INTRODUCTION<\/u><\/p>\n
The world is in constant change. These changes\u00a0create\u00a0new challenges that require leaders to think critically in order to provide solutions that will address those challenges in new and effective ways. The book Contemporary Social Theory<\/em> is a summary of these efforts.<\/p>\n SUMMARY<\/u><\/p>\n Professor Anthony Elliot provides a summary of the vast array of issues and schools of thought that have shaped many of the social trends observed in the last decades. He describes and evaluates different schools of thought\u2014from Theodor Adorno\u2019s ideas in the Frankfurt School all the way to Cornelious Castoriadis in contemporary perspectives about globalization. Even though the book is not written from a Christian worldview, it does bring up relevant topics to which the church must pay attention.<\/p>\n REFLECTION<\/u><\/p>\n Today, we are at one of those crossroads of global change that requires for those of us in ministry to ask new questions and give insightful answers. As I write this blog, I\u2019m drinking a cup of coffee from Colombia in a cup made in Indonesia while typing on a computer assembled in China and wearing a shirt made in Nicaragua. Of course, there would be little impact in the way we do ministry in the local church if the interaction with this diversity of countries was limited to products we consume. Yet, the implications of globalization and the rise of global information technologies have far more impact than simple consumerism.<\/p>\n Let me share a collage of experiences to illustrate why the church must start thinking critically and provide insightful ways of doing ministry in light of globalization.\u00a0\u00a0 A few years ago, I was counseling a couple from Taiwan in Texas. Even though they were both professionals, she was fluent in English; he was not. So in our initial sessions, he would speak in Mandarin, she would translate into English, and I would counsel them in English with a Spanish accent. Eventually, the husband became more fluent in English, so we could do our sessions only in one language but with many accents.<\/p>\n During this last year I have been mentoring an engineer and former businessman from the Philippines who moved to Texas with his family to work as a public school teacher. He came to know the Lord through our ministry and now I am equipping him through our discipleship program.\u00a0\u00a0 When he meets with his Filipino friends, they speak in Tagalog, but when we meet for discipleship we speak in English. Another Filipina member of our church recently shared the gospel with her family in the Philippines by phone and by Skype. Now, several of her relatives have come to know the Lord and are attending a church in their hometown. She meets with them for occasional Bible study through Skype.<\/p>\n About four years ago, a Chinese pediatrician came to Texas for a medical conference.\u00a0\u00a0 She eventually came to know the Lord through our ministry and started our discipleship program. After visiting her in China, a couple from our church has been discipling her through Skype for the past two years. We discovered that it is challenging for her to understand many of the biblical terms in English. So each session takes twice as much time in light of the language barrier. This has made us realize that the content would be easier to understand if it was translated into Mandarin, so we have started the process of translation.<\/p>\n Two years ago we started a biweekly Spanish Bible study. Not all the people that attend the study can physically join us. We have a couple in Mission, on the Texas border, and another couple in El Paso. In order to participate, they connect through Facetime, and whenever they visit Dallas they make time to attend our worship service.<\/p>\n While attending a conference this past week, I met a Colombian man who is part of the leadership team at his church in Colombia. They have a congregation of over 30,000 people. They have online broadcasts, and about 3,000 people from the U.S. join through the Internet.\u00a0\u00a0 So now he is researching the legal requirements in order to start a church plant for the Spanish-speaking community in Dallas.\u00a0\u00a0 You read it right\u2014a Colombian church is sending missionaries to start a church plant in the U.S.<\/p>\n I share this collage of experiences, because they echo what Anthony Elliot points out in the closing paragraph of his book. He says, \u201cUndeniably, the global challenges we face demand global solutions, and ones that are both future-regarding and geared to the actual needs and desires of others.\u201d (350)<\/p>\n How will Ethnos Bible Church provide global solutions to the global challenges and needs that we are facing now locally? How will we minister to the increasing multilingual population in our city? Do we need to incorporate a multilingual approach to our local church? What are the leadership dynamics in a multilingual church? How can we use technology to reach out to the ends of the earth with the gospel? How do we shorten distances through technology without sacrificing koinonia? Is a multi-site church a possible solution to this new global phenomenon? If so, what is the shape of a healthy multi-site church? As I said earlier, this changing world requires for us in church leadership to think critically in order to provide solutions that will address those challenges in new and effective ways. I pray that the Lord will lead us in this process because I believe that it is not for us to create new ideas or to decide the shape for\u00a0His church,\u00a0but to discover the ideas and\u00a0discern the shape that He has in mind for His church.\u00a0<\/em>To this end, we must continue to pray fervently, analyze critically, think creatively, and solve effectively. If we do so, we may be able to lead well in a world that seems to be getting smaller each day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" INTRODUCTION The world is in constant change. These changes\u00a0create\u00a0new challenges that require leaders to think critically in order to provide solutions that will address those challenges in new and effective ways. The book Contemporary Social Theory is a summary of these efforts. SUMMARY Professor Anthony Elliot provides a summary of the vast array of issues […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[196,689,688,702],"class_list":["post-6265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-elliot","tag-ethnos-bible-church","tag-pablo-morales","tag-pastor-pablo-morales","cohort-lgp6"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6265"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6266,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6265\/revisions\/6266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}