Introducing Christian Mission Today STR Interviews Dr. Michael Goheen -- By: Anonymous

Journal: Southeastern Theological Review
Volume: STR 06:1 (Summer 2015)
Article: Introducing Christian Mission Today STR Interviews Dr. Michael Goheen
Author: Anonymous


Introducing Christian Mission Today
STR Interviews Dr. Michael Goheen

Introduction

It is a delight for STR to interview Dr. Michael W. Goheen on the publication of his recent monograph Introducing Christian Mission Today: Scripture, History and Issues (IVP Academic, 2014). Dr. Goheen is a friend of STR, having been interviewed in the 2/2(2011) edition of STR (pp. 117–26). He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Utrecht, writing on Lesslie Newbigin’s missionary ecclesiology. He has taught at a number of institutions, including Calvin Theological Seminary, Regent College, Trinity Western University, and Dordt College. Currently he splits his time between Vancouver, Canada and Phoenix, Arizona. He is Director of Theological Education and Scholar-in-Residence at the Missional Training Center in Phoenix, Arizona, and Adjunct Professor at Redeemer Seminary, Dallas. Dr. Goheen has served as a church planter and pastor to several churches and is presently a minister of preaching at New West Christian Reformed Church in the Vancouver area.

Interview With Michael Goheen

STR: Michael, thank you for speaking with STR. Why did you write this introduction to Christian mission?

Goheen: In 1989, while I was still a church planter and pastor, I was asked to teach an introductory university course on mission. I was not sure how to proceed. I knew that the colonial paradigm that had shaped mission for years was obsolete. But there were no models of how to structure such a course in missiology in our new setting that would bring together the various strands of missiology in a unified way. The second or third time I taught the course I was still struggling with this when I stumbled on David Bosch’s Transforming Mission literally just days off the press. I read that book carefully two times as I prepared for the course again. We know now that this book changed the discipline of missiology. His structure and treatment of missiology helped many rethink how to approach the discipline in a new time. His book, however, is long, dense, and difficult. I have used it many times but students have

found it tough going. I was hoping someone would write something a little more manageable but it never happened. So I decided to do it. I put into print the course I had been teaching for twenty-five years. But it is not simply a shorter and more popular version. There are a number of other differences. It treats topics he did not—for example, a missiology of Western culture, a survey of the global church in mission, Pentecostal mission, urban mission, and missions. Moreover, my theological perspective is explicitly evangelical and self-consciously in the ...

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