REIMAGINING MISSION TEACHING MISSION FOR A CHANGING WORLD

The 2019 Proceedings of The Association of Professors of Mission

2019 APM Annual Meeting, St. Mary College, South Bend, IN June 13-15, 2019

First Fruits Press Wilmore, Kentucky c2023

ISBN: 9781648170782

Reimaging mission : teaching mission for a changing world

2019 proceedings of the Association of Professors of Mission

First Fruits Press, ©2023

Digital version at https://place.asburyseminary.edu/academicbooks/40/

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Reimaging mission : teaching mission for a changing world / edited by Robert A. Danielson. – Wilmore, Kentucky : First Fruits Press, 2023.

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"The 2019 proceedings of the Association of Professors of Missions : 2019 APM annual meeting, St. Mary College, South Bend, In, June 13-15, 2019".

ISBN: 9781648170782 (paperback)

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1 Missions Study and teaching Congresses. 2. Missions Theory Congresses.

3 Education Methodology Congresses. 4. Teaching Methodology Congresses

I. 2019 proceedings of the Association of Professors of Mission II. Danielson, Robert A. (Robert Alden), 1969- editor. III. Association of Professors of Mission.

IV. Association of Professors of Mission Annual Meeting (2019 : South Bend, Ind.)

BV2020.A876 2023

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Table of Contents

Cross-Cultural Courses: Traveling Abroad to Strengthen Our Missions Courses

Shawn P. Behan1

Abstract

Using my own experience as both a student and teacher of travel courses as a basis, I will discuss the role and signi cance of travel courses for enhancing missiology/intercultural studies programs. When done well, such travel courses have the chance to change perspectives and expose students to issues and perspectives that they may have never known, or fully appreciated, before. As such, these courses can become an essential element to preparing the future generation of church and missions leaders, alongside their theological education. Ultimately, I will provide a thorough grounding for developing more travel courses and some tips for designing these courses as e ective training tools for our students.

Introduction

As we got o the bus for our third historical site of the day, my feet ached and my back was tired. e air was humid, the sun beat down on my tanned neck, and the water in my backpack had long turned warm as we trudged our way through this arid historical landmark. When we nally made it to the back of the property, the professor pulled out his Bible and began reading 1 Samuel 4. As we stood there, on the very spot of the ancient tabernacle in the historical site of Shiloh, I could begin to imagine the disheveled Benjamite running through the pass leading up to the city. I turned my eye toward the tabernacle grounds and I could picture old Eli, blind from age, sitting in his chair, awaiting the outcome of the battle. And I could envision the Benjamite telling Eli about the death of his sons and the capture of the Ark of the Living God, and Eli falling over backward to his own death. e month I spent in Israel during my MA studies radically changed the way I read scripture, and to this day images of these historic places ash through my memory every time I read the story of God’s people. I have been a proponent of traveling courses ever since. As well, when I had the chance to lead students through a church planting course in Europe and witness the radical new ideas these few days in a di erent culture spawned, I was convinced of the necessity of not only learning about mission to other cultures but experiencing it.

It is these experiences that has brought me to advocate for travel courses as an essential part of missiological and theological education, for it is in our experience of other cultures where we begin to see theory put into practice in new and innovative ways. us, through the course of this paper I will look at the pedagogical foundations for travel courses, some helpful lessons to maximize the usefulness of travel courses, and expose the bene ts to our students and our schools.

Pedagogy

We cannot enter a discussion about missions education and simply say that experiencing di erent cultures is bene cial to our students, rather we must start with the pedagogical foundations for such a claim. By turning our attention to theories of experiential learning, we have a solid foundation for beginning to develop an academic reasoning for travel courses. By placing experiential learning in conversation with other contemporary modes of teaching at the college and graduate levels - lecture and discussion - we can cra a pedagogical theory for travel courses that balances theory and practice. erefore, in this section we will look at the pedagogical groundings for both learning-centric and experiential higher education, ultimately concluding with a combined pedagogy that will begin to reveal the relevance and signi cant of travel courses for missions education.

e rst place to start this discussion is in understanding what we are attempting to do in adult higher education. In utilizing Bloom’s taxonomy, we can see that much of primary education is about remembering, understanding, and applying important concepts; the big shi that happens at the college and graduate levels is moving towards analyzing and evaluating these concepts, ultimately coming to the top of Bloom’s pyramid with the creation of new concepts at the doctoral level. Educating this adult population, then, takes on a very di erent mode, focused more on the development of the analytical muscle that will be most helpful for our adult students. is is done by one of two means, either lecture or discussion, and most o en (at least in missions education) it is a combination of both. is constitutes the traditional form of learning, which is best described by adult education expert Jane Vella, is antiquated form of teaching focuses entirely on the professor and fails to actually move the adult student up Bloom’s pyramid, barricading them in the understanding and application stages as they simply regurgitate the professor’s lectures. Such a style not only fails the students by not helping them grow into fully formed adults, it is a failure of our society and world as well - by keeping adults in adolescent ways of thinking and learning. is is based in a false epistemology that does not see the di erence between youth and adult learners. is is exactly what Vella is trying to correct by providing “a practical guide to an epistemology for learning-centered teaching that considers adult learners as subjects or decision makers in their own learning. I propose that such an epistemology is the only appropriate one for a civil, global society that is based on inclusive democracy” (Ibid., xvi). us, this new way of thinking about adult education requires that we see each learner as a key agent in their own education. In our world today, such a perspective on adult education is sorely needed. “We are at a critical moment in history when sheer numbers and violent events are driving us to rethink current educational paradigms and practices in professional training, industrial training, and community education in universities, schools and colleges” (Vella 2002, ix). e problem of the size of the population seeking education as adults, and current events is calling for new ways of teaching. It is to this problem that Vella proposes a move away from traditional lecture style adult education and more towards learning-centered styles. is transition focuses on moving beyond lecture alone into lecture and discussion with a concern for practical application. In this shi , she points out twelve essential principles for adult education:

A common pattern of teaching has been for the professor to lay out the content (skills, knowledge, attitudes) and then design exercises so that learners work with what they have heard or seen in order to learn it. is pattern is not only what teachers expect to do. It is what learners expect as well (Vella 2001, xiv).

• needs assessment (learns help determine what to learn)

• safety (safe environment for learning)

• sound relationships (between all members of the learning community)

• sequence (proper ordering and reinforcement of the content)

• praxis (learning by doing)

• respect (each learner is an independent decision maker)

• ideas/feelings/actions (the cognitive, a ective, and psychomotor sides of learning)

• immediacy (relevance to now)

• roles (clearly de ned and developed)

• teamwork (using small groups)

• engagement (with what is being learned)

• accountability (proving they know what they learned). (Vella 2001, 3–27)

It is these principles of learning-centered education that we strive to live out in our contemporary, discussion based missions education.2 e way Vella develops this learning-centered education is through the learning task.

“A learning task is a way to structure dialogue. It is an open question put to members of a small group who have been given all the resources they need to respond. A learning task is a way of ensuring engagement of learners with the new content. Structuring dialogue by setting useful learning tasks is one way to e ective teaching” (Vella 2001, xiii).

It is this learning task that becomes the key component to learningcentric education and which we must start with as teachers of future pastors, missionaries, and ministry leaders.

Yet, learning-centric education alone also has some holes in its execution. Higher education is run by those with PhDs who have focused on the theory of the topic being discussed. us, our classrooms may have switched the model of teaching, but the content has remained the same. And in the best cases, where we might strive to combine theory and practice through assignments, we still have an abundant focus on theory. us, we must look to other pedagogical ideas for ways to incorporate more practice in our courses. is is where experiential learning ts into the equation.

Experiential Learning

roughout the twentieth century, experience has become a more prominent component to learning, particularly adult education (Kuk and Holst 2018, 150). Because of this, various models for experiential learning have been developed, but no matter the model they all seem to follow the same basic mapping of experiential learning, which includes: prior knowledge, the experience, re ection, and learning (Ibid., 152). It is through re ecting upon existing knowledge through the lens of the experience that experiential learning begins to shi perspectives and generate new ideas among students. But what is experiential learning?

In its more current statement (Kolb and Kolb, 2013), experiential learning theory is described as a dynamic view of learning based on a learning cycle derived by the resolution of the dual dialectics of action/re ection and experience/abstraction. Learning is defended as ‘the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience’ (Chapter 2, pg. 49). (Kolb 2015, 50–51)

For those moving up Bloom’s pyramid, such generation of new knowledge is necessary as they begin to analyze and evaluate the theory they have learned in the classroom. But to more fully understand experiential learning, we must turn to one of its biggest proponents, David Kolb.

Kolb’s vision of experiential learning is meant to enhance formal classroom learning by teaching the skills necessary to re ect, learn, and apply what is learned through the experience of our life and work (Ibid., 3–4). While some may argue about whether or not experiential learning actually ful lls this goal,3 it is still a useful theory to be utilized, at least in part, in educating missions students – especially those who plan to travel abroad in their missions callings. e reason for this is that it strives to combine “experiences, perception, cognition, and behavior” (Ibid., 31) in a more holistic learning endeavor. e reasoning behind such an approach is an epistemological shi in pedagogy for adult learners: “To learn is not the special province of a single specialized realm of human functioning such as cognition or perception. It involves the integrated functioning of the total organism – thinking, feeling, perceiving, and behaving.” (Ibid., 43) is shi is toward a more holistic approach, which highlights the interaction between the person and their environment (Ibid., 45–48). It is through such learning that new knowledge is created within the learner, whose experimentation provides new avenues and approaches to the practical problems that surround them (Ibid, 48–49).

Ultimately, experiential learning is about utilizing the learning cycle and various learning styles in order to create new knowledge for the learner – as well as teaching them a process by which they can continue to learn from their experiences throughout their lives (not just in their formal education). It moves away from being solely theory based in the classroom, but it can present new issues of being too practical and not theoretical enough. us, the best pedagogical basis for travel-based missions courses is a combination of the theory-heavy learning-centric model and the practicalheavy experiential model. is new, merged model, is what we will turn our attention to next.

Merging eory and Practice

is merged theory, as I will venture to call it, attempts to bring together the discussion-based learning-centric approach with the experiential approach in order to build a solid foundation for travel missions courses. As such, it will look at the combination of these approaches through the lens of current research of travel courses, drawing conclusions from these case studies and data in order to show how a merged theory functions within such courses. We will then apply these conclusions speci cally to travel missions courses.

Raja and Najmonnisa, in studying business communications education, compiled quantitative data that shows those who are taught using experiential methods retain more information and techniques (what could be considered knowledge) than those using traditional methods –even when the experiential group went back to traditional methods, they retained more than their traditional counterparts (Raja and Najmonnisa 2018, 285–386).4 But experiential learning alone does not necessarily equate to learned knowledge. As we saw from Kolb, re ection upon the experience is necessary to turn it into new knowledge. “It is important for students to re ect critically on assumptions they may have coming into a course and validate those meaning by assessing reason to the new knowledge and experiences” (Tovar and Misischia 2018, 2). Re ection, both on previous knowledge or biases and on the experience, provides the ground for cra ing new knowledge. Such re ection best comes through directed discussion and projects. While projects may help re ection, they do not always lead to application; and discussion alone does not always lead to new knowledge. us, the discussion-based classroom experience of the learning-centric approach is an essential element alongside the experiential approach in creating applicable new knowledge for students. is new merged theory calls for the combination of classroombased discussion and real-world experience. While such a combination can happen in practicum and internship courses, short-term studyabroad courses provide a very di erent perspective, especially for missions students. But what exactly are these types of courses? “Short-term studyabroad programs have been di cult to de ne; however, there is a universal acceptance that they include certain characteristics such as a duration of less than one month, eld expertise, and knowledge of the culture and society of the county that is being visited by the lead faculty member, and student immersion into the culture that results in a gainful learning experience” (Gonsalvez 2013, 1). Travel courses, when done in this merged theory, utilize the experience of the professor and relevant theory to cra a travel experience for the students that helps spur new ideas and generate practical applications for their current or future contexts. Within missions education we cannot simply rely on the relevant theory and experience of the professors – even when utilizing discussion; we must also expose students to new experiences that will foster the growth of new knowledge that is usable for them in their futures as missionaries, pastors, or in other organizations or vocations. Such travel courses provide tremendous bene ts both to our students and to our schools as we strive to build future leaders for the Church who are locally focused, globally connected, and Kingdom minded. us, we must now turn our attention toward some of the key bene ts of such courses – primarily for students, but also for professors and schools.

Bene ts

Having now seen the educational theory behind the use of travel courses, we can look at the bene ts that these courses have speci cally for missions education. ese bene ts will incorporate issues of networking, jobs, new ideas, and global citizenship which will make both for more well-rounded graduates from our programs and develop global Christian communities by which our schools and students can continue to interact with the Church around the world.

Of the many bene ts that can be discussed from travel courses, the most prevalent and all encompassing include the following:

• Network building: First and foremost, travel courses allow for the building and strengthening of global networks. is is true for the professor (helping us strengthen our own networks and relationships) as well as the student, but it also provides a bene t to the school as deeper networks open up the chances for more students from global partners. is will aid in helping grow the global imprint of the school. Such was the trip I helped teach that worked with many current DMin students from our school.

• In uencing future jobs: For students, having international networks may both help them nd jobs upon graduation (another bene t to the school as more graduates are employed) and in uences their perspectives on becoming missionaries. One research project into criminal-justice-travel programs found them to be formative in students' approaches to their future careers. “ e travel program presented students the opportunity to learn in a completely di erent environment outside of the standard college classroom. e learning setting o ered a safe environment challenging their pre-exisiting assumptions on working in the eld” (Tovar and Misischia 2018, 8); for future missionaries, such challenges are essential for preparation to enter the eld.

• Di erent mission elds: As well, such trips expose students to opportunities or regions of the world they may not have thought of venturing to as missionaries, such as one of my students who, a er our travel course together, began to feel God placing that region of the world on their heart and is discerning with their spouse what this means for their future.

• Changed perspectives: By exposure to the world we are forced out of our cultural box and begin to view ourselves and the world around us in di erent ways. In researching travel experiences for students, Roberson found that “most of the participants discussed how travel becomes an individual tutor in helping the person to become more con dent and responsible. is personal learning o ers the individual a renewed con dence in self by cultivating a broader worldview from which one can integrate information about di erent places into one comparative picture” (Roberson 2018, 16). is shi in view of self and self-in-relation to the world, a shi of perspective, changes how students and professors address the issues they come into contact with on a daily basis. is is due to the “signi cant mental, as well as emotional, impact” (Ibid.) that travel courses can have; and it will a ect professor and student alike. Much like my Israel trip has changed the way I read scripture, missions travel courses will change how our students return to school and engage with the rest of their studies and their futures as leaders in God’s Church. Such challenges and changes will a ect the future of the Church and our schools.5

• New ideas/knowledge: is shi will inevitably bring about new ideas and the creation of new knowledge. One of the repeated utterances of the class I helped lead abroad was how students had not thought of church or missions in the way that our host partner was attempting. is is the greatest bene t of experiential learning: it spurs new ideas and forces our students to think outside of the classroom box. It is here that the lessons of contextualization can come alive as we re ect about what we have learned in the classroom being rethought within the global context the course is visiting. Such new ideas can also help the school gain a reputation (as well as the course and the professor) that may draw more new students.

• Global citizenship: Promoting awareness and interaction with the world outside of our narrow contexts is the goal of many schools, particularly within missions departments, and travel courses can help achieve this goal. In their extensive discussion of such programs, Mullens and Cuper state “that faculty-led studyabroad programs, when intentionally designed and delivered, provide a critical opportunity for students to begin exploring their roles in the world – an important rst step that may lead to others” (Mulens and Cuper 2012, 41). So while travel courses may not directly make students better global citizens, they do provide a rst step in that direction, a step that can be built upon when they return to the classroom, making our classes better and improving the global awareness and connections of our students.

Obviously, most of these bene ts are for the students. But there are also bene ts exposed here for professors and for schools. For professors, travel courses strengthen our own networks and relationships, continuing to spur us to personal and professional growth, and it will make our classes better. For schools, it increases the recruiting base for future students, builds a reputation that can help the school grow academically, nancially, scholastically, etc., and it expands the global awareness and imprint of the school.

Part of what has gone unmentioned here is the bene t of time and cost. It has been le unmentioned because these are not necessarily issues for every student; but for some taking a short-term travel course instead of a full semester or year study-abroad, it better ts their current situations and plans.

While these bene ts are not all that students, professors, and schools may gain from such travel courses, they provide a solid foundation for considering the use of travel missions courses within our schools and missions programs. e important part for the professor is connecting these bene ts with the learning outcomes of the school, program, and individual course. is is what transforms the bene ts of travel courses into learning experiences that generate new knowledge which will transform our students into more well-rounded graduates. But such programs are not all bene cial, so we must be aware of some of the issues that arise during travel courses.

Issues to Consider

We can see that the bene ts of such courses are tremendous, but there are some signi cant issues that must be considered in order to actually execute a travel course. ese issues include: proper preparation of students, resisting the urge to be tourist students, proper re ection upon the experience, cultural sensitivity, safety and medical awareness (checking https://travel. state.gov/content/travel.html will provide valuable information), nancial considerations, and supporting our local partners. While this is not an exhaustive list of concerns, it includes some of the most prevalent issues to be considered.6 In considering these issues, it may be worthwhile to turn to the research on Short-Term Missions, as they have dealt with many of the same concerns. us, that is where we will turn our attention to next.

Lessons from STM

Short-Term Missions (STM) has become a highly debated topic and eld of study in recent years, though the research on it is still developing. “Although STM has become an enormous movement involving millions of participants every year, the research on this phenomenon is still relatively thin” (Howell 2012, 9). Yet, there have been several important e orts that draw out the issues of concern within STM and attempt to address those issues to make STM more relevant and worthwhile for all involved. Much like STM, travel courses give a small taste of di erent cultures and are tremendously more a ordable than longer programs. “Short-term programs are increasing in popularity for many reasons: they are generally more a ordable than longer programs, they appeal to students who may be unwilling or unable to commit to a semester or a year abroad, and they allow students in structured academic programs of many disciplines … to gain experience that enhances their understanding of the profession in a global context” (Gonsalvez 2013, 1). e bene ts of travel courses, like those of STM, are to provide participants with small exposures to missions around the globe, and the concerns are similar as well. And they may draw students from other elds who will take these experiences back to the medical, legal, business, or whatever eld they came from. Issues of safety and medical problems must all be dealt with on a context-speci c basis.

One of the rst lessons we can learn from STM concerns the preparation of the participants. Brian Howell’s case-study into STMs at a church in suburban Chicago reveals the necessity of such preparation, both for growing team unity and for their execution of e ective ministry once they reached their missions location (Howell 2012, 122–145). is preparation took course over months and included applications (in order to pick the right team), fundraising, cultural training, and spiritual engagement (Ibid.). While this level of preparation was deemed necessary by this church in order to e ectively serve the missionaries and ministries the STM team was traveling to serve, they point to the reality that all short-term travel encounters: the need to be prepared for the experience. For travel courses, this means not only theoretical preparation upon the subject under study, but also cultural and spiritual preparation for the experience itself.

As well, there is the necessary consideration for returning to "normal" life a er the travel experience. In Howell’s case, he realized the necessity of integrating the travel experience into their lives back home; failure to integrate led to the loss of the opportunity the trip presents to the participants (Ibid., 171–194). us, he calls for a reimagining of the STM narrative that helps transform the lives and relationships of the participants - giving them opportunities to re ect and share the experience, as well as to continue similar ministry within their own contexts (Ibid.). In STM trips, “true humanity, community, and ideal fellowship are glimpsed, if not experienced, in ways that are ultimately transformative” (Ibid., 179). us it is necessary to nd ways to maintain and integrate that transformation a er the trip is completed and for the rest of their lives. For travel courses, this can be partially completed through assignments, but focus also must be taken to give students time to re ect and share about their experiences and develop ways to integrate those experiences into the communities they are a part of when they return.

ere is also the issue of tourism in STM which must be addressed within travel courses too. While Howell acknowledge that in such trips tourism does play a part, he cautions that we must also be careful of how we are tourists during STM trips. Speaking of one of their “tourism” days, Howell says, “What struck me at the time was the utter ordinariness of it. We didn’t do anything particularly di erent from what I presumed other visitors to the falls had done” (Ibid., 167). He laments the fact that there was a noticeable shi between missions and tourism, one that separated the two activities. Like STM, travel courses must develop ways to remain spiritually and missionally focused while embarking on activities that other tourists might attend.

Issues of nances must be negotiated with the school. Sometimes there is money available or it can be built into future budgets. Given enough time, money can be raised to help ease the cost on students. As well, working with nancial aid also takes time. And when it comes to host partners, we need to stress the importance of leaving them better o than how we found them – their hosting is gi and we should honor it, not abuse it.

While these lessons are not all we can learn from STM, they do provide a basis for the most important issues we can learn from STM.7 With these things in mind, we can now turn our attention to some of the logistics for travel courses.

Logistics

While every travel course will be di erent – adjusting to di erent contexts and di erent course focuses, as well as dealing with di erent issues – there are a handful of similar logistical issues that must be considered in the planning and execution of any travel course. (It should be mentioned that travel courses are done best when working with established organizations or through personal contacts who can serve as host partners for the class). ese issues require a keen eye for details and must be handled diligently in order for a successful trip.

1. Plan and book early: For the sake of pricing and sanity, have meetings with and get commitments from students early, so you can book travel and housing early. ere are several ways to do this; either all handled through you (or the school) or each handled separately, but make sure that in order to book, there is a non-refundable deposit from students (this makes sure they are committed). In order to do this, you must begin the conversation ASAP!

2. Cost of the course: Cost can be a prohibitive, so working out the budget for travel, housing, food, and any other costs that may arise is important. Being able to give this cost to both the school and the students will help make decisions, and it allows for the chance to raise money in order to help alleviate student costs. Also, make sure to build yourself a contingency in the budget, in case of prices going up between planning and executing the course; or other unexpected costs that might arise – one helpful idea for costs may be to have students pay for one meal on their own each day.

3. Paying in another country: Most American credit cards will work in other counties, as long as you give them notice of your travels. As well, there are several programs (like with MasterCard) that have developed for international travelers, such as debit cards that convert from US dollars into local currencies. Take time to research the currency and modes of payment for the countries you are visiting. is is where your host partner or the nation’s US embassy can be extremely helpful.

4. Communications: Communicating all the relevant information (currency, travel dates, locations of where to stay, necessary travel documents, necessary medical clearances, etc.) must be done early and o en. As well, you need to nd ways to stay in communication with students once you have arrived. If the nation has good WiFi, using things like Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp can be invaluable. Again, you will have to rely on your host partner to help gure out the best form of communication. I have found it helpful to buy local SIM cards for my phone, but you have to remember to clear this with your American service provider before you leave.

5. Where to stay/Getting around town: Knowing the places you will visit will help you decide where to stay. As well, access to local transportation systems (walking, bus, train, etc.) is an important piece to consider when choosing a hotel. Learning how to navigate these systems should be a top priority when you arrive. Also, it is key to develop a system to make sure no one gets le behind.

6. What to do?: is is the most important part for your host partner to help with, as they will have the local networks to help plan each day of your travel. Connecting with more local practitioners will make for a more valuable experience, but you also have to consider how to have class (in order to re ect on that experience) throughout the travel.

7. Meals/snacks: Once you are there, much of your time will be working on the next meal for your group. Groups of international travelers are not always easy to feed, so suggestions from your host partner, as well as from travel websites, will minimize the time spent on this issue. Also, knowing where to buy snacks that will appease the full group can be helpful, especially on days with lots of travel.

8. Rest: Like intensive courses, travel courses can be long days. Fight the urge to see and hear as much as you can, instead focusing on less breadth and more depth. Spend lots of time with a few cultural informants, and plan to be done by mid-a ernoon each day. is gives everyone time to process and rest from mentally, physically, and emotionally taxing days.

9. Tourism: Give time for people to site see. Part of what draws students to travel courses is getting to visit interesting places. If you build in time for this in the schedule, they will resist the urge to sneak o to do it during other times or staying up late to do it. But make sure that site seeing trips are connected to the larger course as well, helping students notice the cultural and ethnographic di erences they are experiencing.

10. Meeting spaces: One major struggle is o en coming up with meeting spaces for your full group. Your host partner and the cultural insiders you meet may be able to help, but you need to be able to access usable meeting space (perhaps at your hotel) for your group to use. Even public spaces, like the common area of your hotel or the back portion of a cafe, can be useful meeting spaces for large groups. Be thinking about such places in advance and seek local knowledge for nding such useful spaces.

11. Required reading: For a typical classroom class, all the books are geared toward the topic of the class. For a travel course, there needs to be some books about the culture the course is visiting. is means less course speci c content, but it also helps prepare students for their brief encounter with the host culture. Reading ethnographies and books by cultural insiders will aid in connecting the content of the topical books with the cultural context. It may be helpful to think of each individual piece of both content and context, then have students read one book or article attached to each of those pieces.

12. Assignments: Assignments for the course must be geared toward re ection and integration. Helping students connect their experience to the theoretical study for the course and then begin to integrate that into their future vision of missions and ministry is the nal piece to a successful travel course. us, we must be creative in the assignments we develop, especially for the end of the course (while earlier assignments can be more about the topic, later ones should be about integrating the topic and the experience).

While your travel course may come across di erent issues, if you stay on top of these twelve things you can help eliminate confusion, stress, and mistakes throughout from planning to execution. With these logistical issues in mind, it is time for class to start!

Conclusion

We have now looked at some pedagogical foundations, some of the major bene ts, some important concerns to address, and some logistical issues to stay on top of; with all that in mind, there is one last thing we need to discuss for missions travel courses – actually doing the course. Travel courses may be outside of our training and educational experiences, but for our students, these courses can become essential learning opportunities that will shape their spiritual and vocational futures. So ght for these courses in your school curriculums and venture out to teach them, and just maybe we can begin to spur a generation of new ideas that will build our students into more fully-formed disciples of Christ and leaders within His global fellowship.

Notes

1 Shawn is a PhD Candidate at Asbury eological Seminary, focusing on the congregation as hermeneutic principle within Lesslie Newbigin’s missionary ecclesiology.

2 It must be noted that not every missions course and professor follows Vella, but discussion-based courses are working o of the ideas of Vella, whether they know it or not. Lecture-only courses would be using older models of education, ones which Vella has already shown to be antiquated. Either way, lecture or discussion, leaves students with lots of theory and little praxis.

3 Cf. Arellano and Jones, 2018; Wright, Hibbert, Strong, and Edwards 2018; Bata, Cox-Lanyon, Davis, and Whitney 2019.

4 It should be noted that classroom interaction can come before or a er the travel experience, but when it takes place will change how the class is conducted – as a preparatory class or re ective class.

5 ese challenges and changes can be risky, especially for those in positions of power and/or leadership. But such risks must be taken if our schools are to survive and thrive in the new futures that God is calling us and our world into.

6 As well, there are pedagogical issues to be considered. For a deeper dive into the pedagogical issues, see above note.

7 cf. Missiology 41, no. 2 (April 2013). is entire issue is dedicated to STM.

References

Arellano, Irene and Stephanie J. Jones. “Exploration of University Faculty Perceptions and Experiences of Service-Learning as Engaged Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.” Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning 18, no. 4 (Dec. 2018):111-129.

Bata, Michelle, Vickie Cox-Lanyon, Micki Davis, and Amy Whitney. “When a Student’s ‘Right to Fail’ Harms the University Brand: How a Lack of Guidance in Experiential Learning A ects University-Organization Relationships.” Journal of Management Education 43, no. 1 (Nov. 2018); 108-120. https://doi. org/10.1177%2F1052562918811873.

Gonsalvez, Jude. “ e pedagogy of Short-Term Study-Abroad Programs.” Journal of Arts and Humanities 2, no. 8 (Sept. 2013): 1-5.

Howell, Brian M. Short-Term Mission An Ethnography of Christian Travel Narrative and Experience. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press Academic, 2012.

Kolb, David A. Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Second Edition. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, Inc., 2015.

Kuk, Hey-Su and John D. Holst. “A Dissection of Experiential Learning eory.” Adult Learning 29, no. 4 (Nov. 2018): 150-157.

Missiology: An International Review 41, no. 2 (April 2013)

Mullens, Jo Beth and Prudence H. Cuper. Fostering Global Citizenship rough Faculty-led International Programs. Charlotte: Information Age Publishing, 2012.

Raja, Farhan Uddin and Dr. Najmonnisa. “Comparing Traditional Travel Method and Experiential Teaching Method using Experimental Research.” Journal of Education and Educational Development 5, no. 2 (Dec. 2018): 276-288.

Roberrson, Donald N. “Learning while traveling: e school of travel.”

Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport & Tourism Education 22 (2018): 14-18.

Tovar, Lynn Atkinson, and Cynthia Misischia. “Experiential Learning: Transformation and Discovery through Travel Study Programs.” Research in Higher Education Journal 35 (Oct. 2018): 1-15. https:// eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1194438.

Vella, Jane. Taking Learning to Task: Creative Strategies for Teaching Adults. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001.

_________. Learning to Listen, Learning to Teach: e Power of Dialogue in Educating Adults. Revised Edition. San Francisco: JosseyBass, 2002.

Wright, April, Paul Hibbert, Ross Strong, and Marissa Edwards. “Exposing Practical, Psychological, and Pedagogical Shadow Sides of Experiential Learning.” Journal of Management Education 42, no. 6 (Sept. 2018): 761-771. https://doi. org/10.1177%2F1052562918802327.

Dr. J. Paul Pennington

Introduction – Listening

Our journey actually began in India ten years ago as we listened to Indian Christian friends. ey described the resistance of their nation to Jesus and described some of the Christian traditions and practices that have unfortunately contributed to that resistance. We and they sought alternative approaches that might address these Christian Barriers to Jesus, as I eventually termed them (Pennington 2017a).

In that search, over the past ve years or so, the Lord has led Margaret and me on a journey of exploring, encouraging, and advocating for those who follow and serve Jesus outside of traditional Christianity or church. As we interacted with these believers from the Hindu or Muslim world, as well as the “alongsiders” (Richard 2016) who serve them, we were faced with a choice. We could dismiss this world and these believers as unfaithful to Jesus because they did not follow traditional Christian patterns or traditions. But we already knew from our Indian Christian friends that the existing approaches could actually hinder the good news. We needed to listen to these other voices about how the prevailing Christian mission paradigms had actually alienated many of their people from Jesus.

ey weren’t the only voices to call attention to the problem. Others have also questioned whether continuing to pursue church and mission using existing paradigms will change the results of the last ve hundred years. For instance, in 2016, Mike Rynkiewich published an article in IBMR entitled “Do Not Remember the Former ings” (Rynkiewich 2016). Based on Isaiah 43:18, Rynkiewich suggested, “Repeatedly in salvation history God moves faster than his people can keep up” (Rynkiewich 2016, 308). e author then contends that “missiology continues to be hindered by outdated theories of culture and theologies of mission” and calls for deep reexamination of core assumptions in the face of globalization, urbanization, migration, and postmodernism.

Tite Tiénou, in his IBMR response to Rynkiewich’s article, notes that he too had “questioned the ideologies that were present in mission thinking, promotional literature, and strategy” (Tiénou 2016, 319). Tiénou also callsfor a more disruptive review of mission tradition:

It is indeed time to reconsider the assumptions operating in missiology and the categories used by mission practitioners and strategists. Such a task is long, di cult, and perilous because too many people and powerful organizations have a vested interest in perpetuating marketable rallying cries, slogans, and plans. (Tiénou, 2016: 319)

A er noting the di culty of such re-examination, Tiénou concludes, “We should … not be surprised that strategic categories continue to prevail in mission. Perhaps what is needed is a new articulation of the very nature of Christian mission” (Ibid., 321, my emphasis).

In the past year, I have also been engaged in multiple conversations around Mike Stroope’s recent book, Transcending Mission (Stroope 2017). Stroope, by his own admission (private conversation), has sought to provoke deeper reconsideration of the historical and terminological foundations of the “mission” paradigm. Stroope’s analysis joins the voices of Rynkiewich and Tiénou in calling for deeper reimagination of how Jesus wants his followers to serve and represent him globally.

Rynkiewich observes in the conclusion of his article: Our understanding of the world, our set of categories—our worldview, if you will—leads us to see what we expect to see, but they deceive us so that we miss what we do not expect to see. e name for this practice is hubris; it is a lack of epistemological humility. (Rynkiewich 2016, 315)

If Christianity, church, or mission are founded upon this hubris, this lack of epistemological humility, we might actually nd ourselves pursuing missions, purposes, and agendas that are out of line with or even counter to the mission and purpose of Jesus and his Father. e only cure for hubris, is the humility to set aside our epistemological certainty and to listen deeply to corrective voices—voices that can help us hear what Jesus wants and what he is doing in the world—but voices that, if we listen carefully, will challenge our missiological and mission hubris.

In introducing this year’s APM theme yesterday ( ursday), Sue Russell (2019 APM President) noted that innovation will only happen if we listen deeply, especially to the Spirit as our guide. As we have listened to these believers in some of the challenging frontiers, they have indicated that Jesus is already shaping new wineskins for following him, new shapes and forms outside of Christianity, church, and mission.

In order to understand the coming paradigms and their implications for future missiological education, we must listen much more deeply to two important voices: the voice of Scripture (a familiar, but o en misused voice) and the voice of incarnational believers (those who follow Jesus outside of traditional Christianity and church).

Listening to Scripture

First, we need to listen more carefully to what Scripture says. On this journey, we have come to recognize that when Christians assert, “ e Bible says…,” they are o en not at all aware of how they are actually “misreading scripture through Western eyes (Richards and O’Brien, 2012) or through some other cultural lens.

Some Christians would even argue that there is little or no room for innovation in mission. If Jesus is “the same yesterday, today, and forever,” they argue, then we just need to keep preaching the same, simple “gospel” in the same way we have done.

I would counter, however, that such a naïve and simplistic view of Jesus and his good news is challenged by the New Testament itself. One thing that never changes about Jesus is his constant desire to incarnate his way and life within the families, cultures, communities, and societies of this world. And that incarnational spirit leads to variety and adaptability in the New Testament, not systematization and conformity.

A few years ago I was involved in an email discussion where one participant asked for assistance in identifying “biblical culture.” Our divisions would be solved, the writer indicated, if all believers would simply follow the “biblical culture” presented in the New Testament. I myself come from a Christian tradition where our religious forebearers claimed to have found the “New Testament pattern” that all believers should follow in order to be faithful to Jesus and Scripture.

However, as I have re ected on that idea of “biblical culture” or “New Testament pattern,” I have become increasingly impressed by a unique feature of the New Covenant scriptures—I have come to term it the “cultural non-speci city” of the New Testament. As we review the commands and instructions from Matthew to Revelation, it is amazing how many of them do not provide enough cultural detail—enough form or structure—for us to replicate the command in the same way in every instance, much less across cultures and times.

e Mosaic Law, in contrast, provided speci c rules for what to eat or not eat, material for clothing, rituals and festivals, even hair cutting. While the Jews did not always follow these commands, they did follow enough of them to become a separate nation, somewhat distinct from those around them.

In stark contrast, the New Testament scriptures provide little cultural form for any required practices or rituals. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, while obviously practiced, are not given enough speci city to know precisely how they were conducted, who was permitted to administer them, or when they were performed. We have no “order of service” from the New Testament era to serve as a blueprint for later liturgies. Every modern worship service depends on a form and order invented a er or beyond what is recorded in the Scriptures.

is pervasive cultural non-speci city has to be intentional, not accidental. Why would Jesus lead his people to not record the speci c forms they used for essential practices and commands? I am convinced that this non-speci city is, in fact, due to the incarnational spirit of Jesus and his New Covenant. Given a choice, Jesus wants to incarnate his life, his good news, his ekklesia, and his teaching into the cultural forms and expressions of families, communities, and peoples. He does not want his followers to standardize one cultural form as normative for all believers in all contexts.

At the outset, we must rst listen to this incarnational voice of Scripture, it’s cultural non-speci city. is is the foundation for the disruptive innovation we need to consider. And it is important that we understand a corollary principle to cultural non-speci city. If the New Testament does not specify cultural forms for its commands, then it is necessary for believers to invent a form in order to obey the command or to perform the essential function. Once created, however, those forms are only normative for the believers who created them in a speci c context. Believers should never assume that the forms they created are normative or necessary for any believers in any other culture or community.

I have come to the conviction that “Christianity”, “church”, and “mission” are all cultural constructs, laden with cultural baggage and accretions. Some were legitimate “incarnations,” cultural inventions within a particular context. Some have been human departures from or even unwarranted additions to the way of Jesus. Jesus is not bound by or to any Christian, church, mission forms. While perfectly appropriate in the settings where they were created, they are not necessary or normative for believers in other contexts, especially in the most challenging frontiers, edges, fringes, and margins that have proved most impenetrable to traditional Christian mission forms.

In new contexts, Jesus, if he is given his choice (not our conformity), wants new wineskins, not cosmetically enhanced old ones. He wants new forms and new expressions.

So rst of all, our future missiological education needs to inculcate this incarnational spirit into the next generation. A radical reexamination is needed of our propensity to standardize and essentialize the forms and expressions of one culture for another community of believers. So at this higher level, we need to teach our students to listen to the incarnational, innovative voice of scripture instead of teaching forms, structures, and traditions that are the accumulated accretions of cultural inventions from other communities. e incarnational spirit of the New Testament is marked by variety and exibility in expression and form, in contrast to the one-size- tsall conformity and standardization o en followed by mission theorists, strategists, and practitioners. Our future missiological training must teach future practitioners to re ect on that variety and to listen more deeply to scripture, not just parts we culturally prioritize and emphasize. ree examples will illustrate how Christian claims to “biblical missiology” actually ignore what scripture is telling us about the gospel, kingdom, and disciple.

In teaching our students to derive their missiology from scripture, I propose that we also need to teach them to listen more carefully to what scripture says about some foundational concepts that have been deeply woven into our missiology and practice.

What “Gospel”?

e gospel presents a foundational concept for our missiology. It is the person and work of Jesus, the good news of what he has done for sinful humanity. Yet, all too o en, Christians have created packages and truncated presentations of what their version of the gospel entails.

e New Testament, in contrast, demonstrates considerable variety and exibility in how the good news, the wonderful story of Jesus is told. e four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) all tell the story of the one Jesus, who is “the same yesterday, today, and forever.” Yet they present that same story in di erent ways for di erent audiences and communities. John’s Gospel presents Jesus with signi cant variation from the Synoptics.

Paul’s epistles include enough of his presentation to provide what amounts to a h Gospel. Paul tells the story at times in words and with explanations not found in any of the four Gospels. Yet Paul speci cally asserts, “ e good news that was announced by me is not of human origin, for I neither received it nor was I taught it, but I received it through revelation from Jesus Christ” (Galatians 1:11–12; author’s translation from Greek). Paul speci cally claims that his varied presentation of the good news came directly by revelation from Jesus, not from a human source. So the di erent expressions and explanations he uses he attributes to the revelation of Jesus, not his own invention.

Additional early historical evidence also testi es to the variation of presentation in the New Testament era. Eusebius cites a report from Papias regarding Mark:

Mark, who had been Peter’s interpreter, wrote down carefully, but not in order, all that he remembered of the Lord’s sayings and doing…. Peter used to adapt his teachings to the occasion, without making a systematic arrangement of the Lord’s sayings…. (Eusebius 1989, 103–104, emphasis mine)

Given this signi cant variation in gospel presentation, future missiological education needs to challenge Christian tendencies to standardize the gospel into truncated, one-size- ts-all presentations that claim to be biblical while ignoring the Bible’s rich, varied, and diverse telling of the multi-faceted, multidimensional good news of Jesus. e earliest witnesses of Jesus were led by his Spirit to adapt and vary their presentations to their audiences. If we listen carefully to scripture, our missiology should inculcate this incarnational ability to understand and present the good news of Jesus in varied ways as we encounter radically di erent contexts from those in which we created our gospel packages.

Overuse of Kingdom

As a second example of our need to listen more carefully to Scripture, consider the pervasive use of “kingdom” language in mission and missiology today. Signi cant ink and breath have been expended on the need to “bring the kingdom,” “advance the kingdom,” “spread the kingdom,” or “build the kingdom.” Countless mission conferences and consultations have utilized the phrase in the Lord’s Prayer, “ y kingdom come,” as a paradigm for their mission emphases, o en ignoring or at least minimizing the two other petitions that open the model prayer, “Your name be honored” and “Your will be done.” e incarnational Jesus, for whatever reason, led John, inspired him in fact, to tell the whole story without hardly a mention of the “kingdom of God.” e incarnational Jesus was modeling the level of variation and adaptation that his believers should follow when presenting his life and authority. Our missiology is limited and truncated if we simply and uncritically gravitate to kingdom emphases and language without considering this important direction that John took for the audience to whom he was writing. is is even more telling than John’s omission. Because the evidence of Scripture seems to evidence that Jesus himself was adept at speaking about his understanding of the “kingdom of God” without feeling the need to use that phrase or language to do so. e third consideration is Jesus’ last conversation with his disciples before he ascended to heaven. He had gathered them together on the Mount of Olives. ey asked him a question: “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” What was Jesus’ answer? “ at is none of your business! God is in charge of that.”

Obviously, Jesus spoke a great deal about the kingdom (kingdom of God, kingdom of heaven)—some eighty times in fact. Given this prevalent theme, some Western Christians particularly have developed whole systems of “kingdom” teaching and paradigms that they have woven deeply into their missiology. ey have then exported this kingdom emphasis globally as part of their packaging of the good news of Jesus, teaching kingdom seminars, developing kingdom ministries, and pursuing all sorts of kingdom agendas and schemes. ose who create these emphases claim the Bible as their justi cation.

But I contend that they have not paid close enough attention to how the Scripture uses the kingdom motif in creating their kingdom packages and paradigms. eir excessive use of kingdom as an essentialized paradigm all believers in all places must adopt and utilize is actually challenged by Scripture. Innovative missiology in the next generation needs to challenge this overemphasis on "kingdom" from both scriptural and practical considerations.

Consider, rst of all, the evidence of the Gospels themselves. Yes, the kingdom theme occurs eighty times in the Gospels. But seventy ve of those are in the Synoptics. When we turn to John’s Gospel, something remarkable happens: the idea of God’s kingdom is referenced only ve times there, twice in Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus (John 3), and three times in Jesus’ conversation with Pilate (John 18). at’s it!

John was the “disciple whom Jesus loved”, the one who had a unique relationship with Jesus, and who knew his heart well. He knew that Jesus had spoken o en of the kingdom. He was there when those conversations and sermons had occurred. So what would lead the man arguably closest to Jesus to mostly leave out that overt kingdom language in his telling of the story? His omission of the kingdom theme cannot be accidental. It must be intentional. We are not told the reason, and any speculation would be groundless. But our missiology should at least ask how one of Jesus’ dearest witnesses could tell the whole story of Jesus without feeling the need to front kingdom language to do so? Was John unfaithful to Jesus? Absolutely not.

Can you proclaim Jesus without emphasizing “kingdom” everywhere you go? John certainly believed so. And our missiology should examine both why that might be necessary and how it might be faithful to Jesus to reduce kingdom language in certain contexts. I’ll return to that in my practical considerations in a moment.

We must consider a second Scriptural phenomenon in the use of "kingdom." In summarizing the forty days of Jesus’ appearances a er his resurrection, Luke says that during that time Jesus was “speaking of the kingdom of God” (Acts 1:3). Reading that phrase one would expect to nd prevalent and constant references to this theme in the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus. So read through Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, and John 20-21! How many times does “kingdom” occur in those chapters? Not once!

So Jesus basically says, “ e kingdom is none of your business. at’s God’s. Your business? You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” is reduction in kingdom language, then, is actually initiated by the incarnational Jesus himself as he leads his people to incarnate his way and life in the Gentile world.

In other words, the last thing Jesus said to his disciples was, “Don’t get hung up on kingdom! Focus on being my witnesses.” And the rest of the New Testament indicates that they took him seriously. From the prevalence of “kingdom” language in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the book of Acts reduced references to kingdom to sixteen times in twenty eight chapters. Likewise, Paul emphasized other aspects of the authority and lordship of Christ and God and referenced “kingdom” much more sparingly. It’s there, but not nearly as frequent.

I suspect that there are two cultural dynamics that play into the reduction in kingdom language. It was an important concept for rst century Jews who had developed a number of paradigms around God’s messianic kingdom. at language resonated with their aspirations, even as Jesus tried to correct the expectations to a more internal, spiritual reign of God within. At the same time, the imperial authorities found talk of an alternate kingdom potentially seditious. Given these Jewish and Greco-Roman dynamics, Jesus led his followers to speak of his transformational life and his authority using metaphors and expressions that did not emphasize “kingdom” to the same extent he did in a Jewish context.

Innovative missiology must wrestle with why the New Testament reduces kingdom language and the implications for this in contexts where using “kingdom” can actually be problematic.

You see, when Christians tout their kingdom agendas and programs in nations that were once subject to Western imperial and colonial rule, their message o en sounds like a desire to reinstate that foreign imperial and colonial control. Wrapping Jesus too tightly in “kingdom” garb can actually create an impression his incarnational spirit wants to avoid.

Why do some Western Christians love “kingdom” language and paradigms so much? Sadly, that language seems to resonate with their own cultural history of power, control, domination, and subjugation. Subtly, but with signi cant hubris and arrogance, some Christians pursue their “kingdom” agendas with too much of that spirit in mind. Recently, in reading of a union mission that once existed in Benares (Varanasi), India, I was struck that one of the partners was actually named World Dominion Mission. Whatever the founders and members thought of that name, most Indians then and now would understand such words to refer to foreign dominion and subjugation, not the humble, compassionate reign of Prabhu Yesu (Lord Jesus).

So both from a scriptural and practical perspective, future missiology needs to challenge existing kingdom paradigms and encourage students and practitioners to listen more carefully to what Scripture actually says about how the early followers of Jesus understood and represented Christ’s authority and rule in the world. And it needs to challenge believers to nuance situations, contexts, and communities where kingdom language ought to be reduced or de-emphasized, just as the New Testament actually demonstrates.

Ignoring the Disappearance of “Disciple”

A nal example further illustrates how we must listen more carefully to all that scripture says rather than creating theologies, missiologies, and then strategies based on an incomplete reading of or Scripture.

Without question the Gospels place great emphasis on a discipling model for maturing and multiplying followers and leaders. Our eld of missiology has consumed immeasurable ink and paper just on discussing the meaning and application of Jesus’ instruction in Matthew’s version of the Great Commission—that we “make disciples of all nations.” Some would argue that since Jesus told us to do it, then of course we should not only obey his command but should use the term he chose as we do so.

So based on this partial, simplistic analysis of scripture, Christians and missions have created a plethora of discipleship programs, discipleship ministries, and discipleship strategies—all claiming to represent Jesus biblically. Yet, when I read the New Testament, the pervasive addiction to a discipleship narrative and paradigm is again challenged when we listen more carefully to scripture.

In Acts, two terms for the followers of Jesus predominate: “disciples” (twenty seven times) and “brethren” (thirty two times). Once an identity was established to that extent, we would standardize practice and continue using that term. We should expect to nd a similar pattern in the rest of the New Testament regarding "disciple," and even distribution between it and "brethren" (adelphoi could mean brothers and sisters, siblings of any gender).

A shi in terminology occurs that is unexplained but undeniably signi cant. A er the end of Paul’s third journey (Acts 21:16) and through the rest of the New Testament, the word “disciple” is completely dropped. Mike Breen has called this complete absence of “disciple” from the later New Testament e Great Disappearance (Breen 2013). In contrast, "brother" or "brethren" occur 183 times in the rest of the New Testament a er Acts (Moulton WF, Geden AS, Moulton HK, eds. 1978, 19–21).

Paul never calls believers disciples, never speaks of disciple-making (although Luke speaks of such work in his rst journey (Acts 14:21), and never utilizes disciple language in his speaking or writing. I regularly hear Christians and missionaries talk about Paul discipling while they ignore this signi cant shi in Paul’s own terminology and methodology.

Was Paul being unfaithful to Jesus by not using the D-word to describe his ministry? Was he being disobedient to the Matthean version of the Great Commission? Not at all! He was familiar with the disciple paradigm; he was, a er all, a disciple himself of the Rabbi Gamaliel. He associated with the disciples a er his conversion in Damascus. And he was in Antioch serving the edgling congregation with Barnabas when the disciples were rst labeled “Christians” (Acts 11:26). So his prevalent use of "brother"/ "brethren" (in continuity with Acts) while completely dropping disciple terminology is a signi cant fact of his ministry that demands greater missiological attention.

In this important shi , Paul models an incarnational (or innovative) impetus in serving Jesus. He is committed to ful lling the command and purpose of Jesus. Yet, led by the Spirit of Jesus, he feels no compulsion to perpetuate the Jewish Rabbi/disciple model to do so. Yes, mathetes was also used in the Greco-Roman world for the disciples and students of philosophers and teachers. But for some unexplained reason, Paul seems to have determined that that terminology and model was not appropriate for the contexts in which he worked.

Make no mistake, Paul is committed to the function of maturing and multiplying believers, the purpose of the Great Commission. He is constantly accompanied by a team of partners (e.g., Silas and Timothy) and is continually training and deploying them in service just as Jesus did with his disciples. But instead of using “disciple” for doing so, Paul emphasizes at least three alternative models for his obedience to Christ’s command.

• Parent/child

• Coach/athlete

• Equipper (trainer)/worker (or master/apprentice) e questions I have raised regarding “gospel,” “kingdom,” and “disciple” are only representative samples of the innovation and reimagining we must pursue in the next generation of missiological education. Jesus is actively shaping new wineskins, and our students will not be able to follow his incarnational lead, unless they learn to listen to Scripture with much greater discernment and sensitivity.

Paul maintains his commitment to serving the key mandate of Jesus, but he adopts di erent metaphors and models in his context for how he does so. And he exhibits the utmost con dence and assurance that he is maturing and multiplying believers in obedience to Jesus.

So again, we need to listen more carefully to what Scripture says. Paul’s shi away from “discipleship” models and language has signi cant implications for the future of missiological education. We should challenge students and practitioners to stop creating arti cial, o en Western-laden discipleship models that claim to be biblical while exporting foreign emphases, packages, and explanations.

Disruptive innovation in our missiological training will only be faithful to Jesus and the Great Commission when we teach more practitioners to follow Paul’s adaptive, Spirit-led innovations. We must teach a new generation to not slavishly develop standardized, simpli ed methodologies that claim to be biblical while they actually ignore the incarnational variation and adaptation that Paul actually modeled.

We must attune our hearts more carefully to the voice of scripture where it actually challenges long-held mission traditions and paradigms. At the same time, however, if we truly intend to reimagine mission, to foster disruptive innovation, we must also listen to the voice of incarnational believers—my term for those who live out the Way of Jesus within their own socio-religious community, those who need to follow Jesus without traditional Christianity and church.

Listening to Incarnational Believers

Over the past few years of our exploration of the Christian barriers to Jesus and how to resolve them, Margaret and I have come to meet and know a variety of believers who follow Jesus and scripture only, but within their own socio-religious community. eir stories and ways of worshiping Jesus have helped us see the Lord, his Word, and experience his Spirit in new ways.

Some Christians describe them as “insider believers,” with some using that term as a derogatory epithet, assuming there are not believers at all, or are inferior, inadequate believers at best. We have talked with them in person, heard the stories of how the Lord has worked in their lives, and experienced some of how they worship Jesus and process Scripture from within their own contexts and communities. We prefer to call them incarnational believers—followers of Jesus who incarnate the Way of Jesus within their family and community, instead of following the Christian conversion path that most o en leads to isolation from family and imitation of someone’s foreign Christian expression that alienates and confuses the majority of their society.

We are convinced, from reading about them and eventually meeting them in person, that the future of missiology demands that we listen more deeply and carefully to what the Lord is doing among them. We have much to learn from their experiences.

Listening to eir Critiques

Let me say, up front, that we must encourage our students to listen carefully to the voices of those who follow Jesus incarnationally, but who point out many ways in which Christian mission tradition has, at times, actively kept people from Jesus. For instance, in my own missiology training, ese two books can be a painful read for people who want to maintain the Christian mission status quo. But the emic perspective of these two authors, provides a necessary antidote to the mission hubris Rynkiewich addressed above.

I would require students to read and re-read Living Water and Indian Bowl (Bharati, 2004) and Rescuing the Gospel from the Cowboys (Twiss 2015). I would not consider a person ready to serve until they had listened to the pleas of these two incarnational voices, shed tears of deep repentance for the hubris of too much Christian mission, and committed themselves to follow Jesus more closely than the mission traditions that fostered these all too common misrepresentations and even abuses.

My 2017 article, Mandali: Bharati on Bhakta Expressions of Fellowship (Pennington 2017b), provides speci c re ections on how Hindu incarnational believers, Yesu bhaktas, view their expression of the body of Christ, the ekklesia. Based on rst-hand, written communication from a Hindu-background follower of Jesus, it attempted to listen carefully to their articulation of what is important in their walk and how they live that out as a community of Hindu believers in Jesus. I sought, in this article, to re ect the kind of deep, respectful listening we must engage in to hear what the Lord is doing in their midst—not assuming that they are wrong if they do not articulate and implement fellowship in ways that are comfortable to Christians and churches.

My conclusion to that article re ected the call to deep listening I am advocating:

Christians have much to learn, actually, from those who follow and worship Jesus in unfamiliar ways. Bharati’s perspectives have helped me to reexamine my own traditions and allegiances based on what the Word of God says, not just what church custom and practice dictate. In fact, his concerns about institutional church are becoming increasingly voiced in the Christian West, not just by incarnational believers in the East. If we have the humility to listen and learn, Bharati and the mukti mandali could help the church nd answers to challenges it faces both in the West and globally. (Pennington, 2017b: 64).