In the world of missions strategy, I've noticed a couple of significant trends over the last 40 years. First, a tendency to assume church planting and therefore a tendency to focus on form over function. Second, a view towards execution of centralized strategy rather than the creative exploration of localized solutions and catalytic conditions. Let's take these one at a time.

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Most church planting strategies begin with how churches multiply or how to organize a local gathering of believers. Those aren't bad conversations. But they presume a reorganization of existing Christians. Therefore, the focus isn't on how to bridge towards conversational points that help others both cross the threshold of faith (i.e., giving up control of one's life to Jesus as Lord because He alone saves), and also maturing that belief (i.e., a process or perspective on spiritual maturity as character development rather than role play in church organization or spiritual gift utilization). Therefore,...

Here are some countries in the world that are consistent in their persecution of Christians. These countries are almost anticipated as being hostile to Christians because of their religious context and the nature of scapegoating Christians living within that context. Nearly all of those listed in the following report on the rising Christian persecution in 18 countries are unsurprising: https://www.christianpost.com/news/christian-persecution-rising-in-18-countries-report.html. According to the article:

These countries include Syria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Mali, Sudan, Nigeria, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Myanmar, Russia, North Korea, China, Vietnam, India and Qatar, according to the report titled “Persecuted and Forgotten? A Report on Christians oppressed for their Faith 2020-22.”

Around the world, more than 360 million Christians live in places where they experience high levels of persecution just for following Jesus —...

¹⁴ “For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. ¹⁵ To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. ¹⁶ He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. ¹⁷ So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. ¹⁸ But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money. ¹⁹ Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. ²⁰ And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here, I have made five talents more.’ ²¹ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over...

It's 2022 and I'm writing on the rise of antisemitism. What is happening?

The ADL posts an index of Anti-Semitism based on survey questions. They post the questions and results publicly. https://global100.adl.org/map 

Another is a chart tracking "harassment, vandalism, and assaults" on Jews in the U.S. between 2012 and 2021: https://www.statista.com/chart/9128/anti-semitic-incidents-are-surging-in-the-us/

When World War 2 ended, many of those from the Sudetenland were relocated to Dachau-Ost. There's even a main thoroughfare called "Sudetenlandstrasse." Situated about 15 minutes by city bike from the concentration camp of Dachau was my grandparents house. I visited the concentration camp often and have been moved through the years by its brutalities and how those brutalities were either tolerated, ignored, or celebrated by those in its proximity. The establishment of the state of Israel was, in part, a way of helping the Jewish diaspora heal from the antisemitism...

The United Nations is reporting the planet's population has grown from 7 billion to 8 billion as of today (November 15, 2022). It took 12 years to add 1 billion people to the global population. National Geographic reports on the complexities: https://apple.news/Axxoc6ajKSyGX_dy_ddMw5w Next year (2023) India will overtake China as the world's most populated country (https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/11/india/india-surpassing-china-population-2023-un-intl-hnk/index.html). Africa will retain it's demographic pyramid and population growth rates even as other countries move towards demographies similar to Japan. Brazil will have more older people than younger people within thirty years (https://www.populationpyramid.net/brazil/2050/). Demography experts project that the global population will top off somewhere around 10-11 billion and then begin to recede. 

So, what's the big deal? We can currently fit the global population in the state of Texas, with each person...