Review
REACHING THE WORLD IN OUR OWN BACKYARD:
A guide to building relationships with people of
other faiths and culture
Rajendra K. Pillai.
Colorado Springs, Colorado: Water Brook Press, 2003
Reviewed By Rev. Dr. Elwin Johnson Rethinasamy
Mission Developer and Consultant,
South Asian Ministries,
Atlantic District- Lutheran Church
Missouri Synod, NY, USA
Published in Global
Missiology, Review & Preview, April 2005, www.globalmissiology.net
Lately, I have been asked by several pastors,
mission executives, mission and ministry facilitators, deacons,
deaconesses and congregational lay leaders about any available resources in learning about and reaching out to people of other
faiths and cultures. As an indigenous missionary
here in Unites States, so far, my answer has been very limited. Now, as an
answer to the prayers, this book is
God sent to the churches in northern hemisphere in knowing about the god sending gifts of various people groups coming
over here in US.
Rajendra K. Pillai a management consultant in
global economic development, born in India, presently based in Clarksburg, Maryland is engaged in developing and
encouraging Christian writers
globally. His management solutions concept is involved in conducting corporate
trainings in cross-cultural and
management issues for many organizations including USDA and FBI. He has written this book with a foreword by Ted
Haggard.
The first part of this book is preparing the reader
to check her/his cultural quotient. It is full of information towards preparing the reader on
various cultural and religious issues in North America. Chapters in this part present the different phases and faces in
the ‘land of opportunities’ in reaching the world with the Gospel in our own
backyards! Pillai very well put this in his own style by writing, “ People from other religions and cultures now live,
study, and work among us. They are
America’s most overlooked mission field.” Pillai excellently opens up the
general derogatory attitude of the homogeneous
society towards the uprising of heterogeneous society. However, his advice is to make use of this ‘American melting
pot’ as God’s compliment to the
church to reach out to the new comers.
The second part is a free passport and visa to
visit almost all the countries without leaving our reading table. It is a brief package of languages,
life styles, food and religious practices of every region in the world. It also
helps us to understand what kind of people are living in our backyards and it helps us to approach them with the Gospel
in a non-threatening setting. In other words,
this
part is a miniature of Patrick Johnston’s Operation World with special emphasis
to evangelism tools in reaching out to our neighbor.
The third part is comprised of
interacting tools and guidelines in presenting the Gospel to people of
other religions. It can be considered a ‘cook book’ for presenting the Gospel.
The ‘recipes’ are very ‘tasty’ but the results may vary according the work of
the Holy Spirit. Religious information and
comparisons, on Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and other religions, their
offices in
