Lesson
Outline for the Perspectives Course
About the Course
It Radically Transforms
Perspectives on the World Christian Movement is a dynamic, internationally
respected program that has transformed thousands of people.
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
- God initiates and advances work in history to accomplish His purpose.
- God calls His people to join Him in fulfilling His purpose.
- God’s purpose is to bless all peoples so that Christ will be served and glorified among
all peoples.
- God accomplishes His purpose by triumphing over evil in order to rescue and bless
people and to establish His kingdom rule throughout the earth.
- The Bible is a unified story of God’s purpose.
- God’s work in history has continuity and will come to an ultimate culmination.
- The Christian movement has brought about positive social transformation.
- The mission task can and will be completed.
- The world’s population can be viewed in terms of people groups.
- The progress of world evangelization can be assessed in terms of church-planting
movements within people groups.
- Completing the mission task requires the initiation and growth of church-planting
movements that follow social avenues of influence.
- Completing the task requires effective cross-cultural evangelism that follows
communication patterns within cultures.
- Completing the task requires strategic wholism in which community development is
integrated with church planting.
- Completing the task requires collaborative efforts of churches and mission agencies
from diverse cultures and traditions.
- God calls His people to embrace strategic sacrifice and suffering with Christ in order to
accomplish His global purpose.
- 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
- The Living God is a Missionary God
- The Story of His Glory
- Your Kingdom Come
- Mandate for the Nations
- The Expansion of the World Christian Movement
- Eras of Mission History
- The Task Remaining
- How Shall They Hear?
- Pioneer Church Planting
- Christian Community Development and Partnership
- World Christian Vision
Lesson Objectives
Lesson 1: The Living God is a Missionary God
Studying this lesson will help you learn:
- 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
Studying this lesson will help you:
- 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 |
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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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