Category Archives: Ministry tools and resources

Introducing: Free honor-shame course & study guide from Mission ONE

Bible study, Contextualization, curriculum, Global Christian mission, Gospel of Jesus, Honor and shame, Ministry tools and resources, The Global Gospel, , , , ,

Would you enjoy a biblically-rich learning journey to better understand honor, shame, and the gospel? Are you interested in how the gospel of Jesus Christ speaks to issues of honor and shame in you own life, family, or ministry?

Good news—Mission ONE now offers for free: Unit A (video lessons 1–6) of “Journey of Discovery in Honor, Shame, and the Gospel,” with myself (Werner Mischke) as instructor.

Also available—a free 60-page PDF study guide that goes with the videos. I carefully and lovingly crafted this guide in order to help followers of Christ internalize the relevant biblical ideas and principles in a step-by-step journey.

Here’s how to get started

  • Bookmark the Mission ONE YouTube page, where you can watch videos 1–6 (Unit A).
  • Download the free 60-page study guide; two versions are available:
    1. Standard Study Guide for  Unit A (if you prefer to print it out and hand-write your reflections)
    2. Virtual Study Guide for Unit A (if your prefer to use your device to record your reflections electronically)
  • Watch the videos in order: ideally, one video per week, starting with Class A1. Follow up each video session by doing the relevant set of five reflection lessons in the free study guide.
  • If you want, you can also read along in my book, The Global Gospel. You can get The Global Gospel, ePub edition, for just $6 here—by using a 50% off coupon: 50TGGe (expires April 30, 2020). The Global Gospel is also available at Amazon in various formats.

Curriculum design for a rich missional learning journey

  • Your learning tasks in the study guide are based on adult learning theory:
    1. Inductive—begin with what you already know.
    2. Input—receive new information.
    3. Implementation—try it out right away.
    4. Integration—weave it into your life and ministry.
  • The study guide provides guided reflection with five lessons per video session—ideally, five reflection lessons per week.
  • Small groups can use this video-plus-study-guide format in a six week study.
  • It’s a step-by-step journey; there is not too much in a single session; it is simple to do, but not simplistic.

Unit A has six lessons covering the material below:

Class A1: Honor-shame in the mission of God: Intro stories / Overview: guilt, shame, fear / Pathologies of shame / Blind spot: H-S in Western theology / ‘Honor-shame wheel’

Class A2: Honor-status reversal as Bible and Gospel Motif: Overview of status reversal motif—Old Testament and New / Honor-status reversal in Ephesians 2 / The Father’s Love Booklet

Class A3: Honor-Shame Dynamic—Love of honor: Glory of God/glory of humanity / Longing for honor satisfied in Christ / Salvation as gaining a new source of honor in Christ

Class A4: Honor-Shame Dynamic—Two sources of honor: Ascribed & Achieved: In Jesus’ life, in Christian life / Justification as God’s way to give believers ascribed honor

Class A5: Honor-Shame Dynamic—Image of Limited Good: In Christ: unlimited good / Shame resilience & honor surplus in Christ / Gospel of more than enough glory and honor

Class A6: Honor-Shame Dynamic—Challenge & Riposte: Honor competition as prominent social dynamic in NT / Phil 2:5–11 gospel of Christ as conquering sin via death and resurrection

Endorsements

WEBINAR SERIES PARTICIPANTS

I am thankful for this shame and honor webinar class. I’ve worked in French Africa for the last 25 years. Werner’s book and his teaching on honor and shame are pertinent daily in my ministry.

Mary Stone, TEAM

Werner aims for heart-integration in this class that leaves both lay and scholar with an honor-shame framework to integrate faith with holistic kingdom living. I’ve been training people in this arena for over a dozen years, yet God is using Werner’s passionate and integrative approach in this class to so bless my heart.

Steve Hong, KingdomRice

Through his book The Global Gospel and especially the webinar series, Werner has clearly, and with great depth, helped me to understand the importance of honor-shame. I am motivated me to preach it to the church to which God has called me. Also, the Study Guide exercises really help to personalize these truths.

Dennis Schwarm, Pastor, First Baptist Church Of Oakridge

Outstanding introduction and review of the world of honor, shame and the gospel. Werner’s humble delivery and personality never impede the scholarly potent message.

Marilyn Nasman

Thank you for these wonderfully helpful webinars. Each one is like a bit of yeast which really starts working after the session ends, and continues to bring transformation in our thinking and seeing. Having lived in an honor-shame culture for close to two decades, I am well aware of the many individual differences which exist between my host and home culture. However, the honor-shame webinar training has helped me begin to understand how all these individual differences hang together in a coherent worldview, and more than that, to find that same worldview throughout the Bible!

David Bakewell, Frontiers

SEMINAR PARTICIPANTS

I have found Werner’s material more helpful than any of the missionary seminars I had been to. This honor-shame material helps us craft messages that are relevant to the heart and soul of people for whom concepts of purity, defilement, and honor-shame are at the core of their being.

Sam Winfield, Avant Ministries

[After one-day honor-shame conference] … “Werner’s passion and expertise of the subject matter moved our hearts. His training and personal stories resonated with our audience, many of whom work directly with Muslims and Middle Easterners. We learned how Jesus covers our shame and restores our honor.”

Shirin Taber, Director, Middle East Women’s Leadership Network

Unit B (lessons 7–12) will be available soon. If you have any questions, write to me at werner@mission1.org.

Arabic version of The Father’s Love Gospel Booklet available now. Save 20% thru May 31.

Contextualization, Global Christian mission, Gospel of Jesus, Honor and shame, Ministry tools and resources

Now you can simply share the gospel with Arabic-speaking people—using The Father’s Love Booklet, Arabic edition.

Our Mission ONE partner has distributed thousands of these booklets in the Middle East. Many people like them. They love the illustrations … the unusual story … the open-ended questions … the honor-oriented gospel presentation … all about the amazing story Jesus told of the Prodigal Son.

Introductory discount: Get 20% off through May 31. Use this discount code at checkout: Arabic20  (Note: this coupon code is good only for the Arabic version of The Father’s Love Gospel Booklet.)

  • View all 20 pages of the Arabic version here.
  • 20-page booklet is carefully designed for people for whom honor and shame is vitally important
  • Based on the Prodigal Son story (Luke 15:11–32), using a respected modern translation of Arabic
  • Designed for easy conversation and interaction
  • For professionals, refugees, international students—anyone you know who speaks and reads Arabic.
  • Invites people to find forgiveness, salvation, and honor in Christ—through the love of the Father who covers our shame and restores our honor.
  • 20 pages; size: 5-1/8″ x 3-5/8″ — fits into a shirt pocket
  • Shrink-wrapped sets of 50 booklets
  • Translated by Mission ONE’s ministry partner in the Middle East, where tens of thousands of these booklets have been distributed.
  • Prices: 10 for $10 / 50 for $40 / 100 for $60 / 500 for $250. Plus shipping.

You can also see the English version here — and Spanish version here.

Introductory discount: Get 20% off through May 31. Use this discount code at checkout: Arabic20

To purchase now, click here.

We can, we MUST remove the Western blind spot about honor and shame. Here’s how:

Bible study, Gospel of Jesus, Honor and shame, Ministry tools and resources, The Global Gospel

The Bible is loaded with honor and shame. This makes sense since the societies of the Ancient Near East had honor and shame as their pivotal cultural value.

So understanding honor and shame in the Bible is vitally important because 1) it helps us to properly interpret the Bible, and 2) it helps us understand and relate to our multicultural world. This issue is magnified when we realize that the vast majority of the world’s unreached peoples are from honor/shame cultures.

guilt vs shame graphBut we in the West can hardly recognize the honor/shame dynamics in Scripture—even though there are more than twice as many references in the Bible to the word shame and its derivatives than the word guilt and its derivatives (see graph at right).[1]

Why this blind spot? John Forrester writes as a pastor:

We Western pastors have a blind spot. In a word, that blind spot is shame. We don’t learn about shame in seminary. We don’t find it in our theological reading. We don’t recognize it on the pages of Scripture. We don’t see it in our people. Shame is just not part of our pastoral perspective.[2]

Why do so many pastors have this blind spot? Because shame has not been a subject of theological inquiry.

One way to examine the degree of theological importance of a particular word is by looking at theological dictionaries. I went to Phoenix Seminary and did a little research at the library. My question was simple: In the available theological dictionaries, is there an entry for guilt and also an entry for shame?

Here’s what I found. The dictionaries are listed in order of the year they were published.[3]

Bible dictionaries guilt vs shame

This survey shows that it was 1996 when shame appeared as an entry in Elwell’s redo of his 1984 version. Interestingly, neither of the dictionaries published in 2000 had an entry for shame. The massive Global Dictionary of Theology by Dyrness and Kärkkäinen has an extensive entry for shame. But (sadly) the vast majority of Western pastors would not likely use a theological dictionary with a global scope.

What can we do to remove this blind spot in Western theology? Five suggestions:

1. Look for honor/shame as you read the Bible. You must read the Bible extensively in order to see how pervasive is honor and shame in the Bible. Regular reading of Scripture is essential. I started on my own journey of understanding honor/shame in the Bible by simply underlining and highlighting words and verses that included words or dynamics about honor and shame. You, too, can be on this learning journey, whenever you read your Bible.

2. Check out my free resources. You’ll find a variety of free stuff in various media: Gospel booklets, video, PowerPoint, articles, and even a skit—all focused on honor/shame dynamics and how it relates to cross-cultural ministry.

3. Subscribe to blogs about honor/shame written by evangelical mission leaders. In addition to my site, I especially recommend these two:

These sites have a wonderful growing array of free resources.

4. Read my book, THE GLOBAL GOSPEL: Achieving Missional Impact in Our Multicultural World. I break down nine honor/shame dynamics in the Bible societies—and one motif—and show how these dynamics overlap with verses about the gospel, the atonement of Christ, and salvation. This book attempts a comprehensive understanding of honor/shame in the Bible and what it means for the world Christian movement. It is a book for educators, thought leaders, trainers and key leaders. It is not an easy read, but if you take it slow, it might transform how you read the Bible, how you preach and teach, how you communicate the gospel, and how you collaborate with others in the global church.

5. Check out the Jan/Feb issue of Mission Frontiers magazine. The magazine is devoted to the subject of honor and shame and features a variety of authors and perspectives.

If we want our gospel message to better resonate with honor/shame peoples—so many of whom remain resistant to Christianity and remain unreached—we MUST contextualize that glorious message in the language of honor and shame.

1. Diagram adapted from “Figure 1.05: Words in the Bible derived from ‘guilt’—versus ‘shame’”, The Global Gospel, p. 47. Original research by Bruce Nicholls, “The Role of Shame and Guilt in a Theology of Cross-Cultural Mission,” Evangelical Review of Theology 25, no. 3, (2001): 232; as quoted by Timothy C. Tennent in Theology in the Context of World Christianity: How the Global Church Is Influencing the Way We Think About and Discuss Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007), 92–93.
2. John A. Forrester, Grace for Shame: The Forgotten Gospel (Toronto: Pastor’s Attic Press, 2010), 9.
3. This chart is taken from my book, The Global Gospel, p. 46: “Figure 1.04: Entries for “guilt” and “shame” in theological dictionaries”.

Parts of this blog post were excerpted from THE GLOBAL GOSPEL: Achieving Missional Impact in Our Multicultural World.

Spanish version of The Father’s Love Gospel Booklet now available

Gospel of Jesus, Honor and shame, Ministry tools and resources, , , ,

p1

 “Amor Del Padre” — the Spanish edition of The Father’s Love Gospel Booklet is now available. You can explore the pages of this resource at the Spanish page on the website for The Father’s Love Gospel Booklet. You may also click here to purchase.

Debi Clifton

I want to recognize Debi Clifton, Director of Global Outreach at Grace Community Church in Tempe, Arizona … Debi was responsible for the fine Spanish translation of The Father’s Love Gospel Booklet. I am grateful for her vital role in this project.
Debi has been a great encouragement to me in my journey of learning and sharing about the pivotal cultural value of honor and shame. Thank you, Debi!
Enhanced by Zemanta

Spanish version of “The Father’s Love Gospel Booklet” coming soon

Global Christian mission, Gospel of Jesus, Honor and shame, Ministry tools and resources, , , , ,

p1

The Spanish version of The Father’s Love Gospel Booklet has gone to print. They will be available for sale in early March.

Many people believe that the Latin American culture has honor and shame as a primary value. Any yet, most Latin American Christians are not familiar with how to share the Gospel of Christ in “the language of honor and shame”. Learn more about this resource at the website for The Father’s Love Gospel Booklet.

 

Enhanced by Zemanta

COSIM announces 17th annual conference May 7–9, 2012 in Phoenix, Arizona

Competencies for cross-cultural partnership, Cross-cultural partnership, Global Christian mission, Ministry tools and resources

COSIM — Coalition on the Support of Indigenous Ministries

COSIM—Coalition On the Support of Indigenous Ministries—is pleased to announce the convening of the 17th annual conference to be held May 7–9, 2012. The location is Mission Community Church, in Gilbert, Arizona near Phoenix.

The conference theme is “Cross-Cultural Partnership In the Context of Deep Change.” The conference is a continuation of the theme launched at the “RESET conference”—the 2011 North American Mission Leaders Conference—sponsored by The Mission Exchange and CrossGlobal Link.

Click here to visit the COSIM website.

Jane Overstreet, President and CEO of Development Associates International, will speak in the opening session of the 2012 COSIM conference

Jane Overstreet will be the keynote speaker on the evening of May 7th. Jane is the President & CEO of Development Associates International (DAI) a non-profit organization providing training and consulting in leadership and organizational management to more than 10,000 Christian leaders in 30 countries annually.

Other presenters include Scott Allen of Disciple Nations Alliance, Terry Dalrymple of Global CHE Network, J. Knox of International Turkey Network, and more, including members of the COSIM Resource Team.

COSIM is a learning community of evangelical Christians and organizations with a common interest in the support and capacity building of majority-world ministries.

Our mission is to expand the understanding and practice of cross-cultural partnerships with indigenous ministries for the advance of the gospel. We accomplish our mission through networking and sharing of best practices, with emphasis on partnerships between North American and majority-world missions.

Coalition on the Support of Indigenous Ministries (COSIM)

Almost there—The Beauty of Partnership, Standard Edition

Competencies for cross-cultural partnership, Cross-cultural partnership, Global Christian mission, Ministry tools and resources, Training

The Beauty of Partnership Study Guide, Standard Edition, is perfect for individuals and small groups who are engaging in cross-cultural partnerships, but are unsure about what constitutes truly healthy and wise practices. Ideal as a six-week study for small groups, we envision many local churches using this resource.

I have been working intensely on getting the Standard Edition version of The Beauty of Partnership Study Guide ready for distribution. This version of The Beauty of Partnership will be 210 pages. It will be one-third: study guide—with learning lessons and Bible studies—and two thirds: readings—from a variety of authors.

This edition of The Beauty of Partnership Study Guide is excellent for individuals and small groups who are engaging in cross-cultural partnerships, but are unsure about what constitutes truly healthy and wise practices. Ideal as a six-week study for small groups, we envision many local churches using this resource.

Foundational beliefs / assumptions for The Beauty of Partnership

  1. Healthy cross-cultural partnerships are centered in Jesus Christ and his mission. Healthy cross-cultural partnerships glorify God … are attractive because we live in such a fractured world … and are cost-effective.
  2. There is a continuing trend toward cross-cultural partnership in the work of Christian world missions.
  3. Many thousands of local churches are doing short-term mission trips without the benefit of training in cross-cultural ministry.
  4. A growing number of churches and Christian leaders are engaging in cross-cultural partnerships without the benefit of learning from those 
who are partnership experts; frequently, this results in misunderstand-ing, conflict, and significant wasted money and resources. This is a big problem in Christian world missions and can be remedied.
  5. Learning from a variety of experts is vital to gain a broad perspective.
  6. Healthy cross-cultural partnerships are the result of developing godly character, cultural intelligence, and organizational competence—
among all partners.
  7. Healthy cross-cultural partnership ministry is not exclusive to certain Christian agency professionals. Almost any adult follower of Jesus Christ can learn how to engage in healthy cross-cultural partnerships.
  8. Learning to engage in healthy cross-cultural partnerships benefits spiritual formation (becoming like Christ), and contributes to the health of one’s relationships generally.
  9. Most adults learn by doing; people grow and have genuine behavior change through being on a journey with others—“learning in community.”
  10. While Mission ONE still has much to learn, we believe we can provide 
significant value to others engaging in cross-cultural partnerships.

High quality, very low-cost resources for your partner ministries

Global Christian mission, Ministry tools and resources

Do you know about Equipping The Saints (ETS)—a ministry that provides a huge array of high-quality/low-cost ministry tools and resources—serving western as well as indigenous majority-world missionaries all over the world?

ETS is directed by my friend Keith Jones, with whom I have had the pleasure to serve as steering committee members for COSIM (Coalition on the Support of Indigenous Ministries). Keith and his team are wonderful servants to the Body of Christ around the world.

From the ETS web site:

ETS helps ministries find the materials and equipment they need at a minimal cost by networking with individuals, businesses and ministries around the U.S. to meet these needs. Whether it’s finding and shipping a bus to Chile, medical supplies to the Ukraine, computers to Tajikistan, a road grader to Brazil, shoes to Romania, clothes to Sudan, food for Iranian refugees or projectors to the Philippines, ETS is ready to serve.

Many items provided by ETS are obsolete in the U.S., but still useful in other countries. Most items come from government auctions. Other items are purchased at special discounts. Vehicles, medical and dental equipment, computers, office and school equipment are sometimes donated. Once, an entire print shop was given!

Why send used things to missionaries?

Here are six reasons why “used” can be better than “new”:

  1. Good quality used equipment is usually available at a fraction of the cost of new items.
  2. Used items usually clear Customs with no or greatly reduced fees.
  3. National co-workers can be equipped with the same ministry tools as missionaries without creating dependency or the perils of paternalism.
  4. Missionaries spend less time raising funds and more time in ministry.
  5. Parts and repairs for older computers, printers, projectors, etc., are more readily available in developing countries than for “the latest and greatest” gadgets.
  6. Used equipment shipments can provide employment opportunities for national believers.

Ministries are charged a minimal cost for the supplies and must pay for shipping. Books, Bibles and videos are regularly available in Spanish and French as well as English at a reduced cost. Items are available in other languages at your request. For a partial list of items available, click here. If you don’t see what you need, it’s possible that we can find it. Please email us at ets.usa@hotmail.com and let us know what you’re looking for.

Visit their web site! Check out Equipping The Saints—and discover how they can help you achieve your ministry vision—with high quality/low cost ministry tools and resources.