As the name implies, the Perspectives course is about vision. It’s the same vision that empowered Jesus to live His life with joy, hope, and single-hearted passion. This course explores that vision and will help you respond to Christ’s invitation to live for the same purpose and significance that He did.
There’s joy in this vision. Jesus told His first followers that the value of living fruitfully for His Father’s glory was “that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full” (John 15:11).
What was the vision? Jesus summed it up in one of His final prayers to His Father: “I glorified You on earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do” (John 17:4). Jesus’s life purpose was to bring about God’s glory on earth. Throughout His life, Jesus kept the vision of God’s greater glory before Him. He believed His Bible as it told the story and described the prophetic certainty that God would be delighted by worship from every people. The vision of God’s glory focused His life choices and filled His daily endeavors with immense significance. Passion for God’s glory energized and integrated His life. Life with purpose was so satisfying that He said, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work” (John 4:34). As He set His life toward the hope of finishing God’s work, His life became a daily feast of purpose. This course aims to help you live strategically toward that same hope.
“Missions” is a loaded word for most Christians. Many people are exposed to missions in the context of appeals for volunteers or funds. Missions has often been reduced to a limited question of whether you will be a missionary or not. Most Christians would admit that they don’t really know enough about missions to know what they would do, even if they wanted to be a missionary. Even less clear is how someone can live for God’s global purpose without being a missionary.
The point of this course is not to persuade you to become a missionary. Neither is it to train you in the skills you need to serve as a missionary. The point of exposing you to many of the practicalities and challenges is to persuade you of the feasibility of finishing, with God’s help, the evangelization of every people. For many, exploring these possibilities helps them recognize what part God is giving to them.
The primary idea of this course is that God will fulfill His global purpose. The certainty that He will see it fulfilled makes His invitation to join Him in His mission a matter of heart-blazing hope. We are not called to perform dull religious duties. He is inviting His followers to lead lives of huge significance.
God has a “world-sized” role for every Christian in His global purpose.
Whether people go to distant countries or stay at home is a secondary issue. The primary issue is what most people are hungry to discover: vision to live a life of purpose. Discovering that vision makes this course valuable, and perhaps crucial, for any Christian.
The course is designed around four vantage points or “perspectives”—Biblical, Historical, Cultural, and Strategic. Each one highlights different aspects of God’s global purpose.
The Biblical and Historical sections reveal why our confidence is based on the historic fact of God’s relentless work from the dawn of history until this day. That’s why the essence of this course is the record of what God has been unfolding for thousands of years toward a certain, and perhaps soon-coming, culmination.
As we wind our way through history, we will meet the largest and longest-running movement ever in history—the World Christian Movement. This is a movement of Christ followers from every generation and from every place. We will find that virtually every innovative approach we can imagine has been attempted by those who have gone before us. We are in league with the most substantial movement of creative and self-sacrificing people the world has ever seen.
The Cultural and Strategic sections underscore that we are in the midst of a costly but very doable task, confirming the Biblical and Historical hope.
1. The Living God Is a Missionary God
God’s purpose is threefold: against evil—kingdom victory; for the nations—redemption and blessing; and toward God—global glory in worship. God’s purpose is revealed in His promise to Abraham’s family. We explore God’s purpose for the nations: to bring blessing amid every people.
2. The Story of His Glory
God has been steadily unfolding a plan throughout all nations and generations to reveal His character and beauty to draw to Himself the sincere worship of all the peoples. We learn about praying for God’s name to be glorified.
3. Your Kingdom Come
We explore God’s work to overcome evil powers to bring people to know and follow Jesus. The kingdom of God is defined in terms of relationship with King Jesus Himself instead of merely describing values and visions of His reign. We can pray for Christ’s life to overwhelm evil.
4. Mandate for the Nations
The interest that Jesus showed toward non-Jewish people demonstrated His mission and how His followers could fulfill it. Christ’s words of commissioning reveal that He will be with His followers in wisdom and power. We deal with the ideas of pluralism (all religions the same) and universalism (all persons saved).
5. Unleashing the Gospel
The first followers of Jesus obeyed Him in costly ways, beginning not in their hometown in Galilee but in Jerusalem, where they suffered in order to open a door of faith for all peoples. An important point of Acts is that non-Jewish people could (and would) follow God in Christ without taking on the burden of Jewish traditions.
6. Expansion of the World Christian Movement
The story of God’s purpose continues relentlessly from Abraham’s day until the present moment. We follow that story with an overview of the largest and longest-running movement ever in history—the World Christian Movement. We review how that movement has come to almost every people. We examine how mission movements have begun in many places throughout the world.
7. Eras of Protestant Mission History
Over the last two hundred years, three “bursts” of activity have led to great advances in world evangelization. Because of this great growth, the global harvest force now consists of many non-Western missionaries. We could be in the final era of missions.
8. Pioneers of the World Christian Movement
In our day we continue what others began long ago. It is a day of finishing. As we step into God’s multigenerational story, we are helped by learning from the wisdom of ordinary men and women who did extraordinary things in earlier generations. Reading some of the writings of William Carey and other leaders helps us to understand the legacy that has been left to us.
9. The Task Remaining
Previous generations have bestowed upon us a work that is nearly complete. We have inherited an almost evangelized world. The concept of “unreached peoples” helps us to understand the remaining task. Recognizing the imbalance of mission resources can help the global movement focus strategic priorities. The goal in every people should be to enable a movement that will declare and display the gospel throughout their people.
10. How Shall They Hear?
Communicating the gospel with relevance at the worldview level helps avoid syncretism (a blending of cultural error with God’s truth) and enables powerful movements of the gospel. Sensitive missionaries will look for ways that God has preserved or prepared people to hear the gospel, often finding redemptive analogies for God’s truth.
11. Building Bridges of Love
The incarnation is mentioned as a model of missionary humility. We explore how cross-cultural missionaries can find appropriate roles to form relationships of trust and respect in order to be received and develop a sense of belonging. When outsiders are received in this way, they can communicate with credibility, even in an urbanized, globally interconnected world.
Lessons 12–15 are arranged in strategic reverse sequence. The outcome is portrayed first, followed in reverse order by the necessary stages to achieve that end. Lesson 12 describes the fruit of the gospel’s transforming power. Lesson 13 describes life-giving church movements that bear these fruits of social change and thriving evangelistic efforts. Lesson 14 addresses the difficulties and the hope of how such movements are launched amid unreached peoples. Lesson 15 concludes by considering the partnership and discipleship that are required to send, support, and sustain the needed mission force.
To review the sequence with the analogy of churches as living things:
12. Christian Community Development
We consider a survey of world need and explore ways of bringing substantial and sustainable changes in health, education, and relationships in the local community. Because these changes are brought and sustained by Christ-following communities, we can speak of Christian community development. We explore and correct the charge that missionaries destroy, instead of serve, cultures.
13. Organic Multiplication of Churches
We look beyond institutional features to understand churches as dynamic movements of Christ Himself being followed. Such a view of churches as organic, living things opens up the practicality of rapid multiplication. These movements multiply by connecting with entire families and larger social structures. They often flourish, bearing the fruit of social transformation.
14. Pioneer Church Planting
Planting churches among unreached peoples is difficult but possible. Bringing a breakthrough of the gospel within an unreached people requires that the gospel be “de-Westernized.” There is a difference between contextualizing the message, the messenger, and the movement. We learn to appreciate how pioneer church planters initiate different kinds of Christward movements.
15. World Christian Discipleship
We learn how people integrate their lives for Christ’s global purpose as “World Christians.” We discuss the basic practices of World Christians: going, sending, welcoming, and mobilizing. We explore the four essential disciplines of World Christian discipleship: community, giving, praying, and learning. Many World Christians find ways to pursue business as they work in mission. Others welcome international visitors. We learn some lessons from many who have worked with local churches and in partnership with Christians in different parts of the world. We introduce some ways to be fruitful in short-term mission efforts.
This is the fifth edition of the curriculum called Perspectives on the World Christian Movement. The first edition of the curriculum appeared in 1982. A second edition was released ten years later, in 1992. The third edition, which appeared in 1999, was a significant overhaul of the course. The fourth edition was another major change, published in 2009. Several translations were published.
The fifth edition team aimed to clarify and deepen the course without making it more difficult to understand. The fifth edition will be familiar to the hundreds of thousands of people who have worked through the previous editions of the Perspectives course, many of them in countries other than the United States and in languages other than English. The fifth edition retains the same number of lessons with lesson titles and themes that are almost identical. Many basic themes and core ideas have not changed in the fifth edition, but watch for surprises. Many articles that have been part of the curriculum for years have been greatly revised. Many items have been edited to make them accessible and easily translated.
In the Biblical section you’ll find new material clarifying how God’s people co-work with the living God. We have strengthened several articles with small sidebars. We added more biblical substance throughout the course so that the paradigm shift of hope is a stronger, life-giving vision. God’s great story throughout the Bible is even more clear.
The Historical section may be the most changed. We now cover the important story of how the gospel came to and then was sent from Africa. We added a similar treatment about the continent of Latin America. We included some voices from the Majority World. Several items written by women celebrate the reality of women in mission. The rumor that missionaries destroy culture is more clearly refuted. The course has always attempted to present the challenges of fulfilling world evangelization. To assess the hope and cost of fulfilling the remaining task, we reviewed and updated most of the numbers.
The Cultural section contains new material about the gospel being presented effectively in societies that are oriented to shame and honor.
Several new articles were added to the Strategic section. We invited a few Majority World leaders to recount their stories about advancing the gospel and doing community development. Without adding overall length, we updated some of the case studies with recent developments.