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When the Church Isn’t so Welcoming
Lamin Sanneh, the African theologian who would be pivotal in the development of missional theology, was raised in an orthodox Muslim household in Gambia. He found himself drawn to Christianity after e... -
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The Shock-Value of Attending American MegaChurches for Third-World Missionary Kids
A missionary family who has started organic churches in some of the most dangerous fields in the world once returned to the states for furlough. On the first Sunday back, they visited a large Baptist ... -
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Today, unlike almost any other earlier period, the money and the strong educational institutions of Christianity are in one part of the world, while a majority of the active believers are located else... -
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A Review of "The Minority Experience" by Adrian Pei
Editors Note: This is perhaps less a review as a jumping off part to articulate some thoughts I developed while reading The Minority Experience. For a full review of the title, a cursory google search... -
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Christ is not American. The church is global. Our neighbors are all of humanity. The national anthem is not a gospel song. -
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Leader: Arise! Shine! Christ’s Church
Leader: Arise! Shine! Christ’s Church has assembled. People: We are one body, with Christ as our head. Leader: What kind of body is this? People: The Body of Christ, brought together not by huma... -
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One of the gravest dangers to the Christian faith
One of the gravest dangers to the Christian faith is its wholesale appropriation of the larger culture. When this happens, the citizens of those places cannot recognize the difference between their cu... -
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The more I understand people and their needs, the more I am persuaded that God has uniquely designed the local church to respond to those needs. -
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The World in which Jesus Lived
The world of Jesus was not the Old Testament Hebrew world. Like the United States now, Israel was multicultural, including a combination of Aramaic, Greek, and Roman influences. The people looked Jewi... -
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A Field of Chaff & Wheat Growing up Together
The Church is not a clean, well-lit place where everything runs smoothly and actions automatically match ideals. It is, in the words of the Gospel, a field of chaff and wheat growing up together and b... -
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In most cases, the existing church culture is from a former era that is only meaningful to those in the church, not those in the community. -
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No Native Country
The Gospel as such has no native country. He who goes out humbly with Christ in the world of all races will perpetually discover the multiple, but constant, relevance of what he takes. It takes a whol... -
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One of [Lamin] Sanneh's key arguments is that while the spread of Islam has drawn ever-increasing numbers to the globalizing influence of Arabic, the spread of Christianity binds ever-increasing n... -
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Prayer for Equity
Mighty One In your justice In your mercy bring equity to your world raise up all who suffer from discrimination break the rod of oppression and prejudice free us from our addiction to violence and d... -
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The church is the bearer of a message to all nations: that in Jesus Christ God has acted decisively for the salvation of the world. -
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An Unlikely Story of Redemption
David (Yonggi) Cho would go on to lead what is recognized as the largest church in the world (the Yoido Full Gospel Church), but his spiritual journey began far from Christianity. Raised as a Buddhist... -
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Creating Christian Consumers
I’ve served on staff at a few different churches throughout Silicon Valley for the last decade and a half, including a medium-sized church, a young church plant, and a multisite megachurch. At each, w... -
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A Jubilee Church
From the outside Calvary Church in Holland, Michigan, looks like a typical large church that many Americans attend. The church developed the typical way: it started small and then began to grow. As th... -
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We would like a church that again asserts that God, not nations, rules the world, that the boundaries of God's kingdom transcend those of Caesar, and that the main political task of the church is ... -
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By failing to come to grips with how cultural dysfunctions deeply impact the health of the church, our leaders will continue to fail to discern an essential reality concerning the nature of change: Cu... -
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Adapted from Isaiah 56
Leader: Thus says the Lord: "Maintain justice, and do what is right, for soon My salvation will come, and My deliverance will be revealed. People: "To those who keep My sabbath, who choose... -
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The United States is Like Samaria
The United States retains a basic respect for religion though it may be following European trends: surveys show a steady rise in the “nones” (now one-third of those under the age of thirty), that is, ... -
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40 Million People Dechurched in 25 Years
[R]eliable quantitative research around this has brought some helpful insights to light. Jim Davis, Michael Graham, and Ryan Burge have released the largest study ever done on dechurching in America i... -
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As God’s chosen ones, beloved sons
Pastor: As God’s chosen ones, beloved sons and daughters of God, hearts cleansed by Jesus’ blood, let us pray for the Church, for the world, and for all people according to their needs. Heavenly ... -
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Blessings and Peace in Christ
Pastor: Now to God’s elect, exiles scattered throughout (insert your community) and the surrounding communities, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sa... -
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God Dislikes Uniformity
The South African politician Nic Diederichs—a prominent leader during the apartheid era—once made a rather provocative observation: God, he said, dislikes deadly uniformity. I hate to admit that I lik... -
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A Kingdom of Priests
When the Hebrews, recently enslaved but now free, were gathered at Sinai to begin their formation as a free people, God spoke the words that defined them over against their four centuries of slavery i... -
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God’s grace is present in all people and cultures. As we submit ourselves to learning from other cultures, we catch glimpses of God’s grace that would be unavailable in our own culture. -
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Saving Souls Without Discipling?
I had just finished presenting much of the material in this chapter [on the role of the Church helping the poor] to an audience in Africa. A very tall and muscular African man in the audience approach... -
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The most resilient of Christians are, in addition to their church engagement, also active in the world where God has placed them; they deeply concern themselves with poverty; they work to reverse inju...
![One of [Lamin] Sanneh's key arguments](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1634128221889-82ed6efebfc3?ixid=M3w1NzU0OTZ8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHwxfHxsYW5ndWFnZXxlbnwwfDB8fHwxNzEzMjc2NzUwfDA&ixlib=rb-4.0.3&q=80&auto=compress&fit=crop&w=200&h=200)
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