Contextualized Discipleship Ministries: Problematic, Legitimate, Imperative?
نویسنده
چکیده
From inception the Seventh-day Adventist Church has taken Jesus’ command to take the gospel to every nation, tribe, language, and people very seriously. A century and a half later we can only praise God for the results. The Adventist Church is the most widespread Protestant ecclesial body with over 16 million members in 203 countries and areas of the world, and with ministries that span 891 languages, including nearly 8,000 schools of all levels and over 65,000 churches (Vyhmeister 2000:1, 2; Ryan 2007:ix-xiii). Yet, even as Christians celebrate the goodness of God, it is clear that challenges remain. Significant non-Christian population groups, especially within the 10/40 Window, remain largely un-reached (Wagner, Peters, and Wilson 1995:17; Ryan 2007:x). Traditional evangelistic approaches so successful in other contexts have failed to make a substantial impact resulting in small numbers of conversions. Historical and practical considerations mean that Christianity may be viewed with suspicion and as a potential threat to the established order of society. As a consequence, even the few who accept the Advent message are often ostracized by their communities thus limiting their potential to make a further impact for the gospel. In an attempt to break the impasse, missiologists have developed various models of contextualization whereby the gospel can be presented in language and forms that are recognizable and acceptable by the groups being evangelized (Hulbert and Mulholland 1975:85-86). John Travis developed the C1-C6 spectrum to categorize contextual approaches which we summarize here. C1 is a typical church congregation transplanted from another country that uses the language of the culture of origin. C2 is a C1 congregation that uses the local language but makes no at-
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