Previous Seminar Luncheons for
Pastors and Church Mission Committee Members
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
A Millennial Shift of Global Christianity and Missional Implications
Our speaker will be DR. WONSUK MA, executive director of the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies in Oxford, England. An Old Testament scholar and aPentecostal, he is the author of Until the Spirit Comes: The Spirit of God in the.jpg)
Book of Isaiah (1999). Ma has edited numerous books. He was vice president for academic affairs at Asia Pacific Theological Seminary (1996–2006), coeditor of the Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies (1998–2006), and editor ofthe Journal of Asian Mission (1999–2001). He jointly led three Edinburgh 2010 study groups. This fall he and his wife, Dr. Julie Ma, a research tutor in missiology at OCMS, serve as senior mission scholars in residence at the Overseas Ministries Study Center. They are coeditors of Asian Church and God's Mission (2003) and coauthors of Mission in the Spirit: Towards a Pentecostal/Charismatic Theology (2010).
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
World Missions:From Dependence,to Independence,to Interdependence
Paul R. Gupta, senior mission scholar in residence at OMSC for the spring 2011 semester, will address the questions: “Are we still trying to do missions the same way William Carey did it when missions began? How should we do missions in the twenty-first century to make a lasting impact for he next generation?” Utilizing the progression from childlike dependence to independence to interdependence, he invites us to learn together “how we can move to a new level in facilitating our church and its mission to fulfill the Great Commission in our generation.” Gupta is president and director of the Hindustan Bible Institute and College, Kilpauk, Chennai, India, and president of HBI Global Partners, Forest, Virginia. A California native, he is committed to equipping leaders for evangelism and church planting throughout India. After relocating to Chennai in 1983 to teach at the institute and college, he founded the Indian National Evangelical Fellowship and the Indian National Evangelical Church. The church implemented a strategy of recruiting missionaries to work throughout India, and by 2010 INEC counted 676 church planters who had started 4,264 churches with a membership of more than 250,000. In 1987 he hosted the first Consultation on National Strategy to consider ways of reaching unreached peoples of India. As a result, a movement called the Council on National Service was started with the vision of planting a church in every village, town, and city in India. Gupta is coauthor with Sherwood G. Lingenfelter of Breaking Tradition to Accomplish Vision: Training Leaders for a Church-Planting Movement: A Case from India (2006).
September 29, 2010
The Russian Church, Collapse of the Soviet Empire, and Missions
Dr. John W. McNeill, senior mission scholar in residence at OMSC for the fall 2010 semester, is professor of anthropology and intercultural studies at Providence College, Otterburne, Manitoba, Canada. Prior to joining the Providence faculty in 2000, he was an intercultural teacher and administrator with the University of the Nations, an affiliate of Youth With A Mission. Dr. McNeill trained leaders for nineteen years (1990– 2009) at the university’s center in Eastern Europe and Russia, and he held the same position in former East Germany (1989–92). A native of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, he discovered Russian literature as a child, and that appreciation led to his academic career. Dr. McNeill wrote a Ph.D. dissertation (Trinity International University, 1995) on “Western Saints in Holy Russia: Perceptions of Conversion and of Westerners Among Western Influenced Converts, Russian Church Converts, and Members of the Public in the Former USSR.” The ethnographic study was published as Western Saints in Holy Russia (Mandate Press, 2002). He is also author of “The Church and Western Ministry: What Russian Christians Think,” in The East-West Church and Ministry Report (1994), and “Reclaiming Augustine for Christian Education,” in Christian Education Journal (2003).
March 10, 2010
Dr. Charles Amjad-Ali, who was ordained as a presbyter of the Church of Pakistan in 1987, is professor for justice and Christian community at Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota. Previously he was director of the Christian Study Center, Rawalpindi, Pakistan (1985–95), and chair of the Asian Partnership for Community Organization, part of the Christian Conference of Asia. Since 1991 he has been a member of the Christian-Muslim task force of the Lutheran World Federation. He was a founder of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. Dr. Amjad-Ali’s most recent book is Islamophobia or Restorative Justice: Tearing the Veils of Ignorance (2006). He is coauthor of Leaving the Shadows? Pakistan’s Christians and the Search for Orientation in an Overwhelmingly Muslim Society (forthcoming).
October 7, 2009
Rev. Randall Prior is professor of ministry studies and missiology at the United Faculty of Theology, Melbourne, Australia. A senior mission scholar in residence at OMSC for the fall semester, he teaches in the areas of theological reflection for ministry practice and pastoral theology, as well as about the intersection of Gospel and culture, mission, and evangelism. Prior’s research interests include exploring these topics in the context of Vanuatu as an experiment in grounding theology in a post-independent South Pacific. He is editor of The Gospel and Cultures: Initial Explorations in the Australian Context (1997) and a five-volume series called The Gospel and Culture in Vanuatu (1998–2006). A former pastor, Prior is part of the Uniting Church in Australia.
March 18, 2009
Pentecostalism as a Worldwide Phenomenon
Dr. Edith L. Blumhofer, professor of history at Wheaton College and director of the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals, Wheaton, Illinois, is lecturing on one of her principal interests. Her research interests focus on the history of Christianity in post–Civil War America. A senior mission scholar in residence at OMSC for the spring 2009 semester, Dr. Blumhofer is also interested in the religion of ordinary people and has recently been exploring the history of Protestant hymnody. She is preparing a set of Web-based resources to facilitate the teaching of Pentecostal studies. The author of People of Faith: A History of Western Christianity (2007), she is currently writing Evangelicalism: A Very Short Introduction (forthcoming from Oxford University Press).
October 8, 2008
Global Church Partnerships in Light of Unique Challenges Facing the Two-thirds World Church
RESOURCES: Audio download (41 MB) / PowerPoint notes
Bible teacher and author Dr. Ajith Fernando has been national director of Youth for Christ in Sri Lanka since 1976. Dr. Fernando’s writing andinternational preaching ministry focuses on teaching and applying the Bible and on helping people understand the mission of the church. He is visiting lecturer in biblical studies and mission at Colombo Theological Seminary. His major theological inquiry at present is to find out how Christ helps people to overcome addiction, especially drug addiction, and also to find out how Christians can best communicate the Gospel to people from shame-based cultures. Dr. Fernando has written thirteen books, including Crucial Questions About Hell (1994), The Supremacy of Christ (1995), NIV Application Commentary on Acts (1998), Jesus Driven Ministry (2002), The Call to Joy and Pain (2007), and The Fullness of Christ: Ephesians (2007). A Methodist, he is writing a preaching commentary on Deuteronomy.
