Impact of Missionary Training on Intercultural Readiness

Going as a missionary or sending a missionary without proper training is quite reckless, and one of the most critical components of missionary preparation is intercultural readiness. This research was conducted to study the means to enhance one’s intercultural readiness and to measure its four sub-domain components that are likely to enable such a meaningful preparation at pre-departure stage. A group of 45 missions trainees at the Evangelical Alliance for Preacher Training/Commission’s School of Mission in Seoul, Korea were split into two groups, and quasi-experimental research was made on these groups through pre-test and post-test design. The research carefully examined whether EAPTC’s Missionary Candidate Training program could be another option for training the missionary candidates for effective cross-cultural performance with greater longevity on their field experience.

Essential Alternatives to Contemporary Missionary Training: For the Sake of Vulnerability to the Majority World (Africa)

When the only advice on offer is unhelpful, a potential missionary might need to be advised to seek an alternative. Jesus, we take it, was not building a worldly empire (John 18:36). Christian mission has become associated with colonialism. Dominant advice often pushes Western missionaries to positions of strength. In order to be vulnerable, one needs an alternative to such advice. Economic domination of Africa by the West makes it hard to know when Africa’s people, long engrossed in patron/client relationships, are not talking for power. Use of English to describe Africa leads to massive false imputing of Western histories onto African societies. A little linguistic wisdom exposes the naivety of many contemporary understandings of the acumen of translation.

Calling and preparation for missionary service in the life of believers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons)

Serving on a mission is almost an indispensable part of the image of the adherents of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as Mormons, quasi-Christian new religious movement. The next text attempts to analyse and take a closer look at the theme of calling and preparing for the ministry of being a missionary as an attribute of this Church that was founded by Joseph Smith. Starting from an upbringing in the family and social expectations of the Church’s members through education in the Missionary Training Center, we can follow the vocation path and the creative process of the future Mormon missionary who preach the Gospel in various corners of the world. Missionary ministry is important in the life of each Mormon believer, even those who didn’t serve as a missionary, because it leaves a lasting imprint and affects the minds of the members of this new religious group for the rest of their lives.

The Language of Evangelism: Christian Cultures of Circulation Beyond the Missionary Prologue

This article provides an overview of recent scholarship on the language of evangelism and missionization within the anthropology of Christianity. Attention to Christian evangelism and forms of circulation was minimized as scholars worked to distinguish the study of Christianity from the study of colonialism, often treating missionaries and missionization as a prologue to a more central analysis of transformation organized through local people and local cultural change. However, issues of circulation are at the heart of many Christian experiences, especially for those within evangelical, Pentecostal, and charismatic worlds. This research is discussed here in terms of Christian cultures of circulation specifically and of models of communicative circulation more generally. Framing the language of evangelism in terms of circulation allows for the integrated discussion of a wide range of related issues, including work on translation, missionary training practices, and material formations of evangelism.

Sexual Abuse in a Korean Evangelical Church in Japan

A case of sexual abuse by the supervisor of the Central Church of Holy God (Seishin Chūō Kyōkai 聖神中央教会) in 2005 has led many in the Japanese Christian community and the media to question the “cultification” of the Christian church. This paper will consider the incident and its background, one negative aspect of “church growth” in Japan, in which Korean evangelical and Pentecostal churches competed vigorously to attract devotees. The pastor who founded this church was a Korean resident in Japan who had studied theology and the propagation methodology in South Korea, allowing him to realize church growth in notoriously non-Christian Japan. Yet, his top-down authoritative management suppressed believers’ spiritual and physical freedom of religion. In the following case study, I consider how the asymmetrical relations among church members contributed to this religious abuse. After taking into account issues of missionary training, proselytization methodology, and social strata, I suggest that a dysfunction within the “comprehensive religious community” forces members’ total dependence on pastors in their belief as well as their lives.