Invitation to World Missions Quotes

“Christianity is the only world religion whose primary source documents are in a language other than the language of the founder of the religion. This is unheard of among world religions. Muhammad spoke Arabic, and the Qur'an is in Arabic; the Brahmin priests in India spoke Sanskrit, and the Upanishads are in Sanskrit. Jesus spoke Aramaic, and yet the primary documents that record Christ's teachings are not in Aramaic but in Koine Greek, the language of Gentile Hellenism.”
― Timothy Tennent, Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century

“The first Baptist missionary (and the first missionary from the United States) was the African-American George Liele, the Baptist pastor of the first African Church of Savannah, who was able to purchase his own freedom and then went to Kingston, Jamaica, in 1783 as a missionary to African slaves. By the time Carey left for India, Liele already had planted the African Baptist Church of Kingston with more than five hundred”
― Timothy Tennent, Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century

“... something is wrong when we soberly realize that the vast majority of the programs and ministries in many of our Christian organizations and churches would continue on unabated even if the Holy Spirit did not show up. It is startling, then, to read the book of Acts and realize that the whole church seems to be scrambling to keep up with the unfolding and empowering work of the Holy Spirit!”
― Timothy Tennent, Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century

“self-governing, self-supporting and self-extending"40 This "three-self" concept continues to inform missiology today and is still widely used as a benchmark for measuring church indigeneity, although the phrase "self-extending" was later amended to "self-propagating"41 This policy encouraged self-determination regarding ecclesiastical structures and discouraged reliance upon foreign funds.”
― Timothy Tennent, Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century

“Perpetua's account, known as the The Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas, is considered important for church history in a way that goes beyond the historical accounting of early Christian martyrdom. First, the account is a treasure because it is widely regarded as the earliest writing by a female Christian in the history of the church. Perpetua tells her own story in her own way. A glimpse into the inner life of an early Christian female who is facing martyrdom is extraordinary, particularly since Perpetua shares things that are unique to the experience of being a female. For example, Perpetua was a twenty-two-year-old woman who was still nursing her newborn child at the time of her arrest. She describes in detail the emotional anguish of separation, as well as the rather intimate record of the pain in her breasts because her child was not receiving the breast milk.28 The whole account reminds us of the wonderful particularity that is present in a female perspective. Reading Perpetua's account is also a reminder of how often women in the church have been "seen as adjuncts to men, rather than as historical protagonists in their own”
― Timothy Tennent, Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century

“The stereotypical view many
secularists have of missionaries is that of people who arrive on the mission field uninvited and unannounced and then proceed to "destroy the culture" through the imposition of Western cultural values. In actuality, the missionary commitment to vernacular language translation meant that the missionaries were often (even unknowingly) agents of cultural preservation and local empowerment.”
― Timothy Tennent, Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century

“The emergence of the New Testament in Tamil illustrates the significance Protestants placed on vernacular Bible translation. The Roman Catholic missionaries preceded the Protestants in India by many centuries yet never produced a single vernacular Bible translation.”
― Timothy Tennent, Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century

“Lamin Sanneh argues that translating the gospel from the words of Aramaic and Hebrew into Greek simultaneously relativized the Jewish roots and destigmatized the Gentile cultures.22”
― Timothy Tennent, Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century

“Today, many people admire and are acquainted with Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity, which is a sodality dedicated to serving the poorest of the poor and now operates in over one hundred different countries. The Reformers did not carry over the idea of sodalities into the ecclesiology of the Reformation. Therefore, the reasons why Protestants did not send any missionaries out for the first two hundred years were not only theological but also profoundly structural.”
― Timothy Tennent, Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century

“It is the middle of the three parts of the book's title that has been the most neglected, and yet it is arguably the most important. It is the phrase to use means. In this tiny phrase lies the remarkable genius of William Carey and, fascinatingly, the reason why he is known today as the Father of Modern Missions.”
― Timothy Tennent, Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century

“Even those who know the chronology of missions history still sometimes cite Carey as the "father" because of the length of his ministry in India (forty-one years), because of his commitment to Bible translation, or because he was an English speaker. However, when Carey arrived in India in November 1793, the German Protestant missionary Friedrich Schwartz already was in the forty-third of what would eventually be forty-eight years of ministry in India. Furthermore, the first Protestant missionaries, Ziegenbalg and Plutschau, translated the New Testament into Tamil by 1715, less than a decade after their arrival in India. There were several
well-known English-speaking missionaries before Carey, including John Eliot (1604-1690) and David Brainerd (1718-1747). In short, looking at the pure chronology of missions, it is difficult to see why Carey is considered the "first" or the "father" of modern missions. However, this is why missions history must be seen not simply through the lens of chronos but also through the lens of kairos.
William Carey can be referred to as the Father of Modern Missions, but not because of any of the reasons that are normally offered. William Carey is the father of modern missions because he stepped into a kairos moment, which stimulated the founding of dozens of new voluntary missionary societies and propelled hundreds of new missionaries out onto the field in what became the largest missions mobilization in history.”
― Timothy Tennent, Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century

“Occasionally you will read or hear statements that Carey was the first missionary of the modern period or that he was the first Protestant or even the first Baptist missionary. However, none of these statements are true.”
― Timothy Tennent, Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century

“There are three important observations about the emergence of Korean Christianity that are crucial to our understanding of the emergence of global Christianity. First, Korea is one of the few countries in the world where the church was born outside the country through expatriates who were being held as prisoners. Second, the first missionaries to Korea were not foreign missionaries but Koreans themselves who had come to Christ outside of Korea and returned as indigenous propagators of the gospel. Third, one of the earliest documentations of the Christian message was from Chinese Christian documents, rather than literature that explained the gospel in Western terminology. Since Korea has become one of the most Christianized countries in Asia and today is the home of the largest Christian churches in the world, it is important to recall the unusual origins of Korean Christianity, which was birthed through indigenous expressions of faith. If the missio dei is best understood as the arrival of the gospel prior to the missionaries, then the Korean church represents one of the foremost examples.”
― Timothy Tennent, Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century

“It is ironic that Koreans already were being martyred for their faith even before there were any known Christians in Korea.26”
― Timothy Tennent, Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century

“For example, one of the Jesuit missionaries, Father FrOis (1532-1597), working under the auspices
of Portugal, reported in 1596 that there were at least three hundred Koreans being held by the Japanese in Nagasaki alone. Interestingly, there are no known Christians in Korea at this time, but Koreans were becoming Christians in Japanese prison camps. In fact, the presence of Korean Christians in Japanese prison camps is confirmed during the persecution following the 1614 Edict. Japanese records indicate hundreds of Korean prisoners who were put to death for their faith along with the Japanese.”
― Timothy Tennent, Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century

“Because the Moravians were themselves a marginalized and persecuted community, they had a special burden for other displaced and suffering peoples. This commitment often came at great sacrifice. For example, of the eighteen missionaries who were eventually sent from Herrnhut to work with the slaves on St. Thomas, half died within the first six months.”
― Timothy Tennent, Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century

“the Moravians were known to send missionaries to difficult places to work among marginalized peoples.”
― Timothy Tennent, Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century

“The pietistic Moravian mission was like a traveling monastic order, but rather than a celibate clergy, they were sending out entire families as models of Christian community.”
― Timothy Tennent, Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century

“Theologically, this commitment to full mobilization was possible only because of the Moravian ecclesiology, which emphasized the central role of the laity, downplayed denominational affiliation, and refused to associate the church with the state, as was the common practice in Europe at that time.”
― Timothy Tennent, Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century

“There is no better way to situate all missionary endeavors and mobilizations in the missio dei than through a commitment to prayer.”
― Timothy Tennent, Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century

“There are several vital lessons we can learn from this first Protestant missionary movement. First, the Moravians were deeply committed to pray for the evangelization of the world. The dramatic move of God in their midst on August 13, 1727, was so profound that they continued taking turns in maintaining a prayer vigil. The Moravians focused their "prayer wall" on the evangelization of the world. This prayer vigil was maintained twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for over one hundred years!”
― Timothy Tennent, Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century

“The full extent and far-ranging influences of Pietism on Christianity are beyond the scope of this chapter. However, it is important to note that the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation did not produce any missionaries.18 It was the advent of Pietism two centuries later that produced the first Protestant missionaries, Bartholomew Ziegenbalg and Henry Plutschau, who went to India in 1705 through the Danish-Halle mission. However, the Moravians and the mobilization efforts of Count Nicolas von Zinzendorf will be the focus of this historical spotlight because the Moravians represent the first major Protestant missionary movement.”
― Timothy Tennent, Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century

“This period of Roman Catholic missions is important for three reasons. First, contrary to many prevailing assumptions, many of the Roman Catholic missionaries were sensitive to the challenges of contextualization.”
― Timothy Tennent, Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century

“Bartolome de las Casas (1484-1566) immigrated to the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean in 1502. Upon his arrival he was shocked by the cruel treatment of the Indians by the colonial authorities. He eventually was ordained as a Dominican priest and became a fierce critic of Spanish colonial practices.”
― Timothy Tennent, Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century

“The missionary movement and the colonial movement coincided in time, but they were two distinct movements.”
― Timothy Tennent, Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century

“He summarizes these two impulses as "missions as translation" and "missions as cultural diffusion." The former is the missionary impulse that learns the local languages and seeks the successful indigenization of the gospel. The latter is the impulse that imposes a foreign language and merely replicates Western cultural religious forms. Sanneh argues that while both have been present, missions as translation has been the "dominant mode of operation."13”
― Timothy Tennent, Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century

“Early on in his writings, Lull recognized the need to develop a Christian apologetic that specifically and directly responded to Islamic misunderstandings and objections to Christianity. Lull spent nine years learning Arabic and carefully studying Islamic philosophy and theology. Eventually he developed a multivolume, Trinitarian apologetic, known as Ars Generalis Ultima (The Ultimate General Art), which answered Islamic objections to Christianity and advocated a method for talking to Muslims that is sometimes known as the Lullian method. Lull was convinced that the military confrontation represented by the Crusades was a mistake. Rather, he believed that Muslims should be addressed in love, not hate, and by the force of logic, not the instruments of war.”
― Timothy Tennent, Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century

“It is important to realize, however, that the Crusades are not the only story of the Christian response to Islam during the Middle Ages. The fourth historical focus highlights the life and ministry of Raymond Lull (1232-1315), known as the Father of Islamic Apologetics.”
― Timothy Tennent, Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century

“After the dramatic conversion of the Saxons, Augustine inquired about a suitable location to build a church. To the surprise of Augustine, Queen Bertha brought him to the ruins of a Christian church, which had been constructed centuries earlier.”
― Timothy Tennent, Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century

“we should recognize the antiquity of Christianity in Asia. Later, Roman Catholic and Protestant missionaries arrived in China and discovered that the message of the gospel had already preceded them. This is an important reminder of the relationship of the missio dei to the missionary agent. Missionaries sometimes have mistakenly seen their role as "bringing the gospel" to a particular people group. However, one of the important lessons of the missio dei is to recognize God's primary agency in the missionary task. The missionaries did not bring the gospel to China; God brought the missionaries to China.”
― Timothy Tennent, Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the Twenty-first Century