DLGP

Doctor of Leadership in Global Perspectives: Crafting Ministry in an Interconnected World

Category: Uncategorized

Haunted by unconditional responsibility

By: on February 12, 2015

Reading Collateral Damage by Zygmunt Bauman creates a tremendous argument for good biblically reflective public theology. In fact I would encourage a revision in the reading order for the next cohort, the trio of books on contextual theology would be a practical next step after reading Bauman; largely because this book cries out for God’s…

7 responses

Hoping in God

By: on February 12, 2015

I have to admit, the past few weeks have been tough. Opening a community café has been a greater challenge than I could ever have imagined. On Monday this past week, I caught myself in the midst of negatively, “I can’t do this…I can’t, I can’t.” Staffing problems, teething troubles with menus, opening hours, finding…

7 responses

The Starfish

By: on February 12, 2015

It would have been really easy to write this week’s blog about mission teams going into Haiti. Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in Without Going Crazy is made for Haiti. In a land that has been deforested beyond measure, where people have suffered for centuries, where the environment has been all but…

7 responses

The Human Condition

By: on February 12, 2015

As I was getting started into the intro and first chapter of this week’s reading, I thought to myself “Great, this will be easy!  I’ll just connect the dots between the ‘agora’ and ‘ecclesia’ and make this week’s post a ‘part 2’ of last week’s.  I should be able to really drive home my assertion…

18 responses

The Grand Narrative

By: on February 12, 2015

The stories being written in the world this week, can seem to be ones that tells of a declining mess. Perhaps nothing sharper than the disqualification of the U.S. Little League Champions from Chicago, for recruiting violations, speaks more to that fact than any other. A team of mostly, pre-pubescent children, put together through the…

15 responses

Three Tributaries

By: on February 12, 2015

Like Bauman’s Collateral Damage, I’m going to take “a series of tributaries”[1] that express some places where his book exposed me Tributary One I’ll be honest; I did not want to read this book. Just looking at the title and subtitle, I knew I would be overwhelmed by the problems of society. There seems to…

11 responses

There’s Enough To Go Around

By: on February 12, 2015

The other day my wife pulled out some cookies from the oven and laid them on the counter. Just a few minutes later my daughter jumped up on the counter, smelled the cookies, and then quickly managed to lick each one. I was in shock. When I asked her what in the world she was…

9 responses

Christian Thinkers vs. Thinking Christians

By: on February 10, 2015

As I read through Mark Noll’s, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, I was left with one thought… just one thought. The problem is not necessarily the lack of great Christian thinkers but the lack of everyday thinking Christians. I’m not sure when the church began to be divided between the clergy and the lay,…

no responses

Contextualization

By: on February 10, 2015

This weeks reading left me with more questions than answers. It left me excited about the future and skeptical about our willingness to step into that future. The idea of contextualization gave me a sense of awe as I think about how great God is and how little we, the people of God, actually understand.…

no responses

Fully-immersed: The Contextuality of Contact

By: on February 9, 2015

“There is no such thing as ‘theology’; there is only contextual theology,”[1] writes Stephen Bevans in his Models of Contextual Theology. There are a number of critics that take him to task for this statement and also for limitations they see in his six (used to be five; Bevans made it six in the current…

2 responses

THE GOSPEL – CONTEXT AND CULTURE

By: on February 7, 2015

I recall a number of years ago, while preparing for a mission assignment, my wife and I attended a missionary training institute in Colorado. We attempted to prepare for the many situational experiences that awaited us in a country and culture that we knew very little about. I recall our discussions about “place, presence, participation”…

9 responses

Contextual Theology

By: on February 7, 2015

In Ethiopia, most non-believers associate Protestant Christianity with foreign aid, Americans or Israel, to segregate believers and disqualify the authenticity of Protestant Christianity. In my Arsi Oromo culture, becoming a believer is equal to denying the values and unity of the clan, because religion is more than just an individual affair. Religion is a shared…

13 responses

Theology 101

By: on February 7, 2015

Models of Contextual Theology, by Stephen Bevans, resonated with me because it explains theology within the context of one’s culture and experience. This book explores the differences between traditional and contextual theology. In the opening chapter of his book, Bevan states, “There is no such thing as “theology”; there is only contextual theology: feminist theology,…

13 responses

Home, Facebook, Geography

By: on February 7, 2015

First of all, I “felt” at home in our reading this week. I realize just how much I have been and am being shaped by Contextual Theology. It just resonates. This is no small matter for me, as I have not seen it quite in the same manner as I did this week. The surprise…

11 responses

Why are we irrelevant?

By: on February 7, 2015

Being culturally relevant is an issue that the Christian community has faced for centuries. We each see the world and perceive situations through our own lens, drawing assumptions and developing our own thoughts and ideas. Each of us is unique and acts out our faith in a very personal way. Hence, many intelligent ministry professionals…

9 responses

Context Matters

By: on February 7, 2015

How often I have heard the story of the six blind men who were asked to describe an elephant. Each man felt with his hands a different part of the elephant. Each man described the elephant in a different way based on what he felt and what he knew of the world. The man near…

16 responses

Speaking Son

By: on February 6, 2015

The contextualization of the Gospel of Christ is the continual challenge of the international-cross-cultural missionary. As the representative of God and His message to a people, the missionary has the responsibility to be the embodied message of the one who desires to communicate to all people. The pressure is further exacerbated knowing that, to a…

8 responses

In Context

By: on February 6, 2015

I was a Biblical/Theological Studies major at Biola University in the 1970’s. Biola is located in Southern California, the place where the “Jesus Movement” began in the late 1960’s. I was one of those “Jesus Movement” kids, caught up in the Calvary Chapel movement of the day: Christian Rock and Roll concerts, Hippie clothes, Afro…

10 responses

Setting the Agenda: Doing Theology from the Bottom Up

By: on February 6, 2015

Last Spring, I had the daunting task of preparing lessons for a week of camp for 20 Lakota Sioux teens. Most of these young people had been to our camp once or twice. I had visited their communities, schools, and some of their homes. Most were un-churched. Most were angry. Most were familiar with drug…

10 responses

The past, present and “theology”

By: on February 6, 2015

In Bevans’ introduction to his book Contextual theology, the author starts with a story about his time in Roman as a theology student in the late 1960. Consistent with his discussion of contextualization, Bevans shares about a past experience which involved the preparations for the liturgy of the Advent.  Bevans writes: The central idea of…

12 responses