Chapter 1. Messages Sent, Messages Received?: The Papacy and the Latin American Church at the Turn of the Twentieth Century - Lisa M. Edwards -- Chapter 2. Catholic Vanguards in Brazil - Dain Borges -- Chapter 3. Eucharistic Angels: Mexico's Nocturnal Adoration and the Masculinization of Postrevolutionary Catholicism, 1910-1930 - Matthew Butler -- Chapter 4. Transnational Subaltern Voices: Sexual Violence, Anticlericalism, and the Mexican Revolution - Robert Curley

Rediscovering the role God designed for the church in mission is a critical issue facing the missions movement today. That role is to glorify God by planting churches among every tongue, tribe, and nation. Planting churches amid unreached peoples is a complex process. It calls forth every ministry gift and the contribution of every believer. Imagine a businessman, a construction worker, a schoolteacher, and an engineer all working together to support the development of a local church amongst an unreached people group in another part of the world. Most Christians will not leave home and go elsewhere to minister. If they are to participate in God's global mission, they must be affirmed, developed and released right where they live, in the context of their local church. This book shows how churches can become centers of mission vision and implementation and so accomplish God's design for the local church.

Every local church should be engaged with global missions, even if most individuals in the church aren't called to go overseas. But what does this engagement actually look like? How can local churches train, send, and support missionaries well? Unpacking principles from the Bible and applying them in the context of real life in a local church, this new book in the 9Marks: Building Healthy Churches series is filled with practical steps and advice for supporting missionaries, forming international partnerships, sending short-term teams, and engaging with the nations here at home. This book casts a vision for the local church as the engine of world missions—for the joy of all people and the glory of God.

How is the church being affected by globalization? What does wider and more direct contact between the world religions mean for Christians? What is God doing in the midst of such change? Resulting from a noteworthy collaboration between World Vision and Princeton Theological Seminary, this important volume explores the implications of today's emerging global society for local churches and Christian mission. Prominent scholars, missionaries, and analysts of world trends relate Christian theology and ethics to five clusters of issues - stewardship, prosperity, and justice; faith, learning, and family; the Spirit, wholeness, and health; Christ, the church, and other religions; and conflict, violence, and mission - issues that pastors and congregations will find critical as they think through the mission of the church in our time. William Schweiker asks whether it is possible to be faithful to God in a world of mammon. James Ottley discusses world debt from the perspective of the 1998 Lambeth Conference. David Befus provides an analysis of church strategies for empowering the poor. Richard Osmer argues for the church's perennial tasks of catechesis, edification, and discernment. Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen looks at the effects of globalization on the structure of the family. John Mbiti shows how prayer and worship in light of globalization are possible. Ronald Cole-Turner issues a compelling call for the evangelization of technology. Susan Power Bratton advocates an econormative ethics focused on global ecological change. Allen Verhey questions contemporary approaches to health care. Kosuke Koyama provides a basic summary of mainstream Buddhist beliefs. Lamin Sanneh explains the central place of Muhammad for Muslims. Cecil M. Robeck, Jr., traces essential steps toward improved ecumenical relations between Christian groups. John Witte, Jr., offers practical guidance to two of the worst contemporary interreligious battlefields - Orthodox-Evangelical and Christian-Muslim. Donald W. Shriver, Jr., chronicles the ways in which religious people have both promoted and curbed our global propensity for violence. Ian T. Douglas discusses the growth of short-term mission service by American Christians and poses provocative questions about motives, values, and outcomes. Assembled and introduced by Max L. Stackhouse, Tim Dearborn, and Scott Paeth, these highly relevant essays will serve as essential starting points for discussion of globalization and its meaning for local churches.

With nearly fifty years combined global church-planting experience, Craig Ott and Gene Wilson are well qualified to write a comprehensive, up-to-date guide for cross-cultural church planting. Combining substantive biblical principles and missiological understanding with practical insights, this book walks readers through the various models and development phases of church planting. Advocating methods that lead to church multiplication, the authors emphasize the role of the missionary church planter. They offer helpful reflection on current trends and provide best practices gathered from research and empirical findings around the globe. The book takes up a number of special issues not addressed in most church planting books, such as use of short-term teams, partnerships, and wise use of resources. Full of case studies and real examples from around the world, this practical text will benefit students, church planters, missionaries, and missional church readers.

How God Ministers to His People and the World through the Local Church The church is more than coffee with friends—it's a meaningful gathering of Christians that involves fellowship and growing in biblical truth. Given the rise of the internet and the availability of streaming church services, many ministry leaders and church members are asking questions about the purpose and mission of the local church: What is the church? Why does the church exist? How does the church function? What is the connection between the Christian and the church? Pastor and trusted scholar Edward Klink III addresses these questions and more with a thoughtful assessment of what the Bible has to say about God's intention for the local church body. Klink stresses its importance as God's way of revealing his presence, displaying his power, fulfilling his purposes, and manifesting his activity in the world. In today's hyperindividualized culture, this book not only demonstrates why it's vital for individuals to connect to a local church, but also reveals why it's vital to God's work in the world.