DLGP

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

The Ghetto by Any Other Name…

By: on September 6, 2018

The Ghetto, the hood, the projects, and slums, are all names of places that conjure up images of darkness that nobody chooses to go, and certainly not to go and live in by choice.  I did not grow up in the ghetto, but I grew up close enough to it that I knew the trappings…

6 responses

The Risk of “Yes”

By: on September 6, 2018

I am consistently inspired and awed by what God can do through one human life. The fact that He continues to use His broken, flawed creation to bring about redemption in the world is astounding. Pullinger’s story is a beautiful narrative of just how much God loves all of humanity. I am particularly intrigued by…

4 responses

Leaning into the Unknown and the not-yet Understood

By: on September 6, 2018

I feel a deep connection to Jackie Pullinger’s story because I consider her a spiritual grandmother. Years ago a mentor and friend of mine saw a very short clip of a documentary on what Jackie was doing and promptly bought a ticket to Hong Kong. What he witnessed was completely outside any experience our denomination…

5 responses

The Challenge and The Profound.

By: on September 6, 2018

Reading through Chasing the Dragon the thought that kept running through the mind was, this is the 29th Chapter of the Book of Acts. I was challenged in many ways while reading the book but will look at three in this brief post. At first, I wanted to define Pullinger’s faith as simple, but it…

3 responses

Do For One

By: on September 6, 2018

Do for one what you wish you could do for everyone. I kept thinking this while reading Chasing the Dragon[1]. I have heard this statement from a number of leaders over the years. And I think this encouragement is helpful in an era when the negative noise and news has never been louder. This fights against…

3 responses

Nora Tubbs Tisdale and Jackie Pullinger – Community Exegesis

By: on September 6, 2018

In her succinct and classic homiletic text “Preaching as Local Theology and Folk Art,” Dr. Nora Tubbs Tisdale discusses the art of “exegete-ing” a local community.  Exegesis is a skill many seminarians learn early in their career.  To best preach the text, you must first exegete the text.  I learned Biblical exegesis by looking at…

3 responses

Acts 29-46 (The Message)

By: on September 6, 2018

Early in the reading I thought, “A title equally befitting Pullinger’s Chasing the Dragon would be Acts 29-46 (MSG)!” The stories were much like those we read of the early Apostles where the light breaks through the darkness and is described with the plain speak of The Message paraphrase. From the opening chapter to the…

5 responses

Waiting for the workers

By: on September 6, 2018

When I was about fifteen my aunt received her foster license and shortly after had a young boy placed with her. He had had a difficult childhood and as such bore the psychological scars of those difficulties. Anyone who has been a foster parent of a child with a similar background can tell you, helping…

3 responses

What will I write?

By: on September 5, 2018

I first read Chasing the Dragon in the 1980’s. [1] At the time, Jackie Pullinger was a superstar among missionaries as far as angsty New Zealand teenagers were concerned. She spoke plainly, unreservedly and often confrontationally. Jackie was a force majure to institutional faith, and she got away with it because few clerics were prepared…

5 responses

The Redemption of the Students

By: on September 5, 2018

“Ah Ping could really talk when he got warmed up. I respected his honesty, for few Chinese ever tell Westerners what they really feel about them. ‘You Westerners – you come here and tell us about Jesus. You can stay for a year or two, and your conscience will feel good, and then you can…

2 responses

The Proof of the Pudding is in the Transformed Lives

By: on September 4, 2018

Jackie Pullinger quickly discovered that she needed the power and demonstration of the Holy Spirit for her work among addicts in the Walled City. “Jesus did not promise running shoes in the hereafter to the lame man. He made him walk. He not only preached but also demonstrated that he was God. He made blind…

5 responses