Mission Round Table—Vol. 14 No.2 May-Aug 2019

“Are you looking down on me?” Taiwan is a shame-based culture.  Their sense of good and bad comes not from themselves, but from others.  Feeling shameful is even more common among the working class whom we serve. Last Christmas, we went Christmas carolling.  We went to the streets, played a guitar, sang carols, gave out [...]

Many churches are better at converting people than discipling them, and in many situations discipleship needs to go beyond traditional ideas of prayer, Bible reading, and church attendance. In that sense, the gospel delivered to those new to the faith can often be reductionist or truncated. This paper considers different ways in which both the [...]

This paper demonstrates that aesthetics challenges Christians in our contextual relationship with an aesthetics-dominated society, in our formulation of a theology that will make sense in this world while remaining faithful to Scripture, and in our practice of being the church. It shows the missiological implications are so great that we need to invest in [...]

Picking up Gantenbein’s call in "The Good News in a World of Aesthetics" to thinking and engagement, Eastwood applies these ideas to his own interaction with people while growing up in England and working in Taiwan. His reflection on these concepts in the light of artistic and architectural aesthetics in traditional Chinese culture calls us [...]

This paper is about the liberating message of the gospel and makes some applications to the church in relation to people with disabilities. Rowan encourages us to adopt Jesus’ agenda as laid out by Luke who shows that the liberating message of the gospel is first preached in peripheral places, integrates the teaching of the [...]

Peter Rowan's ideas in "The Gospel of  Liberation and the Implications for the Church in Relation to People with Disabilities" are personalized by Yao who describes his own experience. Knowing that Jesus journeys with him in his disability helps Yao in day-to-day life and as he accompanies and ministers to people with different disabilities. He [...]

This paper examines the way the gospel answers the ardent longings Filipino folk Catholics have for blessing. By examining the way his preunderstandings interfaced with the ideas of those with whom he worked, Andy Smith helps us see the importance of cultural exegesis of oneself and one’s target culture so that the gospel can be [...]

Nathan Keller describes ways in which Andy Smith’s approach in "Presenting the Good News as a Blessing" can be applied to his own ministry situation in Taiwan where people also desire to be blessed. But whether people seek blessing or something else, gospel messengers need to understand their cultural context, identify things that are highly [...]

The article supplies a model for delivering a first-person, narrative talk based upon a biblical text. Assuming the persona of a witness to the healing of the lame beggar by Peter and John, Brian Powell considers all of the people present and asks, “How would they react?” Brian Powell worked with the Manobo people in [...]

Reviewed by Iljo de Keijzer OMF missionary serving in the Philippines Carla and Jim Bowman began working in the 1980s among the indigenous people of South America. Their initial focus was on Scripture engagement. When they realized many people could not read well, their logical response was to teach literacy. At some point, they realized [...]

Reviewed by Eunice Au In this book, the author shares research she has gathered from personal interviews of women from approximately thirty nations. Each was selected because they were respected by colleagues and were able to serve and lead with excellence and integrity in God’s mission. Lederleitner brings the voices of these women to the [...]

Reviewed by Ka-Neng Au Librarian at OMF International Hunt’s biography brings to life a complex and brilliant Englishman who started his professional career in the military (posted by the Corps of Royal Engineers to Singapore to oversee the development of its harbor defences), then in ministry (missionary and mission leader in the Singapore District of [...]