The Missions Show

Lament—though it litters the psalter—is a lost art form in modern evangelicalism. In a culture as torn-apart as ours, it makes sense that engaging grief biblically can open spiritual doors previously shut. Not only that, but embracing the grace of lament can also prepare missionaries and pastors for the pains and losses that often mark the suffering, missional life.

Mark Vroegop, lead pastor of College Park Church in Indianapolis, trustee at Cedarville University, and council member of The Gospel Coalition, joins us to discuss his new book Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy. In this interview, we dive in to his own experience seeing missionaries like Jennifer DeKryger experience loss, and we talk about the pastoral and personal benefits of this lost spiritual discipline.

Along with being married to Sarah and the father of four children, he is a contributor to 15 Things Seminary Couldn’t Teach Me, and blogs regularly on his personal site. Follow Mark on Twitter.

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Are all the accounts of miraculous conversions among Muslim refugees true? What is unique about Athens, Greece amidst the ongoing people displacements in the Middle East? And what can U.S. churches learn from the hospitality and evangelistic zeal of Greek Christians? In this episode, Scott and Alex invited Darren Carlson to weigh in and take us on a journey through the planning and creation of his new documentary, Jesus in Athens.

Darren is President of Training Leaders International (TLI), a theological education ministry launched from Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota to equip and resource the 85 percent of pastors worldwide who have no formal biblical training. He’s also the brains behind the new documentary which chronicles the harrowing ordeal of Muslim refugees flooding into Athens from countries like Syria, Libya, and Iraq, only to encounter the love of Christ in the form of bold witness and radical mercy ministry among Greece’s tiny yet unignorable number of evangelical believers.

Darren founded TLI 2009, and now serves with a staff of over 50 people serving around the world, providing theological training in underserved and undertrained areas. Darren holds two masters from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and a Ph.D. from the London School of Theology. You can follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

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

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Reading well in Scripture, theology, culture, and literature in general is key to preaching and teaching that connects—especially for the cross-cultural worker. What should we be reading? Why does it matter? And how can we who are busy working and doing ministry have time to cultivate the life of the mind as we constantly prepare to minister God’s word?

In this episode, Scott and Alex talk about best practices for engaging Scripture, historical theology, and other key study sources without breaking our stride in all of life’s obligations.

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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Is preaching essential to missions, or is it a Western tradition that can be sacrificed for the sake of contextualization? Some advocates of disciple-making movements (DMM’s) claim the latter. In this interview, Tom Ascol and Jared Longshore of Founders Ministries explain why authoritative proclamation is indispensable to ministry in any culture.

Later in the episode, we address whether or not Reformed theology is compatible with missions and evangelism, and give pastors and seminarians words of advice for avoiding cultural trends bringing worldly sociological categories into our methods of outreach.

Tom Ascol is pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral, Florida, and Executive Director of Founders. Jared Longshore serves as associate pastor at Grace Baptist and Administrative Director of Founders. Together they host The Sword and the Trowel podcast, where they discuss issues of theology and culture ranging from church ministry and pastoral theology to social justice and biblical law.

Founder’s Ministry exists for the recovery of the gospel and the biblical reformation of churches. With a focus on serving the Southern Baptist Convention, Founders educates pastors and students on historic baptist theology through their journal, online study center, and more.

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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The average college student in the U.S. leaves with about $30,000 in educational debt. At what point do we stop sending missionaries to the field with students loans? Is it immoral to send expensive Western missionaries to serve where national partners could do the work of ministry much more affordably?

Luke Womack, executive director of The Go Fund, weighs in. The Go Fund specializes in student debt repayment for long-term missionaries, helping missionaries overcome financial hurdles to get the gospel into least-reached places.

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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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.

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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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.

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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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.

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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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.

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

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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.

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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