Tentmaking

Those who are unfamiliar with the world of tentmaking will find valuable information to introduce them to the concept and to help in getting started. Designed to be a manual, Tentmaking is more than just an overview of questions and issues. This work will serve as an in-depth reference for existing tentmakers. This thoroughly researched collection is the result of interviews from over 450 people serving in the 10/40 window. It provides a unique viewpoint on missions, sharing proven, workable alternatives to conventional missionary life. Tentmaking provides an important and much needed resource to this specialized area of world missions.

Would it surprise you to know that New Testament scholars, missiologists, and church-planting authorities cannot agree on how to define tentmaking, whether or not the church should be practicing it today, or even why Paul did it in the first place? It’s true. In Tentmaking, the widespread confusion and overall disagreement within the church regarding Paul’s self-support are exposed. Commonly held assumptions are removed from their entrenched positions and myths are debunked. In their place, Tentmaking offers an unadorned yet powerfully convincing presentation of Paul’s own self-disclosed reasons for intentionally selecting to support himself in some ministry contexts, but not others. This well-researched book provides answers to crucial questions that currently surround tentmaking, as well as a practical guide intended to lead to the recovery of biblical tentmaking within the church. Readers who pick up this book should be prepared to embark on an engrossing journey that will reward them with clarity on the often-misunderstood topic of Paul’s tentmaking.

Tentmaking is a growing reality in Western society that necessitates more reflection and relevant response from pastoral and mission leaders. The need to consider bivocational or multivocational ministries is catalyzed by established congregations wrestling with decline in attendance, by new immigrant communities looking for sustainable ways to minister, and by misunderstanding or lack of information on the nature of this ministry approach. This need is also triggered by the urgency to address biblical, theological, and pragmatic issues of tentmaking that can forge a way forward for the Canadian church in the midst of an uncertain future. This volume seeks to forge a way forward as a result of the Canadian Multivocational Ministry Project (CMMP), a qualitative and community-based research project among tentmaking pastoral leaders across Canada. This research partnered with the Wellness Project @ Wycliffe, which uses online questionnaires to assess wellness in congregational ministry. The CMMP research report and the wellness findings form the basis of the multifaceted reflections in the book by Canadian scholars, researchers, and multivocational practitioners. This book offers an accurate pulse of the challenges, opportunities, and future of tentmaking in relation to Christianity and the church in these uncertain times.

C. Neal Johnson offers the first comprehensive guide to business as mission (BAM) for practitioners. He provides conceptual foundationas for understanding BAM's unique place in global mission and prerequisites for engaging in it. Then he offers practical resources for how to do BAM, including strategic planning and step-by-step operational implementation.

One million American Christians live and work abroad. They are not missionaries. These people are students, administrators, engineers, teachers, and doctors in other countries. They could be called ÒtentmakersÓ. Just as the Apostle Paul used his vocation, tentmaking, to finance his witness to the churches, so today's tentmakers support themselves with their own hands and minds, shining the light of Christ around them. ÒWe err,Ó suggests author J.Christy Wilson, Jr., Òwhen we assign personal evangelism at home to the lay Christian but missions work abroad only to the specialist.Ó Tentmaking is available to everyone. Today's Tentmakers is a handbook which is of value not only to the prospective tentmaker, but also to the Christian planning to travel overseas. You'll discover here information about foreign travel and employment, support organizations, language training, moving, cultural adjustment, and politics. Whether you are a student or teacher, housewife or doctor, Today's Tentmakers is an opportunity of adventure and service in God's work.

Professional church planter Patrick Lai provides an in-depth reference for tentmakers--business-as-mission practitioners operating in regions of great antagonism to the Christian message. Those who are unfamiliar with the world of tentmaking will find valuable information to introduce them to the concept and to help in getting started. Designed to be a manual, Tentmaking is more than just an overview of questions and issues. This work will serve as an in-depth reference for existing tentmakers. This thoroughly researched collection is the result of interviews from over 450 people serving in the 10/40 window. It provides a unique viewpoint on missions, sharing proven, workable alternatives to conventional missionary life. Tentmaking provides an important and much needed resource to this specialized area of world missions.

Contemporary missions often include evangelistic and socio-economic dimensions. For effective missions, some way of assessing what is being achieved is needed beyond just the common metrics touching on the spiritual and/or economic which neglects social transformation that ideally should also be occurring. This book seeks to identify key factors for holistic evaluation based on salient characteristics that emerged as three Entrepreneurial Church Planting sites were studied in San Francisco (Redeemer Community Church), Selma, Alabama (Blue Jean Church), and Lynch, Kentucky (Meridzo Ministries). What emerges from these case studies is the importance of relationality, general emphasis on growth and development, and a well-established focus on holistic transformation. The mechanisms for the operation of holistic transformation are spelled out to reflect the operation of the three actors of the Trinity in missions. The practical component of the book is the conceptual framework that reveals the operation of holistic transformation and ways to measure the dynamic relationships that occur.