Since the church we know is what we have grown up with, we can easily forget that church may look very different in different places and still satisfy New Testament criteria. For example, we assume that a church should have chairs, but in some cultures, the congregation sits on the floor. We show reverence by wearing our best shoes on Sunday; other cultures remove their shoes in order to show the same reverence. The purpose of this session is to make us think about the methods we are introducing into our mission work. This session relies heavily on Roland Allen’s MISSIONARY METHODS: ST. PAUL’S OR OURS? to stimulate thinking on this subject and provide seminal, hypothetical examples that will encourage each of us to make realistic applications that fit the specific context in which we minister.

See handout.