New Communities, New Ministries

This book is a journey to the land of faith. That land is our own planet, ablaze with the fire Jesus Christ came to set here twenty centuries ago.For most of those centuries, Christianity was something of a provincial phenomenon. It had won the West, then its American excrescences, and seemed to be happy with that. Islam, Buddhism, and the religions of India could go right ahead and divide up the soul of the other continents.To be sure, the church's missionary thrust never ceased driving it out beyond bounds that were too narrow. But it did so in peaks and valleys, and self-complacency tricked us back into the ghetto more than once.This is a book of living witness. It teems with the witness of the new countries, the ""young churches"" that live the gospel today in the Third World, in another culture, and in a situation of poverty as their daily lot.The word of God is a critique of every human society. And so the activity of the Spirit among these Christians of the church resurgent in Africa, Asia, and Latin America is a critique of the way we of the West understand that word--and live it.Time was when we could magnanimously welcome Third World Christians' ""contribution."" Those days are gone forever. Today we have to be willing to be jostled in our certitudes. And we have to be willing to change our attitudes and behavior.