Continuing the Paul Mission for the Gentiles in the New Era

The research in this paper seeks to find some thought as a product of research that examines the important role of Paul's mission in the early church planting. In addition, this article will examine the pattern of Paul's mission so that church growth is very sporadic. The purpose of this research is to show that Paul's success strategy in mission is very worthy and interesting to be researched and studied, so that it becomes a cornerstone for the church today to continue Paul's mission pattern. Methodology in this research is going to use the theory of Francis Watson which based on the freedom of Paul mission, and also it want to take advantage based on the theory of Terence L. Donaldson that stated the universalism of Paul mission. This research shows that through God's help, Paul succeeded in establishing Gentiles churches. The churches today may learn that the preaching of the Gospel to the new generation today has its own challenges, because the different context. Another thing that today's church needs to learn is that Paul's passion and strategy in his mission has enabled him to build churches for other nations in various places for the glory of Christ.Penelitian dalam tulisan ini hendak berupaya menemukan beberapa refleksi sebagai hasil riset yang meneliti tentang peran penting misi Paulus terhadap perintisan gereja perdana. Selain itu, risalah ini hendak meneliti bagaimana pola misi Paulus sehingga pertumbuhan gereja sangat sporadis. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah hendak menunjukkan bahwa strategi keberhasilan Paulus dalam misi sangat layak dan menarik untuk diteliti dan dipelajari, agar menjadi batu penjuru bagi gereja masa kini untuk melanjutkan pola misi Paulus. Teologi misi Paulus yang berkaitan dengan pekerjaan misionaris yang dia layani saat itu. Tulisan ini mencoba menggunakan perspektif Francis Watson tentang kebebasan misi rasul Paulus. Selain itu juga didasarkan pada teori Terence L. Donaldson yang menyatakan tentang universalisme dari misi Paulus. Metodologi dalam penelitian ini akan menggunakan teori Francis Watson yang didasarkan pada kebebasan misi Paulus, serta ingin memanfaatkan teori Terence L. Donaldson yang menyatakan universalisme misi Paulus. Penelitian ini memperlihatkan bahwa melalui pertolongan Tuhan, Paulus berhasil mendirikan gereja-gereja non-Yahudi. Manfaat bagi gereja masa kini adalah bahwa Pemberitaan Injil bagi generasi era baru saat ini memiliki tantangan tersendiri karena konteksnya tidak sama lagi dengan era Paulus. Hal lain yang perlu dikaji oleh gereja era masa kini adalah semangat dan strategi Paulus dalam misinya, telah memampukannya membangun gereja-gereja bagi bangsa-bangsa lain untuk kemuliaan Kristus.

“Pack Up Your Office and Go”

This chapter describes four catalysts for planting new congregations that seem driven more by terrestrial chance and happenstance than celestial directives. The first of these, difficulties on the job market, not only is a catalyst for the decision to start a new congregation but is claimed as the God-influenced rationale for doing so. The second social catalyst, congregational conflicts and division, is a common dynamic of established congregations that has a common but unexamined outcome: the birth of a new church. In the third social catalyst for church planting, being “pushed out of the nest,” leaders of parent congregations encourage their associate ministers to plant a new church. The final phenomenon, the evolution of a parachurch ministry, is the most serendipitous catalyst for finding oneself in a founding pastorate. These entrepreneurs set out to create parachurch organizations, usually for Bible studies, with no interest at all in starting a formal church.

“Time, Talents, and Treasure”

As sociologists Howard Aldrich and Martin Ruef explain, “Most nascent entrepreneurs begin with almost nothing but their intentions. Few have access to capital and most cannot afford employees.” In church planting circles, it is often joked that “all a new church needs is a guitar and a microphone.” In many ways, they are right. Overhead costs of a new church are quite low. Much of the labor involved—praying, preaching, and “pastoring”—can be carried out by the founder him- or herself. That said, long-term and sustainable religion entrepreneurship, like other forms of entrepreneurship, requires resources. The biggest challenge for new and continuing enterprises is determining how to get people to support the organization through contributions of “time, talent, and treasure.” In this chapter, we explore the ways church founders generate and utilize two important assets—human and financial resources—necessary to build and maintain new congregations.

Church Planting

Chapter 2 is intended to be a primer for laypeople on a number of basic dynamics of church planting. As this book is less about church planting than it is about church planters themselves, this chapter provides a brief introduction to the contemporary history of church planting as a phenomenon. Drawing primarily on secondary sources, the chapter will give context to the issues raised in the rest of the book. Some of the basics of church planting—why denominations do it, forms church planting takes, the various customer bases for new congregations, and how new church plant locations and names are chosen—are described as well.

Kepemimpinan Kemitraan Tentmaker Akwila dan Priskila

Secular professionals have their own strengths when involved in ministryin the church. They can make a great contribution to growth the church. This paperelevates the leadership of a tentmaker partnership between Aquila-Priskilla and Paul inthe pioneering church at Corinth and Ephesus. Leadership partnership is done byapplying the principles of: partnership networking, self-support, holistic approach, anddiscipleship.Keywords: Leadership partnership, tentmaker, Corinth, Ephesians, church planting.

Perintisan Gereja Sebagai Bagian Dari Implementasi Amanat Agung

This paper discusses the initiation of the church as part of the implementation of the Great Commission. The method used in this paper is a qualitative method with a literature approach. Planting churches is part of the Great Commission because the pioneers of the church implement the spread of the Gospel to the established congregations. If we trace the PB (New Agreement) and its historical records in determining the pioneering locations of the church, God and man played a role. From God's point of view, it is theological basis when Paul and Silas prayed, then the Holy Spirit gave instructions on where they should go (Acts 16: 4-12). While from humans, the apostles sent people to preach the Gospel in the designated areas. In this pioneering exercise in identifying culture, it requires the involvement of mentoring involved. In starting a new church planting, focus on the arrangement of faith to new converts as well as on the congregation that will join as members but take priority over discussing material matters.

Lowalangi: From the name of an ethnic religious figure to the name of God

This article shows the success of local cultural adaptation strategies in communicating the gospel to people of the Nias ethnicity in North Sumatra, Indonesia. This adaptation is the name Lowalangi, the name of the god of the pre-Christian era, to become the name of God, the creator and saviour of the world incarnated in the person of Jesus Christ. As a result, the use of this name was not limited to a translation process. Still, the whole concept of divinity for the Nias people was transferred and transformed into a Christian understanding. They know him as Lowalangi, have faith in him and pray to him in that name. The author uses a comparative analysis with other places in Indonesia. The author tries to establish parallelism with methods used elsewhere, assuming that the methods used tend to be the same.Contribution: Churches and Christians in Nias are strengthened in their beliefs by praying and mentioning Lowalangi’s name, which imparts the same faith quality as the biblical use of God’s personal name. This adaptation can be a strategy for introducing the gospel in missiology and church planting in response to local culture as a wealth that cannot be negated. This research also has implications for the sociology of religion regarding the relationship between tradition and religious practice.