I used to think every believer has a working understanding of what the Gospel is and can share it simply and effectively–or at least tell the basics. However, over the years I’ve found my assumptions are incorrect. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not that Christians are dumb and can’t handle the details of the [...]
Archive | Missiology
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Blessing learner
A few years ago I was leading a newly formed house church body in Eastern Europe. On one occasion we were reading about and discussing the narrative in John 6 where Jesus feeds 5,000. Throughout our time, the discussion had been great. People seemed to be getting the truth and implications of the narrative. I [...]
Judging success differently
On their first trip to Barcelona, Spain, they stayed in the same places all day–they rode the same buses and sat at the same coffee shops for hours, day after day. “All we did really was prayerwalk,” said Mike Wall. “We’ve been doing the same thing for the past six or seven years now.” Wall [...]
Horizontal and vertical missions
Mission trips take on a variety of forms, with factors including the destination, what the inhabitants need and the capabilities of the traveling group. For many, short-term trips involve going to a Third World country to meet a fundamental necessity. Group members know beforehand what their goal is–they set out to perform and accomplish a [...]
Why the church needs to think and act like a missionary
When a Christian missionary leaves his home and enters a foreign culture in order to share the Gospel, he’s quite out of his ordinary. Nevertheless, we expect the missionary to do certain things. He should learn the local language and customs. He ought to understand the social structures, and learn to communicate the Good News [...]
Defining the Gospel
If you were to ask a room full of pastors and church planters to define the Gospel, the result may be a good conversation lasting a couple of hours. Add missionaries to the mix and you would probably have to cancel your afternoon plans. It’s not that the missionaries would disagree with the pastors/church planters [...]
Michael Frost: Separate from the world
“There are a lot of American Christian people (who) can have the idea that contact equals contamination.” “Relational capacity is what we’re trying to increase, and that increases missional effectiveness.” Join church planter, visionary and author Michael Frost with The Upstream Collective on its next Jet Set tour to Prague, Czech Republic, and Budapest, Hungary, [...]
Michael Frost: The church for whom?
“It seems to me as though churches are doing quite well at reaching a certain segment of the population that is not too far culturally from church life and culture.” “Open your eyes to who’s not being reached by us.” “… look beyond your church and the demographic that it’s fishing in and ask yourself, [...]
Michael Frost: Measuring church success
“A lot of churches, I think they’re like sequoia’s, you could chop them at the trunk and down they go. But a mustard tree—not so easy to get rid of.” “Measuring evidences of the kingdom would be more important than measuring the size of your building.” Join church planter, visionary and author Michael Frost with [...]
Michael Frost: Purpose of the Church
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