PROFESSOR PRICE
  • Blog
  • Megaregions
  • Courses
  • Trip Info
  • C.V. & Research
  • Transformational Ministry
  • Contact
    • About
  • French
  • Missional Church
  • Gospel & Culture
  • Global Diversity
  • History | Church of the Nazarene

What's good (and bad) about globally engaged local churches

10/24/2016

0 Comments

 
I have been grading the mid-term assignment for my Foundations of Missions course. Students identify a local church and then search for evidence for the importance of global missions.

Here are the instructions from the syllabus:

Missions Involvement in the Local Church: Discover & Report. Find out how your local church participates in activities, promotions, services, trips, and ways to be involved in missions education, missions financing and missions prayer support. Look for evidence on bulletin boards, pre-service slides, newsletters, and web sites. Talk to three lay leaders  involved with promoting missions and your pastor. If you really want to earn a good grade, talk to your district missions president (or his or her equivalent in your denomination) about his or her expectations for missions support among churches on the district. The outline of the paper should be: Why This Church Thinks Global Missions Is Important, How This Local Church Promotes Global Missions, Surprising Things I Learned. 

As a result of grading these assignments, I have been reminded about the proliferation of various Baptist groups in Appalachia splintering throughout the American South during the late-19th century. One of the distinctions between some of these groups included the means by which a local church supported global mission efforts, particularly between missionary Baptists and anti-missionary Baptists.

Missionary Baptists supported a foreign missions board that selected, trained, and sent missionaries. The local churches partnered with these agencies, and outsourced foreign mission strategy to organizations within the denomination that were directly and more closely linked with these foreign locations. Strategy was left to the experts.

Anti-missionary Baptists sounds harsh, but it really isn't. "Anti-missionary" as a modifier means not relying on a mission agency or mission board to make decisions or develop strategies for foreign missions. The local church, from this perspective, sent and supported individual missionaries directly rather than send monies through a mission agency. Part of this trend arose due to the mistrust of how these agencies were governed, sometimes with little outside accountability.

This direct support without intervening agency is an implication of congregationalism, represented generally by Baptists, in which the local church is the deciding authority.

The alternative is connectionalism, represented generally by Methodists, in which the local church acts in unison within a network of local churches and mission agencies. These definitions are grand simplifications but they get to the gist of the issue.

So, the questions rattling around my mind once again:
  • In what ways has the development of local church to foreign field partnerships just created another expression of congregationalism?
  • How have the difficulties in funding the missionary efforts through denominational structures become signs of an "anti-missionary (agency)" mindset?  
  • Are local congregations capable of strategizing, selecting, and sending individuals on foreign mission assignments?
  • Are local congregations capable of supporting indigenous, localized leadership without sufficient cultural understanding?
  • What could go wrong with any of these scenarios?
0 Comments

The Time When Church Went to You

10/11/2016

0 Comments

 
On the first Sunday of October, The Shepherd's House met for the second time in our regular place of worship at Bad Apple Pub in Howard, Ohio. 

While preaching and presiding over the Eucharist, I noticed one of the workers pop into the service. This is not uncommon to see a few workers here and there since there are several prepping the restaurant and bar for a noontime opening. This worker came out and watched for bit, then went back into the kitchen area. And, she did so several times.
Picture
Melissa is in the maroon shirt flanked by Hank to her right, and Sonya, Vinnie, and Tristan. Phil and Lauren are photobombing in the back. (Oct 2, 2016 The Shepherd's House Church of the Nazarene, Bad Apple Pub campus
After the service, I saw Sonya talking to her. After a bit, Sonya filled me in. What a story! Her name is Melissa and she caught up to me before we finished packing up. She told me and a few others standing outside on the veranda, about how she once died. 
It was a major car accident not far from where we were standing a few years prior. The EMTs reported she lost consciousness, and a pulse. They were able to get her heart started, and she regained consciousness. She wanted to get her life right with God. 

She worked all the time, like every day, and could not get time away from work to attend church.

A couple of weeks ago, Nikki, the co-owner of Bad Apple Pub, told Melissa, "Guess what? The church is coming to you." 

​And, we did.
0 Comments
    Picture
    Picture

    Bio

    teacher, writer,
    talker, do-er

    Type Seven.
    ​
    Supposed Strengths:
    ideation, activator, strategic, learner, positivity

    Tweets by @JaMaPrice
    View my profile on LinkedIn

    Archives

    August 2022
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2020
    November 2019
    April 2019
    January 2019
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014

    RSS Feed


    Categories

    All
    Africa
    Asia
    Autobiographical
    Bible
    Books
    Church
    Coffee
    COVID-19
    Diversity
    Film
    Folk Beliefs
    Holiness
    Intercultural Studies
    Luther
    Megaregions
    Microchurch
    Ordination
    Organic Church
    Public Library
    Road Trip
    Sci Fi
    Sci-Fi
    Skeptics
    Suggested Reading
    Theology
    Training Video
    Urban

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Blog
  • Megaregions
  • Courses
  • Trip Info
  • C.V. & Research
  • Transformational Ministry
  • Contact
    • About
  • French
  • Missional Church
  • Gospel & Culture
  • Global Diversity
  • History | Church of the Nazarene