The Missions Show

What is a biblical definition “social justice” and how does it relate to the gospel? What bearing does the recent conversation about racial reconciliation—and the resulting controversy—have for missionaries ministering to disparate and people groups and ethnicities? How can the church do a better job of addressing social justice and racial issues without proposing leftist or statist solutions? We dive into all of these challenging questions this week with Collin Hansen of The Gospel Coalition.

Collin Hansen serves as editorial director for The Gospel Coalition. He is the author of several books, including Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist’s Journey With the New Calvinists and A God-Sized Vision: Revival Stories That Stretch and Stir (with John Woodbridge). He earned an MDiv at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and an undergraduate degree in journalism and history from Northwestern University. He edited Our Secular Age: Ten Years of Reading and Applying Charles Taylor and The New City Catechism Devotional, among other books. He and his wife belong to Redeemer Community Church in Birmingham, Alabama, and he serves on the advisory board of Beeson Divinity School.

Don’t forget to share this episode, rate the show, and leave a review in your favorite listening platform.

Want to ask a question for a future episode? Email [email protected].

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Should churches aim to be multiethnic, or should we stick to the homogenous unit principle inherited from missiologists? In today’s episode, Brian (last name withheld), a former IMB missionary to the Middle East and current missions pastor focusing on diaspora ministries, shares why the answer isn’t as simple as it seems—and how globalism is making cultural boundaries fuzzier than ever.

The church world is ablaze with conversation about multiethnic churches, racial reconciliation, and the social implications of believers’ fundamental unity in Christ. Meanwhile, expats and refugees from across the world are moving into North American cities in droves, but linguistic and cultural barriers prevent most churches from effectively engaging migrants.

Brian is a missions pastor for Wilcrest Baptist Church, a dynamic church in Houston—one of the U.S.’s most diverse cities. In our interview, he also shares how in the process of trying to engage expats in Houston, their church “accidentally” became an effective missions sending church in the process.

If you have been stumped by recent debates over the ethnic makeup of our churches, this episode will help you think in biblical categories—both in terms of our gospel unity, and the imperative to take the gospel into subgroups that wouldn’t otherwise hear the good news.

Don’t forget to share this episode, rate the show, and leave a review in your favorite listening platform.

Want to ask a question for a future episode? Email [email protected].

Powered by ABWE International.

Should churches aim to be multiethnic, or should we stick to the homogenous unit principle inherited from missiologists? In today’s episode, Brian (last name withheld), a former IMB missionary to the Middle East and current missions pastor focusing on diaspora ministries, shares why the answer isn’t as simple as it seems—and how globalism is making cultural boundaries fuzzier than ever.

The church world is ablaze with conversation about multiethnic churches, racial reconciliation, and the social implications of believers’ fundamental unity in Christ. Meanwhile, expats and refugees from across the world are moving into North American cities in droves, but linguistic and cultural barriers prevent most churches from effectively engaging migrants.

Brian is a missions pastor for Wilcrest Baptist Church, a dynamic church in Houston—one of the U.S.’s most diverse cities. In our interview, he also shares how in the process of trying to engage expats in Houston, their church “accidentally” became an effective missions sending church in the process.

If you have been stumped by recent debates over the ethnic makeup of our churches, this episode will help you think in biblical categories—both in terms of our gospel unity, and the imperative to take the gospel into subgroups that wouldn’t otherwise hear the good news.

Don’t forget to share this episode, rate the show, and leave a review in your favorite listening platform.

Want to ask a question for a future episode? Email [email protected].

Powered by ABWE International.

How can Christians understand individuals connected with the LGBT movement a mission field—full of people made in the image of God, in need of the gospel? ABWE North America missionary Jim Childs shares his story to help answer.

Jim is helping spearhead Every Ethne’s iniative to help churches in the U.S. reach across cultures without crossing borders, which includes reaching into the North American LGBT subculture. Jim was saved from an early age but spent decades in a homosexual lifestyle until the Lord brought him out through tragic circumstances and unexpected hospitality from believers. Today, he serves as an associate pastor with 360 Church and ministers to those facing same-sex attraction with Breakthough.

If you’ve been blessed by hearing Jim’s testimony, we encourage you to prayerfully support his budding ministry with ABWE.

Want to ask a question for a future episode? Email [email protected].

Powered by ABWE International.

How can Christians understand individuals connected with the LGBT movement a mission field—full of people made in the image of God, in need of the gospel? ABWE North America missionary Jim Childs shares his story to help answer.

Jim is helping spearhead Every Ethne’s iniative to help churches in the U.S. reach across cultures without crossing borders, which includes reaching into the North American LGBT subculture. Jim was saved from an early age but spent decades in a homosexual lifestyle until the Lord brought him out through tragic circumstances and unexpected hospitality from believers. Today, he serves as an associate pastor with 360 Church and ministers to those facing same-sex attraction with Breakthough.

If you’ve been blessed by hearing Jim’s testimony, we encourage you to prayerfully support his budding ministry with ABWE.

Want to ask a question for a future episode? Email [email protected].

Powered by ABWE International.

Pastors and missionaries are supposed to be sharing the gospel, but inwardly, many believe that they’re justified by their own performance. In this episode, Jared C. Wilson—a “failed church planter” who “once made a mess of his marriage” (his words, not ours!) whose rediscovery of gospel-centeredness transformed his life and ministry—shares why missionaries need to be preaching the gospel to themselves. Jared’s gospel emphasis is woven through all his books (including his most recent publication, Supernatural Power for Everyday People) with unique relevance for ministry workers facing burnout and forgetting their identity in Christ.

Later in the show we also tackle some of the issues with the seeker-sensitive/attractional church model and why church growth strategies end up having an adverse effect on a church’s ability to send cross-cultural workers overseas.

Jared C. Wilson is the Director of Content Strategy for Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Managing Editor of For The Church (and host of the FTC Podcast), and Director of The Pastoral Training Center at Liberty Baptist Church in Kansas City, MO.

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.

Pastors and missionaries are supposed to be sharing the gospel, but inwardly, many believe that they’re justified by their own performance. In this episode, Jared C. Wilson—a “failed church planter” who “once made a mess of his marriage” (his words, not ours!) whose rediscovery of gospel-centeredness transformed his life and ministry—shares why missionaries need to be preaching the gospel to themselves. Jared’s gospel emphasis is woven through all his books (including his most recent publication, Supernatural Power for Everyday People) with unique relevance for ministry workers facing burnout and forgetting their identity in Christ.

Later in the show we also tackle some of the issues with the seeker-sensitive/attractional church model and why church growth strategies end up having an adverse effect on a church’s ability to send cross-cultural workers overseas.

Jared C. Wilson is the Director of Content Strategy for Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Managing Editor of For The Church (and host of the FTC Podcast), and Director of The Pastoral Training Center at Liberty Baptist Church in Kansas City, MO.

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.

India is home to more unreached people groups, women and children in the sex industry, impoverished families, and idols then anywhere else on the planet. What impact could a few missionaries possibly have, and how does the hope of the gospel encourage them in the midst of such massive physical need? How are they balancing the priorities of social justice with their evangelistic mandate? Today, two ABWE workers join us to discuss the incredible doors God has opened for them in South Asia, and how the local church is filling a spiritual need that no NGO or sex trafficking rescue operation alone can address.

We’re enormously grateful for the chance to spread this expert content. Would you help us by sharing the episode, rating, leaving a review in your favorite listening platform, and subscribing? Together we can influence more gospel-centered theological teachers, writers, translators, and pastors to use their gifts where they’re most needed among the unreached.

Click here to see the ABWE history video we referenced towards the end of the episode.

Interested in supporting this couple’s work? To help us protect their identity, please email [email protected]. You can also learn more about ABWE’s partnership arm, GAP, on their public site, LiveGlobal.

Powered by ABWE International.

India is home to more unreached people groups, women and children in the sex industry, impoverished families, and idols then anywhere else on the planet. What impact could a few missionaries possibly have, and how does the hope of the gospel encourage them in the midst of such massive physical need? How are they balancing the priorities of social justice with their evangelistic mandate? Today, two ABWE workers join us to discuss the incredible doors God has opened for them in South Asia, and how the local church is filling a spiritual need that no NGO or sex trafficking rescue operation alone can address.

We’re enormously grateful for the chance to spread this expert content. Would you help us by sharing the episode, rating, leaving a review in your favorite listening platform, and subscribing? Together we can influence more gospel-centered theological teachers, writers, translators, and pastors to use their gifts where they’re most needed among the unreached.

Click here to see the ABWE history video we referenced towards the end of the episode.

Interested in supporting this couple’s work? To help us protect their identity, please email [email protected]. You can also learn more about ABWE’s partnership arm, GAP, on their public site, LiveGlobal.

Powered by ABWE International.

“When did Jesus get saved? Before his resurrection, or after?”

This is the type of question Dr. David Sills, author, SBTS professor, and President of Reaching and Teaching International Ministries, hears from tragically untrained and under-discipled national pastors across the world. But as many churches and agencies are pulling missionaries around of “reached” places like Latin America and parts of Africa, in the name of focusing on those who have little-to-no gospel witness, the result has been that these national pastors are getting less and less of the solid theological training they need. In this episode, Dr. Sills shares why it’s essential to train leaders for the long haul, and why aiming solely at “unreached” people groups with less than 2% evangelicals is the wrong goal.

Then, towards the tail end of the episode, we take a detour to talk about what exactly it means to be “called” to missions. We guarantee this episode will be paradigm-shifting for some of our listeners. We encourage everyone to check out Dr. Sills’ ministry, and follow him on Twitter.

We’re enormously grateful for the chance to spread this expert content. Would you help us by sharing the episode, rating, leaving a review in your favorite listening platform, and subscribing? Together we can influence more gospel-centered people to use their gifts where they’re most needed among the unreached.

Want to ask a question for a future episode? Email [email protected].

Powered by ABWE International.