The Missions Show

By Alex Kocman and Scott DunfordSociety & Culture Religion & Spirituality Christianity Education Philosophy

The Missions Show episodes

March 10, 2019 Why You Should ‘Adult’ Before Pursuing Missions: A Chat With Lori McDaniel
What’s the danger in missions conferences and serial short-term missions trips? This week, we welcome back our friend Lori McDaniel, Church Initiatives Manager for IMB and also a pastor’s wife, to give her take on trends we’re seeing among Christian college students and why it’s so critical to learn to “adult”—in finances, education, career, marriage, family, and the local church—before moving overseas long-term.
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Powered by ABWE International.
36 min
March 03, 2019 The Number One Reason Missionaries Go Home
Globally, 71% of missionaries who return home each year leave the field for preventable reasons. What might be the biggest factor? We believe it all comes down to team dynamics.
What is it about cross-cultural ministry that is so uniquely stressful for teams? How can missionaries better handle conflict? And what does the Bible say about resolving disputes in a ministry context? Scott and Alex explore all these questions and more in this episode.
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44 min
February 25, 2019 A Biblical Theology of Spiritual Warfare and Missions
Among the practical topics on which missionaries receive hands-on training, spiritual warfare can sometimes fall by the wayside—but spiritual warfare is crucial for missionaries to grasp and engage effectively. How should we understand spiritual warfare in relation to pagan nations? Is exorcism normal and to be expected on the field? Do missionaries need to name territorial spirits by name and spiritually “map” their field? This week, Scott and Alex dive into these questions and build a brief biblical theology of spiritual warfare.
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43 min
February 18, 2019 Micah Fries: What Christians Should Know About Islam in North America
The presence of Islam in North America is still a lightning-rod issue, even 17 years after 9/11. This week we return to the topic of how Christians can engage their Muslim immigrant and refugee neighbors—and wade through the complicated waters of related political issues—in a way that is biblical and missional. We consulted a new guest, Micah Fries, Senior Pastor of Brainerd Baptist Church in Chattanooga, TN and editor of Islam and North America: Loving Our Muslim Neighbors.
Prior to serving at Brainerd, he served as the Vice President of LifeWay Research in Nashville, TN and as a frequent speaker in churches and conferences. He has served as a Senior Pastor in Missouri and an international church planter in Burkina Faso, West Africa. He holds a Master of Divinity from Midwestern Seminary and a Bachelor of Arts in Theology from The Baptist College of Florida. While in college, Micah met Tracy, and they married in May of 2000. Micah is currently a Ph.D. student, studying North American Missiology at Southeastern Seminary. After college graduation Micah & Tracy moved to Burkina Faso, West Africa where they worked as church planters among the Dagaara people of Burkina Faso and Ghana. After planting churches in West Africa, Micah and Tracy returned to the US where they moved to Kansas City so that Micah could attend seminary. Follow Micah on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.
Remember to share, rate, leave a review, and subscribe. Together we can help bridge the gap between the worlds of theology and missions.
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44 min
February 11, 2019 Paul Maxwell on What Missionaries Should Know About Trauma
Everybody is talking about trauma. Our culture is highly concerned with mental health, but a lot of half-baked opinions from pop psychology dominate the conversation. Simultaneously, those within the church are usually the last to show any willingness to address the legitimacy of biblically-informed psychology. For missionaries, the pressures are even greater as they face the stresses of life in a new culture—so how should missionaries think about trauma and the brain? Paul C. Maxwell joins us address how serious, Bible-believing, conservative Christians can should think about trauma, PTSD, and related struggles facing people in ministry.
Paul runs TheoFit. Paul earned his B. A. in Biblical Languages from Moody Bible Institute and his M.Div from Westminster Theological Seminary. While in Philadelphia, Paul served at a think tank devoted to integrating psychology and theology, where he was encouraged to research more about trauma as he began to process his own childhood abuse. Paul witnessed in conservative Protestantism a closed posture toward psychology, while at the same time, he saw in the psychological literature a growing obsession and hysteria with the concept of trauma among therapists in particular. Conservative Protestants were too captivated by the concept of moral responsibility to see the real pathological elements of trauma, and psychologists could not explain why or how the traumatized could take moral responsibility for their own recovery. Both opposing camps seemed, to Paul, too ideologically motivated to do meaningful work at the intersection of masculinity, faith, and trauma.
Paul earned his Ph.D. in 2018 from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School with a focus on trauma psychology. His doctoral dissertation was The Trauma of Doctrine: A Dogmatic Account of the Effects of Abuse upon the Believer's Experience of God. Paul was a professor of philosophy for 3 years at Moody and published over 12 peer-reviewed articles and reviews in journals such as Journal of Psychology & Theology, Journal of Spirituality in Mental Health, Journal of Spiritual Formation & Soul Care, Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, Philo, Westminster Theological Journal, and Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society.
After finishing his final year of doctoral research, Paul moved to Noblesville, IN, with his wife Molly. He is currently a personal trainer in the Indianapolis area. Paul has also consulted with university administrations to improve their level of mental health care for students. Follow him on Twitter.
Remember to share, rate, leave a review, and subscribe. Together we can help bridge the gap between the worlds of theology and missions.
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54 min
February 04, 2019 Fighting Abortion in Ukraine With the Gospel: Holly Friesen on Medical Missions
According to some stats, Ukraine—in many ways a nominally Christian country—leads the world in per-capita abortions. One in three Ukrainian women has had an abortion, and many women have had upwards of seven abortions each. What is the role of the local church of addressing this genocide of the unborn, both overseas and at home, and where does the gospel fit in? To answer those questions and share her own journey into medical missions in Eurasia, ABWE missionary Holly Friesen stopped by.
Holly Friesen serves in Odessa, Ukraine. A family nurse practitioner, she serves in Ukrainian church ministry, village clinics, abstinence teaching, and the pro-life ministry and pregnancy care center, with a focus on national partnership and evangelism. You can learn more about the Ukraine team’s ministry here.
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33 min
January 28, 2019 Missions and the Need for Deeper Women: Karen Swallow Prior and Anne Kennedy
Across the Internet—the place where many missionaries away from home get much of their theology and encouragement—there is a critical drought of deep-thinking resources for women. Many of the women’s resources simply play to one’s emotions or repackage common tropes like “you are loved” or “you are beautiful.” How can we make sure that we are helping women deepen in their faith, their view of culture, and their heart for the local church—so that they can be more effective on mission?
This week, we followed up with friend of the show Dr. Karen Swallow Prior of Liberty University, prolific author and research fellow with the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, to talk about The Pelican Project, a new resource designed to take evangelical woman deeper. Karen is the author of On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life in Great Books. We also spoke with Anne Kennedy, an MK, active church member, writer for The Pelican Project, and author of Nailed It: 365 Sarcastic Devotions for Angry and Worn-Out People.
Click here to hear our original interview with Karen.
Remember to share, rate, leave a review, and subscribe. Together we can help bridge the gap between the worlds of theology and missions.
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32 min
January 21, 2019 Breaking Down Cultural Walls to Reach Muslims: Mariya Dostzadah’s Story
Mariya Dostzadah Goodbrake comes from a Sunni Afghan background, dabbled into New Age mysticism, and found herself surrounded by Roman Catholics in Mexico—and it’s there that God brought her face-to-face with an evangelical Christian and the biblical gospel. Now, she draws on her rich cultural experiences to help Muslim refugees and expats realize that they don’t have to give up the trappings of their Near Eastern culture to authentically trust and follow Jesus Christ. In this episode, we hear Mariya’s powerful testimony and draw points of insight for those seeking to engage Muslims and other groups in the U.S. through sports outreach, hospitality, and other ways of building relationship.
Mariya is the director of Branch Global, delivering intercultural solutions, diversity and inclusion training, and migrant services. Mariya is the Executive Director of Global FC, a non-profit organization based in Kansas City that uses soccer as a vehicle for transformative impact, supporting refugee youth and families with the tools to overcome obstacles to success. A native from Afghanistan, Mariya was raised in Iran and India, immigrated to Canada with her family, and later to America in 2012. She studied at the University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada in Political Science and International Relations. She is fluent in English, Dari and Farsi.
Remember to share, rate, leave a review, and subscribe. Together we can help bridge the gap between the worlds of theology and missions.
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47 min
January 14, 2019 Porn: the Killer of Missions—With Benjamin Vrbicek
In our culture, sexual temptation is hitting the church like a tidal wave, and those serving overseas as missionaries are far from immune. Porn is a fatal undercurrent that Satan uses to eliminate gospel workers sniper-style and cripple missions efforts, and overseas workers separated from accountability and friends are particularly vulnerable. What factors drive a person in full-time ministry to pornography for comfort, control, or stress relief—and what gospel hope is there for someone struggling? This week we sat down in-studio with Benjamin Vrbicek, teaching pastor at Community Evangelical Free Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and author of the upcoming book Struggle Against Porn: 40 Diagnostic Tests for Your Head and Heart.
Benjamin Vrbicek blogs at Fan and Flame, and is the co-author of More People to Love. You can follow him on Twitter @BenjaminVrbicek. He has written for Desiring God, The Gospel Coalition, and For The Church.
Remember to share, rate, leave a review, and subscribe. Together we can help bridge the gap between the worlds of theology and missions.
Want to ask a question for a future episode? Email [email protected].
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36 min
January 07, 2019 Danny Akin on Mobilizing Millennials — and Young Men
Where are all the qualified, seminary-educated young men in the missions world? How can a Bible college or seminary maximize its potential to mobilize students for the work of the Great Commission? Where is the modern missions movement going? This week we’re joined by Dr. Danny Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, author, scholar, and passionate missions-mobilizer.
Dr. Akin is the sixth president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and has been serving in the role since 2004. Known as an advocate for international missions and expository preaching, he also has a reputation as a faithful husband and father and genuine man of God. Akin and his wife Charlotte have four sons, three daughters-in-law, and 12 grandchildren. You can follow Dr. Akin on Twitter or email him.
Remember to share, rate, leave a review, and subscribe. Together we can help bridge the gap between the worlds of theology and missions.
Want to ask a question for a future episode? Email [email protected].
Powered by ABWE International.
41 min

About The Missions Show

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The Missions Show answers hard questions about theology, missions, and practice to help goers think and thinkers go. We are conservative, evangelical, and gospel-centered.