Tom Steffen – författare

This new volume in the award-winning Encountering Mission series is for current and future missionaries. It provides practical guidance regarding getting ready for the mission field and the realities of life on the field. The authors are well qualified to write such a manual, each having served as a missionary for more than twenty years and each having taught missions in seminary.The authors begin by examining the contemporary context for missions, including the recognition that the world''s mission fields are in constant and often rapid change. They then discuss aspects of preparing oneself for the mission field, beginning with home-front preparations and moving to on-the-field preparations. The final section deals with practical issues and challenges of missionary life.

Have Western exegetes turned an Eastern book into a Western one? Has our fondness for a fixed printed text capable of being analyzed with precision and exactitude blinded us to other hermeneutic possibilities? Does God require all people to be able to analyze grammar to interpret Scripture? Does God assume all people can interpret Scripture through oral means? The authors recognize the effects of centuries of literacy socialization that produced a blind spot in the Western Christian world--the neglect by most in the academies, agencies, and assemblies of the foundational and forceful role orality had on the biblical text and teaching. From the inspired spoken word of the prophets, including Jesus (pre-text), to the elite literate scribes who painstakingly hand-printed the sacred text, to post-text interpretation and teaching, the footprint of orality throughout the entire process is acutely visible to those having the oral-aural influenced eyes of the Mediterranean ancients. Could oral hermeneutics be the "mother of relational theology"?

Some time ago, Ralph Winter brilliantly identified three eras of modern missions: Era 1: William Carey focused on the coastlands; Era 2: Hudson Taylor focused on the inlands; Era 3: Donald McGavran and Cameron Townsend focused on unreached peoples. With all the fast and furious changes swirling around us today in twenty-first century missions, have we entered a Fourth Era? If so, who are the people primarily involved? How are they selected? How are they trained? How long do they serve? Has the Third Era ministry focus--reaching the unreached--changed? If so, to what? Are there any successful case studies out there? Have McGavran and Townsend passed the baton to a new leader(s)? If so, to whom? This book seeks to answer these and related questions.Contributors include:Dr. Ben Beckner Dr. Monroe BrewerDr. Don FinleyMike GriffisDr. Gary Hipp, MDJerry HogsheadKaikou Maisu Judy Manna Kenn Oke Dr. A. Sue RussellDr. Robert Strauss Peter Swann Bryan ThomasDiane Thomas Dr. Mike WilsonDr. Sherwood G. Lingenfelter

"To put it bluntly, business as mission (BAM) is a work in progress. It is a field that needs definition, theological clarity, and missiological focus. Our call for papers for our regional conferences is timely…to make a pivotal contribution in a sea of some confusion and even controversy.” (Doug Pennoyer, Dean of SIS, Biola University and President of EMS) This volume will provide some definition and precision while identifying areas that demand further discussion.

"To put it bluntly, business as mission (BAM) is a work in progress. It is a field that needs definition, theological clarity, and missiological focus. Our call for papers for our regional conferences is timely…to make a pivotal contribution in a sea of some confusion and even controversy.” (Doug Pennoyer, Dean of SIS, Biola University and President of EMS) This volume will provide some definition and precision while identifying areas that demand further discussion.

Character Theology provides a natural, universal way for the world to engage God through his chosen cast of characters.As the media eras continue to change (oral to print to digital-virtual), too many Bible scholars, and consequently pastors and Bible teachers in the West and beyond, lack capability to effectively communicate Scripture to Millennials, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha. These generations find little if any relevance in the Christianity promoted by those stuck in modernity''s sticky abstract systematic theology.Character Theology relates, sticks, and transforms these generations. Why? Because people grasp and engage God most naturally and precisely through his interaction with biblical characters and their interaction with each other! Characters communicate the Creator''s characteristics. The roadmap to the recovery and expansion of Christianity in the twenty-first century will be through Bible characters.