There’s some Bible passages that make us really uncomfortable. There are verses that instantly strike conviction deep into our heart. We have done what we ought not and not done what we ought. But then, there’s some other passages that seem to be speaking about an area where we sense we’ve been faithful to obey. […]
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Missions: Westerners Need Not Apply?
I am finding more and more that people like me (middle-class Americans) are considered ill-suited candidates for church-planting missions to foreign fields. I try not to take it personally (I just close my eyes and pretend it’s just sixth grade all over again and my friends are choosing me last for a baseball team – […]
Fear Plans
Heard this story before? A young man – a high school student, say – desires to serve the Lord. He wants to carry the Gospel to people without it around the world. So he talks to his parents. His parents, while happy to discover their son’s godly aspirations, caution him to earn a degree in […]
Measuring
Remember Moneyball? The story of how the Oakland A’s built a powerful baseball team by scooping up undervalued players? The central premise of their restructuring of the organization was this: teams are measuring the wrong things to determine if a player is worth their salary. By changing what they were measuring, they were able to […]
Man of the Word – Wang Ming Dao
A couple weeks back, I wrote how the Gospel seems to threaten to make Chinese people into cultural orphans. In discussing some ways to encourage Chinese people who feel that pressure, I mentioned the role that church history can play. Connecting a new Chinese believer to the history of two thousand years of preachers, missionaries, […]
Cultural Orphans
To a Chinese person, the idea of accepting the message of Christianity can produce some real anxiety. One of the main reasons for these feelings is a fear of isolation. After all, many Chinese people have no family members who are Christians, no co-workers who are Christians, no neighbors who are Christians, and no friends […]
Evangelism: How Long Does It Take?
One of the more common questions I field about ministry in mainland China is about how long it takes the average Chinese person to make a decision about the Gospel? While plenty of anecdotes might be supplied, the question remains a difficult one to answer. I do care to attempt a response, though, because questions […]
The Role of the Foreign Missionary in China
Recently I had the privilege to teach a modular course at the Our Generation Training Center in Georgia. The OGTC provides the best missionary training that I know of in the States. I personally have benefited immeasurably from the teaching and challenge of the missionary team associated with the OGTC. Whenever I meet a student […]
Ecclesioporosis
Recent generations of overseas Christian workers, especially in ‘frontier’ mission fields, have been plagued by a brittle bone ecclesiology – a lack of confidence in the church to effect change in the world. Instead, many missionaries seem to believe in a fragile, fractured church that is unable to support the weight of the body of […]
Thrill-Seekers
There’s a certain way to market the Great Commission that strikes a chord with bored twenty-somethings who are tired of college classes or are not looking forward to entering the rat race. And it goes something like… ‘Wouldn’t you like to do something meaningful with your life? Don’t waste your life in a cubicle when […]
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