Interview with George Walker...

In this episode of Global Missions in the 21st Century, Hoffman sits down with Pastor Daniel Gonzalez, the Latino pastor at First Baptist Church Opelika. Originally from Cuba, Daniel spent three decades planting churches and multiplying leaders under one of the most restrictive communist regimes in the world — starting when evangelicals made up less than 0.01% of the population. He went on to help catalyze a movement to plant 100,000 house churches and train a new generation of missionaries sent from Cuba to India, Central America, and beyond.Now, by what felt like a series of divine detours, he leads a thriving congregation of immigrants from 19 different nations right here in Lee County, Alabama — a “reverse mission” that is bringing the lessons of the Global South to the American Bible Belt.Together, they explore what persecution teaches the church about essentials: why you must put people before programs, the kingdom before institutions, and mission before mere maintenance. Daniel unpacks his philosophy of discipleship — not filling people with information, but calling them into God’s mission and training them along the way. He shares how the integral mission theology of René Padilla and Samuel Escobar reshaped his dispensational upbringing, compelling him to address not just the soul but the whole of life — work, family, legal status, and community.Their conversation turns to the complexities of immigration, where Daniel offers a pastoral challenge both to his own congregation (“do not present yourselves as victims”) and to the wider American church (“before you are a political party, you are a Christian — so form a Christian opinion”). And he reflects on the counterintuitive challenge of living by faith in a land of plenty, where the basics are no longer a daily miracle but the call to deeper dependence remains.If you want to understand the future of the North American church, you need to listen to the voices God is bringing to your own neighborhood. This conversation is an excellent place to start.--This conversation is part of Christ Our Redeemer Seminary's Global Missions in the 21st Century course and our "Learning with the Whole Church" initiative: a commitment to listening to and learning from the global Church, particularly those serving among the least-reached peoples of the world. Christ Our Redeemer Seminary is a partnership of churches in Auburn and Opelika, Alabama, equipping Christlike leaders for God's global mission.Learn more: christourredeemer.orgFind us on podcast platforms: Christ Our Redeemer Seminary Podcast

Interview with Ronald Laldinsuah...

Interview with Christopher Wright...

Interview with Corey Jackson...

Interview with Spring...

Takaki is a PhD candidate in business at Auburn University, originally from Kobe, Japan, who grew up with no Christian friends, no Christian education, and the quiet cultural assumption that religious groups were something to be wary of. That all began to change when he studied abroad in Australia and stumbled into a dinner gathering for international students hosted by a Christian ministry.In this episode of Global Missions in the 21st Century, Takaki traces his remarkable journey to faith — from the emotional openness he felt among believers in Australia, to the three years he spent studying Romans verse-by-verse with an American missionary who had to leave Japan after only three months, to the day tears filled his eyes as he realized he could no longer say the Bible wasn't true.He gives us, firsthand insight into the Japanese spiritual landscape: why the Emperor's post-war declaration that he was merely human devastated a nation, how a quasi-Christian cult's terrorist attack in the 1990s deepened skepticism toward all religion, and why his friends warned him to "be careful" when he started reading the Bible. He also walks through J.H. Bavinck's five "magnetic points": the universal religious longings for connection, moral norms, deliverance, destiny, and a higher power. And he unpacks how each surfaces in the the heart of Japanese people.Now living in Auburn as a Christian and an international student, Takaki reflects on the loneliness of being far from home, the unexpected gift that loneliness became for his prayer life, and how being a non-Westerner opens doors for gospel conversations that might otherwise stay closed. He also offers gentle, practical advice for American Christians wanting to welcome international students: take the initiative, because for many East Asians, "giving them space" can feel like being left out.This conversation is a window into the mind and heart of Japan's next generation — and a reminder that God is drawing people to Himself from every tongue, tribe, and nation, often through the patient, cross-cultural friendship of one faithful person.--This conversation is part of Christ Our Redeemer Seminary's Global Missions in the 21st Century course and our "Learning with the Whole Church" initiative: a commitment to listening to and learning from the global Church, particularly those serving among the least-reached peoples of the world. Christ Our Redeemer Seminary is a partnership of churches in Auburn and Opelika, Alabama, equipping Christlike leaders for God's global mission.Learn more: christourredeemer.orgFind us on podcast platforms: Christ Our Redeemer Seminary Podcast

Ryuta Kimura is the pastor and church planter of Double O Cross Church in Kichijoji, Tokyo — a neighborhood pulsing with anime culture, university students, and young people longing for a life they don’t yet have. In a country where Christians make up less than 1% of the population and the average evangelical pastor is over 70 years old, Ryuta is part of a small but courageous movement replanting the gospel deep into Japanese soil.In this episode of Global Missions in the 21st Century, Ryuta shares his unlikely journey to faith — from a failed university entrance exam, to a language school attached to a seminary in the north of England, to a haunting dream after a friend's suicide that chased him toward Christ. He describes what it’s like to follow Jesus in a collectivist culture where identity is formed by the group, where leaving a church is often done in silence out of fear of offense, and where trying harder is the default posture of the human heart.At the center of the conversation is the delicate, patient work of contextualization: learning the stories a culture tells itself, like the anime trope of dying in one world to start again in another, and rewriting those narratives with Jesus as the true and better ending. Ryuta unpacks how his church uses the language of idolatry, counterfeit gods, and subversive fulfillment to speak into the longings of Japanese young people without adding to their burnout.He also offers a generous word to the wave of missionaries now turning their attention toward Japan. Come with humility. Learn the language. Let the Japanese church lead. And don’t repeat the story of the church that had to close its doors and start over, just to escape being swallowed by well-intentioned outsiders.If you want to understand what church planting looks like in a post-Christian, relentlessly urban, deeply relational culture — and why the future of global missions belongs to indigenous leaders like Ryuta — this conversation is essential.--This conversation is part of Christ Our Redeemer Seminary's Global Missions in the 21st Century course and our "Learning with the Whole Church" initiative: a commitment to listening to and learning from the global Church, particularly those serving among the least-reached peoples of the world.Christ Our Redeemer Seminary is a partnership of churches in Auburn and Opelika, Alabama, equipping Christlike leaders for God's global mission.Learn more: christourredeemer.orgFind us on podcast platforms: Christ Our Redeemer Seminary Podcast

In this episode of Global Missions in the 21st Century, Hoffman sits down with Dr. Dan Strange, theologian, author, and fellow at the Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics, for a rich conversation on J.H. Bavinck's enduring legacy for missionary theology.Dr. Strange shares his personal journey from a mixed Hindu-Christian background to becoming the scholar most responsible for bringing J.H. Bavinck into contemporary evangelical discourse. Together, they explore three of Bavinck's most powerful missiological concepts:1) Elenctics: the discipline of "unmasking sin" and confronting every person with the question, "What have you done with God?"2) Magnetic Points: the five universal religious longings (totality, norm, deliverance, destiny, and higher power) that shape religious consciousness across every culture3) Subversive Fulfillment: how the gospel both confronts and connects with the deepest longings of the human heart, drawn from Hendrik Kraemer's theologyDr. Strange also discusses his newly edited edition of Bavinck's The Church Between Temple and Mosque, the relevance of Bavinck's framework for post-Christian Western contexts, and what it means to engage people of other faiths with both theological conviction and humble, Christ-like love.--This conversation is part of Christ Our Redeemer Seminary's Global Missions in the 21st Century course and our "Learning with the Whole Church" initiative: a commitment to listening to and learning from the global Church, particularly those serving among the least-reached peoples of the world. Christ Our Redeemer Seminary is a partnership of churches in Auburn and Opelika, Alabama, equipping Christlike leaders for God's global mission.Learn more: christourredeemer.orgFind us on podcast platforms: Christ Our Redeemer Seminary Podcast

What if the people most hostile to organized religion are actually the ones who teach you what the church is supposed to be?Tim Coomar is the Operations Director for City to City Europe and a former church planter in one of the most unlikely neighborhoods on the continent. With a British passport, a Sri Lankan father, and a Greek mother, Tim’s cross-cultural story prepared him for a unique calling: moving his family into Exarchia, the anarchist capital of Athens, at the height of Greece’s economic crisis and civil unrest.In this episode of Global Missions in the 21st Century, Tim takes us inside a world of street fights, Molotov cocktails, and social centers—and reveals the surprising "magnetic points" for the gospel he found there. He shares how the horizontal, anti-authoritarian values of anarchist communities forced him to re-examine what it means to be the church as a "one-another" community rather than a patron-client institution.From teaching himself to code websites in order to serve his neighbors to earning the trust of a community that decided whether he stayed or left, Tim’s story is a masterclass in incarnational mission, deep contextualization, and the long, slow work of friendship.Now serving church planters across 40+ European cities, Tim reflects on the lessons learned from the first wave of post-Christian church planting: why the "celebrity" model failed, how the real engine is the bond of the Spirit expressed in cross-denominational friendship, and why the second mountain of European mission requires a posture of listening and a commitment to the "we" rather than the "me."

---This conversation is part of Christ Our Redeemer Seminary's Global Missions in the 21st Century course and our "Learning with the Whole Church" initiative: a commitment to listening to and learning from the global Church, particularly those serving among the least-reached peoples of the world. As the Apostle Paul wrote, "the eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need of you'" (1 Cor. 12:21). The Church in the West has much to learn from brothers and sisters who have long labored faithfully in hard soil.Christ Our Redeemer Seminary is a partnership of churches in Auburn and Opelika, Alabama, equipping Christlike leaders for God's global mission.Learn more: christourredeemer.orgFind us on podcast platforms: Christ Our Redeemer Seminary Podcast