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This past two weekends in Sunday School, we have studied the Passion Week—the final week of our Savior’s earthly ministry. We noted how roundly Jesus condemned Israel and its leaders for being Israel for the sake of Israel. They longed for God to set them free from pagan oppression and bring in the kingdom He [...]

“The Ingrown Church Leader: God’s Call to Faith and Repentance” (summary)
What is an “ingrown church”? Jack Miller includes the following descriptors: a church that due to a lack of zeal for outreach (p 17) is immobilized (p 16) and not turned toward the world (p 15). Even though this kind of inward-facing church may [...]

Having completed our road warrior trek to Nyakaliro, we park the dusty Land Cruiser between the church building and the home of Elias and Leah. Jeremy, Nate, and Jordan have already spent a week camped out here, so the children immediately recognize old soccer buddies and crowd around the car with expectant faces. [...]

“Nyakaliro Nights” sounds like a good name for a song or movie, but Nyakaliro is actually the name of a fishing village about two hours from the Howell’s home in Sweya, Tanzania. A thriving church plant is flourishing in this remote community along the shores of Lake Victoria. One of the goals of [...]

Pic 1: No problem when you aren’t going anywhere…
Pic 2: Robbie is in his element…
Pic 3: On the move and proving that missionaries are multi-taskers…

As part of my “real work” in Mwanza, Rob asked me to teach at the Bible Institute for three days commencing immediately after we knocked off Kili, picked up the rest of the team in Nairobi, and made it back to Tanzania after a fairly grueling 10 or so hour drive across the Rift Valley [...]

When first approached by Rob Howell, a missionary in Tanzania, about the possibility of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, my gut response was an immediate, “Yes, I’ll do it,” without giving real thought to the consequences of such a decision.  In retrospect, I didn’t think he’d ask me to do something impossible, and I knew he had already [...]

This ain’t no cheap seat. I’m sure you’ve got a pretty decent view from the top of Mount Kilimanjaro. According to my iMac’s dictionary, Kilimanjaro is “an extinct volcano in northern Tanzania. It has twin peaks, the higher of which, Kibo [Uhuru?] (19,340 feet; 5,895 m), is the highest mountain in Africa.” Jon is standing [...]

After reflecting upon Stott’s chapter on “salvation,” I’ll venture a few observations.
1. While I agree with Stott’s critique of the physical, psychological, and liberation views on salvation, I question one of the planks in his argument. Stott attacks the view common among liberation theologians that the exodus of the Hebrews from the oppression of Egypt [...]

In his chapter on the topic of “salvation,” John Stott began by evaluating three less-than-fully-biblical views of salvation: salvation as physical health, as psychological wholeness, and socio-political liberation.
The last two sections of the chapter deal with how liberation theology approaches the Scriptures (“the hermeneutical question”) and what the Bible actually teaches about salvation and liberation.
What’s [...]

After a week off, we are renewing our discussion of John Stott’s book, Christian Mission in the Modern World (IVP: 1975). The first three chapters (out of five) addressed the topics of “mission,” “evangelism,” and “dialogue.” The final chapter will cover “conversion,” but this week we’re going to consider Stott’s treatment of the term, “salvation.”
First, [...]

As we’ve been going through Stott’s book on mission(s) and have learned that it’s best not to bait our evangelistic hook with the lure of social help, the following scenario has come up in conversation.
If you were running a homeless shelter in your town, which provided temporary room, board, and work skills training to men [...]

The second half of John Stott’s chapter on “Evangelism” (in Christian Mission in the Modern World) sets forward the content of the good news we are to proclaim. “In a single word, God’s good news is Jesus. . . . Jesus Christ is the heart and soul of the gospel.” (Acts 8:35; Romans 1:1-4) “But [...]

Last week, we began a series of posts based on John R. W. Stott’s book, “Christian Mission in the Modern World.” Stott’s book has five chapters, each one addressing a key word related to mission(s)—mission, evangelism, dialogue, salvation, conversion. Last week, Jon reviewed the first chapter (mission—part 1, part 2, and part 3), and this [...]

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