Praise you and we bless you. Thank you for your ongoing mercy and grace towards us. We are glad to be considered among your people, to bear the name of our Lord Jesus. We pray that by your grace and mercy you will help us enable us strengthen us to be worthy of bearing that name. We know it's by your grace and mercy that you embrace us and embrace all your people. And help us as we seek to serve you to be better equipped to serve you, to honor the name of the Lord Jesus, to serve, to co-suffer with others, to learn more of how good you are. We pray for your spirits, help for your word. We again acknowledge that you are the Lord of all the earth and events, political, military, economic, religious, and otherwise. You are indeed the Lord. We're glad that you come close to all of us as we need you to. And as we each bear our particular burdens and sorrows of broken relationships or lack of food for health, whatever it might be, we're glad that you come close to us. And Lord, we offer ourselves a fresh as your servants. And we pray, use us as you will, wherever you will, however you will. In the meantime, as we're together in class, we look to you for your help and guidance in Jesus' name. Amen. Your assignment was returned to you. Always very stimulating and helpful for me to read. What you write, I gain... I do genuinely gain new insights into what I think about that. And I don't mean that in a humorous way. You put different ones of you, you put things in ways that highlight a shade or a hue that I wouldn't have thought of in that particular way. It's all I learn a great deal from reading your essays, and I deeply appreciate the thought and the hair that you all obviously put into those assignments. I tried to write some comments on each of yours as I returned to you, but let me give you a little more comprehensive listing, if you will, of what I liked, and don't like. Didn't like about this article. I listed about ten things I liked, some of them overlap slightly, but let me see if I can read my own handwriting, even as some of you are struggling to read my handwriting on your assignments. Obviously, the point that he makes about the need for contextualization versus conquest is something that we would all concur with. Secondly, I appreciated this article's historical emphasis. Early in a related way, I appreciated the contemporaneous historical accounts of what's happening in Europe and in China, and that shows a worldwide historical awareness of the author. I appreciated that. Fourthly, I appreciated his notation that the Gospel does indeed affirm and preserve cultures. Fifthly, in a related way, the Gospel does relativize cultures in relationship to each other as well. That's a theme that's come out, and I appreciated that. Sixly, in a related way, the boundary-breaking impulse of the Gospel, while not always born out in actuality, nevertheless, the Gospel's impulse to do that, is something I appreciated that he emphasized. Seventhly, I appreciated the worth of the oppressed and marginalized that was highlighted that the Gospel brings. Eighth, I appreciated the highlighting of the advance of the Gospel in the two-thirds world. City mentions. Ninth, the need for the Gospel to be brought to bear at home for all of us, and then tenth, in a related way, the self-critical posture that we all as Christian people need to have, living under the Gospel. So things I don't particularly like, a few of them. One, there is a highlighting and an over emphasis on salvation being from the margins, from the oppressed sectors of the world. Related to that, what I concur with that to a point, and agree with the way Jesus operated, and looking at history how often times the Gospel does operate within marginal places and peoples, and come out of those two others, there is related to that, and some of you pointed this out, there is an underlying sociopolitical agenda. Related to liberation theology to an extreme, in a way that overshadows and even neglects the specifically evangelical fundamental component of the Christian Gospel, which I wonder if he really acknowledges here. So I don't go with him on that. Secondly, there is here an uncritical approval, I think, of all sorts of contextualizations or inculturations, in a way that does enable or recognize or even approve of syncretism, or overall contextualization. I appreciated the way some of you put it in terms of advocating the full particularization of the Gospel and leaving out the universal aspect of the Gospel. And he offers no critical comments on the examples that he's cited, or even he doesn't really give a framework for being critical about those. And again, the Gospel does bring judgment and change, and is ever refining what the Gospel understanding should be. A couple of smaller points, he does mention Christianity's work and the power of Christianity and Christianity's contribution. He doesn't totally neglect that mission is God's mission, but perhaps he could have emphasized more the God-centered, God-originating nature of what Christian mission is all about. And you'll note that he used the word inculturation a more than he did contextualization. In fact, did he ever use the word contextualization per se? There's a fine line in a confusion between uses of word inculturation, beginning with the letter E, and inculturation beginning with the letter I. The way he uses it here I think connotes more the formulation or reformulation of the Gospel within certain settings. And I concur with that to a point so long as you allow for the wider input and the judgmental and changing aspect of the Gospel always brings in the settings. Culture is not everything. Context is not the all-inclusive umbrella. Inculturation with an I, and some of your readings bear this out if you cut it. Talks about the fresh contextualization of the Gospel or translation of the Gospel into a setting, in tandem with the socio-political context with the situation. Inculturation with an E. Again, there's a fine line here. I won't make a big point of it, but I want to make you aware that there are two ways of spelling the word and they're used differently at times. And the way he's using it here and the way it's usually word with an E emphasizes the reformulation and new expression of the Gospel within a particular setting. Inculturation with an I has a more direct connection to the Gospel coming in from the outside and it also has a more direct connection with sociological aspects of the setting, more so than inculturation with an E can have. Is that confusing enough? It shouldn't have to be crystal clear in your mind. Just note that he uses it with an E here. Interesting to know enough you've caught it, for example, in the printed verse in any way, on the first page, about the six line down on the right hand column, through this ongoing process, salvation to Jesus Christ into historical incarnation and body for the women and men around him, instead of using men and women. That's okay. But it's interesting that he would put it that way. And some of you note that when he noted that when he says, without a doubt the act of translating any culture into the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that's an overstatement, seems to me, without a doubt. This is the greatest contribution. I mean, certainly the Christian Gospel by virtue of being freshly incarnated, incultured, translated into settings, does, has contributed greatly to the world. But to, in an unqualified sort of a way, indicate that that is the greatest thing that Christianity has contributed to the world, please, out, the full aspect of the glory of the Gospel, and of what God's doubt in the world, it seems to me. The way I evaluated your own comments were to kind of see how much of that you listed, and also from my perspective to see how much of the relevant themes from the course, and how much of urban I felt like you were latching and latching onto an understanding. And again, most of us were, I think, beating on the same drum of all of that. Any questions? Yes. Yes. Yes. I think Hurtig's article on Matthew was more fair, more true to the Scriptures than this particular piece strikes me. Now, I'd have to go back and check that to see some of the fine points before you go quoting me on that one. But my recollection of that particular essay that Paul Hurtig wrote is that he's just pointing out how Matthew intentionally notes how Jesus is not operating at the centers of power, but at the margins, and that has lessons for us. Yes. Now, how many of our concerns were due to the shortness of the piece, and therefore the lack of his situation to be able to further explain himself? My guess is judging from where he teaches, and just reading into what he's written, I don't think that the concerns that we would have about this are ill-founded. I could think of a longer maybe piece I could assign next time if you think that would be helpful. Now, I think this would be representative, although as some of you pointed out, there's some confusion here. I mean, he's trying to do a lot here, maybe trying to do too much. And this was within a series of different things in this one issue of Christianity today, if you noted it, the gift of whatever, and this was one of those. And so he's trying to do a number of things, and it struck me as something that, again, highlights a number of issues but does so in some ways that should concern us, I think. Any other questions? I hope this was helpful in developing critical eyes for reading some of these sorts of materials, for further expressing some of the concerns we've been dealing with this afternoon. That was the point. Alright, let's pick back up, if it's alright, with topic 22 where we were last time, and I want to walk through quickly, back in some of the things that for Kyle points out, starting back with his page 52. And again, as we began this last time, I just want to highlight a few names that you've read in terms of prominent missions, thinkers, and formulators in the last couple of centuries. On Verkyle's page 52, you with me in your readers? If not, you can just note these names down. And here we're in, on the outline up here, we're in the English messiologist sections, and the Thomas readings will get to in just a minute the ones that are parenthetically noted there. But Henry Venn, General Secretary of the Church Missionary Society Englishman, again very important name, helpful to remember in tandem with the American Rufus Anderson in connection with what was it? Particularly the formation of the very influential three-cell formulation of the church. The churches need to be self-governing, self-propagating, self-supporting. Roland Allen, another important English messiologist, I mentioned this in connection with his book that we showed Missionary Method St. Paul's or ours. When he wrote that book, it wasn't able to be heard due to when it was written, 1912 or so, and it wasn't as though the Western Missionary Enterprise at that point in history was able to hear much criticism. But after World War II, there was plenty of criticism that was being offered and plenty of criticism that was being heard. And so Roland Allen, as a messiologist, has made a comeback since World War II. Max Warren's another important name, Bishop Stephen Neal, Angle from Bishop who administered India known for a number of writings, including his history of Christian missions, is a name just to lodge away. On page 56 of Verkyle Leslie Nubigan, has had a tremendous amount of influence and having a great deal of influence today for people of your generation, of our generation who are seeking to get some handles on thinking messiologically vis-à-vis the West. He was one of the first missionaries to start to say, we need to think messiologically about the West. He served for years in India. He was not named as Presbyterian. He fostered the growth of, for example, the gospel of our culture network, GEOCN, something you can tuck away. They're a group that is in various parts of the world, including in the United States, that seeks to publish materials and coordinate thinking about how, in a post-Christendom setting now, we think messiologically about the West. Is that a hand? Yes. How does Nubigan, how does Nubigan's apologetics and messiology relate? I'm reluctant to comment on that at this point. I think it gets too far afield, and I don't feel like I'm an expert in Nubigan to comment on that. So I'll defer it if appropriate, maybe to speak to that later. But my awareness of Nubigan is that his apologetics vis-à-vis Western culture is tied in with his wider messiological understandings of the importance of the Church, of the Worldwide Church, and the Western Church's need to tap into the resources and insights of the non-Western Church. I'll say that much, if that's okay. On Verkyle's page 59 under skin and avian messiology, Banks Sunkler is an important name, especially with regards to the recognition and appreciation of the importance of African Christianity and African theology. Banks Sunkler has a recent magnum opus type of book on the history of Christianity in Africa. About a half a dozen books in the last few years that have come out that are surveyed Christian and Africa. Sunkler's is probably the most detailed and comprehensive, and our library has that book. Rufus Anderson moving to the United States, again associated with the recognition that we're in a heyday of Western Missions God, especially prepared the United States to carry out the World Missions mandate and formulating as well the three-self formula for the Church. Kinescott Lotterette wrote this seven-volume work, history of Christianity, and ministered in China as a missionary came back taught at Yale. One theme of his history of Christianity and spread that is important is that he recognizes both the expansion and the regression of the Christian faith. And as we've noted, the serial growth of the Christian faith, S-E-R-I-A-L, to where the Christian faith will go into an area and then sometimes, many of this has passed away to where you can indeed look at post-Christian areas of the world. Lotterette didn't exactly formulate it in that way, but just the idea that there was expansion and regression, and expansion and regression, and you see these three or four major expansion of the Christian faith throughout history, including of course the 19th century, the great century of World Missions. That's an important idea that he formulated in looking at 2,000 years of Christian history. Donald McGaverin is a name that likely you will know, he helped to push, formulate, crystallize, lay the foundation for the Church growth movement, and associated concepts like the Homogeneous Unit Principle, people groups, amongst associated with Donald McGaverin. Ralph Winter has been one in our day in association with U.S. Interferral Mission, who has taken that ball and developed it even further, and that is probably the single most influential think tank and physiological material producing enterprise and institution, certainly in North America and perhaps in all the world. Just one comment on the Homogeneous Unit Principle, still the subject of a good bit of debate, and you'll know that what this does, this says that Church growth takes place amongst peoples and people within their own groups, received the gospel, and that's where the gospel is to grow, and to force people out of their groups, either by forcing them together to undergo conversion, is going against the sociological reality within God's Providence, where people come to Christ throughout the world, and so you should then just see people come to Christ within their own groups in a homogeneous group, and that's where churches begin to develop. That's the principle, really developed from sociological observation. Many people have viewed that with abhorrence and disdain theologically because of the gospels pushed to bring people together, the gospel does bring people together, and so that criticism of the HUP in many ways is well-founded. However, as a sociologically descriptive model, it is very, very powerful and accurate, and you can look at churches anywhere, including in Saint Louis or wherever you're serving, and the Homogeneous Unit Principle describes churches, and how and when to bring to bear the gospels push to bring all peoples to Christ and to overcome ethnic socioeconomic, socio-political barriers in particular settings takes pastoral wisdom and judgment, but I would say that even in situations where there are homogeneous peoples in churches, half of the battle, especially in this part of the world, and I'm speaking particularly to those of you who will be pastoring in this part of the world amongst your own sort of people, half of the battle is recognizing that you do have an ethnic identity, and that is not always easy because the literature, when it talks about ethnic churches, it leaves out the majority of us, we're not ethnic churches. That's just the way the language is used, and in my judgment, typically that is wrong and not helpful. It turns out just because you're in a majority, de facto you're not ethnic, and one way I try to help people see the importance of recognizing the ethnic identity is that if you're not ethnic, you're outside of the gospel because Jesus came to die and live for punta-ta-eth-ne, and if you're not among punta-ta-eth-ne, you're outside the scope, and you're in big trouble. Anyway, we get an off track here, sorry. Eugene Nida formulated a great deal about the importance of culture and what contextualization involves. Jill Anderson, another American physiologist, recently retired director of the Overseas Ministry Study Center up in New Haven, Connecticut, just really a statesman in modern mission circles, and then the importance of non-Western mission thinking, I appreciate Verkyle, I appreciate Verkyle mentioning that much of Missy Lodge, now this is written in the 1970s Verkyle, so he doesn't have a lot of names, but I'm trying to introduce a few of the people like Vinah Framacandra and Komi Mediaco, and others just to let you know that increasingly so within the evangelical world in wider Christian world, non-Western Christian thinkers and physiologists are having increasing influence in the worldwide Christian thinking, that's only good. Verkyle goes next in the readings that I've given you, and he just want to look at these to note them. Goals and purpose of mission have varied from age to age and group to group. There's been the goal of saving individual souls that you see early on in the missionary movement. Ecclesiocentric goals amongst Roman Catholics and early Protestant thinking, the three self-formula that's still very important, but for interesting reasons has undergone some criticism of light and that criticism, with which I concur, is that it can foster an independence of different groups at the expense of realizing that we are interdependent as the Church of Jesus Christ, and what some people have seen, which I concur with this criticism, is that sometimes the impetus for wanting to start in a three self-indigenous Church over there is that we instinctively have the notion that we are independent on this side, and don't realize how interdependent that we really are as the people of God. You see, and that's been an interesting point of criticism, and that relates to something we'll get to, hopefully later today, the whole world of finances and how money flows and is shared or given or whatnot. Yes, which two things are opposed to each other? Yes, the matter of being interdependent and affluent and how those fit together. Yes, we'll get to that later, and certainly bonk and dress is that sort of thing in your readings, etc. All right, I got lost. Oh, no, the three self-formula and how that's developed as he talks about the whole role of the Church in growth school and the important role that that plays. I can remember back 20 years ago when the discussions in our circles are more along the lines of, well, how can you set plans and goals for church growth when it's all within God's sovereign will? I think discussions don't take place so much there anymore. It's more of how tightly do you hold yourself to goals? Most everyone is going to set goals and set strategies, but what sorts of goals do you set? What's your time allowance and most sorts of things? There's been the goal of the social gospel, the goal of improving macro structures, and setting Christian societies that has been taking place, and the Verkyle offers his own, which is the most prominent and most mission thingy today, and certainly comes out in shink in your readings. The goal of God's mission in ours mainly that is the kingdom of God within the Missio Dei or God's mission. I like us to think in those terms combined with a covenantal understanding of who God is, as the covenant creator, Lord, and the Lord who has entered into covenant redemptively with His people in world to redeem the end of our cosmos. But to see mission in a wider, more comprehensive sense, not just of saving individual souls, not just of seeing churches begin, but seeing the whole earth redeemed by the way God grants faith, and the faith materials His church and gives us glimpses in the meantime of the new heavens in the new earth. And the modern Missio's movement, continuing to this day among evangelicals in North America, while it's wrestling now with a great deal about, much of the focus still remains on missions being out there with people who haven't heard yet. Only, and missions is kind of restricted to that. Jumping next quickly to the readings from Thomas that have a few writings from some of these people, you have some readings from Anderson here about the three self type of thinking. You have some writings from Hudson Taylor, we've mentioned him, we'll get to him again about the women's role in missions, which is so very important of so many times in terms of cross cultural missionaries, it's women who have taken the lead. And that continues to be the case. John Armott, I'm on page 74 of Thomas now. John Armott is a name to took away. He was a Methodist layman that in the wake of the Edinburgh Missionary Conference of what year was the Edinburgh Missionary Conference now? 1910, thank you. He really trotted the globe and helped us set up national Christian councils. National Christian councils are kind of dirty words for many of us in evangelical circles, but they were set up for the purpose, for missions purposes. And John Armott was one of those shakers and movers who was a go-getter and helped to formulate the phrase, the evangelization of the world in this generation. We just came up about a hundred years ago out of the student volunteer movement. An important person in the formulation of much modern missions thinking. You have something here from Roland Allen, also on page 82 of Thomas, et cetera. Again, that's just a smattering of some of the readings that you had a few more something else from Henry Venner, I think. I think I showed you this particular graph, and we'll look at it again, just to help put things in place. Maybe hard to read, those of you who have your syllabus should find it in there. Now, this was one developed by Ralph Winter to understand the modern mission movement in three areas. Again, we looked at this, the first era being outreach to the coastlands, the second era beginning with people like Hudson Taylor reaching more inland. And that's associated with Western colonial advance and the sheer ability to do the advances in medicine and otherwise for Western or Western missionaries to move inland. And then the third era beginning really in the 1930s of focusing on unreached peoples. And we'll comment later on this notion that this is the third and final era of missions. The way that this has begun according to Winner's, I think, helpful diagram. Note, see how Donald MacGabran is in India. He's seeing these peoples come to faith and so the whole notion of whole groups of people coming to faith, coupled. While he's serving as a missionary in Central America realizes about the importance of the translation of the Bible. And you'll know the story perhaps of how Cam Townsend is witnessing with a native translator. And he's using a Spanish Bible and is witnessing to an indigenous person. And the person says, well, if your God is so smart, why can he only speak Spanish and not my language? And so that spurs Cam Townsend to realize the importance of Bible translation to go on. That leads to the eventual formation of Wycliffe Bible translators. And spurs along the efforts of the Protestant missionary movement to translate the Bible into indigenous tongues. And as the need for the Bible in all languages comes together with this recognition of people groups, you have this understanding that, okay, reaching all nations in the sense of all people groups, all languages is what missions is all about. And that becomes the third and for many the final missions frontier. And so thus the formation of all the statistics of identifying the people groups, how many have we reached, how many do we have we not yet reached? And as I'll show you something later, now there is the understanding that all unreached people groups have now been accounted for. Not reached yet, but at least somebody has taken responsibility for reaching all identified groups. And so the end is almost here, okay? And so it's no longer a geographical sort of a notion, but you're looking at people groups in that sense. Not political nations and going into making Christian nations, per se, the way it was done 100 years ago. So that development of the modern missions movement is much of what this scheme points out for us. I think it's a helpful scheme. I don't think it's perfect, but it's a helpful scheme for seeing how the modern missions movement phase two has developed over the last 200 years. Okay? We looked briefly at Verkyle's evaluation of the different goals of the modern missions movement about saving souls, planning churches. He opts for a more kingdom approach and shink, and many others would concur with that of just a few notes from shink. And these are themes that he hammers home over and over. You need to remember, as shink points out on his page 35, the historical context in which the modern missions movement developed. As he said later, there was this strange, not strange, it was this unique coming together of modernity, scientific thinking, strategizing, setting goals, pragmatism, and voluntary societies and missions thinking. Those things come together and that's how you can understand what happens over the last 200 years in a particular historical context. John Nevious, as described in page 42 of shink, someone we mentioned before, he's the one who US missionary in China goes to Korea, implements the three-self formula of the church in seeing churches begin in Korea, and it's so successful that that becomes known as the Nevious method of church planting. And again, it's a practical application of a particular formulation of what missions and church planting is all about. Shink's conclusion about the place of mission theory within Anglo-American missions thinking over the past 200 years, he notes one that mission theory has been ambiguous and erratic. It's been a pragmatic, let's get the job done, it's very clear what the job is, let's do it, and there hasn't been a tremendous amount of theoretical formulation outside from a few key concepts along the way. Therefore, he's claims that this has left missions without a clear framework and a sense of the mission process as a whole, and much of the writing on mission theory has been partial and parochial. We'll see later how he points out that one gap that there has been over the last few hundred years has been between theologians and mission thinkers, and that is with us still today. You know, missions is a practical discipline, this is how you do it. Theology is much more deep, and when do those two come together, and that's part of what he's mentioning here. Alright, a few comments on why it is we look at all this historical stuff, I think it helps to put us in our place, and let me make a few comments on that, if you'll allow me. It puts us in our place in history and thinking about where we are in history and this whole historical development of missions. First, it helps us realize that missions has taken place, they continue to take place within history. And again, we have a notion of missions kind of being a wholly enterprise that isn't subject to the forces of wars and economies and sociological developments in those sorts of things. The mission is very much takes place within history, and you can obviously see that with just the 19th century and the two were wars in the Cold War and the 20th century now, look what's happening today in the early 21st century. It's important for our identity, if you have historical amnesia, you really don't know who you are, and to know what you're about as being a part of the overall mission of God, you need to know what's happening and how we are moving in that same movement. It's a movement of God in history, and it's helpful for humility in light of vast reality. My own personal testimony is, when I was the first one, I was a missionary, but that was it. It begins now. The world is coming to Christ, not just Japan, but the world is coming to Christ. Well, I mean, that was great zeal, there was wonder, that was wonderful, and I had pure motives and all that, but I had no sense, had no sense of 2000 years and before that of what God had been doing, and how I just fit into that. Secondly, it puts us within our place, within our particular context, that is, we within a particular setting can learn from God's people who are in different historical context. There's much to be learned with what Mattiel reached he dealt with in China several centuries ago. There's much to be learned from what St. Patrick underwent, etc. And we can see the often complicated and multifaceted nature of events. It's not just a simplistic, this is missions go do it, and I will pray for you. Political, economic, social, linguistic, personal factors are involved in what's happening. It's not to get bogged down in the paralysis of analysis, it's just to recognize that things don't happen in simplistic ways. Thirdly, I think looking at these historical matters helps to put us in our place. It helps us to remember that we as the people of God have a universal corporate identity, and that is just helpful for perspective. Universal in terms of stretching around the world and stretching down through the generations, what we're about as a part of the people of God, as a part of God's people's work, as God has used us. Down through the generations, and in coming generations till Jesus comes back, and similarly to have a corporate identity locally. I mean, as we think about being about God's mission in St. Louis, those of us here in this streamer in St. Louis, you can't really go that alone individually or as a particular congregation. You need to have a greater appreciation for what the kingdom of God is all about in the metropolitan area of St. Louis. You can't even go about it. You know, city churches and suburban churches, or any suburban inner city, for whatever it might be, together what is God doing. And then finally, before God, it puts us in our place because we see that He is the one who has been working and been at work. I mean, how is it that God has worked right now in a missional source of way? In the world right now where we're in a situation where the US military actions have begun in Afghanistan. There are thoughts going out about also what's going to happen in Southeast Asia with the US military, all those sorts of things. How is God using particular people in situations that the media will never report for serving in Christ's name? I think it's just magnificent to see how God is at work in some special ways that we need to recognize. And as such, we grow in trust in His commitment to redeem his world. It's God's mission. And again, that doesn't mean that we sit back in the easy chair and put in Christ control. Just the opposite means we work ourselves to the bone because He's about it. And it's His redemption of the world. You see that as you have a sense of what He's been doing throughout history. So that's my apologetic, if you will, for looking at matters historical and putting ourselves within that history. I think you've seen this before just as a reminder. Again, this is a graph from Patrick Johnson's book, Church of Bigger Than You Think, to see how the Christian church has grown serially. Patrick Johnson, though, credits Professor Walls for this scheme. To see how, and again, it's unfortunate they've doesn't include their early century growth into Asian and Africa in this sort of graph. But seeing where the church has grown around the Mediterranean into Europe, and then serially out of Europe, primarily into the Southern continents. And that's where we are in our day. And if you could remember that historical progression of the church and to know that, again, right now in overall Christian history, we are at a point of transition. I would submit to you that that will help give perspective on all sorts of questions, including financial ones. They come up. The ones that we'll be talking about here in just a minute. Do we send Western missionaries? Do we support non-Western missionaries? There's a raging debate about that. I think you can gain some perspective on that by remembering kind of the macro-historical shift that we're in now. Another macro-historical scheme from Dr. Winter that I'll show you. Because it's interesting, he seeks to look at last 4,000 years of how you can kind of look at how God has worked in 400-year blocks, if you will. Starting with the patriarchs, then the captivity with the judges' kings, the exile, then in Roman peoples, into European barbarians, the Vikings, the Saracens, or the Islamic peoples, and then the ends of the earth. Where we are now. That's an interesting sort of a scheme. All schemes are not going to be able to be complete. God has been at work in his mission right from the beginning, and obviously don't begin your biblical missions understanding from the great commission, the New Testament. And as we've talked before, don't begin it with Genesis 12 either. Genesis 1, God made his world as good, as world's rebel, and he's redeeming it back. That's what his mission is all about. And if you stick with, just starting with Genesis, chapter 12, that's going to give you, I think, a truncated view in many ways of what missions is all about. And this doesn't account adequately for the early multi-directional growth of the Christian church in the early centuries, 2000 years ago, et cetera, either. But it's an interesting sort of a scheme that you can tuck away for your reference, as long as you see that. And now greatly appreciate, I want to communicate to you, that I have a deep appreciation for so much of the work, the zealous, helpful work that the US Center for World Mission puts out. Very helpful statistics, and all intended to motivate and equip Christian people to keep at the task of having our eyes and strategies on reaching un-reached peoples. I have a deep appreciation for that. And so far as we interact and seek to evaluate and understand the full dynamic of what's going on there, I don't want you to hear me kind of throwing stones per se. Because there are a few points I think that we need to evaluate some of the things that come out of Pasadena. But I want to communicate my within God's providence and how God uses people a deep appreciation and gratitude for what they do. I mean that. All right, moving ahead to topic 23, and I know I'm moving quickly, but we need to. Western missions, strategies, money, et cetera. Looking at Western in particular US missions, take you again to Shink, some of his comments. Are you enjoying Shink? I can appreciate that desire to read him in order, and of course you could do that later. And I may have mentioned to you that I've received a similar comment before, and I just totally disregarded it. I know that comment will again force me to reconsider how I've assigned his readings from my own selfish, boheaded ends. But in looking at his evaluation here of the last 200 years of the modern mission, missionary movement, I just had it a few points that are many ways are repetitive. Mental of his page 154, the italicize comments, something to mention just a minute ago. The modern mission project has been a special locus of a larger confrontation among modernity, the Christian faith, and world cultures. And then he splits, he breaks that down just a bit. I'm talking about the rise of the enlightenment and scientific thinking in the West and how missions has operated out of that modern world view of. Looking at things scientifically and how you can manage and strategize and do projects up to solve problems. And in the categories of the developed, he begins us on his page 159 of the understanding of culture. We looked at that the pre-critical, critical and constructive views of culture that have developed within missions, thinking the self evident notion, he notes on page 161 about two thirds of the way down. Amongst Westerners 100 years ago that there was a superiority in God's having blessed the West. Then on page 162 and talking about the church, second paragraph from the end. Christendom model of church was deformed by its disallowance of diaspora and all that entails. The diaspora that went out from Christendom was a catalyst for growth of the church elsewhere and the modern mission movement recovered for the church, world church, the importance of diaspora. In other words, there was a notion that you have the church, it's established here and you go out and you establish a church elsewhere and that's what missions is. But the diaspora, that is the church scattered was that notion was recovered and experienced out there if you will. And people kind of within Christendom as things that started to change so rapidly in this part of the world in Europe and North America have started to realize from that experience that hey, maybe we're all in a sense of that, maybe we're all eight engine strangers, we don't all fully belong here. What do you mean we're established and those sorts of questions have come to the fore and begun to recover for all of us the sense that we're all on mission wherever we are. Because there is no really single geographic headquarters of the Christian church. He notes as I, as I mentioned a minute ago, middle of page 163, one of the regrettable aspects of the modern mission movement was that it was largely unaccompanied by theologians committed to me. It's not totally true. What is true? He says largely unaccompanied. You have some significant theological input from people like Andre Cramer, Stephen Neal. But largely mission involves the church. He points out, in fact mission involves the church in the most fundamental theological questions and is that the point of missionary engaged with the critical theological reflection is called for. That's when we engage in theological reflection where we are and how the gospel speaks to 16 year olds. I always appreciated one example I had of a pastor who would, this is when I was a seminary student. He would telephone me and he said, Nelson, I have a theological question for you. And I'm thinking, okay, what's it going to be? Is it about, you know, infrasupra or something about the Trinity or something like that he says, there's this 15 year old girl in her congregation. There's a dating and non-Christian boy. I'm wondering what I should advise her parents about counseling with her. I thought it's not a theological question. But most certainly is, you have to bring to bear all sorts of factors of how God relates to his people, family structures, church session, all those sorts of things. And if you want to call it a practical theology, okay. Nevertheless, as you know, as you're involved in ministry, as those gut-wrenching sort of on-the-ground theological questions really come up when you're dealing with those sorts of matters. So that's kind of an overview that Shink gives us of what's happened with Western missions over the past couple hundred years in terms of its theoretical development and theological reflection. I want to look at a few, this short organizations with you, one that you all will know and love perhaps. Wait a minute, I can't do this yet. I have to prepare my computer, sorry, for this. I don't know why I have to do this, but I do. But we'll look at the PCA's MTW's newly constructed website. Here we go. You see that? Welcome to Mission of the World. Can you read the writing at the bottom? That's kind of the overarching purpose state. Mission of the World is the Mission City ADC of the Presbyterian Church in America. I guess it's non-caps because is that kind of cool today to do used non-caps anyway. Advancing reformed and covenantal church-funding movements in strategic areas worldwide, resulting in mature churches and equipped leaders from every people. That's what Mission of the World is all about. Now, Mission of the World in the past few years has broadened in its scope and openness to being involved in a number of other intentional ministries other than church planting and beginning church planting movements. There's been a shift generally in much of evangelical missions thinking from strictly church planting where people go and start individual churches to wanting to see church planting movements begun. To where you facilitate all bunches of churches starting out, that's more the thinking. And Mission of the World still has that as its focus. But as you see, as we look at some general information and maybe two around just a few minutes, there's a lot more that MTW is about these days. Church planting is MTW's central focus. This is about getting around the website, per se, and all different ways you can plug into this website. Short-term ministries, missionaries are so very important. Again, 15 years ago, short-term meant two years, two or three years. Now, it's the categories of change a little bit, as you know, and short-term missionaries now anybody from a week to two weeks to a month to a year to two years. And the categories have shifted. And so many people from this part of the world, from Korean churches, from many places now go out on short-term mission projects. And they talk about two-week projects. Internship opportunities, which for seminary students, is an attractive option. You can actually receive some measure of a stipend as an intern, fulfill your field ed requirement, all sorts of things and there are needs for those. That's up to 11 months. You can do it for a semester, for a summer, for a year. There are two-year opportunities. They have a second career program for people who are retired or near retirement age, I've heard MTW people say, we don't want people to retire, we want people to retire. And a lot of people who are entering into various second career programs, medical missions has really come to the fore than MTW. And that's something that took place a great deal within the modern missions movement. Some groups continue that, and MTW has picked up the ball and allowing many people to use their medical practice in church planting and short-term trips, whatever it might be. And I would suggest to you that this is one instance, along with street child ministry or mission to the world has adjusted itself to the come more responsive and flexible, if you will, to what different members of the PCA, since they would like to do, into general needs that are in various places. I think it's fair to say, and I think Mr. the world people would tell you this, and as a former MPW person I can say this, I was Mr. to the world for officially, almost 15 years. But Mr. the world was much more keen on having a vision, and because that's what God has called you to, you stick with that and don't get deterred from that. And mission to the world was leading the denomination, leading the church and setting this missionary vision. And so, okay, come on, let's get people and money to fulfill this vision that God is leading us to, and let's do it. And that was church planting pretty much exclusively. Part of the dynamic that we'll touch on later, go ahead and mention it because it fits here. Part of the dynamic that has occurred in the past decade or so, within North America missions, is that as you will know from your own settings, more and more local churches are doing it themselves, especially those who have significant resources. Saying the wait a minute, isn't this a job that the local church is to be about? And so far it's been like, okay, we've got the mission experts, and we've kind of given them our people and our money and they've gone and do it. But wait a minute, God's called us to do it, so we're going to do it. We'll see part of the dynamic there is that these mission agencies therefore start to have some of their resources threatened, okay, of people and money. And so if you're not responsive, you're going to get left out here hung to dry out perhaps. That's a crafts way of talking about the dynamic, but that's a reality that has been occurring. And I think with mission agencies, they have needed to adjust because of that reality to work together with local congregations and to be responsive to needs that people here are seeing. And you have people in churches that are involved in Lima, Peru seeing all these tree kids and saying, we want to do something about this. And now MTW is saying, okay, how can we help you do that? And that's a shift in groups like MTW. And I think a constructive shift. And MTW as a result I think is more than ever seen within the PCA as our church's mission organization. For a while, in some circles it was like MTW was kind of like any other mission organization and where the church here and where we're formed and who are these guys over here anyway. Let's reel them in a little bit. There was that sort of a relationship. It's much more now. Now the church always has been for MTW's stance on, for example, cooperative agreements where someone could go out as a missionary with Wycliffe or any other evangelical mission organization and be in mission to the world missionary at the same time. So it's not to redouble the wheel, reinvent the wheel, excuse me. English is a very complicated language. And the church has always voted for that although there have been some who've been concerned about that. You know, what if they're involved in churches, not Presbyterian reform, sort of a concern. But now more than ever, I think MTW has adjusted to and seeks to facilitate and encourage PCA churches in their ministries. And so you can see a listing here of many of the ministries that MTW is involved with. Okay. Another mission organization that is very, very influential and has undergone some significant changes in the past several years is the International Mission Board. Formerly, the former mission board of the Southern Baptist Convention. Southern Baptist missionaries are known within other missionary circles as being, now I grew up as Southern Baptist, okay. And most of my family is still Southern Baptist. And I'm not meaning to offer criticism. I'm seeking to be descriptive here and to highlight the sorts of adjustments that have been going on within Southern Baptist Mission circles. Southern Baptist missionaries were seen as being very Southern Baptist. And Southern Baptist doing Southern Baptist things and they have all their own materials, all their own strategies, all their own goals, and they're doing their thing, and they don't really work with the rest of us. Now, on the ground, that wasn't always the case. I know where I was in Nagoya, Japan, we, all of us missionaries who were there, we would get together and didn't really matter a whole lot about those sorts of differences. We got together in Pride and New Courtsy, or that sort of thing. But in terms of programmatically strategies, how you're going about things, Southern Baptist are doing their thing. That's not true just of Southern Baptist because they're always the biggest they stood out perhaps. They changed their name to the International Mission Board and they have taken on much of the wider thinking of the Evangelical missions, people groups, church planting movements, and actively cooperating while maintaining their distinctives, working together with other groups actively in cooperative efforts. And you can see it in the way that they speak. Now, missionaries have factor new risk into their strategy, they're pressing full, this is today's website. I head into the channels of sharing the good news of Southeast and Jesus Christ with their people groups. They've taken on the concepts and the language of reaching the unreached peoples, for example, and doing it by facilitating church planting movements. That's just a significant change. A significant change. Oh, this is a, that's not really helpful to show you. This is a whole strategy information that they have. There was something else I wanted to show you. Where is it? Well, this is an example of what I was speaking of before. Ethnic churches with more than 6,000 predominately ethnic and African-American Southern Baptist churches across the United States, thick of visions of this peak of racial diversity. That's an example in my judgment of a poor use of the word ethnic. It communicates, but the ethnic majority churches are not ethnic, you see, by this classification. It's good intention and I don't want to be picky, but I guess I am being picky on it. Anyway, that's a significant adjustments that they've undergone. Strategies and technology. Shank notes about the development of strategy within the modern mission movement, noting the ambivalence about strategy in that one, it's a military term, two, as I mentioned before, many have felt, wait a minute, it's all God's providence, it's all God's sovereignty. Why should we strategize? Let's just let God do it. Are we trying to tie God's hands? Those have been some of the tensions within thinking about strategy. Shank again notes that how we have thought in the modern mission movement strategically has been culturally and historically conditioned. He lays out his own understanding of the biblical perspective of what things need to be vis-à-vis strategy. He mentions William Carey and Ruthis Anderson in their important places. He notes on his page 110 and following the important role of missionary conferences, because that's come up in the last 150 years. He notes a countercurrent of someone like Roland Allen and he finally notes what shall we then say about mission strategy about him, his 113. To note that Christian mission is subject both to the divine imperative and socio-historical forces to give a context, and we need to note that our context is undergoing fundamental shifts. That the bipolar world is disintegrated. We're in a new post-Cold War world. There are new centers of influence that have emerged and the Christian church has had a center of gravity in terms of membership. The shift to the rest of the world from the west, however the church in the west continues to control the bulk of financial and institutional resources. Therefore, you still have a statistic like most the majority of international politically speaking international missionaries go out from the west. That's still a true statistic, contrary to what some of us have thought. Because Luke who has the strongest economy in military, bulk then to move to him, which you've been waiting to do, talks about some of the strategic costs of missionarium affluence. And here he's talking about the strategic cost of missionary affluence. And he makes a few points that I'll just note that we can discuss it as you would like. One missionary strategy, moester missionary strategy is characterized by dependence upon expensive technology whether it be computers, whether it be landovers, landovers, whatever that might be. Secondly, on his base 72 affluence dependent strategies cannot and should not be imitated by those who must your missionaries presume to instruct. I mean how is it that particular church can go about a strategy of having 20 English teachers on their own. For example, are using the type of strategic planning involving graphs and computers and analysis. Thirdly, genuine fraternal strategies in conjunction with poor churches are usually frustrating and often unworkable from the point of view of both mission agencies and churches because of the affluence gap. And the technological gap. Fourthly, on his base 74 western affluence results in strategies which cannot effectively reach the poor. How can middle class, upper middle class people strategize and genuinely reach the poor? How do you like to discuss this? Yes. So the comment that the laundry list of evils associated with affluence doesn't recognize reality for people needing to drink bottle of water, have antibiotics. That it doesn't recognize the good blessings of bringing in medical technology or whatever it might be and therefore perhaps he's going overboard in his broad brush strokes. I remember having a friend commenting to me he says, I'm sure I'm glad that I don't receive pre-enlightenment dentistry. That's a certainly irrelevant point. Yes. What about computer technologies and networks that are used in affluent settings? Should they be discarded or disdained or how would bump view them? I think what Bunk eventually says when he gets down to what to do about this is that there need to be some people who take the road of living more simply and leaving affluent lifestyles and leaving affluent technologies. Now, I don't think that knowing Jonathan that he would say that, I mean Jonathan, I'm sure he uses a computer. I don't think that Jonathan would say that computers should be thrown away and that technology should be disdained totally. I think what he's seeking to address is the kind of blind acceptance of the affluence gap and he's wanting to point out some of the risks and costs of that gap. Yes. So you appreciate the spirit which is written for the purpose of clear understanding of communication in the gospel and not confusion of what the gospel is all about and missionaries being able genuinely to identify with people and effectively be gospel communicators and being able to identify with the gospel themselves. Yes. So issuing a warning about dependence upon technology instead of using technology as a tool. All right. We will pick up again here next time as questions for your readings. I did give you these last time. I don't think for topics 23 and 24 we're in 23 now and you've done these readings. But one idea to keep in mind as you perhaps finish the readings or review them is to relate the development during the previous two centuries of modern mission strategies to the historical context of Western mission initiatives. We've talked about that a good bit and shink talks about how modern mission strategies have developed within a peculiar historical sociological locus. And then for next time, especially for topic number 25 as you read just one chapter in shink evaluate as a paradigm. The notion of word indeed ministry using that as a paradigm for holistic ministry word indeed ministry evaluate that shink offers his own comments and you can see what you think about that. All right. God bless you. See you next time. Thanks.