• About the Course
• Perspectives: A Course of Vision, Hope and Passion
• Core Ideas
• Lesson Titles
• Lesson Objectives
• The Perspectives Notebook
• How to use the Notebook

About the Course

It Radically Transforms
Perspectives on the World Christian Movement is a dynamic, internationally respected program that has transformed thousands of people.

Through Multiple Perspectives

Biblical Perspective
The Bible is One Book with one major theme that has implications for all of us. You'll see the Bible in a new light.

Historical Perspective
Discover how God has been working through history fulfilling one major purpose revealed in the scriptures. You'll understand more clearly how close we are to its completion in our own day.

Cultural Perspective
You'll see how the gospel has crossed cultural barriers, how culture affects our communication, and how we can be more sensitive to God's work in cultures radically different from our own.

Strategic Perspective
You'll be exposed to amazing ways God is accomplishing His plan and purpose among the nations. You'll become inspired and motivated in new ways to become strategically involved in God's plan and purpose--in your family, in your church, through your job, in your community, for the sake of others.

You can also find a summary of the Perspectives course at the perspectives.org website. Click here.

Perspectives: A Course of Vision, Hope and Passion

As the name implies, the Perspectives course is about vision. It's the same vision which empowered Jesus to live His life with joy, hope, and singlehearted passion. This course explores that vision and will help you respond to Christ's invitation to live for the same purpose and significance that He did.

There's joy in this vision. Jesus told His first followers that the value of living fruitfully for His Father's glory was "that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full" (John 15:11).

What was the vision? Jesus summed up the vision in one of His final prayers to His Father, "I glorified You on earth, having accomplished the work that You gave me to do" (John 17:4). Jesus' life purpose was to bring about God's glory on earth. Throughout His life, Jesus kept the vision of God's greater glory before Him. He believed His Bible as it told the story and described the prophetic certainty that God would be delighted by worship from every people. The vision of God's glory focused His life choices and filled His daily affairs with immense significance. Passion for God's glory energized and integrated His life. Life with purpose was so satisfying that He said, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to accomplish His work" (John 4:34). As He set His life toward the hope of finishing God's work, His life became a daily feast of purpose. This course aims to help you live strategically toward that same hope.

"Missions" is a loaded word for most Christians. Many people are exposed to missions in the context of appeals for volunteers or funds. Missions has often been reduced to a limited question of whether you will be a missionary or not. Most Christians would admit that they don't really know enough about what missions is to know what they would do or be if they were to aspire to be a missionary. Even less clear is how someone can live for God's global purpose without being a missionary.

The point of this course is not to persuade you to become a missionary. Neither is it to train you in skills you need to serve as a missionary. We simply want to show you practical examples of how missions can be done wisely and well. The primary idea is that God will fulfill His purposes. The certainty that He will see it fulfilled makes His invitation to join Him in His mission a matter of heart-blazing hope. We are not called to perform dull religious duties. He is enlisting His followers to lead lives of huge significance.

We are convinced that God has a "world-sized" role for every Christian in His global purpose. Whether people go to distant countries or stay at home is a secondary issue. The primary issue is what most people are hungry to discover: vision to live a life of purpose. Discovering that vision makes this course valuable, and perhaps crucial, for any Christian.

What's In This Course? The course is designed around four vantage points or "perspectives"- Biblical, Historical, Cultural and Strategic. Each one highlights different aspects of God's global purpose.

The Biblical and Historical sections reveal why our confidence is based on the historic fact of God's relentless work from the dawn of history until this day.

That's why the essence of this course is the record of what God has been unfolding for thousands of years toward a certain, and perhaps soon-coming, culmination. As we wind our way through history, we will meet the largest and longest-running movement ever in history- the World Christian Movement. You will find that virtually every innovative approach you can think of has been attempted by those who have gone before us. We are in league with the most substantial movement of creative and self-sacrificing people the world has ever seen. The Cultural and Strategic sections underscore that we are in the midst of a costly, but very "do-able" task, confirming the Biblical and Historical hope.

Core Ideas

1. God initiates and advances work in history to accomplish His purpose.
2. God calls His people to join Him in fulfilling His purpose.
3. God’s purpose is to bless all peoples so that Christ will be served and glorified among
   all peoples.
4. God accomplishes His purpose by triumphing over evil in order to rescue and bless
   people and to establish His kingdom rule throughout the earth.
5. The Bible is a unified story of God’s purpose.
6. God’s work in history has continuity and will come to an ultimate culmination.
7. The Christian movement has brought about positive social transformation.
8. The mission task can and will be completed.
9. The world’s population can be viewed in terms of people groups.
10. The progress of world evangelization can be assessed in terms of church-planting
    movements within people groups.
11. Completing the mission task requires the initiation and growth of church-planting
    movements that follow social avenues of influence.
12. Completing the task requires effective cross-cultural evangelism that follows
    communication patterns within cultures.
13. Completing the task requires strategic wholism in which community development is
    integrated with church planting.
14. Completing the task requires collaborative efforts of churches and mission agencies
    from diverse cultures and traditions.
15. God calls His people to embrace strategic sacrifice and suffering with Christ in order to
    accomplish His global purpose.
16. By participating in the world Christian movement, every believer can find a way to live with
    vital, strategic significance in God’s global purpose.
    

The 16 core ideas expanded (pdf)

(Taken from the perspectives.org website)

Lesson Titles

1. The Living God is a Missionary God
2. The Story of His Glory
3. Your Kingdom Come
4. Mandate for the Nations
5. The Expansion of the World Christian Movement
6. Eras of Mission History
7. The Task Remaining
8. How Shall They Hear?
9. Pioneer Church Planting
10. Christian Community Development and Partnership
11. World Christian Vision

Lesson Objectives

Lesson 1: The Living God is a Missionary God

• Why God's covenant with Abraham discloses the destiny of every nation of the planet.
• Why you are sure that God is a global God, and not a tribal deity who favors one people over all the others.
• How the entire story of the Bible provides a strong mandate for a mission to all nations.
• Why the enterprise of missions has substantial biblical basis that invites every believer to fulfill their part.
• How God's first promise in the Garden of Eden reflects His mission purpose.
• How to express God's single mission purpose as it unfolds in three directions: toward God, on behalf of all nations and concerning satanic evil powers.
• How God fulfills His promise progressively through history.

Lesson 2: The Story of His Glory

• Explain how the entire story of the Bible unfolds toward a purpose of God's glory in global worship.
• Value worship as a relational act that reveals and delights God and fulfills His love for people.
• Explain the story of the Bible as God revealing glory to the nations in order to receive glory from the nations.
• Show how several of the main events of the Bible's story cohere around the theme of God's unfolding plan to bring about global glory by worship from the nations.
• Recognize the mission purpose found in the "Lord's Prayer."
• Explain the sentence: "Missions exists because worship doesn't."
• Explain how both an expansive and an attractive force have always been used by God to advance His mission purpose.
• Describe how the mission objective of planting churches in unreached peoples brings about God's greater glory.
• Explain how compassion for people's needs can be integrated with passion for God's glory.
• Grow with biblical passion for God's glory and kingdom.

Lesson 3: Your Kingdom Come

Studying this lesson will help you:

• Define and use the concepts comprising the theme of the kingdom of God in the Bible.
• Explain the surprise of "the mystery of the Kingdom" in terms of the Messiah coming not just once, but twice.
• Explain the mission significance of a "two-tier" timeline of history, in which a present evil age persists even though it is invaded by a coming kingdom age.
• Explain what it means to advance the gospel of the Kingdom.
  o Explain how Matthew 24:14 gives hope and focus for completing world evangelization.
• Understand how Jesus pursued his life-work guided by a vision of the kingdom of God as a fight against evil.
• Explain the strategic value of Jesus working with a few leaders to launch a movement to reach the entire world.
• Explain the strategic value of Jesus' focus on the Jewish people.
• Tell the story of how Jesus taught and modeled ministry to Gentiles.
• Pray with bold hope and with strategic purpose for God to restrain evil powers in order for people to hear the gospel and to hope for lasting change.

Lesson 4: Mandate for the Nations

Studying this lesson will help you:

• Explain the Great Commission, describing Christ's expectation of what is to be completed among all peoples.
• Describe the strategic value of focusing on people groups as it helps to complete the entire task of world evangelization.
• Explain how Jesus sends His followers on mission in the same way the Father sent Him on mission.
• Present the best biblical grounds for explaining the lostness of humankind in response to the ideas of universalism.
• Explain how the uniqueness of Christ responds to the challenge of pluralixm.
• Explain how God helped the early Church to be faithful to Christ's mandate to be witnesses.
• Describe the crucial importance of the Acts 15 council for understanding how to present the gospel to the nations without presenting cultural obstacles to following Christ.
• Explain why the mission purpose of God is fulfilled by planting churches more than any other activity.
• Describe both the apostolic and congregational structures of the Church using the terms modality and sodality.
• Explain how prayer can be strategically offered for people throughout a city in such a way that God's hand is revealed, allowing the gospel to move rapidly.
• Explain how Paul's strategy of suffering defeated evil powers with the weakness of Christ rather than the power of Christ.

Lesson 5: The Expansion of the World Christian Movement

Studying this lesson will help you:

• Tell the "broad-stroke" story of how God's blessing has continued to extend to all peoples throughout 4,000 years of biblical history.
• Describe the progress of the gospel to different geographic areas and cultural basins in each of the five 400-year epochs since Christ.
• Explain how the gospel advanced even when God's people were disobedient. You will understand different "mechanisms" of mission: people "coming" or messengers "going," either voluntarily or involuntarily.
• Illustrate the idea that God's blessings are to be passed on, or they might be taken away.
• Explain how the Moravian community is exemplary to the Church today in areas of motivation and persistence.
• Describe some key mission leaders and movements in history and their strategic approaches.
• Describe the two functional structures of the Church through the centuries using the terms "modality" and "sodality."
• Explain the rationale that William Carey used to argue that the Great Commission was a binding mandate for believers in the present day.
• Explain how Carey's motto-"Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God." -helps explain the attitude and actions of the pioneers of the mission movement.

Lesson 6: Eras of Mission History

Studying this lesson will help you:

• Describe the commitment and zeal of "First Era" missionaries.
• Describe how Carey, Taylor and Townsend were each motivated by the vision of completing world evangelization.
• Explain why Hudson Taylor founded a mission agency.
• Explain why Cameron Townsend began translating the Bible.
• Describe the ways that women have been an important part of mission efforts throughout history.
• Recall the approximate dates, emphasis, leaders and student movement associated with each of the three eras of Protestant missions history.
• Explain the four stages of mission activity.
• Explain the tensions of the transitions between the eras.
• Describe a "people movement."
• Use the E-Scale to describe the cultural distance of missionaries from their intended hearers.
• Use the P-Scale to describe the comparative socio-cultural distance of existing churches from would-be followers of Christ.
• Describe "people blindness."

Lesson 7: The Task Remaining

Studying this lesson will help you:

• Differentiate between regular and frontier mission efforts using the E-Scale and the P-Scale.
• Define and use the terms people bloc, people group, unimax people group, socio-people, and unreached people group.
• Quote from memory the definition of a people group for evangelistic purposes.
• Explain the essential missionary task using and defining the term missiological breakthrough.
• Describe the rough percentages of the world's population who live in unreached peoples and in reached peoples.
• Recall roughly how many unimax groups there are in the four major cultural blocs of unreached peoples.
• Describe the imbalance of missionary allocation in today's world.
• Explain how good mission strategy express both faith and faithfulness while allowing for the Lordship of the Holy Spirit in mission decisions.

Lesson 8: How Shall They Hear?

Studying this lesson will help you:

• Discover what to do to communicate the gospel with sensitivity in crosscultural E-2 and E3 settings.
• Explain how a dynamic integration of beliefs, feelings and values provides an underlying mental map that guides behavior.
• Explain the dynamic of ethnocentrism.
• Explain how a "dynamic equivalent" church can be both a Christ-honoring and cultureaffirming church.
• Explain what it means to contextualize the gospel.
• Describe how a redemptive analogy works to help people hear the gospel.
• Explain the importance of distinguishing the "seed" of the gospel from the "plant" which may have sprouted from it in a particular culture.
• Explain what can go wrong when surface-level behavior is not accompanied by conviction about deep-level meaning.
• Define syncretism and describe what can be done to avoid it.
• Explain how the incarnation of Christ serves as a primary model for communicating the gospel with a grasp of both His renunciation and identification.
• Contrast the way the gospel flows in the different social structures found in urban, peasant and tribal societies.

Lesson 9: Pioneer Church Planting

Studying this lesson will help you:

• Explain why aiming to evangelize whole families is the best way to plant churches that will evangelize throughout a people group.
• Describe the four ways that churches grow.
• Explain why it is important to view the Church as a new creation of God.
• Describe what makes a church truly indigenous.
• Describe why church planting among unreached peoples is difficult, feasible and crucially important.
• Describe what "extraction evangelism" is and how to avoid it.
• Describe how a "conglomerate" church forms and evaluate its potential for multiplying throughout a people group.
• Evaluate the practicality of focusing on one people group in culturally distinctive churches which aim not to be exclusive or divisive.
• Describe why new converts often experience great scorn and disfavor from their people and yet should be encouraged to remain in relationship with their people.
• Describe why new converts can aspire to exemplify the finest ideals of their people.
• Use the "H-Scale" and "C-Scale" to identify and compare contextualization of new churches in a Hindu or Muslim society.
• Describe some guidelines to guard against syncretism in E-2 and E-3 evangelism.

Lesson 10: Christian Community Development and Partnership

Studying this lesson will help you:

• Describe some of the most critical dimensions of global human need and comprehend the nature of global poverty.
• List and evaluate four approaches to meeting global human need.
• Compare and contrast Christian Relief ministry with Transformational Development.
• Explain why and how Christian Community Development offers the greatest hope and promise for reaching people suffering from spiritual and physical hunger and is the most effective long-term approach to integrating evangelism and church planting with community development efforts.
• Describe ways that cross-cultural workers have been encouraging reconciliation between people groups.
• Describe how some churches have been effective in launching frontier mission efforts.
• Describe the value of strategic evangelism and church-planting partnerships.

Lesson 11: World Christian Vision

Studying this lesson you can expect to learn:

• Describe how believers can grow as World Christians.
• Explain how local churches strengthen the mission movement, and yet why they also need to be mobilized by the mission movement.
• Explain why God reveals His will without revealing details of the future to His servants.

The Notebook

Perspectives on the World Christian Movement, The Notebook, 1999 Edition 2004 condensed by Frontier Education Society Editors Ralph D. Winter (Founder, U.S. Center for World Mission) Steven C. Hawthorne (Curriculum Development, Institute of International Studies) Associate Editors: Darrell R. Dorr D. Bruce Graham Bruce A. Koch WCLP, P.O. Box 40129, Pasadena California 91114

How to use the PERSPECTIVES Notebook

Follow the Guide Notes
The main part of every lesson is what we have called "Guide Notes." The Guide Notes appear as an outline which summarizes the main points of the course. In a very real sense, the Guide Notes constitute the course. Consider them to be something like an interpretive guide in a museum who helps you to understand and thereby appreciate and remember what you see. The Guide Notes integrate, and in some cases add to the material found in the readings. The Guide Notes are interwoven with the articles to help cue you to know what is essential for the reading which follows.

Focus on the Objectives
Each lesson opens with important introductory paragraphs and a list of objectives. This list should help focus your attention on the basic ideas.

Take In the Key Word
The "key word" at the beginning of each lesson is designed to stimulate interest and signal what may be of primary value to you. It is not intended to be a one-word summary of the content of the lesson.

Reflect on the Review Thoughts
Sometimes we invite you to stop and reflect on an idea, look elsewhere in the notebook for an illustrating story from another article, or examine some scripture that will deepen your grasp of the topic.

You'll find these "Review Blocks" in Italic within the Guide Notes

Material not included in your Notebook

Report the Impact with Personal Response Papers
Heighten the impact of the course by articulating some of the ideas that you have found most challenging, helpful, or troublesome. It's only graded by how thoughtful you've been. Use them to identify what is most significant to you.

Learn from the Quizzes
The quizzes are to be designed for you to complete with an open book and an open Bible if you prefer. Each quiz should be taken after all the reading is completed.

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