Introduced byJohnBaigent CHRISTIAN BRETHREN REVIEW No.39 PARTNERSHIP (original) (raw)
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The why,how and who of Partnership in Christian Missions
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Due to factors, such as globalization, rapid socio-cultural changes, increasing challenges to missions in limited access contexts, etc., Christian individuals and institutions are to have a biblical understanding of what it means to be brothers and sisters in the family of God. Hopefully, ...
A theology of partnership in a globalized world
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God has initiated and has continued to be in partnership with humans and the rest of creation. Christians have known this partnership in the particular shape of God's mission in Christ. Christian unity in Christ and unity in mission are the foundations of this partnership. The history of Christian mission is full of examples of this partnership, sometimes falling short or missing the mark of God's embodiment of Christ and, at other times, contributing to the work of making the gospel become real in the lives of communities. This article continues the conversation with the hope that it contributes a critical perspective to the discourse. To carry out this task, I will weave together the theological framing and the contextual setting in order to drive home the main points of my theology of partnership in a globalized world-a theology which, I hope, would inform or guide policies and programmatic expressions of partnering churches.
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Missiology, 2001
Beginning with a consideration of the meaning of "partnership" as that has been understood by the various Christian traditions in the twentieth century, the author bases his theology of mission partnerships on a missiological reading of Ephesians 4:1 to 5:2. Drawingfrom the major emphases ofPaul's thought in the text, Van Engen argues that because the church's oneness is centered in Jesus Christ (the motivation for mission), Christians are called to partner together for world evangelization, serving one another in love and humility (the agency ofmission) as they participate in Christ's mission, offering to one another the unique gifts given by the Holy Spirit to their various regional and global organizations and churches (the means ofmission), so that they may equip the saints for the work of ministry until they all together grow up into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (the goals ofmission partnerships). I n the summer of 1998, my house in California needed to be painted on the outside. So I contracted my son, Andrew, who was then 16, to work for me, and together we began working our way around that two-story house. A couple of weeks into the project, I was starting to climb a ladder to prime some eaves that my son had just scraped when he came running to the foot of the ladder. "Dad, Dad," he exclaimed. "I just thought of something I had never seen before!" "What's that?" I asked, trying not to fall off the ladder in the wake of his unexpected enthusiasm. "Dad, when two people work well together, they can accomplish more than twice what they could do working alone!" That discovery on the part of my son was worth the whole summer! And that fact is the heart of the issue facing us in missionary cooperation. Those of us associated with mission agencies, missionary orders, or denominational mission organizations may ask, "Why should we work together?" We all have Born and raised in Mexico of missionary parents, Charles (Chuck) Van Engen and his wife, Jean, served the National Presbyterian Church of Mexico from 1973 to1985 as missionaries involved in theological education; mass evangelism; youth, camping, and women's ministries; and refugee relief. Currently the Arthur F. Glasser Professor of Biblical Theology of Mission at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California, he is author of several books that include The Growth of the True Church, God's Missionary People, Mission on the Way; and is co-editor of others, including God So Loves the City and Footprints of God.
A Pauline Paradigm of Partnership [Concilium International Journal for Theology 1 (March 2010) ]
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In surveying recent literature pertaining to women"s ministry in the Pauline corpus, one encounters a multiplicity of voices talking at each other rather than entering into a dialogic discourse, each entrenched in fixed hermeneutical and doctrinal positions. Paradoxically, despite the diversity of perspectives, they reveal many parallels in approach. They construct arguments by appealing to (often) identical scriptural passages, present their own reading of tradition, critique "other" positions, and express a sincere search for truth, while claiming (implicitly or explicitly) to be aligned with the vision of Jesus for women. One of the recurring biblical coordinates in some arguments concerning women"s ministry is Gal 3:28. This article will assess some of the different ways this verse has been interpreted with regard to the position of women. It will then briefly refer to two passages related to female participation in the early church (1 Cor 14: 34-35, and Rom 16:1-16) to suggest a Pauline reading in terms of a paradigm of partnership.
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