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According to tradition, the Apostle Peter went to Rome during the rule of the Emperor Nero to lead the church there. At that time, Emperor Nero was looking for a reason to put Peter to death and stamp out the sect called the Way. When the followers of Jesus in Rome heard the news, they…… Continue reading Identity, Witness, and the Death of Peter

Last month, we redefined centered sets and bounded sets here. A bounded set is a collection of all objects which possess the defining characteristics which determine the membership of the set. A centered set is a collection of all objects which are moving towards a well-defined center. This month we will review Hiebert’s original observations…… Continue reading 40 Years Later – Pt 2 – Revisiting Centered and Bounded Sets

Forty years ago, Dr. Paul G. Hiebert wrote an article called “Conversion, Culture, and Cognitive Categories” in Gospel in Context that introduced a pair of abstruse mathematical concepts from non-cantorian set theory to the world of missiology. These two concepts, the Bounded Set and the Centered Set, sparked a quiet revolution in missions as pastors,…… Continue reading Centered Sets vs Bounded Sets – 40 Years Later

Collapse is a terrifying word, is it not? Economic collapse. Political collapse. Ecological collapse. A collapse is sudden, violent, destructive. It makes headlines. The conceptual collapse has never been breaking news. But these collapses are at least as destructive as the former, and far more common. This is an inevitable consequence of two inescapable truths.…… Continue reading The (Almost) Inevitable Collapse

Christian development has a long history, and a checkered one, if we are honest. One of the latest developments from a historical perspective is the professionalization of the field in the 80s and 90s, ably described by Bryant Myers, in his book Walking with the Poor. Prior to that time, development workers were “talented amateurs”…… Continue reading The Heart of Integral Mission is … the Heart

Have you ever thought about how God has chosen to communicate with his people? It’s a fascinating question that we have explored here and here over the last two months. I’d like to take a final step this month, which is where we have been heading all along. In the last century, and particularly in…… Continue reading Retiring from the Shouting Match

Last month, we examined the idea that God’s Word is not merely content. It is intentionally communicated content. God is a communicator. If you missed it, you can find it here. This month, we will examine a characteristic of the communication of God as a case study. The non-universality of divine communication is both counter-intuitive…… Continue reading The Non-Universal Communication of God

God exists, and He makes Himself known. These are two basic tenets of the Christian faith. God is not only a Creator, God is a communicator. Have you ever wondered why God communicates the way He does? It’s a fascinating question. The problem that parents face when trying to communicate with their small children fades…… Continue reading God, the Great Communicator

This post is not about the various methods of baptizing a new believer. It’s about something much more important, the Western church’s penchant to baptize certain methodologies because they have produced spiritual success. This is exactly the action that a social scientist or anthropologist would predict for any person (Christian or not) coming from a…… Continue reading Baptizing Methods

Quick Definition of Integral Mission Integral mission is a simple concept with complex implications. One way to define integral mission is  the belief that a human life is a seamlessly integrated whole. There are physical, spiritual, emotional, social, political, economic, religious aspects of every human’s existence and they are all inter-related. Who we are as…… Continue reading Integral Mission and Donors