| ||||||||||||
 | | | ||||||||||
|
The purpose of our lifetime ministry in Japan is to encourage
BOTH the vision for church planting and strengthening
AND the development of evangelical theology which gives rise to that vision.
Our ministry is one of encouragement or empowerment. The verb encourage originates in the Pauline concept of nurturing and encouraging believers. It includes the ideas of working as a partner and of modeling the ministry. It is not generated from the military or technological concept of "launching" or "taking a beachhead," nor from the business concept of "establishing an organization or a movement." On the international scene, such military and business language can easily be interpreted as the language of superiority: oppressive, controlling, and manipulative. The verb does not have easily measurable parameters: it is not always quantifiable. The verb signifies the primacy of personal relationships.
<< back to vision introduction // forward to vision parameters >>
