{"id":253,"date":"2023-02-11T21:23:03","date_gmt":"2023-02-11T21:23:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/104.193.40.20\/greggfriend-wp\/?p=253"},"modified":"2026-02-08T21:23:42","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T21:23:42","slug":"back-to-the-future-of-missions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greggfriend.com\/?p=253","title":{"rendered":"Back to the Future of Missions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"235\" src=\"http:\/\/104.193.40.20\/greggfriend-wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-28.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-254\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Kristin and I went on our first short-term mission trip to Hungary in 1996.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This trip turned our hearts towards finding ways to support the <strong>mission of God<\/strong> to the nations:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>By bringing the good news of Jesus and<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>By bringing healing and aid to the marginalized.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>Over the years, I have become disillusioned that we are exporting more American Evangelicalism and Western culture than Jesus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The original edition of this book by John Stott was written in the mid-70s and was part of John being the principal framer of the landmark Lausanne Covenant (1974). This book is a republication on the 40th anniversary and was expanded with commentary by Christopher J. H. Wright.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In reading this almost 10 years later, I was surprised at how most of my concerns with the modern missionary movement were addressed by John in the original publication and by the Lausanne Covenant. I wonder why the covenants have not produced change in almost 50 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kristin and I went on our first short-term mission trip to Hungary in 1996. This trip turned our hearts towards finding ways to support the mission of God to the nations: Over the years, I have become disillusioned that we are exporting more American Evangelicalism and Western culture than Jesus. The original edition of this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":254,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greggfriend.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greggfriend.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greggfriend.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greggfriend.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greggfriend.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=253"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/greggfriend.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":255,"href":"https:\/\/greggfriend.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions\/255"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greggfriend.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greggfriend.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greggfriend.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greggfriend.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}