I'll be using these categories for sharing some of the adventures and discoveries our team is having as we go through his books, writings, and documents:
(1) Unreached Peoples
(2) The Great Commission and Abraham
(3) From the Unfinished Task to the Finishable Task
(4) Failure with the Large Groups and the Off-setting Trend to “Radical Contextualization”
(5) Reverse Contextualization, the Recontextualization of Our Own Tradition
(6) The Reclaiming of the Gospel of the Kingdom
(7) Beyond Christianity
(8) A Different Type of Recruitment
(9) A Trojan Horse
(10) Needed: a Revolution in Pastoral Training
(11) The Religion of Science
(12) The Challenge of the Evil One
Under the category of "Recruitment," here's one of the books I pulled off the shelf this week to look at more closely:
Speer, Robert E. 1944. What Constitutes a Missionary Call? New York: Student Volunteer Movement Booklet.
This caught my eye because our academic administration building is named after Speer and because I have a daughter who is in the age group he was writing about. Speer passionately urged that “students are old enough to decide to do their duty. They are old enough to decide to go to college, they are old enough to decide for law and medicine and other professions; they are old enough, too, to decide this question also. … have you any reason for not going that you could give to Jesus Christ? That is the real question for every one of us.” (p. 30)
Ralph Winter's own writing echoed Robert Speer’s plea to students in the article, “Join the World Christian Movement,” found in the Perspectives on the World Christian Movement Reader.
Winter concludes: “We sometimes seem more geared to do our ‘utmost’ than we are to seek out patiently, deliberately, and painstakingly that role which will make the maximum contribution to ‘His highest’—the coming of His kingdom and power and glory to all the peoples of the earth. … It is not to please ourselves that we give our lives to Christ. Yet, we may find that His will involves greater pleasure and fulfillment than anything we ourselves could have chosen! A famous missionary wrote back to fellow students and pled with them: ‘Give up your small ambitions and come East to proclaim the glorious gospel of Christ.’ For me to give ‘My utmost for His highest’ is no guarantee of health, wealth, or happiness … but that kind of crucial choice is … the most exhilarating and demanding path of all callings. You don’t lose if you go with God. But you have to be willing to lose or you can’t stick close to God.”
