The author advocates a closer identification between the local congregation and the universal church. He works through the realities of church life and denominational organizations before challenging church leaders to redefine ecclesiology.

Persecution can kill the church--unless there is an adequate understanding of, preparation for, and response to this potentially fatal threat. Surviving Persecution is a study based on more than forty years of living and working with the Mayans of Chiapas, who inhabit the highlands of the southernmost state of Mexico. This book can serve as a guide for Christians living in a hostile environment to know how to avoid unnecessary persecution and to survive violent persecution when it strikes. This analysis of persecution can also be a valuable resource for students and congregations who desire to better understand the challenges and complexities of persecution. The last chapter gives guidelines for how national and international church organizations can play a vital role in helping the suffering church survive and thrive. From his personal experience of being the target of persecution and then working with the persecuted indigenous church, the author employs an anthropological approach…

Communicating God's Word in a Complex World reaches out to the growing number of missionaries, pastors, Bible translators and teachers, mission and theological educators and students dealing with communicating the gospel. This is increasingly difficult in today's pluralist and global contexts. What was God's message, and how has spreading that message changed through the generations? The answer to that question requires a hermeneutical process that seeks to understand the biblical text and the context in which it was originally presented. R. Daniel Shaw and Charles Van Engen say that contemporary proclaimers of God's word can model their approach after that of the writers of scripture, who reinterpreted and restated their received texts for their audiences. Thus, Gospel communication is impacted by the way humans know God. This, in turn, is informed by contexts. Communicating God's Word in a Complex World draws lessons from the biblical authors themselves as a guide for how best to…

En su esencia, la iglesia de Jesucristo es y busca ser misionera, participe de la mision de Dios. En esta obra editada y ampliada el autor, Carlos Van Engen, desafia a los lectores con una perspectiva misionera de la iglesia que responde a los retos del siglo 21. A partir de una eclesiologia biblica, historica y teologicamente amplia que trasciende las barreras culturales y etnicas del cristianismo, el autor nos ofrece una vision que transforma nuestras maneras de ser la iglesia en mision. Esta obra es eminentemente positiva ya que promueve el avance del Reino de Dios desde una solida perspectiva biblica y amplia.

Essays in Honor of J. Dudley Woodberry