Journal articles on the topic 'World Mission Society Church of God'

AbstractThis study seeks to engage the question of how A.J. Tomlinson formulated the theological platform that influenced the ecclesiologies of various Churches of God. The cast includes R.G. Spurling and R. Frank Porter, a forgotten figure but one who, together with Spurling, organized the Holiness Church at Camp Creek in western North Carolina on May 15, 1902. I will argue that, absent the intervention of A.J. Tomlinson on June 13, 1903, the work of Spurling, Porter, and W.F. Bryant would have suffered the ill-fated demise common to hundreds of like works in Appalachia. Yet Tomlinson was more than an organizer; he was also someone who influenced the mission adopted by the early Church of God (Cleveland, TN). This article has particular relevance in the face of awakened sensitivities to Pentecostal ecclesiology in the light of the Edinburgh 1910 centenary celebrations around the world and the World Council of Churches’ working document, Nature and Mission of the Church. Here I will frame the discussion as a response to Dale Coulter’s article, “The Development of Ecclesiology in the Church of God (Cleveland, TN): A Forgotten Contribution?” in Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies 29, no. 1 (2007): 59-85.

Mission is first and foremost about God and God’s historical redemptive initiative on behalf of creation. In this regard, the Third Lausanne Congress affirms that the Church is called to witness to Christ today by sharing in God’s mission of love through the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. The World Council of Churches states that ‘all Christians, churches and congregations are called to be vibrant messengers of the gospel of Jesus Christ’. How the Church participates in the mission of God is a question on which one should reflect. This article therefore discusses the mission approaches of Ghanaian Pentecostal churches. The article begins with a description of the Ghanaian mission strategic plan, their spiritual approach to mission, and then proceeds with other approaches in the light of Walls’ ‘five marks of mission’ (i.e. evangelism, discipleship, responding to the social needs of people through love, transforming the unjust structures of society, and safe-guarding the integrity of creation) and Krintzinger’s (and others’) holistic mission approach (i.e. kerygmatic, diaconal, fellowship, and liturgical). This article argues that mission should be approached with a careful strategy.

AbstractThis article proposes looking to Kathryn Tanner and John Howard Yoder as resources for moving beyond a stalemate in recent ecclesiology which locates competing centres of gravity in either church or world. By contrast, Tanner and Yoder locate that centre outside of both church and world: in God, who ‘was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself . . . and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation’ (2 Cor 5:19). Accordingly, they articulate a vision of the church in the world whose posture is wholly, and constitutively, undefensive: a community free of the violence – actual, rhetorical or otherwise – produced by anxiety about securing its place vis-à-vis the wider society. Tanner envisages the church as a graced community of argument founded and sustained by God's cosmos-wide generosity in Christ, unconcerned with itself as such and instead intent on the world's good. In Yoder's case, his christological pacifism undergirds a church whose politics are Jesus' own, and which therefore seeks, forsaking all coercion, to embody God's eschatological peace in and for the world. These accounts share three theological moves in common. First is a Barthian priority of divine transcendence, whereby neither God, nor the gospel, nor the world is put in jeopardy by the church's fallibility (human or sinful). Second is a non-foundationalist commitment to social-historical process, to the particularities of context which constantly form (and reform) the church as a creature in time and space. Third is the generative root of all: the incarnation of God the Word. Insofar as the church is christocentric, it is by grace turned out to the world in commissioned blessing. The result is an account of the church as at once eccentric (its life hid with Christ in God) and firmly rooted in the messy realities of the here and now – realities just as present within the church as outside of it. To be sure, Tanner and Yoder are different theologians with different methods and ends; where Tanner perhaps lacks a sufficient theology of peoplehood, Yoder's ecclesiology verges at times on the heroic or ideal. Nevertheless, brought together in this way they make for productive partners in non-alarmist ecclesiology, freeing the church to fulfil its calling to serve and bless the world, even as it leaves its borders unsecured, because its faith abides not in itself but in God.

The Church in Australia finds itself pushed to the margins of society and lacking the status it once enjoyed in previous generations. The importance and role of the church in society’s life is now questioned and it would seem that the church’s long term survival is being challenged. How should the church respond? One response is found in the exploration of new forms of church birthed out of missional theology – a theology that sees the church partnering with the God who is actively on mission in his world. This response however, does not come without its own inherent challenges. Leaders of missional communities within the Australian context were interviewed in an attempt to decipher what those challenges might be. The results can largely be covered under the rubrics of: Ambiguity, Anxiety, Audience and Abandonment.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) commemorated its 70th anniversary in 2018. Over the years, the WCC has engaged with issues that affect women in the Church and society. It has challenged patriarchy in Church structures; calling for justice, partnership in mission and the ordination of women. The WCC initiated a decade of Churches in solidarity with women (1988 to 1998) to promote the visibility of women in the Church. Using storytelling as a heuristic tool and in the spirit of the WCC’s decade of Churches in solidarity with women, the present paper documents the life and work of the Rev. Dr. Peggy Mulambya Kabonde of the United Church of Zambia (UCZ). Firstly, a brief narrative of her life and work is presented. Secondly, her work and experience in the Church is analyzed in order to engage with the issues affecting women in ordained ministry in Africa and other parts of the world. The paper concludes by proposing a model of ecclesiology that embraces inclusivity and the equality of men and women in the Church.

Although the rhetoric relating to the importance of both evangelism and development in the world mission of the church has been rich over the past few decades, little has been actually done by the evangelical world community to implement the implications of this discussion. Obstacles that have prevented the integration of evangelism and development have been numerous: A narrow understanding of evangelism; a secular definition of development; a crisis of faith (focus on law versus grace); and a cultural insensitivity, to mention a few. There are some efforts being made, however, to integrate both evangelism and development in the work of the church. A case in point is the work of the Issaan Development Foundation, the Institute for Sustainable Development and the Thailand Covenant Church in Thailand over the past few decades. Some basic principles held by this integrated ministry are the authority of the Word of God, a focus on integrating all of life by the grace of God, a flexible organizational system, contextualization of all areas of ministry, power encounter between the values of the gospel and those of society, a focus on the local church, and a process/broker approach to ministry.

Abstract This paper investigates the concept of missio Dei at Willingen and beyond, and identifies its most remarkable feature which regards God as the initiator and subject of mission, thereby redefining missio ecclesiae with three striking characteristics: first, all places of the world including both the immediate neighborhood and the uttermost parts of the earths; second, all spheres of life such as society, politics, economy and culture; and finally, all events of the time such as catastrophes in the history. In so doing, this paper clearly discovers that missio Dei is here approached primarily in a differentiation from or a sharp contrast to missio ecclesiae from the start, and that, for that reason, the concept of missio Dei at Willingen and beyond has not been fully trinitarian, though it often mentions the triune God. And it also discovers that it goes further either toward an emphasis on culture on the one hand, or toward that on the world on the other hand. Such being the case, this paper suggests that it is necessary to consider the implications of the doctrine of the Trinity for mission more fully to reconfigure the concept of missio Dei. Due to some limits, this paper does not deal with this issue full-fledgedly, but intends to suggest a couple of guidelines for doing so. First, we need to approach missio Dei quite differently, that is, primarily not in relation to missio ecclesiae but in relation to processio Dei, that is, the procession of the triune God. Second, noting that, since the early church, missio Dei has been understood primarily in relation to processio Dei, we need to keep in mind that we could not discuss missio more fully without dealing with processio, and vice versa. If we have these two guidelines in mind, the concept of missio Dei would be much more abundant and fruitful. Further studies on some particular implications of the doctrine of the Trinity for mission need to be done in missiology and also theology in general in the near future.

Abstract: This research was conducted to provide a new understanding to the church about holistic mission, especially based on the description in the text of Luke 9: 1-6. By using qualitative methods, the researcher then found several principles about the holistic mission as the conclusion of this study. First, a holistic mission is a mission that is carried out through a mission and is a continuation of God's mission to Jesus. Second, a holistic mission is a mission carried out by the apostles and furthermore by the Church as a mandate from Jesus to provide significant social change or impact in the midst of society. Third, a holistic mission is a mission that focuses on a clear mission object and requires transformation or change. Fourth, a holistic mission is a mission that preaches the Kingdom of God. Fifth, "I send you into the world to preach the kingdom of God" is an expression of the great mission of the Son of God. Abstrak: Penelitian ini dilakukan untuk memberikan pemahaman yang baru kepada gereja tentang misi yang holistik, khususnya berdasarkan uraian dalam teks Lukas 9:1-6. Dengan menggunakan metode kualitatif, peneliti kemudian menemukan beberapa prinsip tentang misi holistik sebagai kesimpulan dari penelitian ini. Pertama, misi yang holistik adalah misi yang dilakukan melalui sebuah pengutusan dan merupakan kelanjutan dari misi Allah kepada Yesus. Kedua, misi yang holistik adalah misi yang dilaksanakan oleh para rasul dan selanjutnya oleh Gereja sebagai amanat dari Yesus untuk memberikan perubahan atau dampak sosial yang signifikan di tengah-tengah masyarakat. Ketiga, misi yang holistik adalah misi yang fokus kepada sebuah objek misi yang jelas dan membutuhkan transformasi atau perubahan. Keempat, misi yang holistik adalah misi yang memberitakan tentang Kerajaan Allah. Kelima, “Ku utus Engkau ke dunia untuk memberitakan Kerajaan Allah” merupakan sebuah ungkapan misi yang begitu Agung dari Sang Anak Allah.

This study investigates how an account informed by sources from the Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal tradition is able to address the domain of public theology and in particular the concept of ‘common good’. It uses the key Renewal topic of the charismata (spiritual gifts) as expressed by Paul in 1 Cor. 12.8–10 and reflects theologically on how these gifts may be used and expressed by the church for the benefit of wider society and the ‘common good’. It argues that because the mission of the church is for the benefit of the world there is an inevitable ‘spillover’ in the use of the charismata that is rooted in the concept of redemption. By means of these gifts the church both blesses society and resists evil. This argument is given a broader framework by being placed in relation to the concepts of creation, church and the kingdom of God.

With neighborhoods shifting racially and economically, churches are challenged with meeting the new population with relevant and culturally meaningful worship music. Ethnic groups are diverse within themselves as well, with black and Latino peoples having disparate tastes and traditions from Church of God in Christ to South American Evangelicals. Congregations must have strong pastoral leadership and competent, spiritually alert musicians and singers. Although the leadership may want more effective outreach through music, it requires trained musicians, often in jazz, to educate the musicians as well as the congregation. Vocalists must also be melded together, trained and untrained, into a vernacular blend in praise teams or choirs. Musicians must do research in the community for songs and resources that touch the “heart music” of the target population. The result of such a commitment is to see a congregation rally around a new mission and new friendships. Children growing up in such a cross-cultural worship have a more open view of the world. But bearing fruit in cross-cultural ministry is measured in decades and may not have overwhelming success like some homogeneous church plants. If we want to see the church's witness as credible before a watching world, racial reconciliation and justice fleshed out in the worshipping community must be a greater priority. In a society still plagued with racial alienation, this may be the toughest strategy of all.

AbstractThis article uses the case of the London Missionary Society (LMS) in China to argue that disruptive cultural technologies—namely organizational forms and tools—were just as significant within Christian mission encounters as religious doctrines or material technologies. LMS missionaries did not convert as many Chinese to Christianity as they hoped, but their auxiliary efforts were more successful. The LMS mission project facilitated the transfer of certain cultural technologies such as church councils to administer local congregations or phonetic scripts to facilitate literacy. Once in the hands of native Christians and non-Christians alike, these cultural technologies could be freely adapted for a variety of purposes and ends that often diverged from the missionaries’ original intent and expectation. This article draws on the letters and reports of missionaries of the London Missionary Society in North China from roughly 1900 to 1930—the period during which self-governing Protestant congregations took root in China and many places around the world. The spread of church government structures and a culture of Bible-reading enabled Chinese within the mission sphere to create new forms of collective life. These new forms of community not only tied into local networks, but also connected to transnational flows of information, finances, and personnel. Native Christian communities embraced new, alternative sources of community authority—the power of God working through a group of ordinary people or through the biblical text—that proved both attractive and disruptive.

The new religious movements (NRMs) initially emerged in the regional societies of East Asia in the middle nineteenth and early twentieth centuries including Joseon (Korea). The socio-political transformation from feudalism to modernisation emaciated the religiosity of the traditional beliefs (Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, shamanism, and folk religions). Colonial Korea experienced the major turning point in which various syncretic NRMs surfaced with alternative visions and teachings. What is, then, the historical origin of Christian NRMs? Who are their leaders? What is their background? What is the main figure of the teachings? How did they survive? This paper explores the history of Korean Christian new religious movements from the 1920s Wonsan mystical movements to 1990s urban and campus movements. Through the contextual studies of denominational background, birth, founder, membership, key teachings, evangelical strategy, phenomenon, services, sacred rituals, globalisation, and media, the three grassroots groups of Guwonpa (Salvation Sect: Good News Mission), WMSCOG (World Mission Society Church of God), and Shincheonji Church of Jesus the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony (SCJ) are argued as the most controversial yet well-globalised organisations among Christian NRMs in contemporary Korea.

The Vatican took a stand in February with its “notification” on Roger Haight's Jesus Symbol of God prohibiting him from teaching Catholic theology. Then in May it was reported that the Vatican influenced Thomas Reese's resignation as editor of America. In these two situations, as with other recent controversies in the church and American public life, the question was posed to the College Theology Society, “Where do we stand?”This is not answered easily. The appropriateness of entertaining the question is itself problematic given the specific ways the CTS constitution defines our mission as an academic society. Has the CTS, its Board or its members at the annual convention any business at all taking stands on controversies in the church or American public life? What would justify this? And to what sort of issues would this apply? And when? How is this decided? And by whom? For whom does the Board speak? Or for whom does a majority at an annual convention speak? And to whom? And to what end?Nor is the question of where we stand dodged without significant cost. Much is at stake for the specific pedagogical mission of the CTS both in the issues regarding Haight and Reese and in the questions of principle about taking stands. Both are part of a larger and consequential controversy about what place convictions should have in the interactions of the church, academy, and society.

The implementation of God's mission in the context of cultural diversity in Indonesia is important to study considering that the church has the responsibility to carry out the Great Commission of the Lord Jesus to the nations. The culturally diverse situation of Indonesian society poses a formidable challenge for evangelists because they cannot apply one specific method that can be applied to the entire community. Some churches still apply the mission model inherited by Zending. The Colonial Model is considered less effective due to the growing culture of Indonesian society. Therefore, flexible mission implementation principles are needed, according to the context of society in Indonesia without compromising the biblical meaning of the gospel. This article was compiled by examining the facts of the cultural life of the Indonesian people who are diverse in culture and examining the word of God which contains teachings on the principle of preaching the gospel to all nations. The research process in this article is carried out by conducting library research on the condition of cultural diversity in Indonesia and examining relevant biblical records in carrying out missions in Indonesia. The result is a mission implementation model that takes into account the cultural context, a christocentric mission without losing the Indonesian values of the local community.Pelaksanaan misi Allah dalam konteks keragaman budaya di Indonesia penting dipelajari mengingat gereja memiliki tanggungjawab menjalankan Amanat Agung Tuhan Yesus kepada bangsa-bangsa. Keadaan masyarakat Indonesia yang beragam budaya, merupakan tantangan yang berat bagi para pemberita injil karena mereka tidak dapat menerapkan satu metode khusus yang dapat dipakai kepada seluruh masyarakat. Beberapa gereja masih menerapkan model misi yang diwariskan oleh Zending. Model Kolonial tersebut dinilai kurang efektif dengan adanya budaya masyarakat Indonesia yang telah berkembang. Oleh karena itu diperlukan prinsip-prinsip pelaksanaan misi yang luwes, sesuai dengan konteks masyarakat di Indonesia tanpa mengurangi makna injil yang alkitabiah. Artikel ini disusun dengan meneliti fakta kehidupan budaya masyarakat Indonesia yang beragam budaya dan meneliti firman Allah yang memuat ajaran tentang prinsip pemberitaan injil bagi segala bangsa. Proses penelitian dalam artikel ini dilakuakan dengan melakukan penelitian kepustakaan tentang kondisi keragaman budaya di Indonesia serta meneliti catatan alkitab yang relevan dalam pelaksanaan misi di Indonessia. Hasilnya adalah model pelaksanaan misi dengan memperhatikan konteks budaya, misi yang kristosentris tanpa menghilangkan nilai-nilai keIndonesiaan masyarakat lokal.

A theological-philosophical patron of crusades was St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), one of the Fathers of Church, who in his The City of God (De Civitate Dei) assumed that the human mankind could be divided into two categories – the one constituting the civitas Dei, acting in the name of God, and civitas terrena, including disbelievers and Muslims. According to St. Augustine, the coming of Christ would put an end to the history of humanity – at that time believers would be rewarded with eternal happiness whereas disbelievers would be damned. Only when fighting in the name of God, in the defence of the Church, the knights could be useful for the society. This attitude was represented by Pope Gregory VII (1020-1085). A great propagator of the Augustinian doctrine was St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) who reformed it for the sake of crusades. In his famous In Praise of the New Knighthood (De laude novae militae) he established the rule of the order of the Knights Templar. A motif of the martyr’s death could become a sufficient reason to undertake further actions of Christianisation, having the at the same time eschatological and practical dimension. In the context of an overall crusade movement, the martyrdom of St. Adalbert or Five Martyr Brothers as well as St. Bruno, seems to serve as a symbol and pretext for crusades being rather penitence pilgrimages of reconciliation with redemptory valor. There was nothing more convincing to undertake a military action than a penitential mission ensuring eternal salvation. It is presumed that even in the first period the missionary action might have been conducted by the Płock bishop Alexander of Malonne (1129-1156). On 3 March 1217 Pope Honorius III (1150–1227), presumably on the initiative of the then papal legate in Prussia, the Gniezno archbishop Henryk Kietlicz and bishop Chrystian (1180-1245), allowed the knights of Mazovia and Lesser Poland to organize an expedition to Prussia in return for participation in the Palestinian crusade. As the results of converting pagans by means of sword by Polish or Scandinavian expeditions were rather scarce, the orders were entrusted with a defence and development of the mission of Christianisation. They adopted a strategy to shatter the community of tribes – in Prussia by means of attracting the nobility, in Livonia by formenting discord among tribes.

This study studies the topics of the publications of the magazines «Yasna Put» (1935―1939s) and «Prominchyk Sontsia Liubovy» (1936―1937s). Those were issued by the monks of the Univ Holy Dormition Lavra of the Studite Rite. The religious press is one of the factors of social progress, specifically the development of spiritual and moral values. For the Ukrainian nation, it is also a significant means of social consolidation. A special place in the religious periodicals of the interwar period was occupied by the print media of monk orders and congregations. This study aims to determine the role of the Univ monks’ periodicals as a type of mission in preaching the Gospel and the spiritual renewal of the Ukrainian society. Analysis of the publications shows that «Yasna Put» helped the monks to understand their calling, to delve into it, to take the difficult path to the perfection of cognition of the God and approach to Him, as well as to spread the faith and preach the Gospel. The theological discourse of the Studite Rite and the problems of the history of the Ukrainian monasticism, the revival of the monasticism traditions based on the principles of the Early Church Fathers are present in the publications’ topics. At the same time, through «Prominchyk Sontsia Liubovy», the monks brought the word of God to the laity Christians, promoted among the youth «moral-religious education» and family values. Based on these findings, we conclude that the monks of the Univ Holy Dormition Lavra of the Studite Rite were open to dialogue, and their periodicals were the means of communication, dissemination of Christian values and the principles of the Early Church, as well as promoting the idea of ecumenism. The Studite Brethren are always the benchmark of living faith and an example of passing on the latter to neighbours in the Christian ethos. Keywords: religious press, Studite Brethren, Univ Holy Dormition Lavra of the Studite Rite, mission, Andrei Sheptytsky, Klymenty (Klymentii) Sheptytsky.

“It seems to me, now,” reflected Troy Perry, four years after founding a successful new Protestant denomination, “that it must have been a matter of timing, and I think that it was fate, too! God chose me for my mission at a time when He knew the world would respond, once the need was made clear.” While the question of divine ordination is a bit outside the scholar's jurisdiction, the question of timing is a crucial one for historical inquiry, and Perry's remarks show an insightful awareness that the success of the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches (UFMCC) was due in large part to timing. As with any successful religious group, however, the seeds of the UFMCC germinated, sprouted, and grew as a result of a multitude of interconnected factors, including both external back-ground factors in American society at large and internal factors within the UFMCC itself. This article relates the history and early growth of the UFMCC to this constellation of factors in order to gain a clearer understanding of both the denomination itself and the social changes of which it was an integral part.

O mundo muda. A Igreja não muda. O eclesiocentrismo afeta todos os níveis da instituição católica, inclusive as comunidades eclesiais de base. Por isso, falta a mística de Jesus e os pentecostais e outras religiões oferecem uma mensagem que atrai mais. Precisamos de um novo projeto de construção do reino de Deus porque o projeto de ressuscitar a cristandade está condenado ao fracasso. O clero não poderá nem constituir nem dirigir o novo projeto. Precisamos de um novo carisma, uma nova categoria de evangelizadores. Podemos provisoriamente dar-lhe o nome de missionários. O novo projeto terá que enfrentar claramente o modelo da sociedade atual. Será uma Igreja presente no mundo como sal da terra e luz do mundo, no meio dele e não na parte de fora. Os pobres de hoje são os negros da África, vítima de um racismo mundial. Ali vai começar o novo projeto.Abstract: The world changes. The Church doesn’t. Ecclesiocentrism affects all levels of the Catholic institution, including the basic ecclesiastic communities. For this reason, the mystic of Jesus is missing, and pentecostalists and other religions offer a more attractive message. We need a new construction project of the kingdom of God, since the project of resuscitating Christendom is doomed to failure. The clergy can neither constitute nor lead the new project. We need a new charisma, a new category of evangelists. We can call them provisorily missionaries. The new project will have to face clearly the model of the current society. It has to be a Church that will be present in the world like the salt of the earth and the light of the world, being part of the world, not outside it. The poor today are the blacks from Africa, victim of the world racism. That’s where the new project will begin.

Summary. Religious differences may rise and actually historically rose tensions and even wars. In the history, Christians also caused wars and were a threat to social integration and peace, despite the fact that Christianity is a religion of peace. God in Christians’ vision is a God of peace, and the birth of Son of God was to give peace «among men in whom he is well pleased» (Lk 2,14b). Although Christians themselves caused wars, died in them, were murdered and had to fight, the social doctrine of Christianity is focused on peace. Also the social thought of the Roman Catholic Church strives to build peace. Over the years, the social teaching of the Roman Catholic Church was formed, which sees the conditions and foundations for peace. These are: the dignity of the human person, the natural law, human rights, common good, truth, freedom, love and social justice. The development of the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching on peace was contributed by popes of XX century: Pius XI (1922–1939), Pius XII (1939–1958), with high impact – John XXIII (1958–1963), Paul VI (1963–1978), Pope John Paul II (1978–2005) and Pope Benedict XVI (2005–2013). After Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation, the most important role of the preceptor in the Church of Rome fulfills Francis – the pope from Argentina. Although his pontificate is not long, and teaching is not complete, but you can tell that he continues to build the social doctrine of the Roman Church in matters of peace through the development of so-called «culture of encounter». Based on selected speeches and letters of two years’ pontificate of Francis, the first figure of «culture of encounter» can be lined out as a way of preventing and resolving tensions in the contemporary world. Fundamentals of the concept of dialogue Francis created in the days of being a Jesuit priest and professor at Jesuit universities. He based it on the concept of Romano Guardini’s dialogue. Foundations of the look at the dialogue – in terms of Jorge Mario Bergoglio are strictly theological: God enters into dialogue with man, what enables man to «leaving himself» and enter into dialogue with others. Bergoglio dealt with various aspects of the dialogue: the Church and the world, culture and faith, dialogue between religions and cultures, dialogue inter-social and inter-national, dialogue rising solidarity and co-creating the common good. According to him the dialogue is a continuous task, not a single event; is overcoming widespread «culture of effacement» and «culture of fight» towards a «culture of encounter»; it releases from autism, isolation, gives strength and meaning of life, renews the ability to listen, lets looking at community in the perspective of the whole and not just selected units. As Bishop of Rome Jorge Mario Bergoglio continues and develops his idea of «a culture of dialogue and encounter». In promoting dialogue, he sees his own mission and permanent commitment imposed on him. He promotes the atmosphere – a kind of «music» – of dialogue, by basing it on emotions, respect, intuition, lack of threat and on trust. The dialogue in this sense sees a partner in each person, values the exchange always positively, and as a result it leads to making life ethical, bringing back respect for life and rights of every human being, granting the world a more human face. «Culture of encounter» has the power of social integration: it removes marginalization, the man is the goal not the means of actions, it does not allow a man to be reduced to a mere object, tools for profit or authority, but includes him into a community that is created by people and for their benefit. Society integrated in this way, constantly following «culture of encounter» rule, renews itself all the time and continually builds peace. All people are called to such building: believers and those who do not believe, all of good will. Also, the heads of state have in this effort of breaking the spiral of violence and a «culture of conflict» – both in economic and political dimension – big task and responsibility. Pope Francis reminded about this in a special letter to president of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin on September 14, 2014 year. In the letter he wrote: «it is clear that, for the world’s peoples, armed conflicts are always a deliberate negation of international harmony, and create profound divisions and deep wounds which require many years to heal. Wars are a concrete refusal to pursue the great economic and social goals that the international community has set itself, as seen, for example, in the Millennium Development Goals. Unfortunately, the many armed conflicts which continue to afflict the world today present us daily with dramatic images of misery, hunger, illness and death. Without peace, there can be no form of economic development. Violence never begets peace, the necessary condition for development». On thebasis of the current teaching of PopeFrancisthe following conclusion can be drawn, thatthe key topeace in the worldin many dimensions- evenbetweenreligions–isadialoguedeveloped under «cultureof encounter».

First a Man - then a Christian. Grundtvig and Missonary ActivityBy K.E. BuggeThe aim of this paper is to clarify Grundtvig’s ideas on missionary activity in the socalled »heathen parts«. The point of departure is taken in a brief presentation of the poem »Man first - and then a Christian« (1838), an often quoted text, whenever this theme is discussed. The most extensive among earlier studies on the subject is the book published by Georg Thaning: »The Grundtvigian Movement and the Mission among Heathen« (1922). The author provides valuable insights also into Grundtvig’s ideas, but has, of course, not been able to utilize more recent studies.On the background of the revival movement of the late 18th and early 19th century, The Danish Missionary Society was established in 1821. In the Lutheran churches such activity was generally deemed to be unnecessary. According to the Holy Scripture, so it was argued, the heathen already had a »natural« knowledge of God, and the word of God had been preached to the ends of the earth in the times of the Apostles. Nevertheless, it was considered a matter of course that a Christian sovereign had the duty to ensure that non-Christian citizens of his domain were offered the possibility of conversion to the one and true faith. In the double-monarchy Denmark-Norway such non-Christian populations were the Lapplanders of Northern Norway, the Inuits in Greenland, the black slaves in Danish West India and finally the native populations of the Danish colonies in West Africa and East India. Under the influence of Pietism missionary, activity was initiated by the Danish state in South India (1706), Northern Norway (1716), and Greenland (1721).In Grundtvig’s home the general attitude towards missionary work among the heathen seems to have reflected traditional Lutheranism. Nevertheless, one of Grundtvig’s elder brothers, Jacob Grundtvig, volunteered to become a missionary in Greenland.Due to incidental circumstances he was instead sent to the Danish colony in West Africa, where he died after less than one year of service. He was succeeded by his brother Niels Grundtvig, who likewise died within a year. During the period when Jacob Grundtvig prepared himself for the journey to Greenland, we can imagine that his family spent many an hour discussing his future conditions. It is probable that on these occasions his father consulted his copy of the the report on the Greenland mission published by Hans Egede in 1737. It is a fact that Grundtvig imbibed a deep admiration for Hans Egede early in his life. In his extensive poem »Roskilde Rhyme« (1812, published 1814), the theme of which is the history of Christianity in Denmark, Grundtvig inserted more than 70 lines on the Greenland mission. Egede’s achievements are here described in close connection with the missionary work of Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg in Tranquebar, South India, as integral parts of the same journey towards the celestial Jerusalem.In Grundtvig’s famous publication »The Church’s Retort« (1825) he describes the church as an historical fact from the days of the Apostles to our days. This historical church is at the same time a universal entity, carrying the potential of becoming the church of all humanity - if not before, then at the end of the world. A few years later, in a contribution to the periodical .Theological Monthly., he applies this historicaluniversal perspective on missionary acticity in earlier times and in the present. The main features of this stance may be summarized in the following points:1. Grundtvig rejects the Orthodox-Lutheran line of thought and underscores the Biblical view: That before the end of time the Gospel must be preached out into all comers of the world.2. Our Lutheran, Biblically founded faith must not lead to inactivity in this field.3. Correctly understood, missionary activity is a continuance of the acts of the Apostles.4. The Holy Spirit is the intrinsic dynamic power in the extension of the Christian faith.5. The practical procedure in this extension work must never be compulsion or stealth, but the preaching of the word and the free, uninhibited decision of the listeners.We find here a total reversion of the Orthodox-Lutheran way of rejection in principle, but acceptance in practice. Grundtvig accepts the principle: That missionary activity is a legitimate and necessary Christian undertaking. The same activity has, however, both historically and in our days, been marred by unacceptable practices, on which he reacts with forceful rejection. To this position Grundtvig adhered for the rest of his life.Already in 1826, Grundtvig withdrew from the controversy arising from the publication of his .Retort.. The public dispute was, however, continued with great energy by the gifted young academic, Jacob Christian Lindberg. During the 1830s a weekly paper, edited by Lindberg, .Nordisk Kirke-Tidende., i.e. Nordic Church Tidings, became Grundtvig’s main channel of communication with the public. All through the years of its publication (1833-41), this paper, of which Grundtvig was also an avid reader, brought numerous articles and reports on missionary activity. Among the reasons for this editorial practice we find some personal motives. Quite a few of Grundtvig’s and Lindberg’s friends were board members of the Danish Missionary Society. Furthermore, one of Lindberg’s former students, Christen Christensen Østergaard was appointed a missionary in Greenland.In the present paper the articles dealing with missionary activity are extensively reported and quoted as far as the years 1833-38 are concerned, and the effects on Grundtvig of this incessant .bombardment. of information on missionary activity are summarized. Generally speaking, it was gratifying for Grundtvig to witness ho w many of his ideas on missionary activity were reflected in these contributions. Furthermore, Lindberg’s regular reports on the progress of C.C. Østergaard in Greenland has continuously reminded Grundtvig of the admired Hans Egede.Among the immediate effects the genesis of the poem »First the man - then the Christian« must be mentioned. As already observed by Kaj Thaning, Grundtvig has read an article in the issue of Nordic Church Tidings, dated, January 8th, 1838, written by the Orthodox-Lutheran, German theologian Heinrich Møller on the relationship between human nature and true Christianity. Grundtvig has, it seems, written his poem in protest against Møller’s assertion: That true humanness is expressed in acceptance of man’s fundamental sinfulness. Against this negative position Grundtvig holds forth the positive Johannine formulations: To be »of the truth« and to hear the voice of the Good Shepherd. Grundtvig has seen a connection between Møller’s negative view of human nature and a perverted missionary practice. In the third stanza of his poem Grundtvig therefore inserted some critical remarks, clearly inspired by his reading of Nordic Church Tidings.Other immediate effects are seen in the way in which, in his sermons from these years, Grundtvig meticulously elaborates on the Biblical argumentation in favour of missionary activity. In this context he combines passages form the Old and New Testament - often in an ingenious, original manner. Finally must be mentioned the way in which Grundtvig, in his hymn writing from the middle of the 1830s, more often than hitherto recognized, interposes stanzas dealing with the preaching of the Gospel to heathen populations.Turning from general observations and a study of immediate impact, the paper considers the effects, which become apparent in a longer perspective. In this respect Grundtvig’s interpretation of the seven churches mentioned in chapters 2-3 of the Book of Revelation is of crucial importance. According to Grundtvig, they symbolize seven stages in the historical development of Christianity, i.e. the churches of the Hebrews, the Greeks, the Romans, the English, the Germans and the »Nordic« people. The seventh and last church will reveal itself sometime in the future.This vision, which Grundtvig expounds for the first time in 1810, emerges in his writings from time to time all through his life. The most impressive literary monument describing the vision is his great poem, »The Pleiades of Christendom« from 1856-60.In 1845 he becomes convinced that the arrival of the sixth stage is revealed in the breakthrough of a new and vigourous hymn-singing in the church of Vartov. As late as the spring of 1863 Grundtvig voices a contented optimism in a church-historical lecture, where the Danish missions to Greenland and to Tranquebar in South India are characterized as .signs of life and good omens.. Grundtvig here refers back to his above-mentioned »Roskilde Rhyme« (1812, 1814), where he had offered a spiritual interpretation of the names of persons and localities involved in the process. He had then observed that the colony founded in Greenland by Hans Egede was called »Good Hope«, a highly symbolic name. And the church built by the missionaries in Tranquebar was called »Church of the New Jerusalem«, a name explicitly referring to the Book of Revelation, and thus welding together his great vision and his view on missionary activity. After Denmark’s humiliating defeat in the Danish-German war of 1864, the optimism faded away. Grundtvig seems to have concluded that the days of the sixth and .Nordic. church had come to an end, and the era of the seventh church was about to commence. In accordance with his poem on »The Pleiades« etc. he localizes this final church in India.In Grundtvig’s total view missionary activity was the dynamism that bound his vision together into an integrated process. Through the activity of »Denmark’s apostle«, Ansgar, another admired mis-sionary, the universal church had become a locally rooted reality. Through the missions of Hans Egede and Ziegenbalg the Gospel was carried out to the ends of the earth. The local Danish church thus contributed significantly to the proliferation of a universal church. In the development of this view, Grundtvig was inspired as well as provoked by his regular reading of Nordic Church Tidings in the 1830s.

Marxism was not merely a teaching of historical or economic materialism; it was also a teaching about the rescue, a “Messianic mission”, of the proletariat, about a perfect society due in the future, a teaching of the man’s power and defeat of the irrational forces of nature and society. The features of the selected “People of God” have been transferred onto the proletariat. A logically contradictory blend of materialist, scientific-deterministic and non-moralist elements with the idealistic, moralistic and religious mythmaking elements has existed in the Marxist system. Marx created the proletariat myth and his mission was object of faith. Marxism was not merely a science and politics, but also a religion. His power was based on this.Communist atheism represented a type of “apophatic theology”, the next step of development that should lead to deletion of the theological component. The most significant features of this process were violence and totalitarianism. The energy of negation of the previous religious concept was transferred into affirmation of the new, terrestrial hierarchy. That is how the god-type leaders appeared quite rapidly as the state forms of the service and worshipping of God, which represented more than good conditions for the formation of personality cults. Just like all religions, communism is irrational, dogmatic and based on faith, rather than on science. Just like Christianity and Islam, communism had its own scriptures, the works of Marx, Lenin and Stalin. Just like most other religions, required irrational faith; the people living in communist countries had to cherish absolute faith in the order and its leaders, whereas the others were treated as classic heretics.Like in the Soviet Union, the totalitarian political power in Yugoslavia was imposed through sacralization of the Communist party and its leader. The most important elements in this process were the level of party Manichaeism, viewing of the party as the center of “holiness” surrounded by the sinister “mass of enemies”. A new faith was developed over time, which replaced the original tendency to have things improved. Communists were unforgiving in treating their political opponents as deadly enemies. Any connivance was experienced by the representatives of “new religion” as “intolerable weakness”.In the overly religious world at the turn of 20th century one of the instantly obvious characteristics of communism as ideology was the apparently clear lack of religiousness. When it turned out that “the plagues of communism had brought nothing more than death and poverty, totalitarian regimes and tyrants”, offending of atheists, especially after the world wars, by labeling them communists was widespread very much. And indeed, communism did not appear to have any gods, churches or holy books. Nevertheless a logical question came up why an apparently godless ideology has caused a catastrophe of such scale. The answer is more than simple: that ideology was far from atheistic, communism contains all the most specific features of religion, so it is no wonder it has brought so much pain, suffering and death.

This article tries to show that the mission of the church is to present or to embody the kingdom of God in this earth. The kingdom of God mission is not church oriented mission but the world oriented mission. The kingdom of God mission is God’s mission which is done by Jesus that the world will exist and run as it is designed by God, that is the world under God’s sovereignty. As God sent Jesus to present the kingdom of God in this earth, it does likewise Jesus sends the church to actualize the mission of Jesus (John 20:21). Church mission is actualization of Jesus’mission that is by words and deeds demonstrating the values of the kingdom of God that the world will be transformed as it is designed by God.

Abstract Missio Dei (“the mission of God”), and grounding the mission of the church in the character of God as a missionary God, is one of the most important theological (re-)discoveries of the twentieth-century. The concept is limited, however, if focused on one aspect of God as sending God, model of incarnational mission or empowerment for mission. This article argues that missio Dei is missio Trinitas (“the mission of the Trinity”). It explores the richness of missio Dei from an explicitly trinitarian perspective and its implications for local congregations, in conversation with missional church writers. The article argues that missio Trinitas places primary responsibility for mission with a Trinitarian God, invites the church to join God in the dance of (co-)mission, moves mission beyond church programs to a spirituality of mission, turns church attention to a whole gospel for the whole world, and calls all Christians into mission as communities rather than individuals. Ensuring a Trinitarian understanding of God and mission helps the church to remember the importance of divine agency, spirituality of mission, holistic mission and the mission of the whole people of God.

AbstractWhile ‘Mission in Britain today’ includes many aspects, this article focuses on the witness of the Church within Britain’s contemporary highly secularized culture. Rather than ‘technical change’, the Church is called to work at ‘adaptive change’, and so to concentrate less on strategies and more on internal renewal. Such adaptive change involves freeing people’s imagination from simplistic and abusive images of God, offering a positive image of God that is inspiring and truly challenging, recognizing the kenotic nature of the Church, and realizing that mission is carried out in a world of grace where God is already present and working

Many theologians and sociologists claim that in order to restore the social and postmodern man’s original image and resemblance to God, turning him into a “complete person,” with spiritual, religious, or cultural needs, a complex theological approach is needed. This approach, known as Social Theology, includes both a social dimension and a theological one in a Chalcedonian unity and morally regulates the relationship between man and society, between Church and modern and postmodern secular society. By means of this term, the Orthodox Church and Theology want to recover the social, just as “secularized culture experiences the recovery of religion, which it has transferred to the private sphere of people’s life;” it summons the social to dialogue, collaboration and mutual responsibility, in order to recover the “contemporary individual.”

The aim of this article is to explore how the Protestant Church in Papua (GPI-Papua) and the Protestant Church at West Indonesia (GPIB) run their mission in the world. As representatives of the church on the earth, both churches carry the same mission. As the church they are called and sent by God to fulfill their duty which is to serve the world. The method developed in this study is the document study which mneans that the study focuses on some important documents of these churches. This study found out that the presbyterial-sinodal system which is adopted by the GPI-Papua and GPIB will create or run congregation as a family. Based on this system, the church should be developed as as family of God through which the church reflects the meaning of being a church. By being a family of God, these churches should not focus more on institutional or structural and organisation aspects of the church. In contrary, the two churches should develop functional church leadership as the basic character of the church leadership.

In his 1998 article titled “God Inside Out: Toward a Missionary Theology of the Holy Spirit,” Stephen Bevans referred to Johannes Hoekendijk’s 1964 publication The Church Inside Out as his starting point. This article follows Bevans’s lead in exploring Hoekendijk’s legacy and contribution to theology and mission today. At key points I draw the connection of Hoekendijk’s thinking with that of Bevans, highlighting in the end the manner in which they both agree that the church itself is not of ultimate importance to God, but the world into which the Spirit still sends us in mission.

As the world faces rapidly increasing cycles of disruption, challenges, and disorder, mission leaders are stretched to adapt, trying to catch up with the pace of change and provide leadership to further the mission God has given his Church. This paper, presented at the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies Montagu Barker Lecture Series: “Polycentric Theology, Mission, and Mission Leadership,” focuses on ways leadership is changing, suggesting a new theoretical model for mission leadership. It reviews the idea of polycentrism through mission history, mission and church organizations, movement theory, and governance, identifying themes of an emerging theory of polycentric mission leadership.

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God. By the Holy Spirit, the Church encouraged, built, developed, and has the power to constantly strive to become witnesses of Christ. The Holy Spirit is always present in the entire journey of the Church. He has always worked through a variety of ways. One of the ways the Holy Spirit present in the Church is to call the catechists to participate in the work of the mission that carried the Church. For catechists Holy Spirit plays a role as important as he is present in the Church. The Holy Spirit is believed to be the soul of the Church and souls catechists in carrying out the mission in the world. For catechists, the Holy Spirit to realize that mission work is the work of God; Holy Spirit calling catechists at once become a major force for catechists; The Holy Spirit guides to the truth; and the Holy Spirit giving guidance to the mission of catechists.

There is a tension for the church between cultural engagement and maintaining faithful witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is important that the church both acknowledges and wrestles with this tension. As the church exists in the world, it must continue to discern what faithful participation within culture looks like. It also must consider the question of identity—that is, in what ways cultural engagement is core to who the church is called to be. To state it in a different way, if engagement with the world is central to the church’s participation in the mission of God, then it must discern how to do so in a way that is faithful to that mission. M.M. Thomas and Lesslie Newbigin were two important twentieth-century voices in the development of mission theology and a missional understanding of the church. In their dialogue entitled “Baptism, the Church, and Koinonia,” Thomas and Newbigin look to shape a more constructive understanding of the church’s calling and identity as it seeks clarity in how to engage with culture and remain faithful to its gospel witness. The church has always found itself in the world, a world which God loves in Jesus Christ. Any congregation which seeks to be faithful to the gospel must consider what it means to be Jesus’ witness in the world. This article will consider the cultural witness and identity of the church in light of the Thomas–Newbigin discussion, while also drawing from the wider work of both authors.

Mission in the church: A case study Based on an enquiry into mission interest in the NG Church. Although there can be no doubt that mission is the essential task to which God called the church into being, to be his witness in the world, the empirical church often shows very little awareness of this. This article relates some results of research done in the Dutch Reformed Church in the Republic of South Africa on the church members’ interest in and involvement with mission. Some of the significant factors influencing the missionary interest of the members were (a) their personal spirituality and activities within the church, (b) their political leanings, and (c) the missionary preaching and enthusiasm of the ministers. A few aspects of the ministry are highlighted as worthy of attention.

A witnessing church is a living church (1) A biblical-theological perspective on the missionary character of the church. In this, the first of two articles, we focus on the identity of the church as it is revealed in the Old and New Testaments. Since the sixties of the previous century, it is widely accepted that mission is the essence of the church. The church was no longer seen as the institution which sends people into the world, but was no longer the one who is sent into the world. According to the Old Testament, Israel was elected to be God’s witness to the nations. In exile they recognised that Jahwe is not a national God, but God of the whole world. The four Gospels, Acts and the letters of Paul make it very clear that the church of Jesus Christ is either a missionary church or not a church at all. The church is, in all its activities per se an instrument in bringing God's kingdom to this world.

Jesus founded His Church as the new family of God by instituting the Twelve. The new family is a real space which fulfils the Kingdom of God. It is a community of Jesus’ disciples which fosters the rule of God in the world and has an explicitly institutional dimension. The founding of the new family fulfils the promise to create the new Israel made in the Old Testament. The ethos of the new family of God is aimed at proclaiming the universal reign of God, as it is the mission bestowed on the family by Jesus. Its moral principles were laid out in the Sermon on the Mount. The new family of God is a space where all the promises made by God to Israel come to fulfilment. In this sense, we can speak of continuity between the nation of Israel and the Ecclesia. The Church does not replace the people of the Old Testament but is a continuation thereof in Jesus Christ.

The doctrine of prevenient grace in the Wesleyan tradition has always played an important role in shaping the way we understand and participate in the mission of God (Missio Dei) and the role of the church in it. The doctrine of prevenient grace, in the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition, continues to shape the understanding of holiness as God’s activity to restore broken relationships. Holiness, as it is often misunderstood, is not a physical separation between what we consider holy and unholy, churchy and worldly, pure and impure, but the redemption of broken relationships (God and humans, humans with each other, humans and creation and human with the self). The goal of this paper is to further explore the theological and missiological bases of the doctrine of prevenient grace, as understood by Wesley, and the practical implication that this doctrine has in shaping the way the church fulfills its missiological call in the world. This paper is divided into three main sections: the first part of the paper will focus on defining prevenient grace and its relationship to the mission of God (Missio Dei); the second part will explore the missiological and theological implications of the doctrine of prevenient grace, and the last part will illustrate practically the theological and missiological motivation of the work of the Church of the Nazarene with refugees in Zagreb, Croatia.

ABSTRACTThis article examines Augustine's doctrine of the totus Christus, “the whole Christ” with Christ as Head and the Church as Body. It considers the new identity as Christ that Christians receive in the sacraments of initiation that unite individuals in the Church community, and the sacramental presence of the Church in the world as one of unifying love. This new identity forms the Church for mission as it joins Christ in a mission of love that unites people to one another as it unites them to God. The Church joins Christ in standing in solidarity with those in need, thus radiating Christ's unifying, transformative love in the world. The article ends with a suggestion that Augustine's view of the totus Christus might be a valuable resource for delving more deeply into Vatican II's vision of the sacramental unity of the Church.

AbstractIn this article, Sidney H. Rooy chronicles the development of the Latin American Council of Churches (CLAI) up to and including its 2001 Assembly in Baranquilla, Colombia. This organization, the author explains, understands the church's mission as rooted in the mission of God as such. Because of this, mission is not only about individual conversion and church-centered concerns, but about witnessing to justice in the world and peace and reconciliation among peoples.

This article begins with the personal faith journey of the author nurtured in Korean Pentecostalism. Christ is the best thing that can happen in life. The author’s faith journey becomes a missionary journey. It leads to the discovery that there are two types of mission: centred on ‘life after death’ (soul saving) and mission as struggle for ‘life before death’ (a just world). The next step is to realise that the two have to go together. The 20th-century mission has been marked by the World Missionary Conference of Edinburgh 1910 and the Pentecostal movement. The former has led to the ecumenical movement, which has truncated mission into the discussion on church unity. The missionary fervour of the Pentecostal movement has resulted in unprecedented expansion of Christianity in the global South but completely ignored Christian unity. Today we see signs of the two beginning to converge.

Salah satu tugas gereja dan orang percaya adalah pekerjaan misi. Misi adalah semua kegiatan yang bertujuan untuk mengabarkan kematian dan kebangkitan Yesus Kristus sebagai pengorbanan untuk penebusan dosa manusia serta jaminan hidup yang kekal dalam nama-Nya. Jadi pekerjaan misi adalah Pengabaran Injil/penginjilan.Selanjutnya gereja bukan hanya mempunyai misi, tetapi seluruh kehidupan gereja itu adalah misi. Tugas memberitakan Injil adalah tugas setiap orang percaya. Gereja yang kuat dan bersinar adalah gereja yang bersedia pergi memberitakan kasih Allah kepada dunia, sehingga dunia mengalami kasih Allah. Sehingga masa depan dunia ada ditangan gereja. Gereja haruslah memiliki hati Allah. Tugas gereja memuridkan dan mengutus para murid untuk melaksanakan Mandat Agung Kristus. Maka, memberitakan kabar baik segala perbuatan dan karya Allah adalah tugas semua orang yang telah menerima anugerah keselamatan. Benih Injil haruslah terpancar dari semua aspek kehidupan orang percaya. Gereja yang kuat dan bertumbuh adalah gereja yang terlibat dalam pelaksanaan misi Allah bagi dunia. One of the tasks of the church and believers is missionary work. Mission is all activities aimed at proclaiming the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as a sacrifice for the atonement of human sins and the guarantee of eternal life in His name. So missionary work is evangelism / evangelism. Furthermore, the church does not only have a mission, but the whole life of the church is a mission. The task of preaching the gospel is the duty of every believer. A strong and shining church is a church that is willing to go to preach God's love to the world, so that the world experiences God's love. So that the future of the world is in the hands of the church. The church must have the heart of God. The task of the church is to make disciples and send disciples to carry out the Great Mandate of Christ. So, to preach the good news of all the deeds and works of God is the duty of all those who have received the gift of salvation. The seeds of the gospel must be emanated from all aspects of a believer's life. A strong and growing church is a church that is involved in carrying out God's mission for the world.

Mission is shaped by the life and experience of the church, both past and present, and this in turn is the function of both the work of the Spirit of God and the interaction of the people of God with their contexts. In line with this position, we examine the impact of Covid-19, highlighting some elements of the global context of mission, trends in world Christianity and mission. We then explore how global mission is in a process of realignment that has the potential to be enhanced through embracing the conditions Covid-19 has imposed on us. Finally, we consider the need for deep reflection on our identity if we are to take the opportunity to bear faithful witness in this moment.

The article describes Emerging Churches as a 21st century phenomenon. Emerging churches are not a new denomination, but are experimental forms of church life, found in all denominations; formulating and living Christian faith in a post-modern world. The importance of emerging churches is that they serve as risk-taking prototypes, researching ways of being a relevant church and expressing faith in a current language. Serving older churches with new insights which they can consider. They are a new expression of church. Emerging churches should be understood in terms of their strong missional orientation – even to the extent that they should rather be called emerging missional churches. The emerging movement is missional in the sense that they are seeking what changes God is doing in this world. They become missional by participating with God, in the redemptive work God is doing in a changing world. This missional understanding is profoundly influenced by David Bosch’ s elaboration of the concept of the Missio Dei: the understanding that the very life of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is a process of mission. Emerging Churches are a new expression of church - Christians who are doing what they can to get the church back in line with the kingdom vision of Jesus. Part 2 will describe and elaborates on core practices of emerging missional churches.

As the Church participates in God’s Mission, how is it called to oppose evil forces in the world? In the last fifty years, spiritual warfare approaches have come to the attention of evangelicals through missionary encounters with spirit cosmologies of the global South and the rise of Pentecostalism within World Christianity. But Janet Warren’s book, Cleansing the Cosmos (Wipf and Stock, 2012), offers a theological and practical alternative to spiritual warfare, one that emphasizes God’s cleansing of space in his creation, with evil not so much a strategic enemy but chaos that seeks to intrude over God-given boundaries and contaminate what God has made holy. This article analyzes Warren’s proposal and explores how it may help in some areas of mission where spiritual warfare approaches have been problematic – namely in relation to exaggerated God–Satan dualism, discontinuity of local religious forms, and controversies over space.

Laymen in the Church have an unique mission in the world. They are sent by Christ the Lord to transform the world with the christian values. They have a great responsability in spreaching the Gospel to all people. In cooperation with the clergy, they should realize Jesus' teaching of love in the act of loving to each other, especially the sick, the poor, the suffer. They should promote human rights, justice, peace and common wealth in the society where they live. This is their mission based on the faith, Gospel and The Social Teaching of the Church. This mission is a form of diaconia of the laymen in the Church

Laymen in the Church have an unique mission in the world. They are sent by Christ the Lord to transform the world with the christian values. They have a great responsability in spreaching the Gospel to all people. In cooperation with the clergy, they should realize Jesus' teaching of love in the act of loving to each other, especially the sick, the poor, the suffer. They should promote human rights, justice, peace and common wealth in the society where they live. This is their mission based on the faith, Gospel and The Social Teaching of the Church. This mission is a form of diaconia of the laymen in the Church.

AbstractThe four gospels rightly stand at the head of the New Testament canon. They have, however, routinely been misread or misunderstood. They tell the story of the launch of theocracy – ‘the kingdom of God’ – in terms of the story of Jesus; but they tell that story as (a) the narrative climax of the story of Israel (presupposing the continuous story envisaged by many second-temple Jews in terms of Daniel 9's prophecy of an extended exile), (b) the story of Israel's God returning in glory as always promised, and (c) as the rival to the powerful first-century narrative of Rome, as told by e.g. Livy and Virgil in terms of Rome's history reaching its climax in Augustus, the ‘son of God’, and his empire. The stories meet on the cross, and the purpose of the gospels is then to awaken the readers’ imagination: suppose, they say, that ultimate power looks like this, not like that of Alexander the Great or Augustus. Ironically, much gospel scholarship since the rise of the critical movement has appeared eager to silence this kind of reflection; this has been due to (a) a desire to avoid continuity of narrative, (b) the implicit Epicureanism of modern western culture, with its eagerness to keep God and the world at arm's length, (c) the ‘two kingdoms’ theology implicit in much Lutheranism, and hence much New Testament scholarship, and (d) the triumph in modernism of what has been described by Ian McGilchrist as ‘left-brain’ over ‘right-brain’ thinking. Microscopic analysis has replaced the world of intuition, metaphor, narrative and imagination, leading to readings entirely against the grain of the gospels themselves (though understandable in an academic world where the doctoral process rewards left-brain work). If we are to take the gospels’ narratives seriously, however, we are projected forwards into a fresh vision of what the early church understood as its ‘mission’, focused on the εὐαγγέλιον which, for the first Christians, trumped that of Caesar. Because the early church was no longer marked by the cultural symbols of ethnic Judaism, it was the freshly imagined vision of the identity of the one God that sustained them in this mission, and the ecclesial life it demanded. This was the birth of ‘Christian theology’; and today's task must include the imaginative recapturing of that vision of God's kingdom, as a key element in a refreshed and gospel-grounded missiology.

Since the founding of the Assemblies of God in 1914, world evangelization has been basic to its self-understanding and mission to the world. As its missions enterprise developed in the succeeding years, important foundations were laid which contributed to its remarkable growth after 1960. These include: (1) the ardent Pentecostal belief that the apostolic signs and wonders of the Holy Spirit will follow the proclamation of the gospel, (2) the application of indigenous church principles will result in the planting of New Testament churches, (3) the training of national leaders must receive high priority, and (4) the popular support of the home churches must be nurtured and efficiently channeled.

AbstractThe Pentecostal and Charismatic movements have assisted many denominations, including Lutherans, with the call to mission by challenging them with a new view of the Holy Spirit. A full immersion in these movements along with a firm grounding in the tradition will lead to a fuller grasp of what the Spirit is doing in the world. This article reviews two prominent Lutheran theologians who have shaped a whole generation of leaders concerning the Holy Spirit: Robert Jenson and Larry Christenson. In response to their work, I will explore how the work of the Spirit can be understood when framed within God's mission (the missio Dei). The call to mission is central. The church emerges as it engages in the missionary activity of witness and sanctification. This is the story of Acts. It is the story of the Spirit. The church's missionary call is to speak in tongues.

This paper will read Jn 20.21–22 as a missional text of Johannine Trinitarian Missiology. It will argue that mission is proper first to the being and the act of the Trinity, and secondarily a concept in the church—the witness of the Trinity. The aim of this paper is threefold. First, it will explore the nature of the Trinity as a missionary God who sent the Son/incarnate Word and the Spirit/the cosmic Breath into the world. Secondly, it will examine how Christ as the Word and witness of the Father moves from the sent to the caller and sender of apostles into the world through the power of the Spirit. Third, seeing the world as the scope of the mission of Christ and apostles, this paper will study Christ’s boundary-crossing mission of incarnation and reconciliation as a model of the Church’s boundary-crossing mission witness in a pluralistic and Spirit-present world.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to establish the importance of accounting in the management of Spanish military hospitals by the St John’s Order (SJO) of the Roman Catholic Church in the eighteenth century, a time of crisis between the Church and the State. The sacred mission of the Order required that they had a significant role outside the Roman Catholic Church in the care and treatment of the sick and infirm which required them to establish hospitals throughout Spain and across the lands that it had conquered. The study establishes that accounting played a key role in ensuring the success of the unconventional commercial relationship between the SJO and the government and the military. Design/methodology/approach – Niebuhr’s typology is used to help understand how accounting practices were consistent, indeed essential, expectations of the sacred mission of the SJO and not something which represented a denial of the Order’s religious beliefs. The paper relies primarily on documents and other material located in Spanish archives. Findings – The SJO accepted that secular accounting and accountability processes were relevant to their search for God’s love and to showing this love to others. The need for the Order to be accountable to the State was not regarded as profane and antithetical to their religious beliefs. Adopting Niebuhr’s typology of religion and society, this study concludes that the Order was an extraordinary example of Christ the transformer of the culture. Originality/value – This study recognises the need to deepen the understanding of the way in which accounting practices have often played a critical role in the activities of religious organisations by examining an extraordinary example of one organisation which was engaged in an unusual, ongoing, highly complex commercial relationship with the Spanish State.