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Has the church abdicated its responsibility for and privilege of spreading the gospel? Has this baptismal birthright been forgotten or denied out of ignorance, poor example, or even misinformation? Stephen Pickard argues that the church is called to be a community of the evangel and thus a community that seeks to embody the glad tidings of God in all of its life. He addresses two issues: the relationship of evangelism to systematic theology and the relationship of evangelism to the church. In the case of the former, he calls for a recovery of the complementary nature of theology and evangelism (the theory and practice of the gospel), discussing what this might involve and how it may benefit the church's evangelistic task. This evangelistic task is then developed further in terms of the dynamics of communication. Regarding evangelism and its relation to the church, Pickard contends that the locus for evangelism has to be the Christian community, its life of worship and discipleship in the world. But the church must be reconceived missiologically in terms of the Great Commission and as a community for the praise of God.
This book approaches the topic of contextual evangelization from the standpoint of Òthe poor, the powerless, and the opressed.Ó It is, as Orlando Costas explains, Òwritten against the backdrop of the radical evangellical tradition in dialogue with other streams of the larger ecumenical church.Ó Costas begins by exploring the biblical roots of contextual evangelization, focusing on two models. The Old Testament model is illustrated by believers like Esther, who, in her heroic liberation of her people in politically difficult circumstances, showed us how to come to the aid of those who live on the margins of society. The New Testament model is illustrated first and foremost by Christ, who showed us how to minister to the maginalized by operating from Òthe Galilean periphery.Ó On what does one base contextual evangelization? On the Trinity, which Costas defines as community, the foundation for evangelization as a Òcommunal event.Ó The substance of evangelization is Òthe apostolic message of the cross,Ó which announces God's gift of life through the suffering and death of Christ. If we believe that message, we look foreward to life in God's kingdom even as we work and pray for justice and peace. Costas accordingly views conversion not as a single event but rather as a continual transformative process that involves a passage from self-absorption to active communal commitment. Costas's creative, sound blend of evangelical commitment and enlightened social thinking recommends this book to well-informed laypeople as well as pastors, theologians, and scholars.
Every year thousands of God's servants leave the ministry convinced they are failures. Years ago, in the midst of a crisis of faith, Kent Hughes almost became one of them. But instead he and his wife Barbara turned to God's Word, determined to learn what God had to say about success and to evaluate their ministry from a biblical point of view. This book describes their journey and their liberation from the "success syndrome"-the misguided belief that success in ministry means increased numbers. In today's world it is easy to be seduced by the secular thinking that places a number on everything. But the authors teach that true success in ministry lies not in numbers but in several key areas: faithfulness, serving, loving, believing, prayer, holiness, and a Christlike attitude. Their thoughts will encourage readers who grapple with feelings of failure and lead them to a deeper, fuller understanding of success in Christian ministry. This book was originally published by Tyndale in 1987 and includes a new preface.
Liberating the Gospel is prefaced by Tom Wright's claim that Christians have for too long "read scripture with nineteenth-century eyes and sixteenth-century questions," and that it is urgently necessary they learn to read "with first-century eyes and twenty-first-century questions." The central section of the book concentrates on reading the narratives of the Galilean ministry of Jesus within their first century context, then exploring Paul's mission in the setting of the urban and imperial world of Rome, before offering reflection on the Apocalypse in the changed world following the destruction of Jerusalem. Smith then concludes his treatise facing the "twenty-first-century questions," seeking to build a hermeneutical bridge to our globalized world. As a whole, this major book on Christian mission aims to contribute toward an understanding of how the dynamic message of Christ might be liberated to be heard as genuinely good news today, in the process potentially transforming Christianity, provided there is willingness to face opposition from a world resistant to the exposure of its injustices.
Christians and communities of faith today are rediscovering evangelism as an essential aspect of the church's mission. Many of the resulting books in the marketplace, however, have a hands-on orientation, often lacking serious theological engagement and reflection. Bucking that how-to trend, The Study of Evangelism offers thirty groundbreaking essays that plumb the depths of the biblical and theological heritage of the church with reference to evangelistic practice. Helpfully organized into six categories, these broad, diverse writings lay a solid scholarly foundation for meaningful dialogue about the church's practice of evangelism.
Despite the current evangelical focus on justice work, evangelical theologians have not adequately developed a theological foundation for this activism. In this insightful resource, evangelical academics, activists, and pastors come together to survey the history and outlines of liberation theology, opening a conversation for developing a specifically evangelical view of liberation that speaks to the critical justice issues of our time.
The Church gets into trouble whenever it thinks it is in the church business rather than the Kingdom business. In the church business, people are concerned with Kingdom activities, all human behavior and everything God has made.... Church people think about how to get people into the church; Kingdom people think about how to get the church into the world.
Not a one-size-fits-all approach, this book provides the reader with healthy and clear parameters for sharing faith applicable to differing cultural contexts in today's world.
A recent statistic suggests that 15% of the churches in America are growing but only 2.2% are growing evangelistically. Much of the church in America has lost its evangelistic zeal and forgotten how to re-ignite it; this book is an attempt to light the fuse of the powder keg so that the church, long-distracted by so many things, might return to its primary mission in the world. We do not take Christ to anyone; He is already there. We go to make explicit what we see Him doing implicitly. It is not a question of whether God is at work in His world . . . Our hope is to see more of God’s people at work with Him! Learn about why we share our faith, Christ's role in our evangelism, the deep longings in all our hearts, and how to effectively live a sacramentally evangelistic lifestyle. We are offering a way of looking at life and the world that is open to God’s presence everywhere. This approach is called sacramental. And where better to experience God’s presence than in His workplace? This is the Sacrament of Evangelism.