Working Your Way to the Nations

Description

Ever since the Apostle Paul had a job making tents to support his work of spreading the gospel, "tentmakers" have played an important role in the fulfillment of the Great Commission. This workbook is a practical guide to following in Paul's footsteps.

Foreword
Preface
How to Use This Manual
1 Planning for Success
Don Hamilton
2 Getting Perspective
Detlef Bloecher
3 Cross-Cultural Servants
David Tai-Woong Lee
4 The Crucial Role of the Local Church
Derek Christensen
5 Critical Considerations of Deployment
Jonathan Cortes
6 Biblical and Doctrinal Foundations
Joshua K. Ogawa
7 Personal Readiness
Elizabeth Vance
8 Two Essential Skills
Jim Chew
9 Team Dynamics and Spiritual Warfare
James Tebbe
10 Understanding the Host Culture
Elizabeth Goldsmith
11 Dealing With Stress
Carlos Calderon
12 Becoming a Belonger
Marcos Amado
Conclusion
Appendix A: Personal Action Plan
Appendix B: Resources

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• Missions
• Christian Ministry
• Biblical Studies
• Paul's Letters
• Philosophie et théologie
• Minister (Christianity)
• Paul the Apostle
• New Testament
• Christianity
• History

Informations

• Publié par: William Carey Publishing
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 1996
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781645081753
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Editor: Jonathan Lewis
Technical Editor: Susan Peterson
Technical Assistant: Patrick Roseman
Illustrations: Dona Kacalek
All rights reserved. This manual may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, for any purpose, without the express written consent of the publisher. Translation into other languages must also have written approval from the publisher.
Table of Contents
Foreword
Preface
How to Use This Manual
1 Planning for Success
Don Hamilton
2 Getting Perspective
Detlef Bloecher
3 Cross-Cultural Servants
David Tai-Woong Lee
4 The Crucial Role of the Local Church
Derek Christensen
5 Critical Considerations of Deployment
Jonathan Cortes
6 Biblical and Doctrinal Foundations
Joshua K. Ogawa
7 Personal Readiness
Elizabeth Vance
8 Two Essential Skills
Jim Chew
9 Team Dynamics and Spiritual Warfare
James Tebbe
10 Understanding the Host Culture
Elizabeth Goldsmith
11 Dealing With Stress
Carlos Calderon
12 Becoming a Belonger
Marcos Amado
Conclusion
Appendix A: Personal Action Plan
Appendix B: Resources
Foreword
W orking Your Way to the Nations: A Guide to Effective Tentmaking , edited by Dr. Jonathan Lewis, is the first-of-its-kind book of essays on effective tentmaking by experienced and knowledgeable missions specialists from around the world. I am pleased that it has gone into a second edition.
Tentmaking is a subject of strategic importance to world evangelization. The concept is biblical, historical precedents abound, and today s mission context demands it.
On the one hand, we thank God for the fact that the forces of Christianity, and specifically the results of mission outreach in this century, have combined to reduce the number of non-Christians per serious Christian believer from a ratio of 50 to 1 in 1900 to less than 7 to 1 in 1994, and that ratio continues to drop. On the other hand, despite the opportunities created by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the openness of Eastern Europe, there will still be a massive and growing body of non-Christians in the world-utterly outside the reaches of traditional missionary approaches.
While the current mission workers will always be needed, new kinds of specialists such as tentmakers must be deployed, and in large numbers. In particular, the mission work force needs men and women who are trained to penetrate people groups which are highly resistant to the gospel. These groups are usually not reachable by traditional missionaries. An unreached people group is a people group in whose midst there is no viable indigenous Christian movement strong enough to bring the rest of the population to faith and obedience in Christ (Rom. 16:26) without outside help.
The strategic shift required in today s mission context is to focus on mobilizing, training, fielding, and monitoring an army of men and women called to serve as tentmakers, to plant a pioneer church movement in the midst of every unreached people group.
The number of unreached people groups is said to be 5,310 located in 145 countries. In 1995, there were an estimated 3.88 billion non-Christians within these countries-96 percent of the world s non-Christians. If we think of the unreached peoples as the target of Christian witness, we might conceptualize the center portion or bull s-eye of the target as an aiming tool in missions efforts. This bull s-eye is the so-called 10/40 window , now made popular in the mission circle by the AD 2000 and Beyond Movement. The bull s-eye group of countries contains only about 79 percent of the world s non-Christians; nevertheless, the 10/40 window serves as a valuable aiming tool. This window is home to practically all of the world s largest gospel-resistant belts: Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. It includes 23 of the 30 countries (77 percent) which are classified as unevangelized. Further, about 82 percent of the world s poorest of the poor reside within this window.
Tentmakers are what the Apostle Paul describes as Christ s ambassadors (2 Cor. 5:20). These ambassadors must be (1) physically, emotionally, and spiritually self-reliant; (2) adaptable; (3) biblically literate; (4) alert to the emerging mission context; (5) trained in meeting needs vital to the people group they seek to penetrate; (6) trained in long-term and low-profile evangelistic skills; (7) equipped with broad new strategic thinking; and (8) prepared with a special strategy for responding to opportunities presented by need. This book will help tentmakers prepare to meet these qualifications.
In the pages that follow, Bloecher elucidates the inevitable connection between tentmaking and the Great Commission, and brings out strong biblical and theological foundations for tentmaking. Ogawa digs deeper into the tentmaker s biblical and doctrinal foundations. Cortes lays out the strategic deployment of tentmakers. A large portion of the book is rightly devoted to the discussion of what it takes to be a tentmaker (namely, the tentmaker s internal encounters): spiritual readiness for cross-cultural ministry (Lee), personal preparation (Vance), necessary skills training as an evangelist and a discipler (Chew), and coping with stress (Calderon). Tebbe, Goldsmith, and Amado focus their studies on the tentmaker s external encounters: field dynamics, understanding the host culture, and intercultural adjustments. I am especially happy that the book emphasizes the importance of accountability structures (Hamilton) and of the local church as the tentmaker s base (Christensen). Numerous tentmakers of yesteryears have fallen due to the lack of accountability and nurturing.
This manual, without question, will serve as a flagship of resources for tentmakers. An appendix provides companion books and materials so the reader can explore the subject in more depth. Probing questions and Action Plan Assignments given for each chapter are designed not only to help the reader more easily comprehend what is presented, but also, in the process, to engage the reader to test his or her calling to become a tentmaker.
May the study of this book place a holy burden on each and every reader to prayerfully consider the most challenging profession of all-being God s ambassador as a tentmaker-to reach the unreached at this historic moment in God s timing. What has happened in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the past several years is nothing short of a miracle. God is sovereign and is in control of history. God will continue to crack open the seemingly impenetrable walls, and we must utilize God-given creativity to seep through small openings to gain accessibility, to the end that every remaining unreached people will see a viable Christian movement in their midst.
Tetsunao Yamamori * President Food for the Hungry International
Preface
B ill squirmed in his seat as the missionary continued his impassioned plea for laborers for God s mission harvest. This happened to him every time he heard a missionary preach. When he was 18, he d attended a national missions youth conference and, with hundreds of others, had offered himself for missions service if God should call him. He d dreamed about being a pioneer, sharing the gospel in an area which had no gospel witness. Now, four years later, that dream seemed remote.
When Bill found out most missionaries had to spend several years in Bible school or seminary, followed by a couple more years raising financial support, he lost heart. How could he give up his career in computer science? Hadn t his pastor even affirmed that his abilities were truly a gift from God? This commendation had been borne out by Bill s excellent performance at the university and the job opportunities awaiting him upon graduation, almost anywhere he wanted to work.
You can even serve God with your vocational skills.... The words snapped Bill s attention back to the missionary on the platform. You don t have to be a professional minister to be a missionary. In fact, there are many areas of the world where professional missionaries, as such, can t enter. God is using tentmaking missionaries to reach these people. The thought took Bill s breath away.... Could God really use me and my computer skills in taking the gospel to those who haven t heard?
Who Should Study This Material?
Thousands of young Christians around the world have been challenged by the Great Commission and have expressed a willingness to serve as missionaries, should God call them. Yet most of these young people don t enter the missions task force. There are a number of reasons. For some, the main barrier is the long, often expensive professional ministerial training which is required of most career missionaries. For others, it s the fear of raising financial support under situations which may be less than favorable. For still others, life s circumstances haven t allowed them to pursue a missions career. For young people in these categories, this course offers a way to explore tentmaking as an accessible route for lay ministry in Christ s Great Commission army.
Other Christians have committed themselves to mission and have pursued regular channels for service. Somewhere along that road, they have been challenged to minister in countries where they are not allowed to serve as professional missionaries. They must enter these countries as tentmakers. For them, this course offers some practical guidance as they explore the possibilities.
Millions of other Christians from different parts of the world have already traveled to foreign countries as contract workers, skilled technicians, professionals, and representatives of foreign companies and governments. Most of these Christians don t know that they could be effective ambassadors for Christ as well. Even those who are conscious of this opportunity may not be successful in ministry because they lack essential skills. The sad truth is that the