Papers by Richard Hibbert
Evangelical Missions Quarterly, 2019
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Missiology: An International Review, 2019
The development of Christian leaders is a key need in much of the Global South. Research has show... more The development of Christian leaders is a key need in much of the Global South. Research has shown that churches that have a contextualized pattern of leadership are more likely to grow and less likely to be perceived as foreign. This article describes a process that missionaries can use with local leaders to define a God-honoring, culturally appropriate pattern of Christian leadership. It does this by drawing on research on Millet Christians’ perceptions of what makes a good leader as well as literature on cross-cultural variability in leadership. Three practical steps that cross-cultural workers can take to work with local leaders to define a contextualized pattern of leadership are outlined.
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International Journal of Frontier Missions , 2019
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Evangelical Review of Theology, 2017
This article explores the role of divine healing in Christian ministry, with a focus on cross-cul... more This article explores the role of divine healing in Christian ministry, with a focus on cross-cultural mission. Christian workers’ views of and expectations about God healing people are examined. The role of divine healing in the growth of the church among the Turkish Roma is analysed. Biblical perspectives on divine healing from the psalms are discussed and brought into conversation with the case study, and implications for ministry are drawn out.
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Evangelical Missions Quarterly , 2017
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The recruitment of missionaries from traditional sending countries in North America, Europe, and ... more The recruitment of missionaries from traditional sending countries in North America, Europe, and Australasia has declined steadily over the past few decades. Ideas about and methods for mobilising missionaries abound, but Western culture is changing rapidly, and these ideas and methods need to be reevaluated and modified periodically. Paula Harris, Acting Director for Urbana Missions Conference in the early 2000s, wrote: " United States culture is changing fast, and we need new missionary recruitment methods " (Harris 2002, 44). Whenever recruitment was discussed in our mission agency, people would point out that they joined the agency because they had met our missionaries or sending base personnel. Personal relationships were the key to stimulating others to consider becoming missionaries themselves. Although relationships were considered vital, it didn't stop our agency creating a plethora of recruitment materials, events and experiences to try to get people to consider becoming a long-term missionary. The work of mobilizing people into mission can be seen as nurturing the call of God on people's lives (Stebbins 2010). Recent reflection on the missionary call has helpfully portrayed it as a person's growing sense of conviction leading to a point of decision to serve God as a missionary (e.g., Austin 2000, 645-646; McConnell 2007, 213-215). In order to work out what methods of mobilisation might be most effective in this generation, it is helpful to find out how God is bringing this sense of conviction so that we can work along with him. We therefore set out to find out how God has been guided people who had recently been sent to the field for long-term service to become missionaries. We focussed on new missionaries sent out from Australia over the past ten years. This article reports our findings and points out some key implications. Two members of Sydney Missionary and Bible College's missions faculty conducted face-to-face interviews with 42 missionaries between February and November 2013. Because we wanted to focus on missionaries who had recently been sent out, interviews were limited to missionaries who had first left (or who were about to leave) for their country of missionary service after 2002. Interviewees were aged between 24 and 49. There were 23 men and 18 women, and three-quarters were married. Each was a member of one of ten interdenominational, evangelical missions agencies. 1 Four fifths of the interviewees were serving in Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, and the other one fifth had been accepted by their mission agency and were about to go to the field. The primary ministry roles of those who had already started their missionary work were evangelism and church planting, Bible college teaching, and mission team leadership. We asked these missionaries to tell us the story of how they become interested in missions, and how people, events or experiences had helped them make the decision to serve as a missionary. We also asked them how they eventually chose the mission agency they were serving with. 2
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Much missionary work is focused on helping churches become healthy and mature. In doing so, missi... more Much missionary work is focused on helping churches become healthy and mature. In doing so, missionaries face the challenge of contextualization. The local people’s ideals and images of church usually reflect different emphases than those of the missionary’s home culture. Indicators that have been used to assess whether a church is doing well in the missionary’s home country may not be the best measures of maturity or health in the host culture. This article describes the application of an approach to contextualization—Paul Hiebert’s “missional theology”—to the diagnosis of church health and maturity in Turkish-speaking Roma (Millet) churches in Bulgaria. In the process, the limitations of using indicators of church health developed in another cultural context without adaptation are discussed, Millet ideals of healthy churches are analyzed, and biblical and Millet ideals are brought into dialogue with each other to produce a contextualized portrayal of a healthy Millet church.
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This article explores the problem of sin being miscommunicated because of mismatches between miss... more This article explores the problem of sin being miscommunicated because of mismatches between missionaries' and host people's understandings of sin. It illustrates this problem in various cultural contexts and demonstrates how this problem is exacerbated when missionaries have a limited and fixed conceptualisation of sin. It examines how an understanding of sin can be more effectively communicated by appreciating the multifaceted nature of sin and the gospel, by analysing how the local people view sin, and by examining how the Bible speaks to that particular understanding of sin.
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It can be hard to know when to leave an organisation. This article explores why this can be the c... more It can be hard to know when to leave an organisation. This article explores why this can be the case, and discusses ways to help work out whether it is time to leave and, if so, how to leave well.
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This chapter assumes that the key to enhancing theological education is intentionally integrating... more This chapter assumes that the key to enhancing theological education is intentionally integrating knowing with being and doing, theory with practice, and theology with life and ministry. After outlining the longstanding call for better integration, it analyses evidence of a continuing need in this area, outlines recent proposals designed to address it, and highlights several signs of recent progress. Building on this analysis, the paper explores the potential of medical training in Australia to serve as a foil for reflection on ways of strengthening the relationship between knowing, being, and doing in theological education.
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Papers by Richard Hibbert
relate well to other people, understand and
engage with another culture, and be able to
use the Bible in a way that informs all aspects
of their lives and ministries. Missionary
training must address each of these areas
if it is to help Christians to be effective in
taking the gospel to the ends of the earth.
Effective training has been shown to prevent
people from prematurely leaving the field.
It also reduces the danger of cross-cultural
workers uncritically exporting culturally
bound forms of Christianity. This book details
four key areas that every missionary training
program, whatever its context, must focus
on developing. It shows how these can be
holistically addressed in a learning community
where trainers and trainees engage in crosscultural
ministry together.