Sherwood Lingenfelter’s reflections on non-formal leadership training as pioneered by Paul Gupta and the Hindustan Bible Institute: 1. Non formal training vastly expands the potential recruits. Some of the most successful church planters won’t make it into or through formal training. 2. Practical engagement quickly sifts out those who are not wired for, or committed [...]
Tag Archives: Movement case studies
Following up the punch
6 November, 2006 – 2:35 PM
A movement is held together by a common cause. That’s why movements find it so much easier to adapt their methods to the needs of the hour. In eighteenth century Industrial Britain, John Wesley considered it a sin for anyone to get saved in anywhere but a church. When he was excluded from preaching in [...]
Training Leaders for a Church Planting Movement
31 October, 2006 – 5:58 PM
Here’s a book that looks promising. From the blurb, This is the insightful story of Hindustan Bible Institute (HBI), an institution founded in Chennai, India, to teach pastors and to foster church planting, which over time had lost its vision. This fascinating story of dismantling and re-building of the HBI program to return to its [...]
19 lessons on church planting movements
18 October, 2006 – 8:13 PM
image “Tom” helped fuel a church planting movement amongst fervent monotheists somewhere in the Middle East—until his cover was blown and he was deported. The great thing about movements is they don’t rely on foreigners for their continued success. Tom still resources the local workers from a distance as the movement continues to expand. Tom [...]
The rise and fall of the Swiss watch
5 October, 2006 – 6:04 AM
We can thank Jean Calvin for the Swiss watch. In 1541, he restricted the wearing of jewelry—a worldly vanity. This forced the goldsmiths and other jewellers to turn into a new, independent craft : watchmaking. By the end of the century, Genevan watches were reputed for their high quality. For centuries the Swiss have been [...]
Philip Jenkins on the future of Christianity
8 September, 2006 – 8:50 AM
Here’s a nice sequel to the series on the rise and fall of Atheism in the modern world. Philip Jenkins on the future of Christianity. I read authors who change the way I see the world. So I’ve ordered it. A review from Publishers Weekly: In his highly acclaimed The Next Christendom (2002), Jenkins boldly [...]
God is Dead: RIP, 1966
7 September, 2006 – 9:43 AM
An interesting sideline in Alister McGrath’s The Twilight of Atheism is the story of the impact of secularism on modern theology. As a movement atheism reached its zenith around 1970. Communism was still power and Western intellectuals and some theologians were happy to join the bandwagon. McGrath writes, “Convinced that nobody (well, nobody who really [...]
Why atheism failed
6 September, 2006 – 6:32 AM
“Atheism invited humanity to imagine a world without God. For many in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, this was a morally compelling vision—a world in which humanity could think and do as it pleased, without having to look over its shoulder at some disapproving deity.” Alister McGrath Yet in the last thirty years, atheism has [...]
The rise and fall of disbelief
4 September, 2006 – 2:28 PM
The madman sprang into their midst and pierced them with his glances. “Where has God gone?” he cried. “I shall tell you. We have killed him—you and I. We are his murderers. Friedrich Nietzsche I’ve just finished working my way through ”The Twilight of Atheism: The Rise and Fall of Disbelief in the Modern World“ [...]
Heart of a founder: William Carey
1 June, 2006 – 12:26 PM
William Carey (1761-1834) was an impoverished village cobbler and part-time pastor with a limited education. As a young pastor, Carey became focused on one question: “Was not the command given to the Apostles, to teach all nations obligatory on all succeeding ministers to the end of the world?” Since the Reformation it was held that: [...]
