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GME — 2025-01-20

Theories and Spectrums: What Pressures Do Parachurch Agencies Face Toward Losing Their Founding Missions?

Israel K. Kombaté — 2025-01-15

This article investigates seven parachurch agencies that have a holistic approach to Christian mission, specifically in order to examine how certain theories and spectrums might explain mission drift. Organizational fields theory can help identify issues relating to institutional fields while focusing on how parachurch NGOs/NPOs are moulded by institutional rules. Parachurch organizations in the field of socio-humanitarianism are coerced into achieving the agenda of secular institutions and governments rather than that of the Church. These pressures and challenges constrain Christian agencies to drift away from their original holistic mission-objectives.

Diverse Ways in which Muslim Background Believers Are Living Out I Peter 4:12-14

Víctor Hugo Cuartas — 2025-01-15

“Suffering” is a prominent motif in Peter's first letter. This article focuses on I Peter 4:12-14 and examines how Muslim background believers live out this passage. These three verses are relevant to believers of Muslim background because they face challenges like those experienced by first-century believers. The various ways in which Muslim background believers are living out I Peter 4:12-14 during difficult trials is instructive to believers from different contexts and backgrounds.

The Honor-Shame Conversation in Evangelical Missiology: Past, Present, and Future

Chris Flanders — 2025-01-15

The concepts of honor and shame, once peripheral to evangelical missiology, have become pivotal in mission practice, cross-cultural theology, and biblical interpretation. This article traces the evolution of honor-shame as a focal item of study in evangelical missiology, highlighting key moments, figures, and publications that brought these themes to prominence. Despite the growing body of resources, the conversation remains fluid, with challenges such as definitional ambiguity, overgeneralization, and a lack of cohesive frameworks. The article emphasizes the need for continued critical engagement, nuanced understanding, and integration of honor-shame perspectives into missiological training, thus ensuring these insights enrich global ministry without oversimplifying cultural dynamics.

A Mathematically Based Model of Disciple Making Movements

Chris Keener — 2025-01-15

Although many practical resources are available to encourage and facilitate Disciple Making Movements (DMM), a quantitative theoretical framework to undergird the conclusions of authors and practitioners is currently unavailable. Such a model will be useful to assist in increasing the rate at which disciples are able to multiply and could help more slowly reproducing groups of disciples to transition over time into DMM’s. We have developed a model of disciple multiplication that builds from the starting point of an individual disciple maker. This article provides conclusions and applications that are comprehensible to every practitioner, without delving into the underlying mathematics. A key conclusion comprises the twin necessities of investing significant time sowing the gospel among those who are yet far from God and of the mobilization of all (or most) disciples into the harvest (John 4:35). By focusing on disciples’ most controllable factor—prioritization of time on more receptive individuals and on existing close relationships—rates of multiplication can be doubled in most contexts. Furthermore, the model explains how different optimization strategies are needed for different contexts as average receptivity and relational connectedness vary.

Benno van den Toren and Kang-San Tan, Humble Confidence: A Model for Interfaith Apologetics

John Cheong — 2025-01-15

What is the best way to conduct apologetics in our religiously plural and globalized world today? In Humble Confidence, Van den Toren and Tan argue that “many of the dominant approaches to apologetics are ill-equipped for the cosmopolitan, multireligious, and multicultural environments in which we find ourselves today [because] Western Christian apologetics is too often insufficiently contextual [and] too insufficiently Christian.” The authors seek an apologetics that is contextually effective to engage today’s diverse environments. For Van den Toren and Tan, apologetics is an “art,” not “a science or technique but “an individual and communal journey” to understand non-Christians and their beliefs with “increasing sensitivity to particular needs and barriers” to attractively present Christ.

Sadiri Joy Tira, ed., From Womb to Tomb: Generational Missiology in the 21st Century and Beyond

Sam George — 2025-01-15

The central thrust of this volume is intergenerational missions—described as missions at the intersection of global intercultural, hybrid diasporas, and new technologies. Each generation must pass on the great heritage of faith they have inherited and avoid the mistakes of past generations. All Christian leaders must develop a lifelong perspective on leadership and be cognizant of generational discontinuities that will allow divergent styles and modes to serve God’s greater purposes for every generation. Such a posture requires leaders to honor the past, embrace change, and focus on passing the baton of vibrant faith to the future, which will be leaders’ greatest legacy.

Abeneazer G. Urga, Jessica A. Udall, and Edward L. Smither, eds., Reading 1 Peter Missiologically: The Missionary Motive, Message and Methods of 1 Peter

J. Nelson Jennings — 2025-01-15

Reading 1 Peter Missiologically follows its 2023 precursor, Reading Hebrews Missiologically. A similar volume on James is soon to follow. These volumes (and presumably others like them to come) are intended to fill the gap left by New Testament missiological scholarship’s oversight of the general epistles.

Lalsangkima Pachuau and Allan Varghese Meloottu, eds., Christians and Christianity in India Today: Historical, Theological and Missiological Assessments

J. N. Manokaran — 2025-01-15

This book is a collection of articles by different authors and edited by Lalsangkima Pachuau and Allan Varghese Meloottu. As the title states, the book is an attempt to assess the status of Christians and Christianity today. The book has 17 articles arranged in four sections: Historical Dimensions, Theological Dimensions, Social and Cultural Dimensions, and Missional Challenges. In general, Christians and Christianity in India Today is a valuable book for Christian leaders in India and those interested in India.

Aychi B. R. with Dave Coles, Living Fire: Advancing God's Kingdom in Challenging Places

Mark Naylor — 2025-01-15

Living Fire: Advancing God's Kingdom in Challenging Places presents a detailed framework for initiating and sustaining Disciple Making Movements (DMM) among Unreached People Groups (UPG) in African contexts. The work builds upon themes introduced in Aychi B. R.'s previous article “Factors that Multiply Movements” in Fruit to Harvest (2019), while offering fresh insights into movement sustainability and leadership development. The book expounds on key factors for successful disciple-making movements. It provides both biblical foundations and practical implementations, supported by real life examples.

Specific Service Rather Than Vague Religious Sentiment

J. Nelson Jennings — 2025-01-15

Christianity must not be understood as unique among religious traditions in its focus on specifics. At the same time, neither should the Christian faith be mischaracterized or brushed aside as an irrelevant panacea for next-world security or as an emotional “crutch” for the faint of heart. This issue’s articles provide examples of specific challenges faced by Christian participants in God’s mission.