The Mission Phoenix

The job of an evangelistic missionary can be summarized in one word: contextualization. For some reason, that word has a bad reputation in some circles. I’m not quite sure why – perhaps it has been used as a catch-all to justify teachings or practices that depart from the Word of God.

But it doen’t deserve a bad reputation. Contextualizing a message means that the message is presented in a way that is understandable to the hearers. Every LCMS past...

I, for one, am completely fed up with the “shell game” that LCMS World Mission is playing with the missionary numbers. LCMS World Mission works very hard to give the impression that we are sending more career missionaries now than ever, even though that is absolutely not true.

The recent headline: “Fan into Flame tops 55.9 million; Funds 29 missionaries”  (http://www.lcm...

Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. – I Peter 5:7

       God is interested in your well-being. Did you ever think of that? He is. He wants you to be healthy, free from worry, confident about the future, and in good spirits. He wants your marriage to be wonderful, your children to be a blessing to you, and your single-ness to be satisfying. If you are not well – spiritually, emotionally, phy...

       "What do you think of LCMS World Mission?"

       Don't you find that to be a hard question to answer? I know I do. I think that most LCMS missionaries have a love/hate relationship with our denominational mission organization. It goes with the territory.

       The way a missionary feels about their sending agency has a lot to do with the reason why a missionary goes overseas...

Everyone loves a good missionary story. Heck, I love a good missionary story, and I've lived dozens of them! The story we love to hear is the one where the precious Good News of salvation in Jesus Christ is shared with someone who - in all likelihood - would never have heard that old, old story if the missionary had never come. If we, as the Church, had not sent that person. If we had not supported him or her. We love the missionary story, because we - all of us
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