Toward A New Praxis Oriented Missiology

The new and different frontiers and factors discussed in missiology are reshaping the meaning of mission. Christian mission today is searching for new directions to approach the postmodern, postcolonial, and ecumenical paradigms. This book argues that mission is the process of embodying the content and praxis of the gospel, not the transmission of knowledge that keeps an established structure and culture alive (often justified by a specific ecclesiological model). Thus, mission initiates a transformative process of faith, which leads to personal and social transformation. This work brings into dialogue Stephen Bevans’s notion of mission as prophetic dialogue and Paulo Freire’s concept of conscientização. The aim is not to discover a method to do mission but to rescue the process that leads to transformation, allowing one to encounter the other where they are while respecting the uniqueness of every person, culture, church, and society. Prophetic dialogue enriched by conscientização (and vice versa) can open new perspectives within missiology and provide a new approach to mission praxis. This approach is then analyzed through the experiential and transformative elements of the Verbum Dei charism applied in ministry, demonstrating the effectiveness of prophetic dialogue and conscientização in the Verbum Dei Missionary Fraternity mission praxis.

"An overview of trends in Catholic mission from SEDOS Mission Symposium 2021"--

Could it be that the stories we tell in our churches weaken our efforts to be congregations who take risks in mission for the sake of love? In this thought-provoking book, Emily Ralph Servant suggests that the work of today's leaders is to explore new stories, listen to new voices, and open ourselves up to the Spirit's work of transformation. Experiments in Love engages in a three-way dialogue with feminist and liberation theologians, the social and behavioral sciences, and the Anabaptist tradition. Out of this vibrant conversation emerges the story of a God who takes the risk of being radically present to a vulnerable world. Because of God's courageous presence with us, we can also take the risk of being vulnerably present to others as God invites us all to participate in God's community of life, love, and flourishing.

We all know that healthy partnerships are essential to fruitful boundary-crossing ministries, but how exactly do we create them? What barriers must be overcome, and what self-examination must we do? How do the legacies of colonialism, racism, and unhealed trauma impact missional collaborations today? In this doctoral thesis, Denyer reflects on these questions as she examines the history of relational dynamics between American and Congolese United Methodists in the North Katanga Conference (DR Congo). By surveying memoirs, magazines, and journals, and conducting in-depth interviews, Denyer presents a complex and multifaceted example of a partnership that is in the process of decolonizing. More than just a history lesson, Decolonizing Mission Partnerships presents the questions, hard truths, pitfalls, and toxic assumptions we must face when attempting to be in mission together.

This study examines an indigenous phenomenon of the Hindu devotees of Jesus Christ and their response to the gospel through an empirical case study conducted in Varanasi, India. It analyzes their religious beliefs and social belonging and addresses the ensuing questions from a historical, theological, and missiological perspective. The data reveals that the respondents profess faith in Jesus Christ; however, most remain unbaptized and insist on their Hindu identity. Hence, a heuristic model for a contextualized baptism as Guru-diksha is proposed. The emergent church among Hindu devotees should be considered, from the perspective of world Christianity, as a disparate form of belonging while remaining within one's community of birth. The insistence on a visible church and a distinct community of Christ's followers is contested because the devotees should construct their contextual ecclesiology, since it is an indigenous discovery of the Christian faith. Thus, the "Christian" label for the adherents is dispensable while retaining their socio-ethnic Hindu identity. Christian mission should discontinue extraction and assimilation; instead, missional praxis should be within the given sociocultural structures, recognizing their idiosyncrasies as legitimate in God's eyes and in need of transformation, like any human culture.

Think Write is a comprehensive critical thinking, research methodology, and academic writing handbook. It is designed to aid students to understand and meet the varied expectations of higher theological studies. Concepts such as critical thinking, theological thinking, problem statement, primary question, methodology, plagiarism, citation format, can all be difficult to grasp. This book explains each of these in a way that would make sense to MTh and PhD students from the various theological departments. Along with advice to enhance academic research and reading, practical suggestions are offered to improve research assignments, Thesis Proposals, and dissertations. Included is a citation guide based on the Chicago Manual of Style.

In U.S. Population Projections: 2005-2050, Pew Research Center reported that "The nation's population will rise to 438 million in 2050, from 296 million in 2005, and fully 82% of the growth during this period will be due to immigrants arriving from 2005 to 2050 and their descendants." This shows that it is essential to study and understand how our mission, especially in the context of the USA, called the nation of immigrants, will respond to this huge mobility of immigrant diaspora. So far, there has been emphasis on doing diaspora missiology; however, there is no practical implications and application in local church setting. Now mission is next door, which implies that the ministry of the local church should be emphasized for 21st contemporary mission. This book provides detailed frameworks and methods of diaspora missiology within local churches, called 'diaspora mission church.' According to the Bible, all human beings are theologically and spiritually diaspora, irrespective of ethnicity, because they were banished from the Garden of Eden, and scattered around the world in God's judgment. Now, they walk toward the encounter with Jesus Christ, preach the gospel as the seed of Kingdom, and finally move toward heaven.

A collection of essays that demonstrates that to be effective in the twenty-first century, mission must be prophetic as it encounters other cultures and religious traditions. "When we speak as mission as dialogue, then, we are about as far away from imagining mission as 'conquering the world for Christ' and missionaries as 'marines of the Catholic Church' as we probably can get. There has indeed been a radical shift, both in the world in which the church does mission and within the church's own consciousness of the goodness and even holiness of that world." These words from one of the essays in this superb collection clearly demonstrate the changing of mission today. In this volume, Fathers Bevans and Schroeder address a primary challenge faced by Christians missioners today: How can they bring the Christian tradition to interact respectfully and effectively with members of other cultures and traditions from around the globe and still be prophetic?