My Pilgrimage
It has been about half a century since I joined the Athletes in Action Weightlifting Team of Campus Crusade for Christ. After that came marriage, seminary, and graduate school.
In 1983 I began a 35 year ministry in higher education. I was a seminary and university library director and for a short time a seminary vice president. In the mid 1980s I went to a conference where John Stott outlined his vision for how the church should respond to the movement of God’s Spirit across the globe.
Revival in the South and East
In the 2000 years since Pentecost the Gospel has spread from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the ends of the world via the Mediterranean Basin, Europe, North America and beyond.
In the last 50 years the Gospel has moved south and east in a great revival. There are more Anglicans attending church in Nigeria than the United Kingdom, more Methodists ministering in Africa than North America. The associations and denominations I have been associated with have more churches outside the United States than inside. The schools I’ve worked at have a growing number of students attending via technologies non-existent when I started. Those who have not adapted in their attitudes, ministries and giving have faded or no longer exist.
The links below will keep you informed about the patterns of this revival.
Local Preacher, You Need the Global Church
The article summaries the vision of John Stott and how a preacher can benefit from the perspective of pastors from other cultures.
Reflections on the Fourth Lausanne Congress: Declaring and Displaying Christ Together
Excellent strategy summary for our churches as we seek to fulfill Jesus’ Great Commission.
Highlights from the Seoul Statement at Lausanne 2024
These decision or emphasis are a clear summary of issues we face and goals that we have.
5 Tensions in Missions Your Church Should Navigate
This is a clear discussion of issues that each church must address as its plans to be effective in global outreach.
4 Themes in Lausanne’s ‘State of the Great Commission’
These 4 themes accurately build on where the church is today, its strengths, weaknesses and needs.
East Africa: Future Face of the Global Church
An African pastor reflects on the strengths and weakness of the African church and proposes a future agenda for the Christians of this region.
Books From the Majority World
South Asia Bible Commentary: A One-Volume Commentary on the Whole Bible
Africa Bible Commentary: A One-Volume Commentary Written by 70 African Scholars
South Asia Bible Commentary: A One-Volume Commentary on the Whole Bible
Central and Eastern European Bible Commentary
I find one-volume commentaries very helpful in getting the perspective of a group of authors. I will acquire these soon.
Asia Bible Commentary | ABC (20 vols.)
I will read one of these volume soon. I visited the church and seminary in Korea led by the of the editors, David Kim, and was very impressed with their vision, program and faculty.
These commentaries range from book level studies to a volume specializing on Romans 9-11.
What should we do?
Read some of these book about this movement of God’s Spirit or books from different perspectives.
I recommend Samuel Waje Kunhiyop. African Christian Ethics. I have read this often and have used it as a seminary textbook with a multicultural student body. He is a leader in ECWA (Evangelical Church of West Africa) in Nigeria in church ministry and higher education. He was a student of mine at Western Seminary and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. The news I receive from him is always exciting and stimulates my prayers..
I recently read this volume on Jeremiah from an African perspective. Reading Jeremiah in Africa: Biblical Essays in Sociopolitical Imagination by Bungishabaku Katho. Very helpful.
If we teach or serve in an academic institution we can recommend some of these volumes for our libraries.
Some of them might be helpful in our church libraries and we might even recommend these to our public libraries.
What am I going to do?
I have downloaded The Trinity among the Nations: The Doctrine of God in the Majority World on Kindle and plan to start it soon.
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