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When does a church plant transition from missions-receiver to missions-sender? Sadly, some churches never do. Others struggle to do so, but get sidetracked by the desire for bigger buildings, more members, and greater influence. This article is the story of one congregation in Brazil that faced the same challenges and temptations, but in the power of God’s Spirit made a commitment to make God’s worldwide mission a first priority. The Igreja de Cristo Norte de Goiânia has kept that commitment—in 25 years they have sent 13 of their members as transcultural missionaries, and counting. We narrate their journey so that other churches may find encouragement and practical ideas to make a similar commitment and a similar transition.

When Tom and Libby Fife arrived in Goiânia, Brazil in 1966 with the Brazil Christian Mission, the initial tasks set before Tom were to teach at the Christian Institute of Goiânia (Instituto Cristão de Goiânia) and to serve as pastor for one of the churches in Goiânia. They visited the four congregations of the Christian Churches/Churches of Christ (4Cs) and settled in at Igreja de Cristo da Vila Fama, soon to be renamed Igreja de Cristo—Norte de Goiânia (ICNG). Tom had great hopes for the congregation: that it would become self-governing, self-supporting, and self-propagating.1 God, however, had even more in mind.

Forty-five years later, the city has grown to a population of over 1.3 million,2 and there are nearly eighty churches of the 4Cs movement in its metropolitan area. This, however, is not a story of church multiplication in a specific area. Rather, it is a story of the worldwide mission of the church. It is a success story about a church that developed from being a missionary recipient to becoming a missionary sender.

Missions on four continents, hundreds of churches planted, and countless people brought to Christ: this is the work that God has accomplished through one small congregation in Brazil. It was simply a congregation with a heart willing to be shaped by God. I share this story in the hope that it may help other congregations to open their heart to the transforming power of God’s mission so that this story may be repeated around the globe.

I should admit from the start that there were also many frustrations and some tragic misdirection over the years when the Holy Spirit’s leading was not heeded. I will refer to some of them briefly. In the end, however, this story revolves around neither the plans nor the failures of the people involved, but around the grace, mercy, and incredible sovereignty of God.3

Laying the Foundation

Tom and Libby worked closely with ICNG from 1966 until 1991. Though their strategy was not written on paper, five consistent elements formed the foundation upon which the congregation would build.

First, there was never to be a mission station.4 Following the example of earlier missionaries David and Ruth Sanders,5 the Fifes moved into a Brazilian-style home to live among the people. More than just a housing solution, this decision emerged from Tom’s missional mindset. During an earlier ministry equipping Mexican leaders for Mexican churches,6 Tom had received a letter asking whether he could cite an example of any Mexican capable of operating a “complete mission station.” Tom replied: “No, but we are not teaching people to operate mission stations; we are teaching them to build churches. Our goal is not a complete mission station anywhere. Our goal is preparing Mexican leaders to plant and lead self-supporting churches.”7 He continued with the same mentality from the beginning of his work in Brazil: he sought to equip Brazilians who would lead the Brazilian church.

Second, with basically only enough support for his wife and five small children,8 pouring money into mission work was never an option for Tom and Libby. Missiologist Jonathan Bonk highlights well the problematic effects that financial arrangements can have on the relations between missionaries and those whom they serve. Missionary prosperity has “an inherent tendency to isolate missionaries from the cutting edge of missionary endeavor, rendering much of their effort either unproductive or counterproductive, or sometimes both.”9 In the case of the Fifes, funds were not plentiful either for the missionary family or for the church—a small congregation in a poor neighborhood. In the sixties and early seventies, few people in the church were literate, and no one had a car. For some time, even the Fifes had no car and used public transportation to get to church. Over time it became evident that whatever resources were given by Tom, Libby, and their children, whether time, money, or energy, they were given as sacrificially as anybody else’s.

The Fifes did indeed give sacrificially of themselves. Tom made repeated church planting trips into the rural areas in the north of the state of Goiás, often taking one or more of his children along. The lasting fruit of these arduous trips would only be seen decades later. In 1969 Libby got the church involved in a benevolence ministry called Diaconia, which provided valuable job skills and language training for those in low economic brackets. Beginning in 1967, Tom also worked with the Association for Christian Literature (Associação Pró-Literatura Cristã) editing Christian books, Sunday School literature, and leadership training materials in Portuguese. As a result of this ministry, some US supporters withdrew their support because they did not consider the publication of Christian literature vital “church work.” When ICNG needed to build a new church building in 1968, the contributions and volunteer labor came from the ICNG members, including the Fife family.

Third, Tom and Libby were convinced that in order to have any impact, they would have to contact Brazilians in their own culture: they would tell about Jesus Christ without implying that it had anything to do with becoming Americanized. The children were enrolled in Brazilian schools and grew up speaking the Portuguese language. Four of them eventually married Brazilians. Brazil became home. Tom and Libby eventually moved back to the US to care for Libby’s aging parents, but to this day they continue to travel and teach in Portuguese-speaking countries. Their incarnational influence would provide an example for future generations of missionaries sent out by ICNG to diverse cultures on four continents.

Fourth, Tom refused to assume pastoral leadership of the church whenever possible. While he was willing to teach and preach regularly, he believed the church should come up with its own leaders. It was only after a sequence of bad experiences with ill-equipped Brazilian leaders that he reluctantly accepted the function of pastor of the congregation during the years 1977–1986. After that time he turned the pastoral leadership of the congregation over to local leadership, while he turned his attention increasingly to Theological Education by Extension (TEE) and other training ministries.

Fifth, Tom and Libby learned from experience that, while they sought to change people’s misconceptions about Jesus, there was no need to change their cultural orientation. This brings to mind Asian missionary thinker Kosuke Koyama’s reflections:

Isn’t it a basic rule of life that one cannot make a contribution unless one is ready to accept another’s contribution in return? Otherwise, “making a contribution” may become only a convenient expression for an egoistic “keeping our contributions to ourselves.” . . . “Giving” is a dynamic theological process which influences both the giver and the given. A tradition cannot “give” something without “receiving” something from others. It belongs to the wonder of the mystery of the Body of Christ, the church.10

Thus the Fifes engaged the Brazilian church in a true process of give and take, and the sense grew that they really belonged to each other as family. Once again the words of Christ were realized in the experience of his disciples:

Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. (Mark 10:29–30)11

Beginning in 1972, Tom started working with what would become his passion and his main effort until today: Theological Education by Extension (TEE). He began teaching TEE in the facilities of the Christian Institute of Education and Culture (Instituto Cristão de Educação e Cultura) in Goiânia. The following year, however, he started going to the then six Christian Churches/Churches of Christ in Goiânia, including ICNG, teaching all who expressed an interest in theological education. Leaders belonging to other Christian groups in Goiânia became interested in the TEE program as well.

By 1983, at the invitations of missionary Wayne Long in São Paulo and of one of the first graduates from the Christian Institute, Ozório Rodrigues, who was working in Belo Horizonte in the state of Minas Gerais, Tom began traveling every three weeks from Goiânia to Brasília, São Paulo, and Belo Horizonte to teach TEE courses. This eighteen-hundred-mile (2,880 km) circuit was continued for four years, and it was during this time that he participated in the Evangelical Association of Theological Training by Extension (Associação Evangélica para Treinamento Teológico por Extensão). There Tom served alongside Jonathan Santos, founder of the Antioch Mission (Missão Antioquia),12 a connection that would play a vital part in the missional awakening to come. As for the churches in Goiânia, local tutors were assigned to keep up with the classes while Tom was away. To this day many ICNG’s members credit their higher academic achievements to Tom’s passion for education and leadership training.

In 1981–1982, Tom and Libby spent a one year furlough in the United States for the first time. The three older children stayed in Brazil. By then two of the children, Robert and Elena, were married to Brazilians and had Brazilian children. Elena lived with her family in Belo Horizonte, and Robert and his wife Derlani were active leaders at ICNG.

During that year, Robert Fife and Gerson Sousa,13 who were elders in the church, carried out the pastoral responsibilities without Tom’s help for the first time. This new generation of leadership had been TEE students since 1973, and their wives had joined in the studies. Thus, the foundation was laid for leadership based on sound biblical teaching in an atmosphere of Christian love and unity—which is a hallmark of the congregation to this day.

Missions Awakening in Brazil

While the new leadership began to find their footing at ICNG, the Holy Spirit was awakening a new consciousness in churches all across Brazil: a world mission awakening. Increasingly, churches began to recognize the Spirit’s continuing role in holistic missions:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. (Luke 4:18–19)

You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. (Acts 1:8)

Both the Great Commandment (Matthew 22:37–39) and the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18–20a) constituted the mission of the Church. ICNG had long displayed its love for God and neighbor, but something was still lacking: “Go into all the world.” So Robert and Gerson decided to attend a world mission conference in July 1985. It was sponsored by the Baptist Church recently planted in Morumbi, São Paulo.

At the same time, news started to spread about Missão Antioquia and about the innovative mission program of the First Baptist Church in Santo André. The testimony of the latter, following the renowned model of Oswald J. Smith and the People’s Church of Toronto, was especially encouraging. Their lead pastor, Édison Queiroz,14 spoke enthusiastically about the Christian Education building they had built with what was “left over” after they had first given both to the Brazilian Baptist Missionary Board and to other missionaries they were directly involved in equipping, sending, and supporting through their faith-promise program. World mission awareness was maintained by means of their annual mission rallies, which involved the whole church in their organization.

Far from an isolated example, this innovative congregation was part of a burgeoning missionary movement.15 In a lecture in 2005, veteran missionary Bertil Ekström affirmed that in the eighties “a new kind of mission structure was seen among the mission movements in Brazil. Local churches, following a North American trend, started sending out missionaries and creating their own sending body.” And he added, “This coincided with a decreasing confidence in traditional structures and a criticism against organizational models, especially in the denominations.”16

The most significant demonstration of the breadth and depth of this missionary awakening was the first Iberian-American Missionary Congress (Congresso Missionário Íbero-Americano—COMIBAM) in 1987.17 The conference attracted over 3,000 delegates from Latin America, Portugal, Spain, and other countries for sessions in both Portuguese and Spanish. Robert Fife and Valdecy DaSilva from ICNG were among the one thousand delegates representing the Brazilian churches.

Two mission-minded churches sponsored the COMIBAM: the First Baptist Church in Santo André and the nearby Presbyterian Church in Ipiranga (IPI). The lead pastor at IPI, Oswaldo Prado,18 described COMIBAM with these words:

This missionary encounter was a watershed moment, in my opinion, for the beginning of this “boom” of Brazilian missions. Until then several missionary encounters had taken place, but Comibam established its defining mark in the opening worship when its President, Luis Bush, affirmed in his talk: “From a mission field[,] Latin America has become a mission force.” This phrase that [sic] might seem to be merely rhetorical but it truly caused an awakening of the three thousand delegates.19

It is undoubtedly true that “within the last century there has been a massive southward shift of the center of gravity of the Christian world, so that the representative Christian lands now appear to be in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and other parts of southern continents.”20 However, there hardly could have been a more economically unfavorable time in the history of Brazil for an outburst of world-mission related activities than the eighties and early nineties. While facing an average inflation of forty percent each month for over ten years, there were many who strongly opposed the idea of sending out and supporting cross-cultural missionaries. Finally, in 1994, the government brought inflation under control, but Brazil continues to be a nation with huge socio-economic distortions and inequalities.

Prado recalls that as time passed he repeatedly heard comments from Brazilian leaders and pastors that implied that “this new [missional] experience had nothing to do with our [economic] reality. However, at the same time, the Brazilian missionary advance was incredible and even uncontrollable.”21 It is further noteworthy that most of the churches that have faithfully supported cross-cultural endeavors to the present are medium-sized or even relatively small ones. Although there are evidently exceptions, most of these are by no means wealthy churches.22 The Spirit’s leading did not depend on the economy.

These winds of missional change brought a new level of leadership to the nation. In his lecture “Mission in and from Brazil,” Ekström pointed out:

The national leadership of the mission movement was formed in the 1970s through the mission conferences, the participation of a new generation of foreign missionaries and their emphasis on mission, the arrival of international missions to Brazil and a new awareness of the Evangelical churches of their potential for reaching out to other nations with the Gospel.23

The same influences would shape the local leadership of ICNG in the 1980s.

Mission Awakening at ICNG

ICNG began to send their own members farther afield for ministry training, and two of these had a significant effect on the congregation’s missional perspective. The first was Tom’s protégé, Valdecy DaSilva. After seeing other Brazilian leaders go to Bible colleges in the United States and not come back, the leadership was very reluctant to approve the wishes of DaSilva to do the same. But DaSilva was determined, and it was finally arranged for him to go to Colegio Biblico24 on the Mexican border in 1983. He agreed to work his own way through college, with the condition that he would come back and work with ICNG for at least two years after graduation—bringing his cross-cultural experience of Mexico back to ICNG.

The first member that ICNG sent with financial support was Maria Avanilde Silva, sent to the Word of Life Bible Institute (Instituto Bíblico Palavra da Vida)25 in São Paulo in 1985 for a Christian Education degree. She returned after graduation three years later to implement a Christian Education program.26 Her hard work recruiting and training volunteers and putting together a full curriculum for the youth department would have a long-lasting impact upon ICNG and would be followed up by other members. At least once a month, Children’s Church at ICNG focused on the world mission of the Church. Children regularly heard about cross-cultural experiences and prayer requests, and they participated in the mission rallies both several weeks prior to the event and during its occurrence. In this way world mission became a part of the DNA of the church.

Meanwhile, because of an invitation from the Church of Christ (Igreja de Cristo)27 in Angola, Tom Fife visited, taught, and preached in Angola’s capital city of Luanda in 1985. In 1986, Angolan pastor Arão Canda visited Brazil and shared concerning the situation of the growing church in Angola despite the communist oppression they were still experiencing a decade after independence from Portugal. Initially unplanned by ICNG, Arão was present at what would be ICNG’s very first world mission rally. Tom’s visit to Angola and Arão’s visit to Brazil were just the starting points of a long-lasting relationship between the churches in Brazil and Angola. A highlight of such interaction has been three different students who have subsequently come to the Christian Theological College (Faculdade Teológica Cristã do Brasil) in order to be further equipped for Christian ministry: Lutumba João Pedro, Afonso Teca, and Afonso’s wife Bibiane.28

Mission fervor at ICNG was also growing in relation to local evangelism. Partly as a result of a short-term mission team that came from Word of Life Bible Institute (Instituto Bíblico Palavra da Vida) with Avanilde Silva in 1986, the church emphasized evangelistic activities both in the neighborhood and beyond, even seeking opportunities to plant a new church. The church reflected Wilbert Shenk’s observation:

There is no biblical or theological basis for the territorial distinction between mission and evangelization. To accede to this dichotomy is to invite the church to “settle in” and be at home. The church is most at risk where it has been present in a culture for a long period of time so that it no longer conceives its relation to culture in terms of missionary encounter. The church remains socially and salvifically relevant only so long as it is in redemptive tension with culture.29

Ed Stetzer adds that the territorial distinction between mission and evangelism has been assumed since Gustav Warneck (1834–1910), but “their separation has caused harm to the church. . . . In an attempt to promote the importance of missions, missiologists have often undermined the church by removing missional thinking from its rightful place.”30 Thus, a church “conformed, and conforming to the will of God is one that lives in consciousness of its missional nature. Mission is the motor that drives the church in obedient response to the reign of God in the world.”31 Or, as 1 Pet 2:9 puts it, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

ICNG was growing in its “consciousness of its missional nature,” but that consciousness would soon be tested by a difficult decision.

A Conversion and a Commitment

Igreja de Cristo—Norte de Goiânia (ICNG) had been growing, so they bought a property in order to build a larger facility. The groundbreaking ceremony was on October 5, 1986. The church made plans for a building that could eventually hold five hundred people because they wanted to have room to continue to grow. However, after they laid the foundation and the walls were going up, all the resources had been drained. It did not take long for the congregation to find themselves putting all their time, money, and energy into the building project.

Patrick Johnstone’s Operation World had been published in Portuguese, so ICNG used prayer cards to pray for different nations during each midweek prayer meeting. Some started dreaming of developing a local world mission program. However, due primarily to the construction needs, it was becoming absolutely impossible to think about financing evangelistic efforts of any kind. And to make things worse, even basic needs of people in the church were being neglected.

Thus during the following year an important decision became inevitable. After much prayer, Gerson Sousa and Robert Fife approached the church in repentance and asked the people to follow. Some resisted the change, feeling that they had invested too much in the building to turn back. But despite this resistance, a change of mind actually took hold in the congregation. From that time on, people and the mission of the church took priority over buildings and projects.

The construction proceeded very slowly as permitted by available finances. Meanwhile, the church sent support promptly to the missionaries on the field. The congregation moved into the unfinished building in 1989, but it took nine more years before the building was completely finished. The church continued to grow but there were also some setbacks. At times the unfinished building was an embarrassment. Other times, inflation and the rapid devaluation of the Brazilian currency made it seemingly impossible to keep up with commitments to missionaries on the field.

Nevertheless, this turning point had a great influence upon the people of ICNG. Moreover, the decisions made by one congregation in this decisive stage have affected countless individuals, many churches, an amazing number of people groups, and even several countries in different parts of the world. From that point on, the congregation has fully acknowledged and affirmed its missionary posture. Stetzer’s comments describe their outlook: “God is a missionary God in this culture and in every culture. His nature does not change with location. Therefore, a missionary posture should be the normal expression of the church in all times and places.”32 And Shenk affirms that the Great Commission “institutionalizes mission as the raison d’être, the controlling norm, of the church. To be a disciple of Jesus Christ and a member of his body is to live a missionary existence in the world. There is no doubt that this was how the earliest Christians understood their calling.”33 The Christians at ICNG came to understand their calling in the same way.

The congregation put together a mission team, which rehearsed a play depicting different people groups in need of hearing the gospel, such as those represented by Mexico, Portugal, India, Japan, Arabic nations, and Brazilian Indians. The play also featured major religions such as Hinduism, Islam, and Communism. This play was widely presented to churches related to the 4Cs movement and to other churches in Goiânia as well as in the nearby cities of Anápolis and Brasília. Not only people who watched it but especially those who played a part in it received the impact of its message: the urgent need to do something to make the good news accessible to all peoples who have not yet heard it.

Besides planning monthly services with a mission emphasis at ICNG, the team made itself available to preach, teach, and participate in church services, rallies, and conferences focusing on world mission whenever and wherever possible. ICNG had a thirty-minute radio program twice a week on a Christian radio station at that time. Eventually the program became solely dedicated to mission awareness, something completely unheard of as far as radio programs were concerned. Nevertheless, it had quite an impact. Listeners from diverse backgrounds would learn of the training offered at ICNG and the group study of the correspondence courses created by Missão Antioquia. These courses about the world mission of the church followed the TEE model that the leadership was so familiar with by then. Required textbooks, along with these first lessons, were The Cry of the World and The Challenge of Missions, both by Oswald J. Smith; Patrick Johnstone’s Operation World, and a self-study book published by CEIBEL called Beyond Brazil: An Introduction to Missions (Além do Brasil: Introdução a Missões). Don Richardson’s Peace Child and Bruce Olson’s For this Cross I’ll Kill You were suggested readings. Édison Queiroz’s The Local Church and Missions (A Igreja Local e Missões) on how to set up a mission program in the local church also quickly became a must-read for anyone interested in the subject. At the same time, students were required to begin learning a foreign language of their choice.

Weekly classes on Saturday evenings were followed up with tests and homework, and students were encouraged to take what they were learning to their own communities of faith and try to initiate mission teams in their midst. Some of them not only became supportive of the cause but they also became missionaries after attending Missão Antioquia or other emerging training centers in order to be further equipped. Some of the people who received this kind of training were Marilourdes Linhares, João Santos, Neuza Alves, Kléber Ribeiro, Suzeth, Fátima Silva, Goreth Silva (not related), and Josimar and Maria Helena Coelho, among others. Most of these students of world mission at ICNG will be featured in some way in the rest of this story.

Beginning in 1986, ICNG held world mission rallies annually and sometimes even twice a year. During the first few years, besides the main annual mission rally, smaller week-long events called Vacation Missionary Week (Semana Missionária de Férias) were held during the mid-year school vacation period in July. Together with such rallies, the faith-promise program was also initiated. Alcides Piantola, who was planting a new church in Brasília, was among the first to be supported in this way. Even though the facilities were extremely rustic for several years as the new building continued under construction, some of the most prominent mission leaders in Brazil such as Ken Kudo,34 Josué Martins,35 Wilbur “Gilberto” Pickering,36 Jonathan Santos,37 Waldemar Carvalho,38 and Édison Queiroz, among others, were featured speakers at ICNG during those years. As a result, these rallies became an important and much anticipated event in Goiânia.

Besides the keynote speakers, the rallies also included teams representing mission organizations such as the recently formed South-America Project (Projeto América do Sul),39 Operation Mobilization (Operação Mobilização—OM)40 and their Logos I ship, the YWAM (Jovens Com Uma Missão—JOCUM)41 ministry King’s Kids, Missionary Aviation Fellowship (Asas de Socorro),42 and the team from Word of Life (IBPV), among others. As a result, several members often went, at their own expense, to world mission conferences at Missão Antioquia, First Baptist Church in Santo André over six hundred miles (1,000 km) away in the state of São Paulo, and Wycliffe/SIL (Missão ALEM) in Brasília, among others. This further spurred their interest in joining teams and taking short term cross-cultural mission trips with some of the above organizations.

Patrícia (Almeida) Leroy, for example, who was a key member of the mission team at ICNG during the first several years, joined the OM campaign in Argentina in July 1988 shortly after their Logos I ship had run aground on rocks in the Strait of Magellan. Two years later, she took a ten-day course on Islam, Proyecto Magreb, organized by COMIBAM in Orlando, Florida. And in 1991, after graduating in Nursing and Obstetrics from the Catholic University (Universidade Católica de Goiás),43 she went to Rio de Janeiro for another OM campaign while their Logos II ship was anchored there.

The ICNG members, especially the women, found many creative solutions to offset the cost of the mission rallies. Cakes were baked to be sold on the campus of the State University, homemade jam, snacks and meals were prepared for a fee; yard sales, house cleaning, and car washes organized by the teens were all ways to gather needed funds for such events.

The dedication of the handful of people on the mission team during the first several years was tremendous. Beside their regular involvement in the life of the church, they often spent many hours not only planning and organizing these mission awareness events but also hosting those who came from out of town, preparing meals, participating on the praise and worship team, and whatever else was necessary. At the time of these small beginnings, not everyone in the church shared the vision, let alone the burden, but those who did were definitely willing to go the “second mile.” In later years, several additional teams formed that shared the load.

It is also well worth mentioning that regular prayer played an important role in these activities. By this time the prayer cards for different nations were used as an integral part of practically every church activity, including Sunday services, Sunday school classes for all ages, mid-week services, and, of course, prayer meetings that focused specifically on missionaries and the world mission of the church. People often came half an hour before the main gathering on Sunday just for that purpose.

Through this culture of prayer God raised up several Christians with a heart to support missionaries. For example, praying for missionaries became a strong emphasis of the small group that gathered in Getúlio and Lielcinha Magalhães’s home. Affectionately called cultinho (little worship service), these mid-week meetings were geared toward children in the neighborhood and lasted five years (1987–1991). Djenane Cortez Santos and her whole family were eventually baptized at ICNG as a result of the cultinho. In her own words, focusing on world mission was part and parcel of her spiritual upbringing.44 During that same period, her future husband João Santos began participating in the mission training sessions at ICNG and eventually found his way to Missão Antioquia. João and Djenane did not intend to become missionaries to a foreign culture but rather to send and support missionaries. It was through their influence, for example, that the WestGate Church in San José City, California, sent a short-term mission team to work with Missão Antioquia in July 2005.

In 1996, João Márcio, who had just joined the pastoral team at ICNG, led the church to be involved in REVER,45 a ministry which trains “restoration teams” with the objective of helping people overcome emotional and relational trauma through Jesus Christ. Through the work of the Holy Spirit this ministry brought health to the church and further enabled the church to follow its missionary vocation.

And during the most difficult crises, whether in the national economy or in the local leadership, it was Gerson Sousa who kept the church always accountable to the missionaries they supported, so that those who had been sent out would never be let down. Near the end of 1999, João Márcio became the lead pastor of ICNG, relieving Gerson Sousa of that responsibility; nevertheless, Gerson continues to serve voluntarily on the pastoral team.

Unfortunately, along with all the excitement about world mission, there were always some people in the church who wanted to see the building finished and the church experiencing the same kind of numerical growth and visibility that other churches in Goiânia were enjoying. As a result, several leaders and people who were being equipped for the ministry gradually left the congregation in frustration, especially between 1993 and 1996. They joined other churches in town that were seemingly more dynamic and whose successes in the Christian ministry were more readily apparent. In contrast, João Márcio and his wife Gorete determined to remain active members of the congregation. They believed that God certainly had good plans for this community of faith and they wanted to play their part in those plans.

This transition period was extremely difficult. There were often no more than fifty people present at the main worship services. There were those who even doubted that the doors of the church would remain open much longer. They argued that the emphasis on cross-cultural ministries was extremely exaggerated while the building remained uncared for. It is true that the great efforts to put the finishing touches on the floor, ceiling, and walls during 1995–1997 brought a great boost to the local dynamics of the congregation. However, it is also well recognized now that many of the great accomplishments both locally and beyond are due to ICNG’s faithfulness to its world mission vocation, which never allowed the vision to die out, even during the hardest times.

“They laid their hands on them
and sent them off . . .”46

For more than 25 years now, the church’s faithfulness has borne fruit in the long succession of members that it has sent out as transcultural missionaries. Their individual stories deserve a book of their own; here I will give only the briefest of introductions in order to show the extent to which God’s word has spread around the globe as a result of the Spirit’s work at ICNG. For years the Holy Spirit had been preparing a powerful swell of mission fervor at ICNG, and that swell crested and broke into a wave in August 1985, when Robert and Derlani Fife were called to work with Portugal Christian Mission at the southern end of Europe.

. . . to Portugal

The Holy Spirit had prepared Robert’s and Derlani’s hearts to make such a decision through the church’s search for a full-time minister. Through prayer, they had decided they were willing to leave Robert’s well-paid job at a private school to fill this need for the church, which meant living on only ten percent of Robert’s previous salary. While the church board prayed about it, missionaries Dick and Sarah Robison wrote inviting the couple to help with the new work in Portugal. By this time, their hearts were ready for that kind of a challenge, and both were absolutely sure the Lord was calling them to full time cross-cultural ministry.

This call was surprisingly unexpected at first, but the church quickly showed its support for the Fife’s decision. The congregation believed that world mission deserves the best we have to answer God’s call. Robert and Derlani were among the main leaders at ICNG at that time, and the church dedicated them to God’s mission in another corner of the globe.

Of course, God began to provide in different and often unexpected ways. For example, in January 1987 former missionary Stan Wohlenhaus challenged all present at the American missionary gathering of the 4Cs in Cuibá to adopt the Fife mission to Portugal as a joint project. Each family gave increments of $25 every month. Those contributions continued for several years thereafter, some even to the present day.

However, Robert and Derlani understood it was part of their call to raise support first and foremost among Brazilian churches. Their main goal was a world mission awakening. So, the family visited many churches to share their vision and raise prayer warriors for the mission. Some of those congregations were small and poor at the time. To this day, however, many report that they continue to pray for the Fifes in Portugal every single day, according to the verse imprinted on the very first prayer card which the Fifes used to promote the mission: “I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in earnest prayer to God on my behalf” (Romans 15:30). During the first few years in Portugal, as much as two-thirds of their support came from Brazil.47

Robert, Derlani, and their four children became the first missionaries formally sent out by the 4Cs churches in Brazil. They arrived in Portugal early on Sunday, March 20, 1988. Dick Robison met them at the port of Santos in Lisbon and drove them to Carcavelos where they were able to meet the church gathered to worship that morning. As the children grew, every member of the family had ample opportunities to serve in this small but growing community of faith. This joint effort of Brazilian and American churches and individuals has lasted 23 years.

Robert and Derlani have been active as initiators and/or leaders for a variety of ministries in Portugal and around the Portuguese-speaking world, such as the Support Ministry for Pastors and Churches (Ministério de Apoio a Pastores e Igrejas); a women’s prayer fellowship, Lydia Fellowship International;48 the Portuguese Evangelical Alliance;49 and most recently, a new ministry, Bridges to Life, with the purpose of promoting the unity of the Body of Christ and providing “networking relationships and/or pastoral care for missionaries among the Portuguese-speaking peoples so that the unreached might be reached in their own countries and in the world, through healthy ministers, healthy missionaries, and healthy churches.”50 While based in Portugal, their ministry and experience will continue to extend beyond borders according to their discernment of God’s direction.

. . . to Spain and Mexico

When Valdecy DaSilva dropped his course in Physics and Math at the Catholic University (Universidade Católica de Goiás) to go to Colegio Biblico in Eagle Pass, Texas, in 1983, his intention was to receive a theological education in order to return and serve his own people in pastoral ministry. But while working on the Mexican side of the border, the experience of learning a new language and the exposure to a new culture made world mission an integral part of his vocation to reach people for Christ. His zeal for missions grew during his evangelistic endeavors upon his return to ICNG in the summer of 1984.51 Through his short-term mission trips, but especially through the invitation of missionaries to Spain, Bill and Ginny Loft, DaSilva felt drawn to mission work in Spain. But he first needed to fulfill his commitment to return to ICNG.

DaSilva graduated in 1987 and married Mirna Salazar in Eagle Pass that May. In July, they moved to Goiânia. Representing Mexico, Mirna was soon integrated into the play that focused on unreached peoples and world religions. Meanwhile, DaSilva immediately began picking up Robert’s responsibilities at ICNG as Robert and his family prepared to move to Portugal. During 1988, DaSilva put his efforts toward the resumed building project as well as teaching at the Theological School of the Christian Churches/Churches of Christ (Escola Teológica das Igrejas de Cristo). But in April 1989, when missionary Bill Loft passed away unexpectedly, DaSilva and his family received an urgent call to aid the widow Ginny Loft in the continuing work in Murcia, Spain. Gerson Sousa and DaSilva went into the recently covered but still very unfinished church building that day and had an “Acts 13 experience.” This further convinced Gerson that ICNG should be like the church in Antioch that obediently sent out their most capable leaders as missionaries:

Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a member of the court of Herod the ruler, and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off. (Acts 13:1–3)

In response to the pressing need, Valdecy, Mirna, and their first child traveled to Spain only a month later. They spent their first month on the Iberian Peninsula with the church in Carcavelos, Portugal, where Robert and Derlani Fife were serving with the Portugal Christian Mission team. This was the beginning of a long and mutually encouraging partnership between the works in Portugal and Spain. Valdecy and Mirna helped plant a church in Murcia during their first two years, then returned to Spain for a second term from 1995 to 1998. Since 1999 they have served as missionaries among the Mexican churches, helping to equip their leadership and spur their interest in supporting and sending out missionaries of their own. Valdecy also completed master’s degrees from Johnson Bible College and Emmanuel School of Religion and serves on the faculty of Colegio Biblico. The family continues to lend their support to the church in Spain by traveling there every other summer. In addition, the DaSilvas continue to make their house in Goiânia available to any minister of the congregation who is in most need at any given time in order to free up funds for the mission budget.

. . . to Mozambique

Former professional soccer player Kléber Ribeiro was baptized in 1988 at ICNG while he was playing on one of the top teams in Goiânia. Supported by ICNG, he decided to go to Missão Antioquia for mission training, then on to plant a church in his hometown, Dianópolis. The he met, baptized, and married Juracema Gomes Araújo. The dream and determination of Geraldo Borges to send a 4Cs mission team from Brazil to the Makhuwa people in Mozambique, then considered the largest unreached people group in the world, soon captured Kléber and Juracema. They spent the next months preparing through internships and the Linguistics and Missiology Course at Wycliffe/SIL (Missão ALEM).

Borges’s own story is inspiring. His awakening to the world mission of the church came through the influence of missionary David Sanders and through a visit to ICNG in the mid-eighties, where Borges was impressed that even the children spoke of how the world mission came before the building project at ICNG.52 Soon thereafter he began praying about doing mission work in Mozambique because of the shared Portuguese language. In 1991 Borges and his wife Sebastiana “Tianinha” took a shipment of typewriters, sewing machines, and fabric to Tete, Mozambique, in the middle of the long-lasting civil war. While there, they visited the Churches of Christ (a cappella) in the Nampula region. They found out that these churches were among the Lomwe people but that there were none among the Makhuwa people. Unfortunately, Tianinha fell ill during this trip to Africa. She never recovered, but encouraged Borges until her last breath to keep on preaching the gospel.

Thus began the dream that would take Kléber and Juracema to the Makhuwa people in October 1996. Borges had done the ground work by traveling to Africa every year since 1991. He was already on location with a vehicle and some other supplies when their plane landed in Johannesburg, South Africa. It then took them five days to drive over twelve hundred fifty miles (2,000 km) to their destination. They had arrived for a four-year term and knew that they could count on Borges’s annual missionary-care visits and possibly those of other Christian leaders.

Kléber had repeatedly said that they were going to work with the Mozambicans and not for them, so the team encouraged new converts to share their faith and plant new churches while letting the changes in cultural aspects take their time.53 This emphasis on local leadership has facilitated phenomenal growth of the church in northern Mozambique. As of 2006, hundreds had been baptized and native leadership had been established in fifty-five locations, thirty-five of which had some kind of a meeting place erected. These churches have sent their first cross-cultural missionaries to the Koti people on the coast and especially on several islands, and to the traditionally fierce Makonde people in the northernmost region of Mozambique. The dream and determination continue.

. . . to the Ianomami Indians

Nara (Coelho) Taets grew up at ICNG surrounded by the mission of the church. Her parents, Josimar and Maria Helena Coelho, were both among the first involved in the mission-focused plays and in the organization of the earliest mission rallies. Josimar’s physical appearance and childhood experiences on an Indian reservation earned him a part representing Brazilian Indians in the mission play. Later, the church sent him and Maria Helena to participate in a missionary conference at Missão Antioquia which focused on Brazilian Indians. The influence was not lost on young Nara.

In 1998 Nara married Elias Taets, who had come from a Baptist church in the state of Minas Gerais. Both Elias and Nara had completed several rounds of theological and missional training, and in October 1999, they moved to Roraima to work among the Ianomami Indians in the Palimi-Ú village, which is over three thousand miles (4,800 km) northwest of Goiânia near the Venezuelan border. Both Nara’s parents and her sister have visited them several times in order to lend support to their ministry. In 2005, pastors João Márcio, Júlio César, and other ICNG leaders had the life-changing, cross-cultural experience of spending one week with them, further cultivating the missional orientation of the sending church. Elias, Nara, and their daughter continue to live and work in the Palimi-Ú village.

These long-term missionaries from ICNG live and work primarily on four different continents: Africa (Mozambique), Europe (Portugal), North America (Mexico), and South America (Ianomamis in northern Brazil). Adding up the monthly support sent to each family, ICNG maintains a world mission budget that is currently close to $12,000 a year. Despite the instability of the Brazilian economy over the years, the congregation has assumed responsibility for supporting its missionaries monthly in US dollars. This means that whenever the faith-promise income is insufficient, which is more the norm than the exception, the church takes money from the general fund to complete their commitment to missionaries. At times, this commitment to missionaries has been the equivalent of over fifty percent of the church’s regular income. As Wilma Sousa (not related to Gerson) recalls, “It is our duty. We, as a church, laid hands on them. We must also take care of them.”54 People and the world mission of the church continue to be the top priority at ICNG.

. . . to the ends of the earth

The list of shorter-term missionaries supported by ICNG over the years is too long to list. But mention must at least be made of those who were baptized at ICNG and who have served as cross-cultural missionaries for at least two years.

Tânia (Curado) DeGrave was completely ostracized by her extended family when she was baptized at ICNG in 1981. Her unstoppable evangelistic fervor brought the mission play to ICNG in 1986 and influenced countless young people to equip themselves for missions. That same fervor took Tânia to the European continent for missions in France, Germany, Portugal, Spain, and Belgium. She now lives with her husband Theo in Rotterdam, Netherlands, where they find themselves frequently sharing their life in Christ with people who are aggressively opposed to Jesus.

Avanilde Silva, the catalyst behind the children’s mission education program, married missions-minded Tim Bachmann. After no less than seven years of persistent preparation, and supported solely by Brazilian churches, the Bachmanns moved to Guinea-Bissau in January 2002 to do pioneer work among the Felupe people.

Avanilde’s sister, Maria Arenilde (Silva) Carvalho, was baptized two years after Avanilde. Arenilde, too, dedicated herself to missions, primarily through a series of Operation Mobilization (OM) commitments. During one of these 6-month missions she met and married Paulo Carvalho, and together they have repeatedly worked with church plants in Brazil, including three years in Uruguaiana, on the border of Argentina.

It was Arenilde who first invited Neuza (Neto) Peters to visit ICNG. In the first missions play, Neuza played the part of the Indian people in Asia. This experience made a strong impact on her, and she started to do research about India and the spiritual needs of that huge nation. In 1994 she spent her first six-month term in India, and in 2001 and 2002 returned to India with her husband Steve Peters for two more terms. Unable to obtain visas for a more extended period of time, they live in Mansfield, England, but continue to dream of serving Christ on the Indian subcontinent again in the future. ICNG supported Neuza between 1993 and 2002.

As a linguistics student at the Federal University of Goiás in 1986, Eliane Rezende de Ariño understood her call to serve the cause of Christ in some role related to languages. Thus she went to work with newly-founded Missão Kairós as a Linguistics and Missiology teacher for three years in the nation of Colombia. Eliane has continued her graduate and doctoral studies in Linguistics, focusing on the Creole languages of Colombia and Guinea-Bissau. She was also a key influence for mission for many of the youth at ICNG, including young Nara (Coelho) Taets, whose first cross-cultural experience was a three-month research trip through the Colombian mountains with Eliane.

Tom and Libby’s youngest son, Jefferson “Jeff” Fife, was born in Brazil and raised at ICNG. He and his wife Mônica planted a church in the Pirituba area of São Paulo, then another among the Portuguese-speaking population in Peabody, Massachussetts. From Jeff’s experience at ICNG, he believed that any new church should be thinking of ways to get involved in world mission from day one.55 The initial five members of the church all had jobs, so at their very first meeting in July 1994 they decided to send $100 every month to a relative of one of the members who was doing missionary work with YWAM in the Amazon region. Thus began their mission program, which has continued to grow to this day.

Jeff’s vision for missions also continued to grow, resulting in the River of Life Ministries (RLM), which focuses on taking the gospel to the Portuguese-speaking world. As of 2006, RLM had planted 7 churches across Brazil, with a further 7 churches opting to come under the RLM umbrella. The national leaders of these churches are partially supported by RLM during a period of two years, after which the congregation is expected to take full responsibility for its expenses. At the same time, RLM provides each church with discipleship tools and ongoing leadership training. Each church is also expected, from the very beginning, to give ten percent of their income toward church planting and world mission.56 RLM reports that, in 2005, as much as thirty percent of the total given back for this purpose was sent to aid the work of Kléber and Juracema and their team of national church planters in Mozambique.

Not only Jeff and Mônica, but other church planters mentioned in this paper, have shown evidence of four important things which, according to Roger Greenway, the apostle Paul and his co-workers did for the new Christians in their time: (1) they taught aggressively a clear and concise doctrine centered around Jesus; (2) they spelled out a moral system of behavior centered in the lordship of Jesus Christ over all areas of life; (3) they promoted a high level of cohesion and group identity that reached beyond the local group; and (4) they taught about the Holy Spirit and the fellowship of the Spirit-anointed.57

Many others have used their vocations to further the mission. For example, Dr. William Silveira was baptized at ICNG as a young boy and has become an excellent dentist. Not only has he treated missionaries at very low cost as his contribution to their mission but, since the year 2000, he has also been on no less than eleven short term missions trips on a boat that ministers to villages along the Amazon River, over two thousand miles (3,200 km) north of Goiânia.

And the stream of mission from ICNG continues. Each new generation is inspired by the missionary examples of the previous generation, and the fire that God’s Spirit lit in the mid-eighties continues to grow.58

Lessons Learned While On Mission

Twenty-five years of mission have taught ICNG several important lessons:

The world mission of the church must be prioritized above buildings and programs.

Despite the many voices calling for a larger building, ICNG made the firm decision to give first to missions. God has rewarded that decision hundreds of times over, and as a result churches around the world exist to give praise to God. Maintaining that decision required much sacrifice and determination, especially during the decade without a finished building. ICNG has since grown to over 350 in attendance, and continues to prioritize missions first.

Send out and support those with a clear call that is witnessed and confirmed by the community of faith.

The leadership at ICNG likes to say that they are in the business of sending the best that they have to answer God’s specific call, whatever it may be. Each missionary, together with his/her family, that ICNG sent was the best they could offer to God’s call. Likewise, Gerson Sousa was the best ICNG had to answer God’s call to remain in Goiânia. João Márcio and others who have joined the pastoral team were also the best ICNG had at the time to answer God’s call for additional staff.

The resilience and perseverance of missionaries in the face of adversities helps the church to stay the course.

Several missionaries have persevered even when financial support has been inadequate. Their attitude in turn has encouraged ICNG to remain faithful to its commitments at all cost. The snowball effect of this is that the perseverance of ICNG and its leadership in setting world mission as a top priority has been an inspiration to many other Christian leaders and churches.59

Long-term commitments on the part of at least some missionaries are absolutely essential for the continuing health of a world mission.

Unfortunately, there are also many Christian leaders and churches in Brazil today that have become discouraged by the early return of missionaries without accomplishing what they intended, often due to the lack of adequate preparation and/or support. This calls for an urgent response to the need for missionary care among Portuguese-speaking missionaries and their families.60

Close affinity with missionaries who have been sent out maintains the vision to prioritize cross-cultural ministries.

At times when the vision might have become blurred by competing needs, it has often helped for missionaries to have immediate family members and close friends as active members of the congregation. There is no such thing as “out of sight, out of mind.” For the same reason, every time a missionary returns home for any period of time, the flame of world mission is rekindled and burns much stronger.

It is crucial to identify and affirm local leadership as soon as possible.

No matter the missionary’s personality or style of leadership, passing the baton early on is the way to go. If one expects New Testament growth and multiplication, local leaders should be adequately equipped from the start and given full responsibility for the continuity of the mission.

And finally, the Holy Spirit can and must be trusted with the outcome.

Although Tom Fife had always stressed the need for ICNG to be self-supporting, seeing it become mission-minded and strongly supportive of the world mission of the Church is much more than he had ever imagined. Again, only the Spirit of God could have orchestrated things the way they occurred in order for them to have the results as one sees them today. Christian leaders are sometimes guilty of making the attempt to keep the ministry in some kind of green-house state with every detail under complete control. I am more convinced now than ever before that all I have to do is to be faithful to God’s call in my life and ministry and let the Holy Spirit take care of the details. As former translations consultant and teacher of missiology Charles Taber has written, “the Bible does not need to be protected by a nineteenth-century philosophical scaffold; it just needs to be turned loose . . . the national church [is] capable of being guided by the Holy Spirit using the Scriptures.”61

And God looked down and saw . . .

As I reflect on ICNG and its unusual vocation for world mission I am reminded of one of the most celebrated single woman missionaries in modern history, Gladys Aylward. Having arrived in China completely on her own in 1932, she grasped every opportunity to become immersed in the culture and later became a Chinese citizen. After nearly twenty years caring for dozens of war orphans and later serving a local church in evangelism and charity work, the “small woman” of China traveled worldwide to share her experience. In her biography written by Ruth Tucker, however, we find that despite “all the service she had rendered and the fame she had acquired, she was never fully secure in her calling—particularly that God really wanted to entrust a woman with responsibilities he had given her.”62 Her doubts were confided to a friend in her later years:

I wasn’t God’s first choice for what I’ve done for China. There was somebody else. . . . I don’t know who it was—God’s first choice. It must have been a man—a wonderful man. A well-educated man. I don’t know what happened. Perhaps he died. Perhaps he wasn’t willing. . . . And God looked down . . . and saw Gladys Aylward.63

In like manner, one might rationalize that ICNG was not God’s first choice for what has been accomplished so far for world mission. “Certainly,” one might continue to imagine, “there was some other church. It must have been a big one. A well-educated church in a more affluent environment. But, for some unknown reason, they decided not to answer the call. . . . And God looked down . . . and saw ICNG.”

Robert Fife and his wife Derlani were the first transcultural missionaries sent out by the Christian Churches/Churches of Christ in Brazil. Since 1988 they have served in Carcavelos, Portugal, where they have led a variety of ministries, including Ministério de Apoio a Pastores e Igrejas (MAPI) and the Evangelical Alliance of Portugal. Their passion for taking the gospel to the Portuguese-speaking world is born out in their continuing ministry, entitled Bridges to Life (http://bridgestolife-robertderlanifife.blogspot.com). The Fifes have 4 children and 6 grandchildren. Robert can be contacted at robertofife@gmail.com.

Bibliography

Allen, Roland. The Spontaneous Expansion of the Church. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962.

Beyerhaus, Peter. “The Three Selves Formula: Is It Built On Biblical Foundations?” The International Review of Missions 53, no. 212 (October 1964): 393-407.

Bonk, Jonathan J. Missions and Money: Affluence as a Western Missionary Problem. American Society of Missiology 15. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1991.

Bridges to Life. “M. Statement.” http://bridgestolife.net.

Ekström, Bertil. “Mission in and from Brazil.” Address delivered at a joint meeting of the Associação de Missões Transculturais Brasileiras and the Evangelical Fellowship of Mission Agencies, 2005.

Fife, Robert. “Member Care for Portuguese-Speaking Missionary Families.” Unpublished paper, 2004.

Greenway, Roger S. and Timothy M. Monsma. Cities: Missions’ New Frontier. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000.

Hesselgrave, David J. Planting Churches Cross-Culturally: North America and Beyond. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000.

Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística. “Capital: Goiânia.” Goiás. IBGE Ciudades@. http://www.ibge.gov.br/cidadesat/link.php?codmun=520870.

Koyama, Kosuke. Water Buffalo Theology. 25th anniversary ed., rev. and expanded. Maryknoll: Orbis, 1999.

O’Donnell, Kelly. Doing Member Care Well: Perspectives and Practices from Around the World. Globalization of Mission Series. Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 2002.

Prado, Oswaldo. “A New Way of Sending Missionaries: Lessons from Brazil.” Missiology: An International Review 33, no. 1 (2005): 48-60.

Shenk, David W. and Ervin R. Stutzman. Creating Communities of the Kingdom: New Testament Models of Church Planting. Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1988.

Shenk, Wilbert R. Write the Vision: The Church Renewed. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2001.

Stetzer, Ed. Planting New Churches in a Postmodern Age. Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2003.

Taber, Charles R. “My Pilgrimage in Mission.” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 29, no. 2 (2005): 89-93.

Taylor, Bill, ed. Too Valuable to Lose: Exploring the Causes and Cures of Missionary Attrition. Globalization of Mission Series. Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 1997.

Thompson, Phyllis. A Transparent Woman: The Compelling Story of Gladys Aylward. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1971.

Tucker, Ruth. From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya: A Biographical History of Christian Missions. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004.

Walls, Andrew F. The Missionary Movement in Christian History: Studies in the Transmission of Faith. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1996.

David L. Baker. Tight Fists or Open Hands? Wealth and Poverty in Old Testament Law. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009. 411 pp. $36.00.

Some may remember the opening decade of the 21st century as the time when many churches turned wholeheartedly toward helping the poor. Young missionaries flocked to the poverty stricken areas of the majority world, new congregations popped up in blighted neighborhoods of American inner cities, and workers sprinted to every major disaster area. While this development gives me great satisfaction, I sense that our practice of mercy has outdistanced our theology. Whenever I preach or teach about the biblical call to justice, too many people continue to respond by saying, “That’s the first sermon or class I’ve ever heard about the poor.” Our theology of justice should motivate and define our practice.

David L. Baker addresses this exact issue. After years of living among the poor in Indonesia, with academic training in the Old Testament, and now working as senior lecturer in Old Testament at Trinity Theological College in Perth, Australia, Baker focuses on what the Pentateuchal laws say about wealth and poverty within the ancient Near Eastern context.

He takes a canonical approach which offers a common ground for those with a variety of views on Scripture. He limits the work to the Pentateuch. Given the assumption that the entire Bible has a consistent view of a just God, what we learn about the theology of wealth and poverty in the law could serve as a foundation for all that the Bible says on the subject.

Baker follows a distinct pattern. After a brief introduction to each category of law relating to wealth and poverty, he presents how the 16 extant ancient Near Eastern non-biblical law codes treat that category of law before turning to the biblical material. In each section, a conclusion summarizes the data and draws limited implications.

Baker’s volume is noteworthy for its range of coverage. His work is exhaustive: comprehensive in its identification of biblical laws relating to wealth and poverty, meticulous in finding corollary laws in the non-biblical codes, and thorough in citing the secondary literature (the bibliography runs 53 pages). Baker clearly provides the reader with the raw data.

By this raw data, Baker affirms the claim of Deut 4:8 that the Mosaic laws are more just than those of Israel’s neighbors. For example, biblical law penalizes lawbreakers less frequently with mutilation, beating, or death than the ancient Near Eastern laws. The biblical laws are more just than the other codes in these ways: they more often protect the vulnerable, more frequently favor the poor who borrow or rent over the rich who own, more equally apply to all members of the community, and more often are rooted in concern for a just community over economic protection of the wealthy. Additionally, Baker finds few or no laws in the ancient world outside Scripture that prohibit coveting, protect resident aliens, call for a Sabbatical Year, provide for gleaning, regulate tithing, permit scrumping, demand judicial impartiality, or designate holidays for rest. Each of these biblical laws has distinct implications for the community’s most vulnerable people.

Despite this remarkable achievement, Baker leaves much unsaid. First, the volume does not explain the structure of the study. The book is organized into three broad categories of “Property and Land,” “Marginal People,” and “Justice and Generosity,” each with multiple sub points, yet there is no explanation about why these categories were chosen or how they function in comprehensively describing Israel’s laws on wealth and poverty.

Second, and perhaps more significantly, some of the presentations end abruptly without drawing out the implications for a theology of justice. On occasion Baker does synthesize and theologize, showing that he recognizes the significance of moving beyond the data, but there is no consistency to these moves or attempt to provide a comprehensive theological view based on the laws about the poor.

His treatment of slavery illustrates both the achievements and the shortcomings of this work. The biblical and non-biblical laws differ radically on the matter of fugitive slaves. The ancient world obligated all citizens to return a fugitive slave while the Pentateuch commanded Israelites to provide hospitality and refuge. The ancient Near Eastern laws about slaves rested on economic concerns, while the biblical laws grew out of the value of human life. This compassion toward slaves recalled Israel’s own slavery in Egypt. He argues that fixed-term slavery in Israel would be roughly the same as paid employment today. Baker helpfully explains the various kinds of slavery implied in the biblical laws. These kinds of significant insights are too infrequent in this volume, and even these are never stitched into a visualized whole.

For instance, Baker draws attention to how the biblical laws allow fugitive slaves freedom to determine where they are to live. He notes that generally the Old Testament laws provided this choice to those at the margins of society, not the elite (David and Solomon must live in Jerusalem). Given one definition of poverty as the lack of choices, this is a striking revelation, but Baker stops short of such implications.

In another case, he argues that the ancient world was not ready for a ban on slavery any more than the contemporary world, which statistically has more enslaved people than any other point in history. However, Baker makes no attempt to process this remarkable conclusion. The reader often wishes for another paragraph or two that reflects theologically on the justice implications of these laws.

Baker’s volume provides the valuable raw material for constructing a comprehensive theology of justice and in a way reminds us that much work remains to be done. Contemporary Christians seemingly willing to go anywhere or do anything to help the poor would do well to ponder the implications of the Old Testament laws about the marginal and, in that reflection, find biblical motivations for going and theologically sound goals to accomplish.

Harold Shank

Professor of Old Testament

Oklahoma Christian University

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA

Dr. Shank has written broadly on the topic of social justice. A bibliography of his work appears at http://www.haroldshank.com.

Richard A. Horsley. Covenant Economics: A Biblical Vision of Justice for All. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009. 193 pp. $25.00.

In his book Covenant Economics, Richard Horsley, author of twenty books in the field of New Testament studies, examines how the economic principles of the biblical covenant could apply to US society today. Horsley begins by stating his conviction that the nation’s founders desired to set up a society that was rooted in the biblical covenant. Over time, though, an ideology of freedom and individual self-interest pushed the covenant principles to the margins, which then “gave license to entrepreneurs in nascent capitalist enterprises” (xii). Corporations were formed, grew, and began to be treated as entities; eventually they were given stronger “rights” than individuals. Bankruptcy laws meant to protect families experiencing hardship were revised to provide less protection for the family and more protection for the corporation. Recalling the recent economic crises, the author notes that “there are huge government bailouts for corporations, but not for families” (xv). In contrast to living a life defined by the imperial economy, we are reminded that the people of God are called to create covenant communities concerned with economic rights.

Horsley’s book, which is divided into two sections, examines the arc of the biblical story through the lens of economics and highlights the interconnectedness of religion, politics, and economics. The first section looks at “Economic Justice and the Common Good” in the Hebrew Scriptures. Horsley moves chronologically, examining Israel’s socio-economic situation under the Egyptian imperial economy and the subsequent establishment of a covenantal society, and then considering how that society changed throughout the monarchy and the time of the prophets. He looks carefully at the roots of the Mosaic covenant and how it established “a relationship between the people and Yahweh . . . patterned after international treaties that were also inseparably political-economic-religious, enforced by the gods and ceremonial blessings and curses” (23). Yahweh’s ideal is spelled out clearly: families should have a right to their land in order to produce enough to live on, and the poor should be protected. Ultimately, “in Israel’s Covenant the society or body politic . . . is charged with responsibility for guaranteeing the economic rights of the members of the society to an adequate living” (48–49).

In the second section, Horsley examines “The Renewal of Covenantal Community” in the ministry of Jesus and the Apostles. Horsley examines how Mark and Matthew use insights from the Qumran community to contextualize Jesus’ call for the renewal of the covenant. He carefully explores the economic circumstances of Jesus’ day, describing the levels of economic exploitation—the multiple “layers of rulers simultaneously making demands on [the people] for tithes, taxes, and/or tribute” (88). Horsley believes that “Jesus was concerned directly and in a primary way with economic issues” (113) and that “if anything, he intensified the covenantal demands for communal cooperation and mutual aid, to love enemies, do good, and lend liberally, despite or perhaps precisely because of the [economic] pressures” (114). He also looks at how Paul worked to establish Messianic covenantal communities across the Roman Empire.

In his final chapter Horsley looks briefly at some possible applications of the economic dimensions of the biblical covenant to contemporary society. He argues that today’s corporations are the new transnational empires, wielding political influence and growing unchecked as they feed off their subjects through powerful marketing tools based on fear and through high interest rates (168–69). And only in the book’s final two pages does Horsley offer categories of practices for communities of faith to expand the economic dimension of their witness: (1) serve the community (homeless shelters, food pantries, etc.); (2) speak prophetically against corporate abuses and educate the public; and (3) take economic action as a group against injustice (179–80).

Overall I found his description of the historical situation of the New Testament to be helpful, but some of his assumptions about the make-up of the early church were puzzling. He assumes, for example, that only poor people were among Jesus’ early followers, ignoring references in the biblical text to wealthy supporters of Christ’s ministry. He says that “virtually all of those who joined the assemblies of Christ, including both slaves and those who may have been heads of households, thus would have lived around the subsistence level. There is simply no evidence that any were wealthy” (139). Then later he says that “the picture in the book of Acts of a few well-off members is historically unreliable” (142). His decision not to see any wealthy people in the early Messianic communities is problematic, because it limits who then belongs to the covenant community. Assuming that all of the early church was exclusively poor distorts the picture of the early church and keeps us from appreciating and realizing the kind of transformative and inclusive covenant community that God desires—where both rich and poor love and bless each other.

Horsley’s examination of the economic situation of Israel and the early church is enlightening, but my major critique of his book is that he ignores a biblical text, the book of Revelation, that could have strengthened his case for the impact of covenant economics on faith communities. It would have been helpful to see how the Christian communities after Jesus and Paul tried to apply the covenant ideals in their urban environments. Those communities were clearly being squeezed by an imperial economic superpower, and that text could provide valuable insight for his final chapter, where he looks quickly at how communities of faith today can position themselves as a godly alternative to the political-economic powers. While I believe that Horsley could have made a stronger case for an economic vision of justice throughout the whole biblical text, I would still recommend this book as a valuable resource for those who are interested in the economic situation of Israel and the early church and how those faith communities tried to respond to the economic systems of their day in godly ways.

Alan Howell

Missionary serving the Makua-Metto people

Montepuez, Mozambique

Richard A. Horsley. Jesus and the Powers: Conflict, Covenant, and the Hope of the Poor. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010. 248 pp. $29.00.

Richard Horsley’s most recent work builds on his prolific writing concerning the socio-political context of first-century Palestine. In Jesus and the Powers, Horsley refutes various anachronistic assumptions that lead recent biblical interpreters to discount or ignore the struggle against oppressive powers depicted in the Gospels. He seeks to show that Jesus led a socio-political prophetic movement that culminated in a direct challenge to the Roman authorities resulting in his martyrdom. This catalyzed an alternative social order that grew exponentially despite the real possibility that his followers might also face crucifixion. For Horsley, the core of the gospel message is Jesus’ renewal of the Mosaic covenant whose socio-economic principals give hope to the poor.

Horsley’s first three chapters set the backdrop for Jesus’ life and ministry. Citizens of ancient empires offered their labor and produce to the imperial order out of fear of the superhuman powers whom the rulers represented. This scheme perpetuated the wealth of the powerful and the subjection of the peasants. The Israelites defined themselves as an alternative society, free of imperial powers and sustained by the “principles of social-economic policy” in the Mosaic covenant. The kingship developed as a provisional means of defending independence. Prophets arose to protest against subsequent kings, beginning a tradition that grew as Israel fell under the control of other empires again. Under the Romans and their client kings, a number of scribes and peasants led protests or revolts deeply rooted in prophetic traditions.

The last five chapters examine Jesus’ movement in this context. Jesus sought to renew the socio-economic practices of the Mosaic covenant in order to restore family and community relationships that were disintegrating under Roman oppression. Jesus’ message empowered the people with the hope that through solidarity they might meet one another’s needs. Jesus also engaged in direct political resistance by declaring God’s judgment against the temple and the high priests who were propped up by the Roman rulers. He posed a significant threat to the Roman order. He entered Jerusalem at a politically charged time in a politically evocative way to make a forcible demonstration in the temple itself. Jesus’ crucifixion was the decisive event for the eruption of active resistance by his followers.

Jesus and the Powers pulls together much of Horsley’s previous work and offers an excellent initiation to or summary of his perspective. His illumination of Jesus’ socio-political context is provocative and enriches one’s reading of Scripture. Horsley’s themes change little between volumes and those familiar with his work will find much overlap. He refers to his earlier writings often and rarely adds new insights to the more rehearsed parts of his arguments. Chapter five, on Jesus’ healings and exorcisms, does reflect more recent research, and his discussion of Jesus’ crucifixion is fresh.

Horsley clearly has an agenda in Jesus and the Powers that does not include an assessment of opposing views. At several points he relies heavily on other individual studies, especially political scientist James C. Scott’s analysis of peasant communities and Norman K. Gottwald’s history of Israel. He does not balance these perspectives with alternative proposals, instead focusing on the research that bolsters his own conclusions. He turns to medical anthropology and studies of spirit possession in modern Africa for comparisons to Jesus’ acts of power because “information on spirit possession in ancient Palestine is limited and fragmentary” (114). This peculiar turn seems suspect, as Horsley makes little use of what limited information does exist. Horsley argues persuasively for his thesis, but the evidence seems skewed in his favor at crucial points.

Most alarming is Horsley’s use of Scripture. For Horsley, the Gospels are primary sources for understanding the early Christian movement, but they are not the inspired Word of God. Therefore we need to “read between the lines” so that we may disregard later additions that buoyed the editors’ imperial agenda (44). The biblical authors exaggerate (106) and embellish (183), though sometimes they also “tone it down” (172). The earliest gospel sources (Mark and Q) are most reliable, but even these reflect only how Jesus was remembered by his followers (201). The passion narratives are the least historically reliable parts of Scripture (158). These assertions allow Horsley to mold Scripture to fit his historical reconstruction.

The strength of Horsley’s work is also its weakness. In many cases he reduces Jesus’ concerns to the socio-economic realm and removes any religious dimension to his teaching. For example, Horsley asserts, “Only people who have become rich by defrauding the poor are interested in ‘eternal life’ ” (143). Thus in Mark 10:29–30, Jesus referred only to the restoration that comes with covenantal economic relations. The final phrase about eternal life is a “throwaway line” or an “oh, by the way” (143). But in this Horsley oversimplifies the poor. People living in poverty show concern for life after death, as evidenced, for example, by their often elaborate funerary rites.

More troublesome is how Horsley minimizes the resurrection to give greater prominence to Jesus’ crucifixion. According to Horsley, the resurrection, “the most prominent theological construction of Christian origins . . . effectively reduces or even eliminates the historical (social-political) significance of Jesus’ crucifixion as a force in the dynamics of his movement” (194). He devalues the religious significance of the passion narratives to the point that belief in Jesus’ resurrection is unnecessary and even contrary to the rest of the gospel. Can Jesus’ life and ministry not have two foci? Could his actions have significance both for this age and for the age to come? Horsley himself insists that acts with political implications may also have religious significance. But he errs at the opposite extreme of his antagonists by rejecting the key religious event for fear of sacrificing political force.

Despite these criticisms, Jesus and the Powers still holds great value for the attention Horsley draws to an often overlooked dimension of Scripture. Horsley challenges us to consider carefully the political and economic ramifications of the gospel we preach. Ministers and missionaries of all kinds engage in Jesus’ mission of bringing renewal to communities. We ought to share the gospel in a way that is more conscious of its economic currents so that we can help others overcome the fatalism that often characterizes those trapped in poverty. We must shed light on the gospel’s political context so that we can give hope to those surrounded by oppressive governments and corrupt patron-client relationships. In so doing, we help lay the groundwork for the radical, alternative communities to which Christ called us.

Robert J. Meyer

Missionary

Angola

Michael S. Wilder and Shane W. Parker. Transformission: Making Disciples Through Short-Term Missions. Nashville: B&H Academic, 2010. 247 pp. $19.99.

Transformission, by academics and former youth pastors Michael S. Wilder and Shane W. Parker, takes on the subject of how short-term missions (STM) can be used to develop disciples of Christ. Although there is no definitive length for STM, the authors narrowly define STM as trips of one to two weeks in length for the purposes of their book. The audience they have in mind are those people from a sending country—presumably the US in this case—who are involved in the process of planning and executing STM.

Commendably, the book’s focus is in many ways the practice of discipleship independent of its connection to STM. There is a lot of wisdom in the content on discipleship, much of which the authors connect only casually to STM. Wilder and Parker assert that God intended the Great Commission to include not only making disciples of people of all nations but also the transformation of the believing Christians who take the gospel message abroad. In light of this assertion, the authors challenge the misguided practice of sending ill-prepared young people to far-away lands in the name of making disciples while little thought is given to making disciples of those being sent. They expose the tendency to treat STM as the end when they should be seen as a contributing means to the greater task of disciple-making.

The authors are emphatic that STM are subordinate to the making of disciples and that if the local church is not serious about disciple-making, then it should reconsider sending people on STM. In making this point, they go so far as to state, “We see STM as having little value for long-term initiatives and intentions of the Church and kingdom unless they occur, primarily, as an element in the discipleship process of all who go” (173). While it may seem odd for proponents of STM to describe them as “having little value,” the quotation clearly demonstrates the primacy they place on discipleship. The authors also recognize the oft-heralded shortcomings of STM but counter that the problem lies in the traditional focus of STM. If the entities that commission STM would see making disciples—especially of those being sent—as the goal and adjust their preparation, execution, and expectations accordingly, then STM would yield more abundant and longer-lasting fruit for the kingdom.

The authors dedicate several chapters of their book to reporting historical precedence, academic research, and anecdotal evidence in the attempt to change the mind of those cynics who do not believe that STM have a place in serious long-term missions. While these chapters lay an interesting foundation for the rest of the book, they do not seem to have the weight of argument necessary to convince those who doubt the value of STM. The recounting of the history of student-led STM as carried out by the likes of the Wesley brothers, Hudson Taylor’s China Inland Mission, and others is unconvincing due to their abbreviated treatment. The encapsulated summaries do not tell enough of their stories, especially with respect to the results of their work, to sufficiently make the point. Similarly, while some of the academic research is compelling, in the end even the authors admit that the dearth of information and lack of consensus among researchers make it difficult to draw a convincing conclusion as to the efficacy of STM with respect to the development of disciples. As for the testimonies from former STM participants, their inclusion certainly makes for interesting reading, but few skeptics will be convinced by a handful of biased anecdotes from former student missionaries.

The authors devote a considerable portion of their book to the persuasion and instruction of those leaders (e.g., youth and campus ministers, parents of students) who already employ STM and those who may consider it in the future. The members of this group are in need of field-tested principles and practices which might convince them of STM’s potential role in discipleship and provide them a means for realizing it. Unfortunately, with regard to such content, the authors offer too little, too late. Only the latter chapters cover this subject and even then fall short in developing clear and concrete proposals that the reader could synthesize and apply to his or her context. On one hand, I sympathize with the authors’ disclaimer that they cannot prescribe “a [mission] trip in a box” (174) due to the complexity involved in considering the cultural specifics and diverse objectives that each mission point presents. Yet, it seems reasonable that most readers of a book whose title is Transformission: Making Disciples Through Short-Term Missions are going to expect a bit more how-to material than is given by two men who have the wealth of STM experience and education that Wilder and Parker have. Certainly the reader will not go away emptyhanded, but they still seem to have left room for developing more universal principles and practices without running the risk of handing the reader a cookie-cutter STM program.

As a whole, the section on STM apologetics is likely too light to convert many skeptics while the portion devoted to practical application may be lacking for those looking for STM best practices. As such, it runs the risk of not satisfying either audience. At the same time, this book may well serve to pique someone’s interest in STM’s potential for discipleship and serve as a primer on how best to pursue them in their context. If that is indeed the case for some readers of Transformission, then Wilder and Parker should consider their contribution successful.

Speaking personally, I can relate to the premise of Transformission, since I became a career missionary as a result of STM experiences while studying natural resource management at Texas A&M. Without those experiences, it is doubtful that I would have ever considered missions as a career. As a missionary on the field I have worked with a number of short-term student missionaries and interns and have seen some of them return to the field. In fact, I am currently assisting one former campaign participant and his teammates to settle in Chile, where they will begin their work as career missionaries. Of course, the majority of those who have come to Chile on STM have not returned, but many of them are more involved in mission ministries through their local churches than they would have been otherwise. In a fitting twist, a young married couple who spent 18 months on the field as interns under my supervision are now serving on the missions committee at my supporting church in Denver, Colorado, as my supervisors. Without this couple’s service on the field, which inspired a greater commitment to world missions, my family may have been forced to return to the US when we lost financial support in our tenth year. In my supervision of STM workers, I consistently tried to make sure they had a personally transforming experience by approximating as much as possible genuine missionary life while facilitating meaningful interactions with the local people and culture. Any results produced for the work on the field were always a secondary concern. The priority was given to who the volunteers would become through what they experienced. That reflects the premise of Transformission, and I am confident that the aforementioned results testify to the efficacy of that philosophy.

Hopefully more of those involved in planning trips and receiving groups will be awakened to STM’s potential in the critical area of disciple-making. The success of STM should no longer be measured by whether people had a good time and were kept sufficiently busy for ten days, whether they went home with a feeling of mission accomplished, however fleeting, or whether they returned with good stories to post on a social networking site. Surely the Great Commission, as envisioned by God, given by Jesus, and carried out with the help of the Holy Spirit, was meant to play a greater part in the transformation of lives and the expansion of the kingdom than that. Being made into disciples while making disciples of others is what Christians are to be about; everything we do should be a means to that end. With that in mind, Wilder and Parker ask the hard questions, Should we even be doing STM? and, if so, Should we be doing STM like we have always done? Perhaps Transformission will inspire us to ask the same of our STM plans and convict us to give honest answers.

Scott Emery

Missionary

Santiago, Chile

Christopher J. H. Wright. The Mission of God’s People: A Biblical Theology of the Church’s Mission. Biblical Theology for Life. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010. 287 pp. $29.99.

In The Mission of God’s People, Christopher Wright seeks to bring into focus two important questions for the people of God today: “Who are we” and “what are we here for?” From beginning to end Wright makes a strong biblical case that the mission of God’s people finds its roots long before the day of Pentecost in Acts 2. Wright believes that a theology of mission for the modern-day church must begin with the Scriptures the Apostles read: the Old Testament. Concerning modern-day mission theology, Wright believes that tragically, “there is often not only a profound ignorance of great vistas of biblical revelation, but even impatience with the prolonged effort that is needed to soak ourselves in these texts until our whole thinking and behavior are shaped by the story they tell. . . . The attitude of some is that all you need is the Great Commission and the power of the Holy Spirit. Bible teaching or biblical theology will only serve to delay you in the urgent task” (39).

A truly biblical theology of mission finds its genesis all the way back at creation and the subsequent call of Abraham. “In the call of Abraham God set in motion a historical dynamic that would ultimately not only deal with the problem of human sin but also heal the dividedness of the nations” (41). The first Great Commission, says Wright, was Abraham’s commission to “Go . . . [and] be a blessing . . . and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Gen 12:1–3). Wright shows from the Scriptures that when God entered into a covenant with Abraham, he had in view the rest of the nations as well. The church of Christ, therefore, is nothing less than the multi-national fulfillment of the hope of Israel—that all nations will be blessed through the people of Abraham.

The people of God are those who are sent to “be a blessing” (Gen 12:2) and not simply to share a message of blessing. “When God set about his great project of world redemption in the wake of Genesis 12, he chose to do so not by whisking individuals off up to heaven, but by calling into existence a community of blessing” (73). When the people of Israel became a great nation (numerically) in Egypt God delivered them from their oppression in order for them to fulfill the next part of Abraham’s Great Commission: to be a blessing. The law, then, can be seen as God’s method of separating his people from the rest. The law was not God’s way of saving Israel (they had already been saved out of Egypt before the law came) but rather God’s way of making the saved into a blessing to the nations. A nation that behaved in the same oppressive, immoral, and ungodly ways as the surrounding nations could never be called a blessing to the nations. More of the same did no one any good. If Israel was to be a blessing they would need to keep the requirements of the law. They would need to evolve to become distinct from the nations. Likewise, a divided, fighting, unjust, and money-hungry church has nothing of worth to say to a divided, fighting, unjust, and money-hungry world. Or, in the words of Wright, “a church that is bad news in such ways has no good news to share. Or at least, it has, but its words are drowned out by its life” (95).

This is perhaps Wright’s greatest contribution to a modern biblical understanding of the mission of God’s people: that there is no biblical mission without biblical ethics. It is not enough to go and teach the gospel of Jesus in our communities through gospel meetings or street preaching for example. Such teaching (and baptizing) must necessarily be followed by an equally diligent endeavor to “make disciples.” For many churches today, their greatest battle in being God’s Abrahamic community is not the hard or unreceptive soils of their surroundings. We cannot revert to easy finger-pointing at our communities to make us feel better about our church condition. No, the finger must be pointed to ourselves: the only people we really have control over. The exodus story must become a model of behavior for the people of God. “Israel [and the church today] must live out the same qualities that motivated YHWH to act as their divine goel [kinsman-redeemer, family guardian]. Part of the mission of God’s redeemed people is to reflect the character of their redeemer in the way they behave to others. And that means especially the chief requirements of any goel: costly compassion, commitment to justice, caring generosity, redemptively effective action” (106–7).

Wright also believes that the call to be a blessing has strong implications in the workplace and requires a strong biblical theology of work. Work is inherently good and absolutely a part of the mission of God’s people. We cannot be satisfied with a theology of work that believes the only noble work is the work of evangelism, for evangelism becomes mere chatter if it is not communicated by communities of people who live redemptively.

Wright comes at The Mission of God’s People from a clearly Evangelical-Christian worldview. As an example, Wright frequently draws applications relevant to Evangelical, western Christians and may unintentionally lose non-Evangelical readers. On a couple of occasions he surfaces the Church’s tendency to reduce Christianity to evangelism alone: “There was mission beyond evangelism . . .” (86) and “What is our goal? Where is our heart? Are we obsessed with making converts only . . . ?” (95). The Mission of God’s People could be better titled An Evangelical-Christian Understanding of The Mission of God’s People.

In another instance Wright draws out the modern church’s ethical failures: “A divided, split and fighting church has nothing to say or to give to a divided, broken and violent world. An immoral church has nothing to say to an immoral world. A church riddled with corruption, caste discrimination and other forms of social, ethnic, or gender oppression has nothing to say to the world where such things are rampant . . .” (94–95). Although strongly applicable to the subject of the mission of God’s people, the reader would do well to understand Wright’s intended audience: the modern, Evangelical, Western Christian.

Shaun Dutile

Spiritual Leader

Brunswick Church of Christ

North Brunswick, New Jersey, USA

A very simple truth generated the initiative to put together an issue entitled “Mission in the Global Village”: the world has changed. That bears some expansion, not least because the world is always changing. In fact, epochal change is, if not frequent, then at least typical of the global human culturescape. Yet, even if it it necessary to guard against overexhuberance, there is no doubt that humanity is in the midst of one such momentous shift. A transformation with the global scope of the one taking place in the early twenty-first century matters for many reasons, the most important of which is that the context of God’s mission is essentially different.

How, then, has the world changed? What is so radically different that we must speak in terms of a new global context? As one naturally expects, a change of such magnitude requires a good deal more than a few paragraphs to explain. But it is fair enough to say that the world has shrunk. The vision in Donella Meadows’s 1992 “State of the Village Report” was, at that time, just about to become a reality in a new way.1 Meadows’s comparative tool, imagined for the purpose of communicating statistical information, was powerful to begin with, because she tapped into a reality that always existed: we were always a de facto world community. What was happening already when her idea began its viral email circulation around the turn of the century, however, was something qualitatively different. It is what Thomas Friedman famously labeled “Globalization 3.0”:

Globalization 3.0 is shrinking the world from a size small to a size tiny and flattening the playing field at the same time. And while the dynamic force in Globalization 1.0 was countries globalizing and the dynamic force in Globalization 2.0 was companies globalizing, the dynamic force in Globalization 3.0—the force that gives it its unique character—is the newfound power for individuals to collaborate and compete globally.2

While Friedman wrote from a primarily economic standpoint, and not without considerable controversy,3 many of his observations have proven very insightful for conversations about globalization more generally. This basic account of individual—or perhaps we should say personal—impact on the global scene may be the most important aspect of his narrative. This is the sense in which the world has shrunk, and from a missional standpoint, we must emphasize that the fundamental dynamic of such personal connectedness is relational.

Moreover, Friedman seems right to prognosticate that “this new era of globalization will prove to be such a difference of degree that it will be seen, in time, as a difference in kind.”4 The casual observer may not see much to justify the claim that things have changed so drastically, particularly when one considers the assertion that the Internet is the fundamental propeller of this new world order. Yes, many people are connected to the Web: What is the big deal? Nevertheless, the role that social media played in the Arab Spring earlier this year made more obvious the kind of impact that transcultural, personal connectedness via the Internet is having on globalization—in this instance, the globalization of democracy.

This, of course, raises the fraught questions of what one means by globalization, how it is now so different and, subsequently, what the global change might mean missiologically. Globalization has often referred to economic systems in particular, and, although this is too narrow to account for all relevant dynamics, it is undeniable that free-market capitalism has been the driving force for the establishment of the new global connectedness that makes other dynamics possible. A second typical characterization of globalization is in terms of culture, including ideology (e.g., secular democracy), language (e.g., English as lingua franca), and material culture (e.g., Coca-Cola). As the parenthetical examples suggest, aspects of wealthy, powerful countries such as the US are typically what become globalized. In combination with the fact that one of the precursors to current postmodern globalization was colonialism (Friedman’s 1.0), it is no surprise that so many find all globalization to be thinly veiled imperialism—cultural and economic imperialism rather than literal colonization, but power plays for domination nonetheless.

Yet, even at its most oppressive, globalization has never been unidirectional. Rather, it has always been about intercultural encounter and exchange. Those points of contact have often been overshadowed by ungodly power dynamics, to be sure, but what has been subsequently globalized—everything from food to philosophy—was often a matter of deliberate appropriation rather than involuntary subjugation. That is, we must not, in our critique of these power dynamics, deny the agency of the less powerful party or the impact of its own contribution to the global mélange simply because it was not the more powerful.

The problem, however, is not that there is some cosmic scorecard of whose stuff got globalized the most. Nor is the problem that cross-cultural encounters happen in the first place, as though the ideal were that all cultures would become insular and stop evolving. Both of these ideas caricature the cultural relativism that is battling for a place in the global discourse. No, the problem is not that globalization is an affront to the supposed equal “value” of all cultures; not that one culture is just-as-good-as or fine-without another culture’s globalized impact. The problem is sin. The problem is that, given the power dynamics often at work, cross-cultural encounters are marred by selfishness, greed, violence, pride, hatred, and injustice. There are indeed losers in these encounters. They do not lose because their culture does not shine as brightly on the global stage. They lose because they are oppressed, marginalized, and impoverished by the winners.

Returning to postmodern globalization in particular, the question is to what extent it produces the same results, because the real issue for missions is how to be light and leaven amidst the global reality in which we must necessarily participate. There is no doubt that, just as economic disparity is growing in the US, it is growing throughout the world in step with the spread of the free market. The fundamental error of Friedman’s construal is the expectation that the continued spread of individual empowerment to compete in the market will inevitably overcome and correct the present inequities.5 It appears that there is no invisible hand of the global market. The gap between the rich and the poor is only increasing. Insofar, then, as Globalization 3.0 is to be equated with the spread of the free market, it does indeed carry within it the legacy of disempowerment and injustice.

At the same time, the special nature of postmodern globalization is not actually capitalistic (that characteristic belonged to the previous era of globalization driven by big business). As mentioned above, capitalism funded the creation of the infrastructure necessary for the World Wide Web and all that it makes possible. In fact, the Internet has a variety of American cultural bedfellows. The personal computer itself is an American cultural product. As an advanced technology, it is particularly Western. Its basic function is an innately democratizing one. But “globo-electro-Westernization,” as Carl Raschke has called it,6 is radically unprecedented essentially by virtue of the connectedness it facilitates, not the ideologies that have gone into hyperdrive because of it.

While I make no claim that the technology is neutral, the church needs to come to terms with the fact that the world has changed because of it. Missiology has long recognized the necessity of addressing context both critically and pragmatically. The global village is our new context, for good or ill—and probably for both. As David Bosch put it in 1992, surveying the complexities of mission in global perspective just before the advent of globo-electro-Westernization, “crisis is not . . . the end of opportunity but in reality only its beginning, the point where danger and opportunity meet, where the future is in the balance and where events can go either way.”7 Much will depend on what the church makes of the new global context.

What, then, is really the nature of the new context, beyond being technologically determined? Or, in what sense is it a global village? Indeed, given the technological aspect as well as the global trend of urbanization, might it not be more accurate to speak of a global city? Some social theorists have in fact opted to think in terms of the “cosmopolis.” The city, though, does not account for the relational dynamic of postmodern globalization; it is still too big, too impersonal a metaphor. Rather, the world has become a single community, a cosmocōmē—a global village.

What this means for Christian mission is that all of the issues of globalization have become personal for Christians right where they are. The cross-cultural and the global are no longer the sole province of the “missionary.” The Christian must read the parable of the good Samaritan with a new vision: To whom will you be a neighbor in the global village? The Internet has empowered anyone with access to have a personal, global impact. This is what some have labeled “glocal” (global-local), and it is the unique inner dynamic of postmodern globalization. It is the difference in kind.

Glocalization is not separate from globalization. Globalization always involved the impact of the local on the global. To reiterate, it was always about cultural exchange—local cultural exchange. Bob Roberts Jr. describes it this way:

War is one of the oldest expressions of glocal, though it has been more from the vantage point of domination than merging. It starts locally in one part of the world and takes its intentions to another part. The local and the global merge—glocal. It’s everywhere and in every form. Pharaoh, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, and others connected the world, but it was through global domination and the imposition of the victor’s customs and culture upon the victims. . . .

However, there is something substantially different about modern glocalization. Glocal connects everyone, but unlike war, it doesn’t do away with anyone’s culture and customs. It can actually strengthen them and facilitate transformation. The whole basis of connection is not domination, but information and connectedness that allow for the integration of anyone, anywhere, anytime.8

The difference that merits the new terminology is that every locale is potentially connected to every other locale without a military, political, industrial, or otherwise institutional intermediary. Glocalization is about personal connectedness between individuals and communities across the globe, not as conquerors and subjects or winners and losers but merely as global neighbors. Thus, the concern is ever more about how we will live together in a diverse global community.

Diversity is also reasserting itself more strongly through glocalization because of this mutual connectedness. In a sense, the Internet itself is the ultimate manifestation of the tendency to appropriate, adapt, and indigenize globalized phenomena. Thus, the Internet (and related digital media) is now the conduit for every other connected culture to globalize just as much as Western ones. Perhaps it is a Western cultural phenomenon that becomes globalized, but it gets filtered and reified as a new thing by other cultural neighbors with just as much agency in the global village:

This inculturating potential cautions us against homogeneity because hearers interpret with the lenses of their indigenous worldviews. Such a perspective privileges indigenous agency: the initiative and creative responses by local actors. Third-world contexts are not a tabula rasa on which foreign culture—extra space bearers—wrote their scripts. Hidden scripts abound at the level of infrapolitics.9

What is actually happening in postmodern globalization is globo-electro-localization. Rather than suffering homogenization, everyone is showing up at the village council with an equal opportunity to make their distinctive voices heard.

Unfortunately, the diversity of these voices may be intractably conflictual, or at least mutually exclusive. This is as it should be until repentance and humility permeate the discourse, because many of the voices belong to those who are on the losing end of globalization’s imperialistic legacy, and they represent the many more who cannot even dream of access to the “flat-world platform.” Beyond the humiliation and resentment engendered by these power dynamics, which many like Friedman presume to be the fuel for movements such as Islamic fundamentalism (which is making good use of glocalization), there are deeper conflicts.

Raschke, in his redux of Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” thesis, identifies Friedman’s optimism about the flat world as the “new secularist mythology.”10 The problem, he asserts, is that:

Contrary to the famous argument of Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington—right after the Soviet Union unraveled, he predicted a “clash of civilizations” where the legacies of the West and the Middle East would find themselves on an unstoppable collision course—the conflict is turning out to be one between those who assert the antireligious values of modernism and the Enlightenment on one hand and those who find ways of repackaging old religious symbols for contemporary political purposes on the other. The genuine clash of civilizations is “between the religious and the non-religious,” not between the different religious cultures.11

There is a deep cultural divide that is not just about non-Western victims of conscienceless capitalism expressing their angst. It is about an underlying difference of worldview that causes mutual connectedness to fall short of mutual understanding. To be more precise, whereas Raschke names them “antireligious values of modernism,” sociologists such as José Casanova nuance the issue by identifying multiple modernities and multiple secularisms.12 There are different configurations of modernism and secularism, and the two are quite separable. Thus, while Islamic fundamentalists are capable of adopting the “modernist” infrastructure of the flat world for their purposes, the secularist mythology—its Utopian nonreligious end—has nothing to do with it.

As members of the global village filter globalization through their worldviews, the infrastructure that makes the discourse possible remains in place, but the ideological baggage that accompanied it does not fully come through. Therefore, it is unlikely that the point of contention—secularism; even a new “compassionate flatism”13—will turn out to be the solution. Those who come to the village council meeting expecting everyone to leave their religion at the door for the sake of a relativistic, dispassionate pluralism and middle-class aspirations14 will be in the small minority.

But Raschke also asserts a second recapitulation of Huntington: “The clash of civilizations is beginning to look like a war of eschatologies.”15 In this he refers to the resurgence of religion globally, which is concomitant with the decline of secularism. Authors such as Philip Jenkins have thoroughly documented the simultaneous rise of Christianity and Islam in the “global South,” the former “third world” that was on the receiving end of imperialist globalization.16 The seemingly inexorable global prominence of these two religious blocks provides the context for Raschke’s thesis. It is the convergence of these eschatological visions with the globo-electro-local platform that constitutes the major challenge for the global village:

The globopomo [global-postmodern] resurgence of religion has set us on an inescapable collision of eschatologies. . . . This collision ultimately arises out of the profound presence of nonnegotiable differences at the soteriological core of each faith. From a theological standpoint, eschatology is not simply the ultimate disclosure of the truth of God. It is also the supernova-like revelation of difference in the sense of a grand separation of the truth from the lie. . . .

A liberal Christian, or even post-Christian, global civil society that allows a loose and mutually respectful—if not tolerant—recital of differences is looming as increasingly less possible in our globopomo environment.17

The question remains, therefore, as to what role the Western church will play. By some accounts, it is so bound up with secularism that it has little to do with either an alternative voice in the discourse or the burgeoning Southern church. It is undoubtedly in decline, even in “religious” America.18 Yet, there are also significant reformist stirrings within Western Christianity, not to mention actual subaltern movements. Although it remains to be seen just what will come of these, and they are admittedly difficult to track, sweeping trend studies such as Jenkins’s tend to overlook even the possibility of resurgence within or out of Western Christianity (even as they are willing to speculate rather freely on, e.g., the Chinese underground church). It must be noted, however, that missiology in Western Christianity has long wrestled with the issues on the table, and the tendency among “missional” groups to take mission seriously as a paradigm for being the church is an extremely positive sign.

From within the global village, then, old issues have taken on new dimensions. Paternalism and dependency are perennial concerns for missionaries. In light of globo-electro-localization, they have a different complexion. What is beyond post-colonial missions? In the shadow of the rising South, they suddenly seem multidirectional. Who is dependent upon whom? Who will be? As connectedness increases, cross-cultural intelligence and insights into the nature of worldview will be indispensable for overcoming the ethnocentrism that problematizes the discourse. Muslim-Christian dialogue has assumed center stage along with the disparity of wealth between the West and the rest. Jesus’ enacted kingdom eschatology must frame the global church’s approach to both, especially among secularized Western churches. New opportunities abound for personal, global impact: from cross-cultural encounters with immigrant neighbors to Internet-empowered service to global neighbors. The Western church is renegotiating its identity, and the majority world church is becoming the predominant agent of mission. Through it all, God is at work, for the mission is his. Will we proceed with faith and courage to face the challenges before us? The future is in the balance, and it can go either way.

This Issue

Pepperdine University Associate Professor of Religion Dyron Daughrity opens the issue with a survey of major trends in the global church. Reality on a global scale is difficult to describe and often quite eye-opening for those of us to tend to think more locally. Christianity, explains Daughrity, is “a universal, transcultural, multi-lingual religion that spans the entire breadth of the world’s surface.” The article looks to Christianity’s future, considering key issues such as the strength of the church in the global South and the place of secularization in the global mix.

Two essays on the Book of James by leading New Testament scholar Scot McKnight fill out the Missional Theology section. Originally presented at the Rochester College conference Streaming: Biblical Conversations for the Missional Frontier, these two papers do not have to do with mission in the global village per se. Then again, the missional frontier is precisely what is at issue in the global village. If McKnight’s lectures cause readers to reflect critically on the interpretive traditions of the flagging Western church and the missional implications of reading James afresh, then we remain on track.

The first two articles in the Missional Praxis section bring to the fore critical issues. Robert Reese, Associate Professor of Cross-Cultural Ministry at Mid-Atlantic Christian University, expertly discusses the problem of dependency in a post-colonial, globalized setting. The legacy of colonialism still plagues the potentially fruitful “new era of cooperation between churches around the world,” he explains. The issue of dependency will not simply go away with the advent of globo-electro-localization. Senders and missionaries alike will do well to consider carefully Reese’s treatment of dependency. Similarly, Jim Harries of the Alliance for Vulnerable Mission proposes an intriguing thesis about the specific dynamics of east African interactions with Western donors. Harries looks at cultural-linguistic aspects of “talking for money” related to magic in African contexts, suggesting that Westerners often unintentionally reinforce harmful worldview assumptions within already problematic patron-client arrangements.

Robert Fife’s article began as a masters thesis and, with the help of Missio Dei’s own Danny Reese, condensed into the present contribution. Fife narrates the story of a Brazilian church that became a missional force. The article is representative of one of the most important trends in the global village as the Southern church takes on the mantle of responsibility. In addition to being a moving tale, the article bears numerous practical insights.

The last Praxis article is a simple beginner’s guide for US Christians interested in initiating cross-cultural ministry among their Latino neighbors. Jim Holway, Field Coordinator for Latin American Mission Project in Miami, offers straightforward, practical advice. Those who take the first steps in relationship and service that he recommends will find themselves engaged in another important facet of mission in the global village: ministry among immigrant populations.

In the Reflections section, Dan Bouchelle challenges readers from Churches of Christ to catch up with God’s work in the challenging new global context. Marisol Rosas writes personally about her multicultural missional experiences, which are perhaps as representative of mission in the global village as anything else in the issue. Three more Streaming presentations follow: John Barton reviews the dialogue on Muslim-Christian relations revolving around Miraslov Volf’s book Allah: A Christian Response, undoubtedly a central issue in the global village. Josh Graves considers James narratively and David Fleer contributes an artistically formatted sermon on James 1:22-27. Finally, Mark Parker shares his thoughts on the recently published web document “The Missional Manifesto.”

Once a tiny Jewish sect, Christianity has become the largest religion in the history of humankind. No other religion has enjoyed such size and global influence, so far as we know. This paper probes current trends in world Christianity by surveying important turning points in its history. The latter part of the paper investigates issues related to secularization, particularly in the context of post-Christian Western Europe.

Introduction

Christianity is the largest religious institution in the history of humankind. In addition to having more devotees than any other religion, it is also the most global, most diverse, and perhaps most influential religion in history. Several of the world’s cultural blocks are today, at least in name, largely Christian: North America, Latin America and the Caribbean, Eastern and Western Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Oceania, and parts of Asia. The enormous size and global influence of the Christian faith emphasize why Christianity must be understood as a global reality.1

But how did this happen? How did a tiny Jewish sect grow to become so large, so powerful, and so attractive to so many throughout the centuries?

This article is an exercise in macro-history. Rather than investigating a man, a movement, or an epoch, our purpose is to back up and see the bigger picture of Christian history. Gazing at this big picture causes us to ask a question: How did it happen? How did Christianity—this Middle Eastern sect—become the largest, most international, and most influential religion in the history of the world?

In this article we will:

1. Look at some general statistics that illustrate the growth of Christianity.
2. Point out pivotal moments in the 2000-year history of Christianity.
3. Highlight some trends in Christianity today that may shed light on future possibilities for this religion, giving special attention to the phenomenon of secularization.

Christianity: The Largest Religion in the World

There are around seven billion people in the world right now. One-third (33%) are Christian, one-fifth (20%) are Muslim, one-eighth (13%) are Hindu, and one-seventeenth (6%) are Buddhist. These are the only religions in the world that are statistically significant; in other words, these are the only religions that contain more than one percent of the world’s population. Judaism, Sikhism, Baha’i Faith and all other religions in the world each amount to less than half of one percent.2

This might come as something of a surprise because the world is often thought to be a religiously diverse place. Actually, the world is not as diverse as one might think. When we combine Christianity and Islam, two faiths that trace their roots to Judaism, we see that over half of humanity (54%) is either Christian or Muslim. Cultural geographers point out that these two religions prevail over 70% of the Earth’s inhabited territory.3 Christianity and Islam are, truly, world religions. Christianity is more diverse and more global—as we will see momentarily—but both of these religions are very widespread.

It is important to point out that people rarely switch religions. When this does happen, it is newsworthy, and can deeply impact the future demographics of a particular region of the world. It has been estimated that over 99% of people in the history of humanity practiced the religion their parents modeled for them.4 While it is fairly common for people to convert to new doctrines or take a fresh perspective on their own faith, outright conversion to an entirely different religion is very rare indeed. People may shift from one form of their religion to another—for example from Presbyterian to Pentecostal—but these are not considered changes in religion. They are better characterized as changes in emphasis, since the core beliefs remain relatively unchanged. Those who deny the religion of their parents and make an outright conversion to another are, historically, exceptional.

Religions tend to be associated with countries or regions of the world. People in India tend to be Hindu. People in Latin American tend to be Christian. People in the Middle East tend to be Muslim. This is not a hard and fast rule, but it is certainly a general tendency. A good example is the United States of America. Around 80% of Americans explicitly consider themselves to be Christian. When we combine all Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, and other world religions in America, the total percentage is only 4.7% of the US population.5 Statistically speaking, America is a strongly Christian nation.

Imagine if by the year 2100, America was 50% Muslim. That would be highly unlikely. It is significant to point out, however, that this sort of thing has happened in human history. While rare, it will probably happen again. Why? In a word, the answer is proselytization—the concept of consciously attempting to convert someone else to one’s own faith. Christians call this “evangelism” or “missions.”6

General statistics on the growth of Christianity

While Christianity is the largest faith today, this is not necessarily going to be the case forever; nor, obviously, has it always been the case. Christianity’s rise to global prominence can be traced through quarterly estimations, using the years 500, 1000, 1500, and 2000 as a guide.7

It began as a Jewish sect shortly after Christ’s death in the first century AD. Through the work of Paul and others it morphed, surprisingly, into an inclusive religion regardless of ethnicity. Missiologist Andrew Walls has called this the Ephesian Moment, “the social coming together of people of two cultures to experience Christ.” Walls cites Ephesians 2:22 as the rationale for why there could be only one Christian community, instead of two: “In union with him [Christyou too are being built together with all the others to a place where God lives through his Spirit.”8 Had the Ephesian Moment not occurred, Christianity would have remained, in all likelihood, an ethnic sect. But with the Ephesian Moment a new frontier opened. Gentiles were in. What began as a Jewish thing swiftly became a Gentile thing.

By the year 500 there were approximately 43 million Christians alive, which would have been about 20% of the world’s population.9 Rodney Stark argues for a sudden spike in Christian adherence between the years 250 and 300. In the year 250, Christianity was the religion of only 2% of the Roman Empire. In the year 300, Christianity claimed around 10% of the empire. By 350, well over half of the Roman Empire was at least nominally Christian. He writes, “40 percent per decade (or 3.42 percent per year) seems the most plausible estimate of the rate at which Christianity actually grew during the first several centuries.” As a comparison, this is remarkably similar to the average growth rate of the Mormon Church over the last century.10

In the year 1000, still, approximately 20% of the world was Christian. In spite of successful missionary campaigns into northern Europe and Central Asia, all the gains had been offset by mass Christian defections to Islam, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa.

In the year 1500, Christianity’s world market share had not changed much and was still hovering right around 20%. Things would soon change, however.

The year 1500 marks a period of major Christian expansion, particularly in the voyages of the Spanish and Portuguese to the Americas. Subsequent European empires established bridgeheads all over the world. From West Africa to East Asia, Christian Europeans—and later Christian North Americans—were sent out by the thousands in the name of Christianity and commerce. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Britain rose to become the unrivaled superpower in the world, on land and on sea, and it opened up many opportunities for British missionaries: safe travel, military protection, an English-language infrastructure, and unprecedented access to the peoples of these lands.

The era of European colonialism did not yield an immediate harvest, however. In the year 1800, Christianity was the religion of about 23% of the world’s population.11 In other words, from 1500 to 1800, Christian growth was mild. However, as Stark has shown, exponential growth eventually pays handsome dividends. By 1900, this number had increased to around 33%, where it has remained for over a century. Approximately one-third of humanity was Christian by 1900, when the modern heyday of Christian missions ceased.

Thus, the years 1800 to 1900 represent a second important spike upward in Christian adherence. The first spike—around the year 300—was a result of, in Stark’s words, “the rather extraordinary features of exponential curves.”12 The second spike had much more to do with Christian missions and proactive evangelization campaigns to convert non-Christian peoples to the faith.

So what about the future? Will Christianity grow? Will it die? Either scenario is possible.

Christianity: A Religion That Is “Moving South”

Christianity’s center of gravity has shifted in recent years. This phenomenon has caused a splash in the academic study of religion. The changes are astonishing. Christianity—by far the largest religion in the world today—has moved South. No longer is Christianity primarily a Northern or Western faith. The majority of Christians today live in the global South.

What is meant by that expression the “global South?” What scholars usually have in mind are Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Historically, other expressions have been used such as the third world, the two-thirds world, or the developing world. The preferred term today is the global South.

Christianity’s demographics changed radically in a short period of time, and few scholars were aware of the massive implications of these changes until quite recently. The watershed moment took place around 1980. For many centuries prior to 1980 over half of the world’s Christians lived in Europe and North America. After 1980 the majority of the world’s Christians lived in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.13

Another key statistic illustrates Christianity’s move to the global South.14 In 1900, 82% of the world’s Christians lived in Europe or North America; only 18% of the world’s Christians were outside the Euro-North American block. In the year 2005, only 39% of the world’s Christians lived in Europe or North America. During that century, Christianity’s heartland moved south to the point that over 60% of the world’s Christians now live in Asia, Africa, or Latin America.

How did this shift to the global South happen? The most obvious answer is Christian missions. In modern times, there were two great waves of Christian missions: the Catholic wave in the 1500s and the Protestant wave in the 1800s. During these periods, Christian missionaries from the West launched massive, expensive, and focused campaigns to take the gospel to non-Western nations. Millions of people accepted the Christian gospel and themselves became missionaries to their own peoples.

Herein persists one of the great misconceptions of Christian missions. It is all too easy to think that Western missionaries “won” entire continents over to Jesus Christ. Without minimizing the heroic deeds of these Euro-North American missionaries, the people who received them deserve equal credit for spreading the faith. The mass movements that occurred during the great expansion of Christianity could not have happened without indigenous agents. How could a missionary even communicate with people of different cultures unless someone accepted him, protected him, fed him, taught him the language, and introduced him to others?

Western missionaries often arrived to these lands with few language skills, and local people had to help them in the very basics of survival. Upon arriving to these foreign shores, Europeans and North Americans needed guidance on how to survive: which plants could be eaten, how to find fresh water, with whom to trade, how to act appropriately, how not to offend people. A few key locals would eventually “accept” Jesus Christ as their lord. These converts then explained Christianity to their people. And in many cases it made sense to them.

Once Christianity took root, it often indigenized, shedding many of the cultural assumptions brought by missionaries. Naturally, many of the indigenous social and cultural norms became interwoven with Christian teachings. The mission churches were often very different from the churches back home in the USA or in Europe. Nevertheless, they were clearly attempting to be Christian churches. Looking back, we can say that the Western missionaries to the global South were successful. They planted Christianity while locals made it their own, resulting in thriving churches comprised of hundreds of millions of people all over the global South.

Alongside Christianity’s historic, geographical shift is the changing Christian ethos—the way the world’s Christians prefer to live out their faith. If present trends continue, the world’s Christians will continue to embrace Pentecostal, charismatic forms of the faith. And this change in Christianity’s ethos is directly linked to the indigenization of the faith. Pentecostal Christianity is growing apace in the world right now. One influential scholar, Paul Freston, writes:

Within a couple of decades, half of the world’s Christians will be in Africa and Latin America. By 2050, on current trends, there will be as many Pentecostals in the world as there are Hindus, and twice as many Pentecostals as Buddhists.15

Indeed, Pentecostal Christianity is one of the fastest growing religious movements in modern times. Harvey Cox is another scholar who has noticed these changes in the global church. His important work Fire From Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in the Twenty-first Century was his attempt to make sense of these new developments.16 Both of these scholars recognize that Christianity is undergoing seismic changes that will have inevitable consequences. Most notable among the changes are: (1) Christianity is receding from Europe—its center of gravity for a millennium; (2) it is gaining ground in the global South; and (3) its changing ethos is reflecting the customs, beliefs, and worldviews of its host cultures in remarkable ways.

The Future of Christianity

Major changes are going on in Christianity today—changes that will impact the future of this religion forever. This is not altogether surprising. Christianity has always morphed, reformed, and spread to new places. For example, Christianity in Norway in the 1300s was very different than Christianity in Zambia in 2000. While the Christians in those places in those times held many of the same principles, they varied considerably in how to practice the faith, and how to interpret the Bible. The genius of Christianity is its adaptability, its borderlessness.17 It is always changing: geographically, theologically, liturgically, and socially. Religions are never stagnant; like cultures they defy rigid categories and definitions. Christianity has proven to be particularly adept at finding its way into new people groups.

Historian Lamin Sanneh often points out that the reason Christianity has succeeded in adapting is because it is based on a person, Jesus. In Christianity, God reveals God’s self as a human being. This is very different from other religions. In Islam, for example, God reveals God’s self through text. Thus, in Islam, a person must understand God’s words, the Quran, to understand God’s revelation. Christianity is different. While one may or may not read and understand a text, the key is to know the man Jesus. The text can help with that task, but by no means is the text equated with the revelation. Knowing Jesus is far more important than knowing the texts about him. In Islam, the text remains most critical to the faith. This is why Muslims must learn at least some Arabic. Christians, however, do not have to learn a particular language. They have to learn a man. And Christians in the global South are continually being introduced to this man, in many cases for the first time. China is today witnessing an epoch similar to what happened in the book of Acts. Many people are hearing—for the first time—about the life, the teachings, and “the way” of Jesus of Nazareth. This is an awesome development, especially considering the fact it is coming in the wake of one of the more punishingly atheistic epochs in recorded history.

Today, the notion of Christianity moving South is attracting more scholarly attention because the implications are huge. Christianity is the religion of one-third of the human race and the likelihood of this changing anytime soon is small because of higher fertility rates in the global South. Many Western nations have fertility rates that are in decline or soon will be such as in Germany, Denmark, the UK, France, and Italy.18 Eastern European nations are in steep decline—the governments of Russia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Ukraine have launched national baby-making programs that reward mothers of multiple children. Some have even referred to the extremely low fertility rate in Eastern Europe as an auto-genocide.19

Westerners commonly perceive the future of Christianity to be dire due to these once strongly Christian nations becoming less populated. However, the statistic that is rarely given attention is that Christianity is growing rapidly in other places—where there are high birth rates. Most Latin American countries easily replace themselves. African birth rates are the highest in the world. It is not uncommon for African women to have six children on average, which is indeed the case in several African nations such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, and Angola. Overall, because the high fertility of the global South offsets the low fertility of the global North, Christianity will continue to remain the largest religion in the world.

According to today’s fertility trends, Islam and Christianity will continue to grow their world market shares. Hinduism, Buddhism and other religions will likely shrink in terms of global percentage. While Hindus constitute 13% and Buddhists 6% of the global population, these numbers will almost inevitably decline.20

Some scholars comment that Islam is growing much more rapidly than Christianity; this conclusion is premature, however. There is little reason to assume that Muslim nations will have higher fertility rates than Christian nations in the global South. Many of the theories which claim Islam is rapidly gaining ground on Christianity neglect the paradigm shifts in Christian demography.

While Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam are missionary religions, they grow mainly because of fertility. It is significant to point out that there have been watershed moments in history when entire people-groups converted to one religion or another, but they are exceptional. How will this play out in the future? Nobody knows. Religious growth is uncontrollable and unpredictable; the history of Christianity showcases this principle remarkably well. Only in retrospect can we discern what events were decidedly pivotal in the history of Christian faith. We can home in on four dates that proved epochal in four different parts of the world.

First, the year 312 marks Constantine’s victorious Battle at the Milvian Bridge in Rome which he accredited to Christ. Shortly thereafter, Constantine began to show favor for this previously illegal religion, issuing the Edict of Milan in the year 313. That Edict represented a pivot in the history of Christianity—from illegal to legal status.

Second, the year 988 was when Prince Vladimir of Kiev converted to Christianity and began Christianizing the people of the great Russian land mass.

Third, 1492 marks the year Columbus’s discoveries had the effect of initiating a massive campaign to Christianize the people of the Americas.

Finally, 1807 is the year the Slave Trade Act passed in the parliament of the United Kingdom. Led by a devout, evangelical Protestant Christian named William Wilberforce, this monumental act marked what would become a vital link between England and sub-Saharan Africa—the next heartland of Christianity. The Atlantic slave trade began its long decline in that year and the African continent became a popular destination for British missionaries.

Throughout history, Christianity was usually transmitted by isolated Christians who might travel in pairs across long, lonely stretches of land to win a handful of souls to Christ. The remains of dedicated missionaries litter the world’s crust from California to Japan, all in the name of bearing good news, the gospel, to new people-groups. In the vast amount of cases, missionaries converted only a family or two, and perhaps started a small Bible study or humble worship assembly. But as mentioned earlier, it is local people who do most of the recruiting and the converting of their own compatriots to the newfound faith. The role of the missionary as a seed-planter and nurturer, however, should not be minimized. In the past and still today, missionaries play a strategic part by building on the work of their predecessors in the faith, faithfully serving their God in the best way they know how—by teaching stories of the Bible, administering the sacraments, reaching out to the needy, and offering their lives to the people they love and serve.

Today, Christianity is witnessing the fruits of the labors of those missionaries. The Christian faith has taken root in those lands where missionaries worked and died. As a result, the nature of Christianity is changing dramatically. We are today eyewitnesses of a universal, transcultural, multi-lingual religion that spans the entire breadth of the world’s surface. Of this phenomenon, historian Stephen Neill wrote in 1964:

It is only rarely that it is possible, in the history of the Church or in the history of the world, to speak of anything as being unmistakably new. But in the twentieth century one phenomenon has come into view which is incontestably new—for the first time there is in the world a universal religion, and that is the Christian religion.21

Christianity, in this sense, may be considered the first world religion.

The four largest religions in the world today are Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Hinduism has never really been a missionary religion, and its growth is through fertility alone. The great era of Buddhist expansion to new lands is over, and its market share of the world’s inhabitants is in decline. Conversions to Islam are isolated. Islam is growing today, but that is almost wholly through fertility rates.

Christianity is different. As many in the Western world walk away from the Christian faith, this trend is offset by people actually converting from non-Christian to Christian in other parts of the world—most notably in China. Globally, one out of every five people lives inside the border of China. After decades of insularity, the great walls are falling, and this could affect religious demographics significantly. While it is too soon to predict just how eager the Chinese people are for Christ, the opportunities for Christian growth are obvious. If a major movement of Chinese Christians were to occur, it would alter the face of Christianity. At this stage, educated estimates of the number of Chinese Christians range between 5-10%.22 In other words, 100 million Chinese citizens might be Christians.

The Christians of China are known to be Protestant in the majority, and generally evangelical. While most of them are recent converts, they are proving to be skilled missionaries. What is most striking is their zeal, even in the face of government opposition. A cover article for the New York Times recently reported on a congregation in Beijing that raised the eyebrows of the governing authorities when it raised $4 million for a church building. The police raided, evicted them from their meeting place, and took the leaders into custody.23 Some highly ambitious Chinese Christians have decided to missionize the Middle East. One group, known as the “Back to Jerusalem” movement, describes itself as “God’s call to the Chinese church to complete the Great Commission.”24

The cross-cultural transmission of the faith is more creative and ambitious than ever. Christians are spreading their faith through mission work, literature, and all forms of high-tech multimedia. The phenomenally successful Jesus Film (1979) has been labeled the most watched motion picture of all time according to the New York Times and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).25 Created by Campus Crusade for Christ founder Bill Bright, the Jesus Film has purportedly been viewed six billion times in over a thousand languages. The official website claims that since 1979, over 225 million people have made decisions to follow Christ because of the film’s impact on them.26 If these statistics have credibility, then this film is easily one of the most effective evangelistic tools in the history of Christianity.

Secularization

A few words must be said here about secularization—a concept that is commonly applied to the Western world, Western Europe in particular. Western Europe was for centuries linked to Latin-based Christianity—first for the Roman Catholic Church and after 1517 various Protestant forms of faith. Secularization has destroyed that link—at least for the time being. But still, in many ways, Western Europe seems bathed in Latin, Roman Christianity.

Statistically, Western Europe is Christian. In every single Western European nation, Christianity is the majority religion. Overall, Western European Christians are 63% Catholic, 36% Protestant, and less than 1% Orthodox. Only a tiny percentage of Western Europeans explicitly identify themselves as members of non-Christian religions. A small but growing percentage claims to be “non-religious”—around 15%.

While Western Europe may have a Christian majority, in no way is this region the center of Christianity any more. In 1900, eight of the world’s top ten Christian-populated countries were in Europe: Britain, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Russia, Poland, and Ukraine, although the latter three are in Eastern Europe.27 There was little doubt, however: Europe, clearly, was the axis mundi for the Christian faith.

Today, the situation is completely different. In 2005, Germany was the lone Western European nation still on that list.28 Western Europeans do not attend church much anymore. In 2006, Pope Benedict went to his native Germany—a country where less than 15% of the population attends Mass—and warned, “We are no longer able to hear God. . . . God strikes us as pre-scientific, no longer suited for our age.”29 Perhaps Philip Jenkins said it best:

Europe is demonstrably not the Faith. The era of Western Christianity has passed within our lifetimes, and the day of Southern Christianity is dawning. The fact of change itself is undeniable: it has happened, and will continue to happen.30

Why did this occur? Why did Western Europe, apparently, get up and walk away from faith? This is a big question, and many historians, theologians, and social scientists are still trying to make sense of it.

Many have argued that secularization is rooted in the social shocks brought on by the Protestant Reformation. One of the most important consequences of the Reformation was the rise of national identities. Luther paved the way to nation-states by undermining religious authority and triggering a long period of violence and instability. In 1648 the Treaty of Westphalia stopped the bleeding of the Thirty Years War with the dictum: cuius regio, eius religio, “whose realm, (use) his religion.” If your king is Catholic, be Catholic. If he’s Protestant, follow his lead. It may have stopped the war, but it did so at the expense of religious conviction, suggesting a sort of religious relativism. Are Catholics or Protestants the true Christians? Well, it depends on where you live. Not too satisfying for the seeker of truth.

In histories of Christianity, the Treaty of Westphalia is generally treated as a documented beginning for European secularization. Today, however, the concept of secularization is much more complex. It has come to be understood as a cultural movement that marginalizes faith. It challenges the assumption that religion is good for society. Like the Treaty of Westphalia, secularization is essentially a living argument that religions need to back off in order for society to be free and peaceful. Perhaps more than anything else, it is an erasure of the distinction between the sacred and the profane. Religious holidays become downplayed, sacred places lose their religious quality, and the influence of the clergy becomes drastically reduced. It is common today to visit Western Europe and see churches turned into pubs, stores, warehouses, even mosques.

Why did this happen? There are many answers, but we can highlight the most obvious:

• Nationalism: the nation-state supplanted the role of the Pope. People began to identify with the ruler of the land rather than the authorities of faith, due to cuius regio, eius religio.
• Urbanization: people moved to the cities. There was a breakdown in the old agrarian structure of society. In the city, people are anonymous. There is less accountability. Individuals choose how they want to believe rather than how their community expects them to believe. Quite naturally, this also affects behavior.
• Individualism: Luther’s legacy persists—a deep questioning and a need to return to the sources (ad fontes). Nothing is true except that which I can independently confirm to be true. Religious authority takes a beating.
• Scientific advance: experimentation takes precedence to religious tradition. There results an erosion of confidence in religious texts, clergy, and institutions. Truth is determined by demonstration and experimentation, not by conformity to social codes or religious norms.
• Religious pluralism: the Italian circumnavigators and Catholic missionaries began to encounter people from vastly different cultures in Latin America, Africa, India, and China. These people did not have Christianity, and some of them seemed to be doing fine without it.

These are some of the larger, contextual pieces of a puzzle that still confounds scholars. However, it is far from a complete picture. For example, Peter Berger, in his classic The Homeless Mind: Modernization and Consciousness, persuasively argues that humans in the West are discontent because of mass bureaucratization. He writes that many humans no longer feel connected to their families due to migratory trends. Humans who change contexts are in many ways socially homeless, living a confused existence, “a world in which everything is in constant motion.”31

What is the net result? The result is that religion in the Western world is in serious crisis. “The age-old function of religion—to provide ultimate certainty amid the exigencies of the human condition—has been severely shaken.” Berger provides a label for this predicament: “social homelessness.”32

The reality of the basic premise of the secularization thesis is undeniable—Western Europeans do not go to church like they used to, and most of them know little about Christianity. However, what does this mean? Scholars do not really know. Are Western Europeans actually less religious, or are they simply avoiding the institutional structures of religion? Every single Western European nation has secularized, if by that we mean church participation has fallen precipitously. There are several other key indicators to illustrate the secularization thesis:

• Policy making takes place separate and apart from the churches;
• Schools are not in the hands of the clergy;
• Charitable, benevolent welfare is largely in the hands of the state;
• Hospitals are not controlled by the churches;
• Church attendance is, in most cases, under 10% of the population in Western Europe.33

The question persists, however: Why? Some scholars tend to think in Marxist terms: when the needs of the people are met, religion will simply wither away. While there is credibility to this view, there are so many counterexamples. The USA remains a vibrantly religious culture but is economically on a par with Western Europe.

The long decline of religion in Western Europe continues today. It is evidently a cultural juggernaut. Attendance rates are at their lowest in history, and there is little evidence to suggest a turnaround. In the late twentieth century, about 40% of Western Europeans claimed they “never” attended church.34 Grace Davie, a noted scholar of secularization in Western Europe, wrote, “An ignorance of even the basic understandings of Christian teaching is the norm in modern Europe, especially among young people.”35 A study in 2011 claimed religion may soon go extinct in nine countries.36

There are some creative theories, however, such as Graeme Smith’s, which call the secularization thesis into question. Smith argues a fascinating idea—that secularization is simply Christianity in disguise. He writes:

Secularism is not the end of Christianity. Rather, we should think of secularism as the latest expression of the Christian religion. . . . Secularism is Christian ethics [without] its doctrine. It is the ongoing commitment to do good, understood in traditional Christian terms, without a concern for the technicalities of the teachings of the Church. . . . Secularism in the West is a new manifestation of Christianity, but one that is not immediately obvious because it lacks the usual scaffolding we associate with the Christian religion.37

Graeme Smith is not alone in this claim. Anthropologist Jonathan Benthall argues a highly nuanced thesis that says, essentially, religion never went away. For all this talk about Europe secularizing, the propensity for religiosity is universal and intrinsic to our species, and nothing has changed that. Humanitarian movements, strikingly similar to Christianity’s prophetic voice of justice, are clearly a modern outworking of religious tendencies. In other words, religion is not receding in Western Europe; it is being reinvented.

Benthall argues that religion is very difficult to define. If we define religion as Christianity, Judaism, or Islam, then sure, religion seems to be less prominent in Western Europe. However, if the definition of religion is opened up to include concepts such as social justice, environmental activism, charity, and civility, then religion in Western Europe has merely adapted itself to suit a scientifically advanced context created by modernization and scientific methods. While miracles may have been expelled in this worldview, the longing to heal people through medicine has not. Both of these approaches are rooted in a deep and abiding human orientation towards religion.38

Grace Davie argues that while Western Europeans tend not to belong to a church, they still believe in many identifiably Christian teachings. Her idea has become known as the “believing without belonging” thesis.39

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945), while awaiting execution in a Nazi prison, famously wrote about the future of Christianity in Europe. Bonhoeffer foresaw a secular future for Europe. He was partially reacting to how his fellow countrymen could have possibly allowed Hitler’s rise to power—in a supposedly Christianized Germany. Bonhoeffer struggled with the meaning of Christianity as a religion. In his view, the future of Christianity in Europe was a “religion-less” Christianity.40

Hasn’t the individualistic question about personal salvation almost completely left us all? Aren’t we really under the impression that there are more important things than that question? I know it sounds pretty monstrous to say that. But, fundamentally, isn’t this in fact biblical? Does the question about saving one’s soul appear in the Old Testament at all? Aren’t righteousness and the Kingdom of God on earth the focus of everything?41

Bonhoeffer envisioned a Christianity that was a lifestyle more than it was an institution. Even the doctrine of God was to be radically reoriented in an age when man has come of age and abandoned religion: “God as a working hypothesis, as a stop-gap for our embarrassments, has become superfluous.”42

If Bonhoeffer was right, then perhaps Christianity as an organized religion in Western Europe will indeed cease to exist. Maybe the Christianity of the future will be a Christ-like ethic, a sensitive and humane treatment of others, with compassionate social institutions, but without rituals, clergy, and buildings? Perhaps the future of Christianity will be kindness, love, and justice, without the constant prodding of the church?

While Western Europe continues to secularize, we would be remiss if we did not point out that there are faithful remnants scattered about the land, bearing a witness for a somewhat ghostly Christian past. In addition, immigration and reverse missions have led to new churches that are growing. London has several megachurches, and most of them are either African or Caribbean. Kiev, Ukraine, is home to the Pentecostal megachurch Embassy of God, led by Sunday Adelaja, a young Nigerian-born pastor. This church has now expanded to 35 countries.

There are thriving traditional churches as well, such as Holy Trinity Brompton, where, in the 1990s, Nicky Gumbel transformed the Alpha Course into a worldwide phenomenon for introducing the Christian faith to non-Christians—kind of ironic in a historically Christian city like London. Indeed, Gumbel recognized that his fellow Londoners had almost no idea about even the very basics of the Christian faith.

Western Europe is today no valley of dry bones. While the vast majority of people do not attend church, there are still bastions of Christian witness. For example, the World Council of Churches, based in Geneva, is the hub for the largest Christian network in the world, and the flagship for the interdenominational ecumenical movement. Pentecostal churches are popping up all over the region, as in virtually all corners of the globe. Immigrant churches (and mosques) are full and growing, with few signs of becoming secular like their native counterparts. Thus, in many ways the ancient Christian faith is still alive in former Christendom.

Nevertheless, there is no way to predict what will happen in Western Europe. For all the talk about the rise of Christianity in the global South, it is perhaps just as likely that Christianity may, one day, rise up again in Western Europe, perhaps only in a different guise.

We cannot predict what will happen globally, either. Religions die, they flourish, and they pulsate back and forth, assimilating aspects of new and old cultures. For all we know there might be a new religion on the horizon that will take the world by storm at some point in the future. Perhaps the bizarre religion of “Chrislam”—a fusion of Islam and Christianity that has occurred in parts of Nigeria—is not altogether surprising considering the religious strife in a country that is about half Muslim and half Christian.43

Whatever the case, we do know this: Christianity is rather young, only 2000 years. And for those two millennia, it has grown, albeit in a punctuated way. In the beginning, it was a Jewish sect, marginal to another religion. Today, it claims the devotion of one out of three humans on the planet. Its rise has been gradual. And its future appears secure if history is in any way a useful measuring stick.

Dyron B. Daughrity is Associate Professor of Religion at Pepperdine University. He is the author of numerous academic articles, book reviews, and book chapters, as well as two books, the most recent of which is The Changing World of Christianity: The Global History of a Borderless Religion (Peter Lang, 2010). He can be contacted at dyron.daughrity@pepperdine.edu.

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Grim, Brian. “Religion in China on the Eve of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.” Pew Research Center Publications. http://pewresearch.org/pubs/827/china-religion-olympics.

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Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert. When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty without Hurting the Poor . . . and Yourself. Chicago: Moody, 2009. 230 pp. $14.99.

Good intentions are seldom sufficient to insure effective development: indeed, considerable harm has been done in the name of helping. Authors Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert attempt to bolster good intentions with a theology of poverty and development and a handful of contemporary development principles in their primer, When Helping Hurts. An excellent introduction to Christian humanitarian development—accessible and mainstream in its development views—it brings development into holistic Christian mission and aligns it with contemporary development thought. The book is well-suited as an introduction to mission support groups—missions committees, non-profit boards, short-term mission teams, church leaders and members—who are exploring humanitarian activities in missions and ministry.

Under Brian Fikkert’s leadership, the Chalmers Center at Covenant College (Lookout Mountain, Georgia) has garnered a reputation for Christian-based education and training in micro-level development. When Helping Hurts is the second book of national note to come from its faculty, the first being Christian Microenterprise Development (David Bussau and Russell Mask, Paternoster, 2003).

When Helping Hurts is divided into three parts, with each part containing three chapters. Part one provides a theological glance at poverty which largely adopts Bryant Myers’s (Walking with the Poor, Orbis, 1999) framework reflecting a motif of restoring broken relationships with God, self, others, and creation. Starting from a biblical framework avoids an exclusive or competing view of spiritual versus material brokenness, and includes both as subject to the redemptive work of Christ. A biblical framework also draws attention to the criticality of surfacing perceptions about the causes of poverty that shape development policy and practice as well as helpers’ self-perceptions, including “god-complexes.” The authors offer a brief historical context of Evangelicals being repelled by early twentieth-century social Christianity. (Humanitarian engagements among conservative branches of the Stone-Campbell movement appear to follow a similar trajectory, but for somewhat different reasons.)

The second part of the book addresses basic development principles. The authors begin by differentiating among relief, rehabilitation, and development and outlining the appropriate role for each. This issue is important since sustainable impact and delivery are critical considerations in effective ministry organizing; too often, Christian humanitarian practice has applied short-term responses to long-term issues. The authors proceed to introduce an asset-based approach to development (How can we build upon assets?) in contrast to the common needs-based approach (How can we remedy deficits?). They also introduce the notion of co-participant roles in contrast to paternalistic roles. These perspectives are widely endorsed in development practice and deserve additional careful unpacking and application.

The third part of the book attempts to apply the theological and development insights offered thus far to short-term, domestic, and international missions and humanitarian efforts. The authors are largely critical of short-term missions, although they offer a few suggestions to minimize their harm. They provide examples of community development (including job preparedness, financial literacy programs, and individual development accounts) and introduce microfinance and business as mission. These topics require considerable additional development before they would be actionable. The authors recognize the complexity of development contexts and responses which prevent such an introductory work from exposing the reader to the kaleidoscope of unique contexts and participants.

When Helping Hurts is an introduction. As such, it offers brief examples but no in-depth case studies or first steps toward development planning. Christian ministries and individuals engaging in poverty alleviation is the focus; the reform of national or international policy, institutions, or development efforts on a macro scale is left unexplored. A website supports the book (http://www.whenhelpinghurts.org), offering a study guide and inviting visitors to consider training courses from the Chalmers Center.

When Helping Hurts is an initial corrective to spiritual-material dualism, paternalism and dependence, material definitions of poverty, and generic development strategies. It offers caveats on short-term relief and missions and offers rudimentary principles for those unfamiliar with development studies. The volume hints that considerable development and theological resources exist on this topic and that both are worthwhile to explore when engaging in humanitarian ventures. Equipping should not stop with this book, but it is an excellent place to begin.

Monty L. Lynn

Professor

College of Business Administration

Abilene Christian University

Abilene, Texas, USA

James Butare-Kiyovu, editor. International Development from a Kingdom Perspective. WCIU Press: International Development Series 2. Pasadena: William Carey International University Press, 2010. 166 pp. $9.95.

There continues to be a coming together of the two dominant paradigms in missions going back to the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization in 1974. The evangelistic emphasis underlying the unreached peoples paradigm is broadening to be more inclusive of the transformational development paradigm. No longer do Evangelicals wince at ministries of justice. Today’s gospel emissaries are blending the first words of Jesus (Luke 4:18–20) with the last words of Jesus (Matt 28:18–20) as they develop their missional theology. The church is out in the community and the world in force, be it adopting an underprivileged school, cleaning up the neighborhood, planting churches, or ministering to those with HIV/AIDS.

James Butare-Kiyovu is Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics at William Carey International University. He has edited an eclectic book, many of whose articles have been published elsewhere. With chapters on the last two centuries of missions (Ralph Winter), missio Dei (Eddie Arthur), economic justice (David Befus and Stephan Bauman), ministry to children (Luis Bush), shalom (Beth Snodderly), a prayer guide utilizing the Millennium Development Goals (Micah Challenge), the genocide in Rwanda (Butare-Kiyovu), and more, there is something here for everybody who has an interest in holistic mission.

In a seminar in 2007, Ralph Winter wondered aloud if there should be a fourth era of missions. He had previously written about three eras between 1800 and 2000 (the article is reprinted in this book), but was now suggesting a fourth one: the Kingdom Era. It was this concept that helped influence the titling of this volume.

Of special interest to readers of this journal is Eddie Arthur’s article, “Missio Dei” (49–66). Arthur traces the development of the concept through history, beginning with Augustine but especially emphasizing the period from World War II through the present. He concludes by linking missio Dei to trinitarian mission and stating that the concept saves the church from having to choose between either social change or fundamentalism (61).

David Befus and Stephan Bauman’s selection, “Economic Justice for the Poor” (89–100), begins with the biblical foundation for justice. After considering the church’s mandate for justice, they conclude with a series of twenty action steps. The following two quotations sum up the main thrust of these steps: “We need to invest in women and children with the message of economic justice as a means of transforming the next generation” (97). “We need to promote understanding of the negative ecological impact of economic injustice” (99). These twenty steps provide an undeniable agenda for mission in our time.

In his chapter, Luis Bush makes an eloquent plea for involvement in what he calls the 4/14 window. Bush, who had earlier coined the well-known phrase “10/40 window,” says that the top priority for missions should be working with children, those who range in age from four to fourteen. He points to the overlap between poverty, illiteracy, and hunger that wreak havoc on children, many of whom live in the 10/40 window. He writes about children at risk: “Millions are at risk from poverty, but millions are also at risk from prosperity! Many children and young people today have everything to live with, but nothing to live for” (129). Children are not to be targeted just so that they may have abundant and eternal life, but because they can transform the world (137).

The most unique and practical entry is supplied by the Micah Challenge, “Prayer Stations Guide on the Millennium Development Goals” (143–54). The Challenge transforms each goal into a prayer station. At each station there is a comment on the specific goal, a hands-on activity related to the goal, prayer suggestions, and a brief Scripture passage.

The book’s weakness, in addition to the annoying misspellings in the references and the bibliographies, is its lack of progression from chapter to chapter. There seems to be no logical flow to this book. It is as if the editor could not decide whether his book should be a biblical study, an overview of development theory in missions, or a collection of random case studies.

Doug Priest

Executive Director

Christian Missionary Fellowship International

Indianapolis, Indiana, USA