A new book is available that you need to add to your library.  Evangelical and Frontier Mission: Perspectives on the Global Progress of the Gospel is edited by two of my friends, Beth Snodderly and Scott Moreau. This work represents a collection of chapters related to missions past, present, and future.

Beth is President of William Carey International University and Southwest Regional Vice President of the Evangelical Missiological Society.  You may find several of her blog posts at the William Carey International Development Journal.   Scott is Professor of Intercultural Studies and Missions at Wheaton College. He is Editor of Evangelical Missions Quarterly and General Editor of the Encountering Mission series (Baker Books).

I recently asked Beth to comment on this work.  Here is the interview.

Can you provide a brief overview of this book?
This book is a collection of case studies in evangelical reflection and praxis in relation to what we see as the continuing frontiers in mission. This means that the collection is not intended to give a full picture of Evangelicals and all of our efforts. Rather, it is a picture highlighting elements of what we as editors consider the most central of the numerous evangelical missional trajectories.  Despite the numerical success of Evangelicals globally over the twentieth century, there are significant challenges ahead. In the final section we are oriented to some of these challenges.

Today, I am releasing my latest e-book Leading Your Church in Church Planting: Taking the First Steps. 

This 62-page work is designed to encourage and provide some guidance for pastors considering such missionary work. While some elements of this book will be of value to pastors who are already leading their churches in church planting, this resource was not written with them in mind.  The content is very basic.  It is written for those approaching the starting line–not those  already in the race.

Chapters include:

• Seven Reasons for Leading Your Church in Church Planting
• The Other Wing of the Airplane
• Some Resources to Get You Started
• Avoiding the Nestea Plunge
• Five Steps for Vision Casting for Multiplication
• Anticipating Objections to Church Planting

Each chapter concludes with questions to assist with developing and taking contextualized action steps.

This work is FREE for the taking.

My only request–if you would please–is that you would be kind enough to subscribe to my blog feed and tell at least three other people about this free resource (tweeting it to your millions of followers will suffice).

I truly appreciate your assistance in spreading the word on this book.

The book is available in pdf, Kindle, and Epub formats.  I prefer the pdf.  At this point in time, Kindle and Epub remove some of the aesthetic value of the book.

So, take it, use it, give it away, make photocopies of it, tweet it, etc.!

GET THE PDF HERE: Leading Your Church in Church Planting: Taking the First Steps

GET THE KINDLE and EPUB VERSIONS HERE: Leading Your Church in Church Planting: Taking the First Steps

If you get a chance, please let me know how you are using this book.  I always look forward to hearing from you guys out there.

If you did not get a copy of the other e-book I gave away last month, you may find it HERE.

Happy Thanksgiving!

InterVarsity Press has acquired Biblica.

This was an exciting update.  While I knew Biblica was in discussion with another publisher, I did not know the company involved.  You may check out some of the details from Andy Unedited at IVP HERE and the press release HERE.

While Biblica is exiting the Christian book publishing business, the company will remain in existence with a focus on Bibles and Bible distribution.

I felt that this matter should be brought to your attention for at least two reasons.

First, while I am presently under writing contracts with Baker Academic and Thomas Nelson, three of my books have been with Biblica.  Missional House Churches, Discovering Church Planting, and Evangelism are now under the auspices of InterVarsity Press.  I am very thankful for this new situation.

Also, many of you know that for sometime I have been promoting my next book, Strangers Next Door: Immigration, Migration, and Missions Opportunity.  This work with Biblica was scheduled to be released in March 2012.  You may read my last update on the book HERE.  I know that conversations are presently taking place regarding the books that were in the Biblica pipeline to be released.

While I am excited about this recent purchase, it is an unexpected change.   Strangers has been through the editing and cover design stages.  So, I must add that it is an uncomfortable feeling when your airplane is roaring down the runway only to have the breaks applied just before take-off.  Don’t get me wrong.  No one has informed me that it will not be published.  Therefore, I am expecting that the airplane will re-taxi and will soon be off the ground.  I would appreciate your prayers regarding this matter.  I will keep you informed.

The second reason I believe this change is worth bringing to your attention is that while InterVarsity has always given a high priority to missions (e.g., Urbana, numerous books on missions already), the acquisition of a large number of missions-related books from Biblica will continue to strengthen the company and their reputation for Great Commission literature.  InterVarsity Press will obtain 170 books as well as almost 30 forthcoming titles.

Stay tuned.  You’ll begin to see such changes with InterVarsity Press come January 2012.  I am very thankful for the new owners and greatly looking forward to working with them in the future.  They have been very helpful and encouraging since the acquisition.

Exciting times!

One last word.  It has been a wonderful blessing to work with the people of Biblica.  They have been very helpful, supportive, and encouraging over the years.  They have always manifested a Christ-like spirit.  I love their creativity and heart.  I know the Lord will continue to do great things through them in the days to come.

This brief work (55 pages) provides some guidelines for church planters to establish healthy approaches for teaching new believers to obey all that Jesus commanded.  Chapters include:

• Set the Example
• Keep It Simple
• Begin at the Individual Level
• Teach Obedience
• Teach Healthy Disciplines as Soon as Possible
• Return Them to the Field Immediately.

Each chapter concludes with several questions to guide teams in their conversations regarding the approaches they will use for discipleship training.

While I have published via the traditional route, the e-book world is new territory to me.

As promised, this work is FREE for the taking.

My only request–if you would please–is that you would be kind enough to subscribe to my blog feed and tell at least three other people about this free resource (tweeting it to your millions of followers will suffice).

The book is available in pdf, Kindle, and Epub formats.  However, I like the pdf the best.  At this point in time, Kindle and Epub remove some of the aesthetic value and space to write in your responses to various questions raised at the end of each chapter.

It is my prayer that this will be of assistance to you and your team in your Kingdom labors.  Keep up the great work in the trenches!

So, take it, use it, make photocopies of it, tweet it, etc.!

GET THE PDF HERE:  Discipleship in Church Planting Ebook

GET THE KINDLE and EPUB VERSIONS HERE: Discipleship in Church Planting Ebook

If you get a chance, please let me know how you are using this book.  I always look forward to hearing from you guys out there.

Check out the video here regarding this week’s release of my first e-book.  Stay tuned.

For example, if you have ever heard of church planting movements, church growth, or missional churches, then you have encountered some of Allen’s influence.  He was the man who often addressed the spontaneous expansion of the Church (and wrote a book about it), was one of the leading influences on Donald A. McGavran (father of the Church Growth Movement) and Leslie Newbigin (major influence behind the missional church movement).

Lord willing, some exciting matters will unfold next year in honor of the book’s anniversary.  Missionary Methods is the theme for the 2012  January-March edition of the Evangelical Missions Quarterly.  The 2012 theme for the Evangelical Missiological Society is missionary methods, with numerous papers being presented on this topic in several locations across the United States and Canada.  Related to these presentations, Craig Ott and I are editing a book with William Carey Library.  Exciting things are unfolding, and probably others of which I am not aware.  Let me know if you come across other such matters.

I may even be releasing a book on Roland Allen later this year.  Shhhhhh.

In light of this upcoming anniversary, I have set up a Twitter account: @RolandAllen100. Follow it.  It contains a daily quote from Allen’s numerous writings.

If you are not aware of Allen and his missiology, check out these two previous posts: The Man and The Missiology.

Make sure you add Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours? to your 2012 reading list–even if you have read it.

Has Allen’s been an influence on you?  If so, please share.

I recently asked Lewis McMullen, the Association’s Church Planting Strategist, some questions related to this book.

What is the purpose of this book?

“The purpose of the book is to make churches and church members aware of the diversity of the Nashville area. We wanted the book to begin the process of helping people to adopt and engage an unreached people group here in their own neighborhoods. It is our prayer and purpose that churches and Christians will begin to see the need and then take some first steps to begin reaching these groups.”

Who should read this work?

“It is primarily for local Nashville churches and Christians, churches and Christians wanting to engage with unreached people groups here in Nashville, and those who have some of these unreached groups in their areas. I would also recommend it to people wanting to engage with unreached people groups because of some of the introduction materials on Buddhism, Islam,  and Hinduism. We have included in the book some Do’s and Don’t’s with Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists, and some beginning steps on how to engage with unreached people groups.”

What were some of the greatest challenges in putting together a work such as this one?

“There were several:  Putting together a research and writing team with a passion for unreached people groups; researching and mapping out the people group clusters in the area; and following up on the research and interviewing people in these unreached people groups.

Interviewing was especially a challenge because different people in each group had different numbers in their populations and variations on their needs. One challenge was making sure that the book would inform and inspire people to want to engage these people groups.”

Were there any surprises discovered as your team started doing such people group research?

“Nashville has always been known for its Kurdish population. In fact we have an area of the city known as “Little Kurdistan.” We originally believed that they would be our largest unreached group in the Nashville MSA. However, our researched showed that this assumption was wrong. The largest unreached group in the Nashville area is South Asian Indians (approximately 12,000 in population).

The other surprise for our team was the fact that within three of our largest groups, there were strong connections with unreached family members still living overseas. Since missionaries have limited or restricted access to these three groups in their home countries, they could possibly reach into such contexts by reaching those peoples living here.

For example, while doing research for the book, I met a man from the Sudan who trusted Christ as the result of a Christian witness from one of our churches here. This man in turn, shared Christ with his family in the Sudan by email, phone, and the internet. This man’s family members trusted Christ and are now part of a new church being planted within their tribe in the Sudan.

Another surprise we encountered was that 89% of all of our Southern Baptist Churches in the Nashville area had some type of unreached people group living in their church’s geographical area.

However, the greatest surprise was to discover that the Nashville Metropolitan Statistical Area  ranks 5^th in the nation for the foreign born population.”

What advice would you give to someone in another city wishing to compile such a book for their urban context?

“Build a team that has a passion for this work. It takes numerous hours of interviewing people and detective-type work. The team needs to have a passion to be able to do the work and follow through.

Be prepared to do a great amount of research. Along with interviewing multiple sources, you will need to double-check the information provided. With each group that we wrote about, we had to do follow-up research with at least 5 to 7 sources of information.

Realize that all information collected is fluid. The movement of the urban diaspora is a constant. The population and make-up of different groups change. You must be prepared to monitor those changes and understand the missiological implications of those changes.  I am sure there will be other future books related to the peoples of Nashville as changes take place in the urban area.

Develop partnerships with others who are working with unreached people groups and share insights and information. Along with the North American Mission Board and the International Mission Board, our team worked with World Relief and a number of other refugee groups in  determining information and needs.”

——–

Thank you, Lewis.

Way-to-go Nashville Baptist Association for taking the lead in setting an example for others to follow!

——–

You need to check out this book and prayerfully consider the possibilities for researching your community, compiling the information into a helpful format, and making it available to the larger Body of Christ.  More and better research is needed for the urban areas of North America.

Some of you reading this post represent the leadership in your mission agency, denomination, or network.  You have the ability to take the lead in this area of research.  I want to encourage you to start that process of working to understand your communities, so you and your churches may begin to see the nations and start ministering to the strangers next door.

Recently, I had a chance to communicate with my friend about this book.  While today’s post is a bit longer than typically found here, I believe the content of this interview justifies the length.  Enjoy!

Can you summarize your book for us?

The purpose of Theology and Practice of Mission is to provide a biblical-theological framework for understanding the church’s mission to the nations. Toward this end, the book is divided into four parts: God’s Mission, the Church’s Mission, the Church’s Mission to the Nations, and Concluding Challenges.

What is unique about the contributors and the book’s structure?

Although this book is an edited volume (with 18 authors), it has an inner coherence fostered by the narrative rubric (Creation, Fall, Redemption, Restoration) with which each of the chapters is in conversation. Because edited volumes often are collections of previously published material or odd and disparate essays, the authors came together around this common narrative rubric, and around a few common themes (e.g. theologically-driven missiology) in order to write essays that, hopefully, have a certain “fittingness” in their relation to each other.

Also notable is the unique collection of authors. We have carefully chosen authors who embrace and embody the necessary connection between orthodoxy and orthopraxy, between theology and mission, between theory and practice. Several of the contributors are professors, several of them are pastors in the United States, but the majority of the chapters are written by North American or international church planters. The chapters are penned by men and women whose ministry contexts vary geographically, including authors who serve or have served in the United States, South America, North Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, South Asia, the Pacific Rim, and Sub-Saharan Africa. All of them, however, share the conviction that our mission must be driven by Christian Scripture and sound theology, and that theology disconnected from mission is not Christian theology at all.

Why is this book important for today’s reader?

Hopefully, today’s reader will find it a helpful guide for both the theology and the practice of mission. We’ve really tried to rivet those two things together. During the course of the past twenty years, I have found myself ministering in various contexts, including ministry as an evangelist, missionary, pastor, and theologian/missiologist. On the one hand, I think that we seminary professors can sometimes build our theologies without an eye toward practice, which is unhealthy because theology always issues forth in practice, and actually shapes that practice. On the other hand, I think that we who are cross-cultural workers (whether as pastors, church planters, or missionaries) sometimes “bank on” our evangelical theology and its attendant view of inspired Scripture, and then get on with our ministry and mission practices without allowing our theology to shape it. I’ve been in both situations (times when I was primarily a practitioner and now when I am vocationally a theologian/missiologist) and I’ve found myself tempted to err in both situations. This book intends to be an encouragement and a challenge to bind together theology and missiology.

Your book covers several topics. Why the breadth?

That is a good question. Maybe a good way to begin answering is to point out that missiology truly is an interdisciplinary enterprise. Within the theological disciplines, missiologists and missionaries draw upon hermeneutics, exegetical theology, systematic theology, evangelism, education, and numerous other sub-disciplines. Outside of the theological disciplines, however, they also find themselves drawing upon anthropology, sociology, history, world religions, history of philosophy, and other fields of knowledge.

Then, a second consideration is the multi-layered nature of the matter at hand. In order to treat the church’s mission to the nations, one must start with the mission of God. Although the mission of God is not synonymous with the church’s mission, the mission of God provides the context for, and frames, the church’s mission. After having treated the church’s mission, we apply that mission to international contexts, and then after doing so conclude with some challenges that call us to action.

What is the benefit of this book to the local church pastor?

God’s church is the nerve center of his kingdom and of his missionary work, and God-called pastors are therefore his lieutenants on the most important “battlefront” in world history. We hope and pray that pastors will find this book helpful in sorting out an almost dizzying array of questions that arise from any discussion about mission, such as:

• What does the Bible say about mission?
• Why should the church be involved deeply in missions, rather than merely outsourcing to an agency?
• Why should my church be involved in church planting?
• Why should my church view its USA context missiologically, and how can this affect the growth and the health of my church?
• How do I tell the gospel story in such a way that speaks to Muslims? Buddhists? Postmoderns?
• What does the Bible say about culture?
• How do I conceive the relation of the gospel, church, and culture?
• How do I begin to think through the relationship between the gospel and social issues?

I have often stated that our theologians need to be missiologists and our missiologists need to be theologians. Why is it that theology and missiology must be wed together?

If you’ll allow me to, I’d like to quote an excerpt from the book which really encapsulates my thoughts on this issue:

“Indeed, one of the most significant challenges facing churches, agencies, and missionaries today is the imperative to allow Christian doctrine to shape their actual ministry practices. Although our evangelical churches have declared their belief that the Christian Scriptures are ipsissima verba Dei, the very words of God, our declaration is not always consistent with our actions. In reality, we sometimes ignore Scripture when forming our strategies, methods, and practices. It is as if we are saying that what we believe about God is important, but how we practice those beliefs is not.

If we are not careful, these fissures between belief and practice will derail our mission and render our evangelical theology impotent. A faulty doctrine of God, for example, will lead us to a wrong definition of success. A poor hermeneutic will lead to an aberrant definition of God’s mission and of our mission. A misguided soteriology neuters our attempts at evangelism and discipleship. A reductionist ecclesiology will result in anemic churches that fail to disciple their members or reach their communities. In order to foster a healthy mission, therefore, we must seek carefully, consciously, and consistently to rivet missiological practice to Christian Scripture and its attendant evangelical doctrine” (pp. 294-5).

——-

Thanks, brother, for sharing with us today.

Make sure you get a copy of this work.  For those of you interested in a glimpse at the contents of the book, here you go:

Section 1.  God’s Mission

Chapter 1:  The Story of Mission: The Grand Biblical Narrative
Chapter 2:  The Triune God: The God of Mission

Section 2.  The Church’s Mission

Chapter 3:  The Agents of Mission: Humanity
Chapter 4:  The Heart of Mission: Redemption
Chapter 5:  The Community of Mission: The Church
Chapter 6:  The Gospel and Evangelism
Chapter 7:  The Gospel and Social Responsibility
Chapter 8:  The Gospel and Culture
Chapter 9:  The Gospel and Lifestyle

Section 3: The Church’s Mission to the Nations

Chapter 10:  The Hebrew Bible and the Nations
Chapter 11:  The New Testament and the Nations
Chapter 12:  Mission and Unreached People Groups
Chapter 13:  Mission and Discipleship
Chapter 14:  Mission and Church Planting
Chapter 15:  Mission and Suffering
Chapter 16:  Mission to Muslims
Chapter 17:  Mission to Hindus
Chapter 18:  Mission to Buddhists
Chapter 19:  Mission to Animists
Chapter 20:  Mission to Postmoderns

Section 4: Concluding Challenges

Chapter 21:  A Theologically Driven Missiology
Chapter 22:  A Challenge for Our Churches

While I have shared a few matters on Twitter, I want use today’s post to provide you with some detailed information that can’t be included in 140 characters.

This book is about the migration of unreached people groups to Western countries (not just the United States), and the need for the Church to respond appropriately.  It is a book for you to use in your church to raise awareness of our present realities.

Global migration is one of the most significant forces shaping the way the Church will continue to advance the gospel.  Missiologists have recognized this reality.  For one of the growing sub-categories in the field of missions is that of Diaspora Missiology (the topic of the book, with a practical slant).

To give you an idea of the gravity of the matter of migration and missions, consider the following happenings:

• Many mission agencies have started to reorganize themselves and their missionaries around the migrations of peoples.
• Each year, conferences are held across the globe addressing the peoples on the move.
• Videos are being produced on issues related to diasporic issues.
• Seminaries are beginning to offer courses on the topic, with some schools already prepared to provide extensive training in reaching diasporic peoples.
• The Scattered to Gather booklet was distributed at Cape Town 2010
• Following Cape Town 2010, a Global Diaspora Network was created, with plans for a global Congress meeting in the Philippines in 2015.
• A few books have been published on this topic, with others in the works as I write this post.

While the majority of international migrants are presently moving to the traditionally non-Western countries,  a very large percentage of such peoples are arriving in the West.  And it is here that the opposition and challenges of sharing the gospel and planting churches among such peoples are not as great as those challenges found in their countries of origin.

I wrote this book out of a desire to share with the Church the contemporary migration realities and to cast the vision of the Great Commission opportunities that are present at this moment in history.

Here are the chapters:

Chapter 1            Migration, Immigration, and Kingdom Perspective

Chapter 2            What in the World is God Doing?

Chapter 3            The World’s Unreached in the West

Chapter 4            Migration and Kingdom Expansion, Part 1

Chapter 5            Migration and Kingdom Expansion, Part 2

Chapter 6            Migration and the West 1500-2010

Chapter 7            Students on the Move

Chapter 8            Refugees on the Move

Chapter 9            Stories from the Field

Chapter 10          Guidelines for Reaching the Strangers Next Door

Chapter 11          A Suggested Strategy for Reaching the Strangers Next Door

Chapter 12          Diaspora Missiology: A Conclusion or Just the Beginning?

Later this year, I plan to set up a twitter feed of statements from the book.  Also, through Twitter and this blog, I’ll let you know when the book becomes available for pre-order.  I hope to post some book excerpts in the future as well.

If you are wanting to know more about diaspora missiology, I have posted on this topic several times.  You can find these posts here:

Series on Unreached People Groups in the West

Series on Diaspora Missiology

The sovereign hand of God is moving the peoples of the world like never before.  Unfortunately–to most of us–they are simply the strangers next door.  Let’s be in the know of what the Lord is doing in our communities and respond with loving service and sharing the good news of Jesus.