formation of such affinity networks will recognize the differences between congregations within a denominations as the strength it truly is, and will, foster a greater unity of purpose between the denomination's churches.

Five Practices of Fruitful Living provides an honest, practical, and winsome guide to the spiritual journey. By repeating and deepening certain fundamental practices, we cooperate with God in our spiritual growth. These five practices - to receive God's love, to love God in return, to grow in Christ, to serve others, and to give ourselves fully - as we attend to them and develop them, help us settle ourselves in God and become instruments of God's grace. Following Christ will change your heart; and through you, God will change the world.

A distinguished thinker ponders the meaning of Wesley's theology. John B. Cobb, Jr., draws on the historical, critical, and literary work that has characterized Wesley studies in recent years, but moves beyond them to propose one way of reconstructing and reappropriating essential elements of Wesley's thought in service of the church's life and mission.

Jesus gave us the good news that if we make God our number-one priority, then everything else will fall into place, and our life will be full of joy, purpose, mission, meaning, and fulfillment. In the words of author James W. Moore: There's a saying that goes, “If God is your co-pilot, swap seats!” I think its message is something we all need to hear, namely this: Don’t just take God along for the ride. Rather, let God do the driving! Put God in the driver’s seat of your life. Don’t make God your assistant; ask God to be the chief pilot on your life’s journey.

God is not only a comfort, God is a joy. God is the source of all pleasure. God is light and laughter. God is the Giver of Life, real life, abundant life, full life, meaningful life, joyful life, eternal life. And our chief purpose is to celebrate God, and to serve God, and to enjoy God forever.

Session One: Jesus Calls Into Existence (John 1:1-14). The call of Jesus not only invites and summons, it also creates, re-creates, shapes, and empowers.Session Two: Jesus Calls Into Discipleship (Luke 5:1-11). The call of Jesus is not always a dramatic call to something unusual or heroic, but that it can also come as a series of calls experienced as minor steps in daily life.Session Three: Jesus Calls by Naming and Renaming (Matt. 16:13-20). Examines the way discipleship takes shape according to one's view of Jesus.Session Four: Jesus Calls Into Death and Life (Matt. 16:21-26). Explors the cross of Jesus and the relationship of uffering and self-denial in the call that invites people to discover their true selves.Session Five: Jesus Calls Into Family (Matt. 12:46-50). Explores how the church is a family, how this relates to one's own calling from Jesus, and how it may help in responding to difficulties now facing the family as an institution.Session Six: Jesus Calls Into Service (Matt. 25:31-46). Helps readers understand that Jesus calls and meets people through their serving others.Session Seven: Jesus Calls Through Others (Acts 10). Helps readers see that the call of Jesus can come through other people, both inside and outside the church.Session Eight: Jesus Calls Into Mission (Matt. 28:16-20). Helps readers understand the Great Commission as both a calling and a sending into witness and service.

"Mission" has become, for many North American Christians, an ambiguous and often uncomfortable term. To many it brings to mind a past in which western culture was identified with the gospel in missionary practice and programs. Distressed with this history and uncertain about how to overcome it, many prefer to ignore the New Testament mandate that the church must be in mission if it is to be the church. Others swing the other way, declaring that everything the church does is mission, depriving the idea of mission of its power to define those specific actions of God which proclaim the gospel and build God's kingdom.

At the heart of this book lie two key ideas: First, you can't give what you don't have. It is imperative that pastors keep close to their call, close to their mission, and close to God. In other words, leaders must take care of themselves before they can do anything for anyone else. And second, the ministry of pastors is not to fulfill all the tasks of ministry themselves, but rather to equip others for their own ministry. This book is not for those who want "ministry as usual." Rather, it is for those who want to rediscover that primal, original moment with God that left them feeling as if they could change the world--or for those who want to discover that call for the first time. For such seekers, this book can serve as a guide along their journey.

Change the World Postcard (Package of 25)

Prepares Christian congregations to fulfill their basic function - to make disciples who make a difference for Jesus Christ. This book is about helping "stuck" and "unstuck" churches either become unstuck or constantly improve their ministry of making disciples. This book is designed to help church leaders make profound changes in the way they do ministry or constantly practice methodological innovation/improvement to be effective in creating disciples in their churches.

This riveting conclusion of Grace Winslow’s fight for freedom carries her from England to America’s Deep South. After learning that her husband, Cabeto, is on a South Carolina plantation, Grace dons a sailor’s disguise and boards the only ship headed for America—a detestable slave ship. When her secret is discovered, Grace is locked up in the hold.

In South Carolina, Grace is bought immediately, but soon sold to a man who is not a slave keeper. Moved by her story of perseverance and faith, John Hull makes Grace’s mission his own. Grace now has a dear brother in Christ to help her, but a restored sense of hope does not mean the path to finding Cabeto will be clear—or free of trouble . . .

In Not Your Parents' Offering Plate, Clif Christopher challenged churches and pastors to take a lesson from the leaders of not-for-profit organizations: if you want people to give to your church, first offer them a compelling vision of the good that their giving will accomplish. The book encouraged an entire culture change for many in the Christian community in how they viewed the offering plate. It also unleashed a barrage of questions on specifically how to create this new culture while maintaining the foundations of one's faith tradition and mission.

Celtic Christianity—the form of Christian faith that flourished among the people of Ireland during the Middle Ages—has gained a great deal of attention lately. George G. Hunter III points out that, while the attention paid to the Celtic Christians is well deserved, much of it fails to recognize the true genius of this ancient form of Christianity. What many contemporary Christians do not realize is that Celtic Christianity was one of the most successfully evangelistic branches of the church in history. The Celtic church converted Ireland from paganism to Christianity in a remarkably short period, and then proceeded to send missionaries throughout Europe.

North America is today in the same situation as the environment in which the early Celtic preachers found their mission fields: unfamiliar with the Christian message, yet spiritually seeking and open to a vibrant new faith. If we are to spread the gospel in this culture of secular seekers, we would do well to learn from the Celts. Their ability to work with the beliefs of those they evangelized, to adapt worship and church life to the indigenous patterns they encountered, remains unparalleled in Christian history. If we are to succeed in “reaching the West . . . again,” then we must begin by learning from these powerful witnesses to the saving love of Jesus Christ.

Throughout his life, William Booth sought to minister to the least, the last, and the lost. Booth, together with his wife Catherine, founded and organized the world-wide mission that is still known as The Salvation Army. Booth's focus on the poor and marginalized comes directly from his theological convictions and his relationship with the Methodist movement in Great Britain, particularly his understanding of John Wesley's doctrine of sanctification and emphasis on social activism. This grounding was the matrix from which Booth transformed his world.

Christian mission takes place today in the context of a pluralistic world, one in which the adherents of the various religious traditions are increasingly aware of and in dialogue with one another. What is needed now, argues Thangaraj, is an understanding of Christian mission that has for its starting point a moral imperative shared by all the world's religions. The author finds this common task in what he calls the mission of humanity: those obligations to one another and the world which all humans share. For Christians the common task will be a cruciform one; it will display the self-sacrifice and vulnerability of the cross, rather than the grasping after power and influence of the world. It will be a liberative reality, marked by the gospel's concern for the poor and oppressed. Finally, the mission of humanity will be for Christians eschatological in nature, formed by a vision of the fullness of the reign of God which is both present now and yet to come. Having established this specifically Christian interpretation of the common task, Thangaraj goes on to ask how it can inform our reading of Scripture and our understanding of Christian missions, and how it can motivate Christian congregations for mission today.

The Sudan Project helps make children aware of the devastating effects of poverty and war in Sudan, as well as the suffering of Darfur’s people. As current as today’s headlines, this significant work seeks to stir the conscience of an awakening America. The book focuses on the plight of the people of Darfur and encourages hope that they can flourish through the help readers can provide. Such organizations as the United Nations and UMCOR are working to provide relief to this forgotten region. For ages 9–12.

Based on the experiences of The Sudan Project mission by Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church in Tipp City, OH, The Sudan Project has raised over $1.6 million for Darfur relief since 2004. A portion of the proceeds from this book go to help the people of Sudan through The Sudan Project. For more information, visit The Sudan Project.

This work surveys the development of the kingdom of God theme in the Old Testament and demonstrates how it reveals God's mission in creation, Israel, and among the nations. The authors then turn to the fulfillment of the kingdom through Jesus' ministry and the continuing work of the Holy Spirit.

This engaging study provides a new way of looking at Scripture--one that takes seriously the biblical idea of mission. Richard Bauckham shows how God identifies himself with particular individuals or people in human history in order to be known by all. He is the God of Abraham, Israel, and David and, finally, the one who acts through Jesus Christ.

Bauckham applies these insights to the contemporary scene, encouraging those involved in mission to be sensitive to postmodern concerns about globalization while at the same time emphasizing the uniqueness of Christian faith. In doing so, he demonstrates the diversity of Christian faith around the world. This book will be rewarding reading for pastors, lay readers, and students of Scripture, mission, and postmodernism.

"An unprecedented mix of pentecostal theology and mission practice, virtually a manifesto for pentecostal missions in the nineties. . . . The fullest and finest missiological treatise originating within classical Pentecostalism available."--Russell P. Spittler

The Changing Face of World Missions, the second volume in the Encountering Mission series, identifies and interacts with twelve significant trends that today's student of missions needs to understand. These trends include globalization, changing demographics, the shift from modernity to postmodernity, the shift from Christendom to global Christianity, changing motivations for missions, the impact of new technologies, and the issue of contextualization. The text is enhanced by numerous sidebars and case studies to foster individual and group reflection and discussion.

Given the unique religious climate of the twenty-first century and the challenges to Christian mission it poses, Christianity Encountering World Religions proposes a new, albeit very biblical, model for mission. Specifically, it is a model for interacting with people of other faiths. The authors term this model "giftive mission," as it is based on the metaphor of free gift. They suggest that seeing mission activity through the lens of giving the greatest gift possible--the gospel message--not only has the potential for greater missionary success but also enables us to imitate more closely God's gracious activity in the world.

This volume comprises an excellent introductory survey of Christian missions from A.D. 30 to the twentieth century.

What was the extent and nature of Jewish proselytizing activity amongst non-Jews in Palestine and the Greco-Roman diaspora leading up to and during the beginnings of the Christian era? Was there a clear missional direction? How did Second-Temple Judaism recruit converts and gain sympathizers? This book strives to address these questions, representing an update of the discussion while also breaking new ground. A "source book" of key texts is provided at the end.

A generation of students preparing for intercultural mission work has relied on the classic text Life and Work on the Mission Field by J. Herbert Kane, a guide to the practicalities of missionary life. Encountering Missionary Life and Work, a new volume in the award-winning Encountering Mission series, seeks to build on Kane's work and provide practical guidance for a new generation of twenty-first-century missionaries. The authors are well qualified to write such a manual, each having served on the mission field for more than twenty years and each having taught missions at the seminary level.

This fresh, comprehensive text fills a need for an up-to-date theology of mission. The authors, who are leading mission experts, discuss biblical theology of mission, provide historical overviews of the development of various viewpoints, and address current theological issues in global mission from an evangelical perspective. They offer creative approaches to answering some of the most pressing questions in theology of mission and missionary practice today.

Readable yet thorough, Encountering Theology of Mission integrates current views of the kingdom of God and holistic mission with traditional views of evangelism and church planting. It also brings theology of mission into conversation with ecclesiology. Topics covered include contextualization, the missionary vocation, church and mission, and theology of religions. Sidebars and case studies enable readers to see how theology of mission touches real-life mission practice. This unique text will benefit mission leaders, missionaries, and professors and students.

Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture presents a biblical, Christian worldview for the emergent church--people who are not at home in the traditional church or in the secular world. As exiles of both, they must create their own worldview that integrates their Christian beliefs with the contemporary world. Exiles seeks to integrate all aspects of life and decision-making and to develop the characteristics of a Christian life lived intentionally within emerging (postmodern) culture. It presents a plea for a dynamic, life-affirming, robust Christian faith that can be lived successfully in the post-Christian world of twenty-first century Western society. This book will present a Christian lifestyle that can be lived in non-religious categories and be attractive to not-yet Christians.

In his bestselling missional book The Forgotten Ways, internationally known missional church expert Alan Hirsch offered a vision for the future growth of the church coming about by harnessing the power of the early church. Now The Forgotten Ways Handbook moves beyond theory to practice, offering ways for any missionally minded person to apply the ideas contained in The Forgotten Ways to their life and ministry.

This intensely practical handbook includes many helpful tools: summary sections encapsulating the ideas contained in each chapter in a popular way; suggested practices to help readers embed missional paradigms concretely; and adult learning-based techniques and examples from other churches and organizations that enable readers to process and assimilate the ideas in a group context.

How did the number of Christians in the world grow from as few as 25,000 one hundred years after Christ's death to up to 20 million in AD 310? How did the Chinese underground church grow from 2 million to over 100 million in sixty years despite considerable opposition? In The Forgotten Ways, Alan Hirsch reveals the paradigmatic insights he discovered as he delved into those questions. He then translates these findings into the context of the contemporary Western church.

The author advocates a closer identification between the local congregation and the universal church. He works through the realities of church life and denominational organizations before challenging church leaders to redefine ecclesiology.

A tightly woven and highly developed Pauline theology of mission and evangelism for college and seminary students.

Many churches in America today want to be powerful, relevant, and influential in personal and social transformation. A plethora of programs for outreach, discipleship, and spiritual disciplines are available at any bookstore and on countless websites. Yet what we need most is a renewed understanding of and commitment to the Great Commission. We assume that we already know the nature of this commission and the appropriate methods of carrying it out.

But Michael Horton contends that it too often becomes our mission instead of God's. At a time when churches are zealously engaged in creating mission statements and strategic plans, he argues that we must ask ourselves anew whether we are ambassadors, following the script we've been given, or building our own kingdoms with our own blueprint.

Pastors and church leaders will value this frank and hopeful next-step exploration of the Great Commission as a call to renewed understanding and good practice.

While the gospel is timeless truth, it enters into ever-changing and widely varied human contexts. The missionary who desires to meaningfully communicate the gospel to particular humans needs to understand people and the particular influences--social, cultural, psychological, and ecological--that shape them. Further, we must understand ourselves and the influences that have shaped us, since our own contexts influence how we understand and transmit the gospel message. Therefore, we must master not only the skill of biblical exegesis but also the skill of human exegesis. That task is the topic of this book, the summation of a lifetime of experience and thinking by a world-renowned missiologist and anthropologist, the late Paul Hiebert.

As he develops what he terms a "missional theology," Hiebert discusses differing views of contextualization, social identity and how we view "others," developments in anthropological thinking through the years, and the impact of postmodernism and globalization. Seeking to equip the reader for the task of human exegesis, he introduces a systems approach to the task of understanding cultural contexts, discusses practical and helpful research methods, and proposes the paradigm of mission as cultural mediation. Here is valuable insight for students preparing for the mission field.

Ours is a post-Christian culture, making it necessary for church leaders to think like missionaries right here at home. In Introducing the Missional Church, two leading voices in the missional movement provide an accessible introduction, explaining how the movement developed, why it's important, and how churches can become more missional.

As the first volume of the Encountering Mission series, Introducing World Missions provides a broad overview of world missions. The book is divided into five major sections. The first two provide the biblical and theological basis for missions as well as a historical survey. The following three sections consider the practical issues and contemporary challenges involved in mission work.

Missiologist Michael Frost is looking for the real Jesus--the man who didn't care what people thought, worked on the Sabbath, touched the unclean, ate with sinners, and generally contradicted what was acceptable to the leadership of his day. He's searching for the Jesus who embodies all the characteristics of the ancient tradition of the holy foolish paradigm as described and commended by Paul, the church fathers, and the medieval saints. And he finds him. . . .

Saintly fools prefer life out in the open in the secular world, intentionally make themselves conspicuous, and consistently defy rules set by society. Frost directs our minds and hearts to the greater story of Jesus. He reminds us that following the Savior is rarely safe--and that Christ will continue to redraw our blueprint of what's right and what's righteous; and will persist in calling us to take the alternative, dangerous, ridiculous road walked by wise fools down through the centuries of the church.

A much-needed and longed-for challenge to emergent, contemporary, and traditional gatherings and churches alike.

This new edition of a bestselling textbook (over 185,000 copies sold) draws on key biblical texts to demonstrate that worship is the ultimate goal of the church and that proper worship fuels missionary outreach. John Piper offers a biblical defense of God's supremacy in all things, providing readers with a sound theological foundation for missions. He examines whether Jesus is the only way to salvation and issues a passionate plea for God-centeredness in the missionary enterprise, seeking to define the scope of the task and the means for reaching "all nations." The third edition has been revised and expanded throughout and includes new material on the prosperity gospel. The book is essential reading for those involved in or preparing for missions work. It also offers enlightenment for college and seminary students, pastors, youth workers, campus ministers, and all who want to connect their labors to God's global purposes.

There is a growing body of literature about the missional church, but the word missional is often defined in competing ways with little attempt to ground it deeply in Scripture. In A Light to the Nations, Michael Goheen unpacks the missional identity of the church by tracing the role God's people are called to play in the biblical story. Goheen examines the historical, theological, and biblical foundations of missional ecclesiology, showing that the church's identity can be understood only when its role is articulated in the context of the whole biblical story--not just the New Testament. He shows that the Old Testament is essential to understanding the church's missional identity. Goheen also explores practical outworkings and implications and offers field-tested suggestions, putting Lesslie Newbigin's missionary ecclesiology to work in shaping the contemporary church. The book is written at a level easily accessible to students in missions, pastoral, worldview, and theology courses as well as pastors, church leaders, and all readers interested in the missional church.

The Ministry of the Missional Church brings together theology and organizational theory in a way that inspires biblical and theological imagination about how to let the church be the church--a Spirit-led, missional community that seeks to participate fully in God's mission in its particular place in the world.

When discussing mission it is easy to rely on the New Testament and overlook the importance of the Old Testament. Walter Kaiser corrects this tendency by focusing on the missiological importance of the Old Testament and explaining its missionary message.

Kaiser questions the notion that the New Testament represents a deviation from God's supposed intention to save only the Israelites. He argues that--contrary to popular opinion--the older Testament does not reinforce an exclusive redemptive plan. Instead, it emphasizes a common human condition and God's original and continuing concern for all humanity. Mission in the Old Testament shows that the Israelites' mission was always to actively spread to Gentiles the Good News of the promised Messiah.

Pastors, missionaries, professors, students, and everyone interested in mission will find this accessible text enlightening and informative. Tools such as indexes, glossary, and bibliography contribute to the usefulness of this book.

Walter Kaiser questions the notion that the New Testament represents a deviation from God's supposed intention to save only the Israelites. He argues that--contrary to popular opinion--the older Testament does not reinforce an exclusive redemptive plan. Instead, it emphasizes a common human condition and God's original and continuing concern for all humanity. Kaiser shows that the Israelites' mission was always to actively spread to gentiles the Good News of the promised Messiah. This new edition adds two new chapters, freshens material throughout, expands the bibliography, and includes study questions.

For the past thirty years mission theology has taken a backseat to mission practice. Recently, however, people of all theological stripes have begun to reexamine the theological presuppositions that underlie the mission enterprise. In Mission on the Way Charles Van Engen masterfully articulates the contours of mission theology.

The missional church movement is a sign that we increasingly feel the call to impact our communities, which is a good thing. But, says Alan J. Roxburgh, these conversations still prioritize church success over mission--i.e., how can being missional grow my church? But to focus on such questions misses the point.

Missional calls you to reenter your neighborhood and community to discover what the Spirit is doing there--to start with God's mission--and join in, shaping your local church around that mission. With inspiring true stories and a solid biblical base, this is a book that will change lives and communities as its message is lived out.

In this book, two leading ministry experts place the missional church conversation in historical perspective and offer fresh insights for its further development. They begin by providing a helpful review of the genesis of the missional church and offering an insightful critique of the Gospel and Our Culture Network's seminal book Missional Church, which set the conversation in motion. They map the diverse paths this discussion has taken over the past decade, identifying four primary branches and ten sub-branches of the conversation and placing over one hundred published titles and websites into this framework. The authors then utilize recent developments in biblical and theological perspectives to strengthen and extend the conversation about missional theology, the church's interaction with culture and cultures, and church organization and leadership in relation to the formation of believers as disciples. Professors, students, and church leaders will value this comprehensive overview of the missional movement. It includes a foreword by Alan J. Roxburgh.

Did Paul urge Christians to engage in mission? What would that have meant in his setting? What should the church be doing now? This essential study examines Paul's letter to the Philippians in its ancient Jewish context, making a convincing case that Paul expected churches to continue the work of spreading the gospel. Published in hardcover by Brill in Supplements to Novum Testamentum, it is now available as an affordable paperback.

In recent years, a new form of Messianic Judaism has emerged that has the potential to serve as a bridge between Jews and Christians. Giving voice to this movement, Mark Kinzer makes a case for nonsupersessionist Christianity. He argues that the election of Israel is irrevocable, that Messianic Jews should honor the covenantal obligations of Israel, and that rabbinic Judaism should be viewed as a movement employed by God to preserve the distinctive calling of the Jewish people.

Though this book will be of interest to Jewish readers, it is written primarily for Christians who recognize the need for a constructive relationship to the Jewish people that neither denies the role of Jesus the Messiah nor diminishes the importance of God's covenant with the Jews.

You have concern for others. You want to be involved in solutions. You want to live your life for Jesus. You want to be a missional Christian. But what does that really mean? How can you live out God's mission in the world, right here, right now?

In this inspiring yet practical book, Alan Hirsch and Lance Ford show you how to live missionally regardless of your situation, vocation, or location. Touching on issues of discipleship, spirituality, and church at every level of experience, Right Here, Right Now calls you to be the person God has made you to be.

While most missionary biographies detail the lives of Western missionaries, this is the story of the African missionary that God called to the United States when slavery and segregation were a way of life. Previously published under the title The March of Faith, this book details the moving life story of Samuel Morris.

After a miraculous escape from certain death during the ravages of intertribal warfare in Liberia, Africa, Kaboo was converted to Christ by Methodist missionaries and baptized under the name Samuel Morris. Traveling to America for pastoral training in the late 1880's, his trip was a missionary voyage in itself when several seamen were lead to Christ through his godly life. At Taylor University his example of faith made him a leader among the students and a challenge to the faulty.

An unforgettable biography which shows Christ's love felling all racial barriers.

Sent and Gathered examines worship in church settings around the globe, describing the growing liturgical convergence and providing practical principles for shaping liturgies that are missionally focused, creative, theologically congruent, and appropriate to local contexts. The book broadens current ecumenical worship conversations, reveals insights drawn from the church at worship in the world, and argues for a common understanding of a theology of worship. It will appeal to students of worship and practical theology, pastors, and worship leaders.

In reviewing the first edition of Transforming Culture Roger Dixon wrote, "Every once in awhile, a book appears which has the potential to change one's life and work. Transforming Culture is one of those books." Now Sherwood Lingenfelter offers an updated version of this important manual for cross-cultural workers.

Lingenfelter sets out a model for understanding the workings of a society and then applies this model to conflicts missionaries and nationals often face over economic and social issues, such as property, labor and productivity, generosity and exchange, and authority in the family and community. Utilizing a plethora of case studies and personal anecdotes, he identifies the root of the conflicts and contradictory assumptions that make it difficult for missionaries and nationals to work together, and guides readers to solutions for transforming culture.

The author explains that the cross-cultural worker--evangelist, church planter, teacher, nurse, community developer, linguist, literacy worker, translator--will discover the social roots of interpersonal conflict endemic to living and working with people of different cultural and social heritages. When we carefully examine ourselves, we shall be forced to admit that, more often than not, we conform theology to practice; we perceive the kingdom of God on earth in our own cultural terms.

The author has made the second edition more accessible than the first by clarifying concepts, adding case studies, and reducing the book's length.

In this provocative and compelling book, internationally known missiologists Alan and Debra Hirsch cast a dynamic vision of mission-shaped discipleship. Untamed exposes the idolatrous clutter that fills our lives and seeks to recapture what it means to be authentic followers of Jesus. Each chapter ends with suggested practices to help you start living out the book's principles, as well as questions for group discussion.

The first comprehensive, one-volume reference work to consider the history of world missions and contemporary study of the subject from an evangelical perspective.

Most of Paul's letters were written in the context of conflict with trouble-making opponents, but scholars disagree as to who those opponents were. Years ago F. C. Baur suggested that two competing missions--one headed by Paul, the other by James, Peter, and John--sent out a series of emissaries to win converts to the Christian faith. In "Paul and the Competing Mission in Corinth "Michael Goulder has examined Paul's conflict with the counter-missionaries, especially as reflected in the Corinthian Letters, and has put a new spin on Baur's theory. In this book, which is the culmination of decades of work, Goulder has painted a simple and convincing picture of the relationship between the mission of Paul and that of the counter-missionaries, whom he identifies as those evangelists sent by the "pillars" in Jerusalem. Goulder presents carefully assembled evidence in order to advance our picture of the early church and Paul's place in it. His two-missions hypothesis amounts to a comprehensive theory of the origins of Christianity and the New Testament.

* Nobody can teach you how to give yourself to the Lord. 2 Corinthians 8:5 "And this they did, not as we hoped, but first gave their own selves to the Lord, and unto us by the will of God."

* Nobody can teach you how to prefer Christ above all things. Luke 14:26-27 "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple".

* Nobody can teach you how to joyfully suffer for Christ. Hebrews 10:34. "For ye had compassion for me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and enduring substance".

* Nobody can teach you how to forsake all for Christ. Luke 5:11. "And when they had brought their ships to land, they forsook all, and followed him."

Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer. Psalm 19:14 (KJV). These verses are Gods messages to you through me. I hope that they will inspire, instruct, direct, encourage and enlighten you. God has spoken to me in strange places and odd times and told me to write. For example; Almost Home was written while I was on a bus going to Indianapolis, Indiana to visit my daughter. As I entered the city, the Lord spoke to me and said, “Write.” Then He began to tell me what to write.

The History of the China Mission of the Adorers of the Blood of Christ, 1933-1945

Created For God’s Mission, is a prophetic call for the church to return to the mission going constitution of Christianity. Local churches must re-image faith and ministry in order to reach an age vastly different than the world of our forebears in the faith. The times have changed, but the Great Commission remains the same. The weakened condition among many local churches stems from a failure to understand and incarnate its basic God-given mission.

According to Dr. Clarke, “Many churches need more than a tune-up, but rather a major overhaul: the oil of ministry has not been changed in decades, corrosive rust is eating away at the missional infrastructure, the gospel tires are suffering from dry rot, the gas tanks of worship are empty, the teaching gears are slipping, and the engine of leadership is out of COMMISSION.”

Jesus commissioned the Church for mission; God’s mission! He gave the Church its purpose (Great Commission) and the power (Holy Spirit) needed to get it done! Carrying out God’s mission through congregational mission centers will foster vital, healthy, growing churches. Dr. Clarke provides practical and relevant insights beneficial for church leaders who desire to cultivate mission-oriented congregations heaven bent on transforming the world.

This book was written in the format of a letter from loving heavenly parents to God’s children here on earth. It outlines and describes twelve principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ (puzzle pieces) to assist an individual in deciphering their own personal foreordained mission in life. After numerous years of scholarly research, the authors have found that the number one question puzzling people today is: How can I find my personal mission in life? This book answers that question for all mankind. It will be especially meaningful for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons).

The storming and week-long occupation of the Embassy of Nigeria in the Philippines by students in 1986 had one purpose – to fight apathy and turn the Mission towards its true mandate of serving the interests of Nigeria. Treachery had betrayed this purpose, leaving successive Nigerian envoys ever more deadened to the care of their charges. By the early to late 1990s, four known and two probable Nigerian citizens had been assassinated in cold-blood in various cities across archipelagic Philippines, in circumstances that were questionable and suspect. The Embassy of Nigeria was headed by Charge d’Affaires a. i. Samuel I. Ajewole, a Deeper Life fundamentalist, who had abdicated his responsibilities to a criminally-inclined, skirt-chasing Head of Chancery named Femi Akenson Rotimi. Fear had gripped the Nigerian Community which started to clamor for official show of concern and interest by the Mission in these wanton violations of human rights. The embassy, hiding behind indefensible diplomatic clichés sat on its hands and did nothing. As the agitation for action mounted, the Mission resorted to intimidation and death threats against one of its citizens leading to unprecedented polarization in the small Nigerian Community. A Broken Mission is the story of Nigeria’s failed diplomacy in the Philippines, based on the two-year crusade to reform the Embassy of Nigeria, Manila, following official indifference to these murders. The book chronicles the implacable advocacy for justice and clean embassy government that sought to force an inept, abusive and corrupt diplomatic Mission headed by a rogue, scandalous diplomat to reform and serve its community with respect and sensitivity.

This book is the autobiography of Ruth Cordell, the daughter of Reverend Le Roy and Mrs. Grace Lightfoot, missionaries to India for thirteen years between 1920 and 1951. It describes, in humorous and realistic detail, the exciting and unusual experiences of Ruth’s life as a missionary’s daughter in India. Although born in the United States in 1918, she had the unique experience of growing up and going to school in primitive India in the early 1920’s. She returned to the United States to attend College in Michigan and taught school for a short time before marrying and having children. Afterwards, she returned to teaching and retired in 1980. After retiring, she and her husband enjoyed traveling in Europe, Mexico, and the USA. After his death in 1966, she continued to travel extensively and in 1997 revisited India. She now lives in Michigan where she is active in local affairs at the golden age of 90 years.

This book is about the unique educational experience of an African American segregated Catholic school in Mississippi from 1910 -1975. The school was founded and administered by nuns and priests from religious orders founded in Germany. This account focuses on the period between the 1940s to the 1960s which included a description and historical perspective of how despite the American apartheid system in operation in Mississippi at that time, one Catholic school with committed teachers and dedicated parents was successful in educating African American children.

The story recounted here is not about the despair of growing up in Mississippi but about how a quality educational experience yields great outcomes when the goals of parents, teachers and the educational programs are intertwined. The significance of this book can be found in the power of integrating sound teaching, high expectations and strong parental support. Lessons learned from this educational experience has implications for the effective education of today's African American children as well as a model of success for broader and more heterogeneous student populations.

Branded for Missions embraces more than just going to unfamiliar places and preaching. It includes being committed and having compassion for the lost, having the mind of Christ and a loving heart for people of all walks of life. Traveling and ministering to the nations can be quite a challenge when one’s luggage takes another route and one is without clothes for 2-3 days. Mary Johnson was faced with this dilemma in China and Bolivia. She shares from her experience the effects of anger and unforgiveness on the mind, body, spirit and eventually the soul. Also, when God commands you to return to the same place in less than 3 months to preach the “Birth of Christ” it is evident that He is concerned about that nation. That was His heart for Grenada, West Indies, in December 1984.

Many figures in American history - Kateri Tekakwitha, President Ulysses S. Grant, Father Pierre DeSmet, S. J. - play roles in this story of the Catholic Church and the American Indians. The central character, however, is a Benedictine missionary who has worked 65 years in North and South Dakota. Father Stanislaus Maudlin, O. S. B. recorded and wrote dozens of stories, some sad, some amusing. The book tells how five tribes held ceremonies and gave him Indian names, among them “Eagle Man.” Wintertime sick calls deep in the bush, saying Mass in a burning church, adminstering a boarding school for Indian children, searching for a phantom wolf, coping with the Indian “medicine men,” learning how to create a religious TV program, building a parish near the city dump - all are described in “Eagle Man and More Missionaries.” There are stories of missionaries, both men and women, hardworking American Indians and laypersons whose lives together form an inspiring picture of the Catholic Church in the Dakotas during the last century.

In this study we examine Jesus’s last words to His disciples in which He outlined the duties involved in making disciples and retaining those disciples. In our effort to examine these passages found in Matthew 28:18–20, Mark 16:15–18, and Luke 24:44–49, we focus on Matthew’s account and break that into sections. These passages have been dubbed the Great Commission. The various sections are examined and then put together. We look at the early disciples as a direct result of the apostles’ preaching and executing the chores as outlined in Matthew’s account of the Great Commission. In looking back at what the apostles and the early disciples did in Acts, we are able to understand why they did things the way they did and how both apostles and the early disciples submitted to God’s will and were used to accomplish God’s purposes. In the study, we conclude that without the Great Commission we cannot source our authority to make disciples or save souls. We further conclude that within the Great Commission or in executing the Great Commission we fail to make disciples or save souls if we pick and choose which part or parts of the charge to follow.

A New Breed of Supernatural Warriors. I learned that the great faith adventures I had read about in the lives of others really can happen for anyone who dares to believe God. By all appearances, I was a seemingly nothing-special individual -- reared-in-dysfunction, emotionally-scarred, and thrice-incarcerated. For all practical purposes, I was a very unlikely candidate for accomplishing much of anything for God, let alone great things. But there was a great faith adventure awaiting me; and there is one awaiting you, as well. May my story be used of God to lead you to intimacy and then identity and then faith and then healing, because that is exactly what God did for me. May it be used to enlarge your vision, causing you to think big, see big, believe big, and stretch big for Him. May it be used to ignite your passion and inspire you to greater love for the nations and a generation.

Autobiographic and inspirational story of the author's life. Detailing God's amazing grace and His divine purpose for her. God uses everyday individuals to impact our lives, some who never even realize their influence upon others. In this story you will read about several people who God used to impart His love, grace , wisdom and direction for her life. The story is told with excerpts from her father's autobiography, which gives the reader two perspectives of the events. This is a story of overcoming personal challenges and difficult circumstances by faith in God. Moving from a life of poverty and social statistical odds mounted against her, she overcomes them with the help and instruction of many people. She grows to see God's divine hand in the relationships He establishes between her and other individuals. After hearing God's voice she begins to follow Him as He leads her into divine purpose. This book will encourage you to seek God's will for your own life, which leads to experiencing the abundant life Jesus talked about in John 10:10. It is vitally important that we examine and reflect on our lives, to see the grace of God and begin to follow HIS plan and purpose. I pray this book will be an instrument which God can use to bring others into His Kingdom.

This Book is written to share Ron’s beliefs about the Cooperative Program and each individual’s responsibilities as we come together to rule autonomous local Baptist churches and cooperate with other like-minded congregations to accomplish the Great Commission and the mandate found in Acts 1.

Lord Jesus appeared to Aderonke, and told her that she has been chosen as a vessel for his kingdom. 24 years later, she came to United State and Lord Jesus visited her again. Lord Jesus ministered to her and told her to go out there to win soul for Him. During the course of her studies at CUNY Medgar Evers College, she had another encountered with Our Lord Jesus Christ. Since then, her life change. 1998 when Aderonke wanted to complete her Associate degree in Computer Application Science, something mysterious happened that night she got home. During the night, Aderonke Jaiyeoba saw a ladder that reached in front of her door. Then Angels were ascending and descending from it. The two Angels took her to Heaven. At the gate of Heaven, it was written Welcome to Heaven. One of the Angels came to the gate, brought the Gold Purple Book and gave it to Lord Jesus Christ. Lord Jesus Christ appeared to Aderonke and told the Angel to purify her and bring her back. After she returned Lord Jesus told her that there was a mission that both of them have to attend. Aderonke went on a mission with Jesus Christ, where she found herself preaching in the church, performed miracles and touched the life of many people. She is a living testimony to others and her two daughters, Esther and Sarah.

Mission in Life Part II: The Journey to Find My Dream, is a dramatic trial of winning souls for the Lord. Saving power, being born again, and life threatening situations claims many factors of this book. Being lost, stranded, and left alone only to find a friend called Jesus. Tells many miracles and blessings in part II.

This book doesn’t just tell a story, it teaches lessons.

In this continuation of healing processes the author also explains how she overcame her deadly sickness.

This story is another message of inspiration to all in the shoes of darkness, and fearsome lives.

It’s 2052, and you’re a missionary. What do you do? The same thing missionaries have always done: free individuals from the ignorance and superstition of their primitive religious beliefs...say Unitarian Universalists, for example, or New Age spiritualists...and then bring them into the light of truth. This is the task of Mica and Walt, the two young adventurers featured in Sean Gardner’s science fiction novel, Missionary.

Basing their own faith on science, specifically the fields of neurobiology and evolutionary psychology, Mica and Walt explore the world that exists after the Great Divide, a time when individuals desperate to hold onto their religious beliefs fled into urban basement cults or wilderness camps to protect themselves from the revelations of the newly-invented gawd box.

The two young missionaries are plunged into the epic battle at the heart of this divided world made up of sheep, dedicated to the old ways, and lumins, who embrace the future, when Walt is shot and abducted by fundamentalists from a mountain camp near Seattle who plan to increase their numbers by forcibly converting outsiders. As Mica searches for and tries to rescue Walt, readers will discover how radically the world is going to change once the current research on what belief is and where it comes from is released to the general public.

What will you believe as you read the last pages of Missionary? Will your world ever be the same again?

The daughter of missionaries, Dorothea Chambers Blaisdell spent her childhood and early adult life in Adana, Turkey from 1900 to 1922. She witnessed the upheavals of revolutionary movements against the Ottoman Empire, the tumult in Turkey during the First World War, and the wrenching changes brought about by the establishment of the Turkish Republic. These were extraordinary times. In these memoirs, she sets these dramatic events against the warmth and intimacy of her missionary home, her girlhood friendships and dreams. We share her growth from a young girl, absorbed with her family and childhood activities, to a mature young woman of courage, charm and skill, fluently working among French, Armenian, Turkish, American and British societies as they struggled to realign their relations following the First World War. Throughout her story, one experiences two levels of existence, one the daily life of a close knit expatriate community, the other, the ever present threat of political, religious and sectarian strife.

At age sixteen Peter Wohlfelder III became an overseas missionary with the Island Missionary Society. As he sat before a board of older pastors, ministers, and missionaries, some of whom were graduates of seminaries, they were reluctant to accept him to the mission field at his young age. Dick Kay (the head missionary with the IMS for the work in the Bahamas), after working with Peter in the ministry, urged the missionary board to accept Peter as a full-time missionary. What happened next is history. This book will tell how a young teenager answered the call of the Lord on his life, how he walked into a dangerous neighborhood in the early 1970's (where the local police were afraid to go) and how lives were miraculously touched by the hand of God. Many of these young men who were gang members and drug addicts on the streets of Nassau, mightily came to the Lord, and today are pastors, ministers, and successful businessmen. One such young man who was a drug dealer in Nassau came one night to kill Peter while he was ministering on the streets, met with Peter face to face and gave his life to the Lord in an encounter that will be retold in this book. Today this man is now a leading builder and land developer in the Bahamas and several other countries, provides financing for the building of churches, and is active in a marriage ministry in his church.
This book will tell how God shook the streets of Nassau through a young teenager who reached out to those in the bondage of drugs and darkness with the light of the gospel.

This book presents a sound and practical view of the missionary world. Dr. Price leads the reader through each step, from the first urgings we feel as God begins to speak to us, to understanding God's call on our lives, and finally the essentials of getting to the field. In this process, Dr. Price insists on maintaining a healthy relationship with the home church and its leadership. This book will strengthen you, as well as deepen and challenge you as you prepare for missionary service.

This Book portrays God's calling of an Afro-American lad from the segregated Southern USA, in 1957, and elevated him and his wife, Dorothy, to become two of the most outstanding Black Pioneer Missionaries in World Missions, today! They have evangelized and planted churches in over 95 countries, and even more extensively, in the 23 countries where Christians in Action Missions has ministries.

You will experience glimpes of fifty years of the Taylor's life and ministry, beginning with Elgin's call to missions in 1957, while in the USMarines. It Moves to their service as the First Black Missionaries to Japan, 1959-64; Elgin Pastored, studied Japanese, and attended The University of Maryland, earned his BA degree, and later earned his MTh in California. Dorothy, a high school teacher, taught at Okinawa Christian School and ran the youth ministry. They transferred to Nigeria, Africa, but due to a civil war, were evacuated to London, England, where they founded a Bible College, an Evangelical Church, and directed CinA's Europe, Africa, and India Ministries for 15 years.

Returning to America,1980, they worked at the US Center for World Missions, Pasadena, CA with Dr Ralph Winters. In 1982, Elgin was elected CEO of CinA Missions International, (the only known Afro-American Director of a multi-ethnic, international, cross curtural ministry during this time).

The book closes, with the spotlight on their present involvement in Ghana, West Africa, where they lead medical/outreach teams, build churches and schools, bore fresh water wells, and hold leadership seminars.They were appointed Chief and Queen Mother in the Broang Ahafo Region by the King, Ohmahene Okatakayie Kodom IV, in 2001.

Today, they are blessed with much remaining fruit, in both the low places of the streets, to the palaces of Kings, to God be the Glory!

This revolutionary book will help people to have a better understanding of Matthew 28:20, It will also support and elevate your natural and spiritual education, spiritual revelation, acrostic communication and to share the blessings of the LORD.

To convey a synopsis of the subject matter is not a simple thing to achieve,at least for me.The theme of commission in itself is a topic that implies authority and a chain of command.A commission is a mandate,a task,an authorization,or even a permit to accomplish a specific job on behalf of a higher authority.

The commission of the church is a mission that has been given to God's people to attain as an individual body as well as a corporate body.God's people must understand what the purpose for their existence really is.

This book embarks on a quest to simplify every aspect of the purpose and the mission of the body of Christ,answering such questions as:(1)What is your reasonable service as an individual in the corporate body of Christ? (2)What does it really mean to be part of the Church? (3)What is the relationship between the Head and the body? All of these questions and more will be broken down to its simplest expression.

An ordinary man found that serving a great God is always a rewarding life. He saw lives changed from the bondage and hopelessness of sin to lives of great victory and peace. His calling took him to dangerous places where he faced wolves, bandits, guns, bombs, and even being lost in the mountains at night. He faced poverty, famine, and the death of many loved ones, and he found that God was sufficient for each day. This man was Knute Hjalmar Ekblad, missionary to North China in the early 1900's. His faith in his great God is contagious to any reader.

Christian mission has been linked for good and ill with colonialism. But what is its relation to postcolonialism, to a world which has gone 'beyond empire' but has not necessarily fully taken into account its colonial past? Postcolonialism offers a lens through which we can re-read Scripture and re-view the history of our times. Topics such as migration, the fate of indigenous peoples, hybridity, the postcolonial city, development, and many more, come into focus in this book. The discussion then leads naturally to a fresh expression of the nature of the Kingdom of God and the mission of the church.

"Can You See Me Now?", is the question that men will ask their church community, spouses, children, and even the world after applying these three components: Mission, Fellowship, and Evangelism to their spiritual development.

If no one can see you developing as a Christian man; then you probably can't see yourself developing either.

If you ask the question "Can You See Me Now?"; What would the response be?

The book is a legard of how my life went from being a nobody to being a somebody just because I obey the lord.

Mrs. Dalley's book is the kind of reading you can't put off until later. After she retired, she was called by God into the mission field, and her writing puts you in the field with her. You share her tears, her joys, her faith, and the laughter. Alene traveled the world, but not to the usual comfortable tourist locations the countries had to offer. She ventured into the lives of the common people where she might share the love of Jesus and provide hope where there was despair. She shared their simple lives, often sleeping in her bag on the ground or a cot, and giving up the comforts we take for granted. She was confronted by obstacles which only prayer could overcome. If you've ever considered serving God in a similar manner, this is the book for you.

Alene Dalley writes, "There are many different types of mission trips. There are also many different kinds of accomodations. For those of you who are not as adventurous or like the comforts of home, there are mission trips for you, too. The stories in this book are true experiences on the mission field. I pray that you will enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed living them."

Receiving Your Inheritance by Obeying God's Commandments through Submission to Christ Jesus

A Guide to Missions. This book was written for the main purpose of assisting every believer in the Gospel of Jesus Christ to obey His command to share the gospel. If every person who calls him or herself a christian does not share their faith in Christ and encourage others to accept the Way of salvation and avoid hell, then what response will they give to God when they face Him? If Christ the light is truly in us, then it needs to be uncovered and reflecting, to stop others from losing their way.

We the believers must prove that we have reached the desired spiritual destination, the throne of the Most High God and that because we share the Love He Has for the world, it will be demonstrated by walking it and talking it.