A Church of Passion and Hope: The Formation of An Ecclesial Disposition from Ignatius Loyola to Pope Francis and the New Evangelization
Jesuits have contributed to the life and theological development of the Church for many generations – culminating in Pope Francis, the first Jesuit Pope. Ignatius Loyola called his men and all those inspired by the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises to a certain ecclesial disposition a way of thinking, judging and feeling with the Church.
A Worldview Approach to Ministry Among Muslim Women
Four years in the making, A Worldview Approach to Ministry Among Muslim Women is a ground-breaking exploration into the way culture and worldview affect ministry among Muslim women. Using original field research from eight different language and culture groups, the book explores a variety of ministries among Muslim women and provides tools to analyze their effectiveness. With contributions from scholars, field workers and agency administrators, readers are encouraged in a holistic Muslim ministry perspective through in-depth studies in Muslim beliefs, anthropological tools, worldview analyses, and explorations in strategic issues and discipleship. The book concludes with case studies and discussion questions to provide a comprehensive training manual for workers and students alike.
ACTIVATE: An Entirely New Approach to Small Groups
Church leaders want to know how to make small groups work for their church communities, yet a quick look around shows that while small groups are all the rage, much of the time they create more problems than they solve. Nelson Searcy and Kerrick Thomas, founding pastors of The Journey Church in the heart of New York City, suggest that this failure is due to widely held beliefs about small groups that just arent trueand they aim to debunk the myths and set the record straight! Drawing from the startling success of small groups at The Journey Church (which has had over 100-percent participation in small groups for more than 4 years) Searcy and Thomas show how church leaders can implement a life-changing small-group ministry that gets the maximum number of people involved and solves many of the important (yet irritating) problems facing churches of all sizes.
Ageing: Perspectival Explorations Towards Theo-Gerontology
Edited by Dr. Songram Basumatary
Ambassadors for Christ: Distinguished Representatives of the Message Throughout the World
John D. Woodbridge, General Editor
An Ecumenical Odyssey – Exploring the Redaction and the Reception of “The Church: Towards a Common Vision”
No less than two decades were needed for the composition of the ecumenical convergence document The Church: Towards a Common
An Indian Church in an Alien Land: The Contribution of the Tinnevelly Mission of CMS towards the Ceylon Tamil Mission
A Book Review
An Indian Church in an Alien Land: The Contribution of the Tinnevelly Mission of CMS towards the Ceylon Tamil Missions, Napoleon Pathmanathan, Kirubai Publication, Madurai. India. 2022.
This book is a doctoral research of Dr. Napoleon Pathmanathan with meticulous accuracy in documenting and applying the findings for missiological, ministerial and historical studies and praxis. This works talks about 19th century Tinnevelly mission of CMS and its missionary expansion in Sri Lanka among Tamil communities. The author’s sincere efforts to reach out to the primary sources of the missionary reports in University of Birmingham, Lambeth palace archives in UK and many other secondary resources related to the subject and careful analysis and evaluation are to be highly appreciated and valued. It is the heritage of the author in both Tinnevelly Christianity and its mission expansion in Sri Lanka lead him to do a thorough research to know about the communities he belongs to. As an experienced theological teacher for decades in Colombo Theological Seminary and a sincere lay minister in Anglican Church in Sri Lanka, through this seminal work, Napoleon Pathmanathan has immensely contributed to the contemporary Tamil Christianity and for the global Church in the following ways:
1. Author’s primary concern in the book is to combat the false propaganda that Christianity is a foreign religion which came along with British colonizers to subjugate native people of the colonized territories. Author highlights the fact that missionaries are to be distinguished from the colonizers because they fought for the cause of the freedom of the people through emancipation and liberation of the oppressed and downtrodden of the colonized societies. And Particularly in the case of Sri Lanka, it was not the foreign missionaries who brought Christian Faith to the Tamil people but it was the same Tamil native community from Tinnevelly who brought their new found life of freedom, dignity and power through Gospel to their own counterpart in Sri Lanka.
2. Another defame made upon Christianity is that it is ‘rice Christianity’. It means that people joined Churches only for their material benefits. Author combats this idea by his careful analysis of mass movement theory and falsification of it. What happened in 19th century in Tinnevelly was not mass movement of conversion of groups by the decisions of leaders of the large communities; rather it was a revival movement which produced enormous amount of individual conversions carefully verified by missionaries with high spiritual values. Therefore, conversion is the work of the Holy Spirit. Today anti Christian fundamentalists in India and Sri Lanka are strongly advocate against conversions to Christianity, but they do not really know the fact that conversion is not coercion, enticed or forced but Holy Spirit brought which they won’t be able to stop.
3. While doing apologetics against the false accusations the author is mercilessly self-critical about the past and present blind spots of Christian Church. With careful attention given to the missionary methods of Tinnelvelly model which was Pietistic German Lutheran one, authors calls for evaluation and correction of the contemporary mission practices of the Church to that of using indigenous people and methods for the expansion of the kingdom of God.
4. As the author proudly announces that this history is a subaltern one. It is written from the perspective of the native people of the Tamil communities from below bringing about the real forces behind the success of great missionaries like Rhenius, all the while without downplaying the importance of the contributions of those missionaries. Thus, the author pays the way for the historians to start writing history from below to bring about unknown and undocumented stories of indigenous missionaries, movements and practices in order to document, learn, educate and transform.
5. There are five chapters in the book which give us the contemporary approaches to historiography, the characteristics of Tinnevelly mission, Tamil Coolie Mission and Colombo Tamil Mission and the final chapter is full of applications of the lesions learned. Author’s extensive knowledge of the materials on the subject and critique of certain author like Pieris are illuminating and challenging.
My only critism about the author is that he lightly passes on the issue of Tamil coolies being brought in an inhumane way by British government for working in tea estates as if it is a cooked up story, whereas there are various authors discussed about this inhumane treatment of Tamil people by British colonizers. For example, we may cite works like that of Mu. Si. Muthaiah’s Chithaikapatta Malayga Tamizharhal, published by Vidiyal Pathipagam, in which we have number of other references to the authenticity of the theory.
Albeit, this work is to be widely read by all pastors, leaders, theologians and lay Christians to understand one of the powerful missionary revival movements in Christian history and apply the lesions for our contemporary Christianity, particularly in anti-Christian fundamentalist context today.
L. Sridharan Kalistas (9677577342)
Seeder Theological Institute
Autopsy of a Deceased Church: 12 Ways to Keep Yours Alive
No one wants to see a church die. And yet, far too many churches are dying. For more than twenty-five
Between Past and Future
eDITED by Jonathan J. Bonk
This volume traces its origins to the 2001 annual meeting of the Evangelical Missiological Society with the theme of “Lessons in Mission from the Twentieth Century.” The papers from this meeting, combined with insightful essays by other EMS members, reflect upon the history of evangelical missions and upon its future. “May God give us grace to draw from the lessons presented in this book in ways that will enrich us as people, as a church, and as a community calling others to come worship Jesus Christ.” –A. Scott Moreau
Brothers, We Are Not Professionals: A Plea to Pastors for Radical Ministry
In this revised and expanded edition of Brothers, We Are Not Professionals that includes a new introduction and select all-new chapters, best-selling
Canonical Visitation As Successful feedback Culture with particular reference to the society of Catholic Apostolate
“Canonical Visitation as successful Feedback Culture” is the theme of the doctoral dissertation of Fr. Ignatius Ekka. The book explores the contemporary reality of the modus vivendi and modus operandi of the Pallottines in India and Germany. Feedback, he proposes as an effective way of functioning to improve cooperative and performance. He portrays his knowledge and shares deep insights on the institute of visitation as feedback culture. He thinks intensely about feedback culture and convinces us about the important role of feedback. He deserves appreciations for his amazing and innovative theological exploration, for making it a readable juridical literature.
Most Rev. Victor Henry Thakur, Archbishop of Raipur
Christ and Local Churches
‘Christ and the Local Church’ is a well-designed book which deals with all the aspects of the Church and its
Christ, Culture and Communication
The volume, ‘Christ, Culture and Communication’ is the serious work of a gifted contemporary missiological scholar. This volume displays many excellences, not the least of which is a broad holistic, culturally relevant and Christ centered approach to the issues raised by the interface of cross cultural communication and mission. Rev. Dr. J.N. Manokaran combines both his theological wisdom and his cross cultural missionary experience. This book will prove a trustworthy guide for those seeking the best way to communicate the gospel meaningfully from one culture to another culture. It will also stimulate mission thinkers to a new way of communicating the gospel. I highly recommend this volume to all who are seriously struggling to think critically towards the way of biblical based communication principles.
Rev. P. Joseph Ramanathan,
Principal, India Graduate School of Missiology, Tamil Nadu.
Church Growth Amidst Adversity
An Analytical Study from the Violence against Christians in Kandhamal of Odisha (2008)
In his careful research, Dr. Hruda Lohora documents the historical and recent nature of the persecution of Odisha Christians, its negative psychological and social impact during the violence, but subsequent spiritual awakening, physical blessing, and gospel expansion. He interprets this within a theological framework of response to persecution. Readers will be intrigued and shout Alleluiah!
Dr. Viv Grigg, PhD
Professor of Urban Leadership, William Carey International University, CA
Church Multiplication Guide: The Miracle of Church Reproduction
This book is very practical in addressing the areas of church multiplication and reproduction from ten points of view in response to Jesus command. “As our teams apply the Biblical principles explained in these pages we see fruit: disciples are made, churches are born and multiply.” – Kevin Sutter, Church Planting Coach, Youth With A Mission
Church Reformed: Always Reforming
In the ever changing topography of social and geo-political realities both in India and abroad, it becomes pertinent to ascertain the nature and the presence of the Church in the world. It is even more appropriate at this juncture as there is a renewed affirmation of the role of the Reformation that took place 500 years ago in the ongoing life and witness of the Church. In order to commemorate this celebration CISRS organized a national ecumerical consultation with the intention that the Church would transcend a narrow ecclesiastical framework and thus, the book offers.
Culture, Communication, and Christianity: A Selection of Writings
Charles Kraft is a well-known author, educator, linguist, anthropologist, and missiologist. This book consists of his selected writings compiled over more than three decades. Subjects including anthropology, communication, worldview, ethnolinguistics, hermeneutics, and contextualization are dealt with as they relate to Christianity and Kraft’s unique perspective. Kraft’s personal story and an exhaustive bibliography of his personal writings (from 1961-2000) are included. This book is of extraodrinary value to those who desire to study Christianity, culture and communication, and the interplay between all three.
Disciple Making among Hindus: Making Authentic Relationships Grow
AWARDS: Disciple Making among Hindus was named the Reader’s Choice for Best Special Topic Discipleship book in 2018 by CatalystServices.org readers!
Disruptive Faith, Inclusive Communities: Church and Homophobia
Edited by George Zachariah, V. Rajkumar
Even though the majority of the Indian Christian community still considers sexuality as a divine vocation to be regulated within the heterosexual (patriarchal) families, there are discordant voices coming from the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer (LGBTQ) communities and their allies contesting the heterosexist and homophobic theological understanding of human sexuality, family, and marriage.
Embracing Childhood-Embodying Childness : Relocating Children in Church and Society
Editors Songram Basumatary, Gladson Jathanna
Engaging Islamic Traditions: Using the Hadith in Christian Ministry to Muslims
The Hadith have long been neglected by Christians, yet they may hold the key to reaching Muslims with the good news of Jesus Christ. In this ground-breaking book, the earliest traditions of Islam are assessed from a biblical perspective. Insights into the Islamic worldview and potential springboards to Christian truth are uncovered along the way. For those contextualizing the gospel to Muslim friends and colleagues, this book seeks for concord and connection with Muslim thinking, while maintaining a clear commitment to Jesus Christ and his gospel.
Ethnic Identity From the Margins: A Christian Perspective
In most people’s minds “ethnic” or “ethnicity” are terms associated with conflict, cleansing, or even genocide. This book explores—from three perspectives—the significance of ethnic communities beyond these popular conceptions. The first perspective is the reality of the author’s own experience as a member of the Welsh ethnic identity. The Welsh are a small people whose whole existence has been overshadowed by the more powerful English. This is the “margin” from which the author speaks. The second perspective is the Bible and evangelical mission and the third is the unprecedented movement and mixing of ethnic identities in our globalizing world. The book ends with the section on ethnicity in the Lausanne Commitment that, hopefully, marks the beginning of serious consideration by the evangelical missions community of this issue that deeply impacts the lives of many millions.
Finding Faithful Elders and Deacons (9Marks)
Every church leader knows the qualifications for elders and deacons that are spelled out in the Bible, but actually finding other leaders who fulfill the biblical qualifications can be difficult.
Thabiti Anyabwile writes from his expertise as a pastor and elder, showing how to identify and reproduce legitimate leaders and willing servants throughout the ranks of the local church. Balancing thoughtful analysis of pertinent passages with thorough application for practical use in a contemporary context, Anyabwile answers the questions, “Who should we look for to lead and serve in the church?” and “What should they do to fulfill their calling?”
From Head-Hunters to Church Planters: An Amazing Spiritual Awakening in Nagaland
There is a tendency today to associate revival and miracles with charismatic churches, but there were none of those in Nagaland when God first brought revival there. These powerful and life-changing visitations came to orderly, conservative Baptist congregations. As a result, Nagas found their true dignity not in themselves, their ethnic roots, their head-hunting, or the defense of their homeland, but they discovered it in the person and life of Jesus Christ, the living and one true God. This is a moving story of bravery and betrayal, suffering, persecution, supernatural intervention, and subsequent human weakness.