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5 Responses to “two brilliant works on missiology”

1. Frank Viola on October 20th, 2008 12:07 am

   Agreed. Allen was about 150 years of ahead of his time. Watchman Nee’s classic work, “The Normal Christian Church Life” built on Allen’s insights and extended them further.

   DeVern Fromke’s book ULTIMATE INTENTION, to my mind, is one of the best books on mission ever written. It explores the God-centeredness (opposed to human-centerdness) of God’s grand mission and purpose like few missional books have in the past or present.

   A clear and firm grasp of “the eternal purpose” (Eph. 3:11) and a deep and profound experience of the cross of Jesus Christ are essential if any attempt at mission will have spiritual or eternal value. So I’ve observed.

2. Vanessa on October 21st, 2008 7:41 am

   Thank you, thank you, thank you! I’m so excited that these are available online! I’ve read the Missionary Methods book but didn’t bring it with me when I moved overseas because of limitations in packing, and I’m excited to read the other one now too.

3. Ryan on November 6th, 2008 4:19 pm

   Alan, I must say that I highly appreciate this blog. I read a number of blogs daily and every time I see that you’ve posted I get excited. Thank you for your engagement, thoughtfulness and love for the bride.

   The reason I’ve decided to comment on this particular blog is that I didn’t want to draw attention to your other posts. To give you a little background about myself, I am a youth pastor in the ordination process to become an Anglican priest in an Evangelical, charismatic, liturgical movement in the States. I am highly interested in church planting, and have found Forgotten ways (an exceptional book!) and Neil Cole’s Organic church to be the most influential books in my learning process that I’ve read over the past couple of months.

   I am absolutely fascinated with the missiologists influence on ecclesiology, so I thank you for your healthy engagement with hero’s of mine such as Leslie Newbigin, Rolland Allen, John Welsey, Christopher Wright and N.T. Wright.

   There is a question that I have though. It seems as if there is a couple historical gaps within this apostolic/organic/missional framework. And I wanted to see how you’ve addressed this question. As in Forgotten ways, there seems to be heavy reference to China and your own experience in Australia. But what about Africa? It seems as if when we look at the explosive growth of Christianity since the east African revival over the last couple of decades, we have to take into consideration the structural shift of the Anglican Church in those countries (particularly Nigia, Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda). I was just curious because it seems as if there is an institutional/apostolic flavor to this movement as well as an organic practice of the 5 fold gifting.

   Sacramental theology has become very important to me over these last couple of years, especially as Gnosticism morphs into these ugly strains within our culture. As N.T. Wright establishes sacramental theology as the redemption of time, space and matter, I can’t help but think if there is an way to combine sacramental theology, missional/apostolic/organic movement, and charismatic uses of sign/symbol (Leanne Payne) that it would make for an incredibly healthy and possibly, dare I say, long term sustainable movement. I hope I’m not leading into Bonhoeffer’s wish dream state but I can’t help but think without some level of healthy authority, we could avoid many headaches.

   Secondly, I know many people love to quote Wesley, but understanding his observation of revival corresponding to the revitalization of the sacraments is imperative. If he is to be used by authors as having apostolic authority, then we must look at his understanding of the sacraments.

   Thirdly, reading your book Forgotten Way has been incredibly refreshing and I love the church, love the bride deeply. I want the best for her and I heard echoes of that love in your writing, so thank you deeply from the bottom of my heart. But reading your writing has caused me to want to go back to the early church fathers and see if we can potentially fill in some of the sacramental and historical holes. I feel as if they’d be tightened, it might be able to bridge more fully the academy, local church and denominations across the map (there I go… wish dream again:). If you’ve made it this far, bless you. Thank you for your time… I welcome any resources/correction to the Africa /organic and sacramental discussion.

4. Janet on November 6th, 2008 4:46 pm

   Wow… great question Ryan.

   I’m speculating (totally off the top of my head) that formal / liturgical / priestly forms of Christian worship “work” well in Africa, because of the animist heritage of cultic priests, witch doctors, rituals to appease assorted deities etc…. just as herding Christians into basilicas worked well in Constantine’s time because people were used to going to temples to worship the gods.

   And I’m wondering whether for some unchurched people in the West who have no experience of formal worship the most primitive expression of church (something akin to a house church with “communion” as a shared meal) might be the best cultural fit.

   Of course, that could be complete rubbish!

   You might be interested to connect with the “Fresh Expressions” movement in the UK, a group of Anglicans experimenting with different forms of church planting. They would fit well both with your theological frameworks and interest in creative mission and evangelism.

   I’m trying to procrastinate writing an essay. Anyone have any brilliant ideas why women are found in all the gospel resurrection accounts, but aren’t named in Paul’s confessional statement of I Corinthians 15: 3 - 8?

   No? Oh well, back to Google….

5. Janet on November 8th, 2008 9:36 pm

   In the unlikely event that anyone was giving serious thought to my question about I Corinthians 15, I’ve come up with an hypothesis (following the failure of Google).

   This confession must date back to the VERY early days of the church, and may well have been a baptismal confession of Paul. (”For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance”) Because of the fairly hostile / sceptical environment of the time, this confession packed some apologetic punch for the new convert… doubters had 500 eyewitnesses or so to track down! In Jewish law males were able to be legal witnesses, but females were not legal witnesses in this time… so only males were named in the confession.

   However, in terms of the oral tradition of the Christian community, the tales of the first eyewitnesses of the empty tomb and the resurrected Christ were so important that they were circulated everywhere. Their importance led them to be recorded in all the gospel accounts, which are more anecdotal than a punchy “apologetic” memorised confessional statement.

   Anyway, that’s my hypothesis for those interested in theological trivia. (Sensible critiques welcome of course… I’m sure it’s been thought about before!)

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