By Leighton Ford, Brother in law of Billy Graham – used by permission At a recent dinner party our host posed a question to discuss over the meal: what are you hoping for? Most responses were predictable: peace in the world, health for our families. One younger guest said, “I hope that at the end […]
One of the undeniable realities of the 20th and 21st centuries is the global phenomena of diaspora peoples – People on the Move. The scale and scope of the diaspora phenomenon has escalated in recent years and today 3% of the global population lives in countries in which they were not born. The latest research reveals […]
Gateway to the Nations: The Strategic Value of International Churches in a Globalized Urban World By Michael Crane and Scott Carter Introduction Behnam Farhadi, and his sons Atash and Erfan, were fleeing from a Central Asian nation in political and economic distress became refugees were in Sofia, Bulgaria.[1] All three of them became followers of […]
“International migration is rapidly changing the demographic distribution globally,” states Sadiri Joy Tira of the Global Diaspora Network (GDN). “Migrant pundits estimate that there are now over 200 million international migrants, and over 700 million internally displaced people or close to 1 billion scattered peoples.” The question is, “What practical response does the Church have […]
“You are never too old to set another goal or dream a new dream…” C. S. Lewis Through a series of circumstances too strange to fully understand yet, God has brought me right into the middle of a global phenomenon that may never have happened quite like this before. It is a reality in which […]
“Pray that the Master’s Word will simply take off and race through the country to a groundswell of response” II Thes 3:1 MSG For years I have thought of International Church as a groundswell of response opportunity. Many IC Pastors and Leaders are result oriented type people. In broad terms we want action to happen. […]
Authors Kretzmann and McKnight of the Asset-Based Community Development Institute have created a great resource guide for community builders with the book entitled, Building Communities from the Inside Out (1993). The subtitle, “a path toward finding and mobilizing a community’s assets,” already gives away a number of characteristics about this resource. First of all, the […]
Global Increases in Expatriates Challenge International Churches in Ministry By Kenneth D. MacHarg Exactly how many expatriates are there? Of course, nobody knows for sure, but some good, educated guesses abound. Whatever the true numbers are, a new report says certain sectors of the globe are expecting more in the coming years with challenging implications […]
“Back to the Basics” the coach would exclaim! The whole team knew what he meant! Let me tell you a story of my childhood. I played little league baseball when I was a kid. I loved playing baseball, still do as a grown up. We wore our sponsor uniforms: “Mac’s Milk” blue and white baseball […]
One thing is for sure: Robert Lupton is a master story teller. Taking license from the ancient tradition of midrash, a Jewish teaching method to dramatize Biblical accounts, Lupton turned the narrative of Nehemiah into a contemporary story in his book Renewing the City. Though not modernizing it by putting it into a 21st century […]