Radical Outreach

Radical Outreach
Author: George G. Hunter
Publisher:
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2003
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780687074419

This book tells how the contemporary church can reclaim its ancient witness through hands-on ministries with the unchurched. When it comes to transforming people's lives and leading them into active Christian discipleship, why does there seem to be such a difference between the church we read about in the New Testament and our own churches today? What was it about those earliest Christians that empowered them to spread the gospel with such startling results? One core reason, says George G. Hunter III, is that they reached out into the communities in which they lived. Instead of building fortress churches and inviting others to come join them inside the walls, the earliest Christians spread out, engaging in hands-on ministries to meet the needs of people where they were. The churches today that have reclaimed this apostolic ministry are the ones that do not rely on worship, or even preaching, to woo the unchurched into visiting them. Rather, they use outreach ministries -- everything from recovery groups to English-as-a-second-language classes -- to reach those most in need of the healing word of the gospel.

Radical

Radical
Author: David Platt
Publisher: Multnomah
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2010-05-04
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1601422210

New York Times bestseller What is Jesus worth to you? It's easy for American Christians to forget how Jesus said his followers would actually live, what their new lifestyle would actually look like. They would, he said, leave behind security, money, convenience, even family for him. They would abandon everything for the gospel. They would take up their crosses daily... But who do you know who lives like that? Do you? In Radical, David Platt challenges you to consider with an open heart how we have manipulated the gospel to fit our cultural preferences. He shows what Jesus actually said about being his disciple--then invites you to believe and obey what you have heard. And he tells the dramatic story of what is happening as a "successful" suburban church decides to get serious about the gospel according to Jesus. Finally, he urges you to join in The Radical Experiment -- a one-year journey in authentic discipleship that will transform how you live in a world that desperately needs the Good News Jesus came to bring.

Leaning Both Ways at Once

Leaning Both Ways at Once
Author: Jeffrey A. Conklin-Miller
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 132
Release: 2020-08-26
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1498291473

How should the Methodist tradition continue to embody its evangelistic mission? Some believe effective evangelism requires ecclesial adaptation seeking relevance to attract outsiders. But does this strategy result in the church's embrace of consumer market practices, pandering to a world of church shoppers? Others suggest the most evangelistic thing the church can do is to be the church, displaying to the world the attractive beauty of a holy community. But could this ironically distance the church from its context and neglect the many ways the church is called to engage the world? The Wesleys formed a people called Methodist, embodying an evangelistic mission combining commitments to disciplined spiritual life and vital social engagement. In this book, Conklin-Miller suggests faithful (United) Methodist evangelism requires living in the tension between the church and the world, "leaning both ways at once," emphasizing the holiness of the church as a particular people, but at the same time, being a people sent to intercede in the world as servants, advocates, and witnesses. This understanding constitutes not only a broader reframing of evangelistic mission but also a vision for the identity and agency of the church in the Wesleyan tradition: a Methodist missional ecclesiology.

The Apostolic Congregation

The Apostolic Congregation
Author: Dr. George G. Hunter III
Publisher: Abingdon Press
Total Pages: 301
Release: 2010-09-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1426720076

A church in the heart of Manhattan and a congregation among the Inuit people of Northern Canada would seem to have little in common with one another. Yet in one way they are surprisingly similar: They are both apostolic congregations, churches whose every program exists for the purpose of presenting the gospel to non-Christians, and making disciples of Jesus Christ. What is the secret of churches like these; how have they learned to make evangelism central to everything they do? In studying apostolic congregations around the world, George G. Hunter III has discovered a set of perspectives and practices that they all share. With the passion and insight for which he is so well known, Hunter demonstrates how your congregation can learn to focus on the one thing that most matters: bringing people into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ.

Uncomfortable

Uncomfortable
Author: Brett McCracken
Publisher: Crossway
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2017-09-15
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1433554283

Does your church make you uncomfortable? It’s easy to dream about the “perfect” church—a church that sings just the right songs set to just the right music before the pastor preaches just the right sermon to a room filled with just the right mix of people who happen to agree with you on just about everything. Chances are your church doesn’t quite look like that. But what if instead of searching for a church that makes us comfortable, we learned to love our church, even when it’s challenging? What if some of the discomfort that we often experience is actually good for us? This book is a call to embrace the uncomfortable aspects of Christian community, whether that means believing difficult truths, pursuing difficult holiness, or loving difficult people—all for the sake of the gospel, God’s glory, and our joy.

Territoriality of Radical Islamist Groups

Territoriality of Radical Islamist Groups
Author: Bohumil Doboš
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 148
Release: 2021-05-04
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1000383563

This book examines the issue of territorial control by violent jihadist groups, using a comparative perspective. The book argues that in many parts of the world the connection between a state and the control over territory is not as close as presented by conventional political maps, and therefore it is necessary to analyse the territoriality of non-state actors as well. Based on a variety of case studies, the work looks at different levels of connection between the violent Islamist groups and territory, dividing them into non-territorial, semi-territorial and territorial groups. While the majority of the cases are located in the Middle East (Islamic State, Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaeda at the Arabian Peninsula, Ha ́yat Tahrir al-Sham, Hamas and Hezbollah), the book also draws cases from Africa (groups in the western Sahel, Al-Shabaab and Boko Haram), South Asia (Taliban), and East Asia (Abu Sayyaf). By providing in-depth understanding of their respective approaches to territory, the book identifies the specifics of each group’s territoriality, while also drawing more general conclusions. This book will be of much interest to students of terrorism and political violence, radical Islam, Middle Eastern studies, and International Relations in general.

The East Is Black

The East Is Black
Author: Robeson Taj Frazier
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2015-02-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0822376091

During the Cold War, several prominent African American radical activist-intellectuals—including W.E.B. and Shirley Graham Du Bois, journalist William Worthy, Marxist feminist Vicki Garvin, and freedom fighters Mabel and Robert Williams—traveled and lived in China. There, they used a variety of media to express their solidarity with Chinese communism and to redefine the relationship between Asian struggles against imperialism and black American movements against social, racial, and economic injustice. In The East Is Black, Taj Frazier examines the ways in which these figures and the Chinese government embraced the idea of shared struggle against U.S. policies at home and abroad. He analyzes their diverse cultural output (newsletters, print journalism, radio broadcasts, political cartoons, lectures, and documentaries) to document how they imagined communist China’s role within a broader vision of a worldwide anticapitalist coalition against racism and imperialism.

Go

Go
Author: Dr. George G. Hunter III
Publisher: Abingdon Press
Total Pages: 143
Release: 2017-02-21
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1501835505

Churches and denominations often appear to settle for a primary objective that is less than what the apostles recommended. If we are honest, most church leaders acknowledge that our institutional sense of purpose is inconsistent, at best. In some places the purpose of the church is quite narrowly defined, and in others the definition is so broad that it seems meaningless. People wonder, “Is this all there is to the church?” It’s a good question, and George Hunter, a longtime keen observer of the church, demonstrates the answer. Hunter’s richly descriptive explanation of the “missional church” will convince leaders and students to recover a clear and consistent sense of purpose. As we are the stewards of “the faith once delivered to the saints,” so we are the heirs of the mission once entrusted to the apostles and their movements. The church’s mission, locally and globally, is or should be its main business. The “real church” is an “ecclesia”—God’s “called out” people whom the Lord shapes into an “apostolate”—and “sends out” to be publicly present in the world—but not of it. This mission is a serving, witnessing, inviting outreach to all people.