In a pandemic setting, a gathering of 4,200 people from just under 200 countries sounds like a terrifyingly bad idea. We have had a whole different set of opportunities through Zoom events during lockdowns, but what have we missed? What will we lose if we do not gather as we did before all this? It …
Category: Global Church & Missions
They Are Singing Paul’s Song in South Sudan
A few years back, Caleb and I took a trip to see Christiane while she was living in East Africa. There was a lot about this trip to hold onto, but our visit to the UN Refugee Camp in Kakuma stands out. This was a first step into a world that I knew only from Hollywood …
Continue reading They Are Singing Paul’s Song in South Sudan
He was Brown, Like Me
In May of 1930, Festo Kivengere is about 10 years old and has just passed his first set of school exams. The school gifts him a copy of the Gospel of Luke and he carries it everywhere, reading while he and his friends watched the cattle under their charge. There is so much to love …
Long Term Strategy
Michael Haykin is one of my favourite Church historians and I am often encouraged and helped by what he says. Today, he posted the following call on Facebook: This kind of realization is the impetus behind our family's direction and is the reason that I am here studying in the UK. I would only add …
Global Voices: Listening with Langham
Last week I attended a fascinating online event hosted by Langham Partnership. Mark Labberton (president of Fuller Seminary and editor of Still Evangelical?) was the speaker and his topic was: Evangelicalism: Still or Not Yet? How the crisis of American (White) Evangelicalism requires the restoration of its soul by rediscovering its source and hope. An impetus …
John Stott Centenary
This is the centenary of John Stott's birth (April 27, 1921). Stott left a rich legacy of global-gospel engagement and I find myself more and more drawn to and appreciative of him. His book The Cross of Christ was a big part of my early theological development. Besides the value of the content, Stott showed …
Septuagint Day 2021: Armin Schmitt
I am putting my oar in to help celebrate Septuagint Day. Rather than explaining what the Septuagint is and why it is worth celebrating, or looking at why Septuagint Day is February 8th, I am giving you a paragraph from Armin Schmitt. I have two reasons for this. First, Schmitt was a German scholar and …
Change, Translation, & Reinvention…
For Adrian Hastings, the history of the Christian church is a story of renovation. In his introduction to A World History of Christianity, he gives this summary of the last 2,000 years: “It is a history of change and translation, of the regular reinvention of itself in new languages and regions.” So what has the church …
World Christian Consciousness
The majority of the world's Christians are Africans, Asians and Latin Americans. It is immediately obvious that this matters but it takes more work to pin down exactly how. What does it mean for us that the church is bigger and broader than we often think? One of the most helpful voices in answering this …
Why the Septuagint Matters for Missions
“Don’t you think, Dr. McGilvary, that you spoke too directly or inflexibly to your audience? But again, your audience might not have been listening to your words, but watching your magnificent long white beard!” These words are from a letter from a living to a dead missionary. Kosuke Koyama had been in Northern Thailand for six years …
Too Small A Thing 