Posted on January 1st, 2009 by Mark Naylor
Tags: apostolic • Church • Cross-Cultural • Ethnic • Missional • Missionary • Missions • Short Term Missions • Sindhi
Categories: Missional Church • Missions
NOTE: Mark is available to work with our FEBBC/Y churches to coach missions committees in their role in leading their local church in the area of missions. Please contact mark.naylor@twu.ca or view Mark’s Coaching page
It is so easy to become distracted! Whenever I come home from my Bible translation trips, I have a number of [...]
Posted on October 1st, 2008 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Culture • Islam • Language • Missionary • Religion • Translation • Worldview
Categories: Contextualization
What kind of God commands people to strap bombs to their bodies and blow up crowds of people? What kind of God tells people to drive passenger planes into the sides of buildings? What kind of God commands parents to kill their children? What kind of God would come to one of his worshippers and [...]
Posted on September 1st, 2008 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Evangelism
Categories: Evangelism
An Incomplete Wedding Shower
I remember a friend relating to me the story of a mentally handicapped young woman who lived with her parents. Every time there was a wedding shower for a bride-to-be at the church, the mother would take her daughter to the event. One day, the young woman asked her mother, “When do [...]
Posted on June 1st, 2008 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Cross-Cultural • Culture • Ethnic • Intercultural • Language • Leadership • Training
Categories: Cross-cultural leadership training
NOTE: A companion workshop to these articles is available to multi-ethnic churches that provides information, exercises and interaction to encourage the implementation of those disciplines that promote healthy intercultural relationships. Please contact Mark at mark.naylor@twu.ca
Whose rules rule?
In the innovative cultural simulation game, Barnga, created by Sivasailam Thiagarajan, groups of people play a simple card game [...]
Posted on May 1st, 2008 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Communication • Cross-Cultural • Culture • Ethnic • Intercultural • Language • Multicultural • Sindhi
Categories: Cross-cultural leadership training
NOTE: A companion workshop to these articles is available to multi-ethnic churches that provides information, exercises and interaction to encourage the implementation of those disciplines that promote healthy intercultural relationships. Please contact Mark at mark.naylor@twu.ca
The High Power Distance / Low Power Distance1 Culture Clash
HPD = High Power Distance [...]
Posted on April 8th, 2008 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Communication • Cross-Cultural • Culture • Dialogue • Ethnic • Intercultural • Language • Leadership • Missions • Multicultural • Sindhi
Categories: Culture and Worldview
NOTE: A companion workshop to these articles is available to multi-ethnic churches that provides information, exercises and interaction to encourage the implementation of those disciplines that promote healthy intercultural relationships. Please contact Mark at mark.naylor@twu.ca
The Power Distance Contrast
In Pakistan there is a strong tradition of “holy men” who are called Pirs. One day I [...]
Posted on March 3rd, 2008 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Communication • Culture • Ethnic • Intercultural • Language • Leadership • Missions • Multicultural
Categories: Culture and Worldview
NOTE: A companion workshop to these articles is available to multi-ethnic churches that provides information, exercises and interaction so that those disciplines that promote healthy intercultural relationships can be implemented. Please contact Mark at mark.naylor@twu.ca
Multicultural Fragmentation
The story of Babel (Gen 11) records the story of the first failure of an intercultural enterprise. Since [...]
Posted on December 3rd, 2007 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Culture • Dialogue • Evangelism • Intercultural • Missional • Missionary • Training • Worldview
Categories: Evangelism
The Common hunger of Humanity
What we as human beings search for and value in life is the “meaningful” and the “good.”
With regard to the “meaningful,” we are always trying to make sense of our world. Hopelessness, which is what we seek to avoid, is the antithesis of the “meaningful” and happens when the [...]
Posted on October 2nd, 2007 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Cross-Cultural • Evangelism • Intercultural • Islam • Language • Leadership • Missional • Missions • Short Term Missions • Sindhi • Training • Translation
Categories: Uncategorized
Coordinator of the Centre for Intercultural Leadership Development (CILD)
Mark served along with Karen, his wife, in Pakistan among the Sindhi Muslim people for fourteen years, doing evangelism, church planting and leadership development. He continues with his responsibilities as the supervisor and primary exegete for the Sindhi Old Testament translation project. Here at Northwest Mark’s responsibilities [...]
Posted on September 3rd, 2007 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Bible Version • Church • Culture • Language • Missionary • Translation
Categories: Bible Translation
As a missionary involved in Bible translation for the past 18 years, I was disappointed with the tone of the article “‘Packer’s Bible’ now bestseller” appearing in the BC Christian News, August 2007 Vol 27 #8. During the course of celebrating the growth in sales of the English Standard Verson (ESV) – a welcome addition to [...]
Posted on July 1st, 2007 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Cross-Cultural • Culture • Leadership • Training
Categories: Cross-cultural leadership training
(This is an edited reprint from FEBInternational’s publication “Focal Point”)
“There are too few trained leaders!” This statement jumped out at me from my browser one morning a short while ago. Although the Operation World web page was referring to Burkina Faso, this statement describes many countries with thousands of young Christians [...]
Posted on March 5th, 2007 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Culture • Language • Missional • Missionary • Missions
Categories: Missional Church
Validating Missional and Communal
“Attractional” churches according to Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch are those congregations that develop “programs, meetings, services, or other ‘products’ in order to attract unbelievers into the influence of the Christian community.” They argue that this approach is “increasingly ineffective” and is the result of “old Christendom” [...]
Posted on February 5th, 2007 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Culture • Leadership • Missional • Missions
Categories: Missional Church
A Fatal Trend
When we were missionaries in Pakistan there was a time when “church planting” became the standard for our team - it was the tie to church planting that validated the ministries we were involved in. However, the demand for a direct church planting connection resulted in an analysis and [...]
Posted on February 5th, 2007 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Communication • Culture • Evangelism • Intercultural • Missional • Missions
Categories: Missional Church
In The Shaping of Things to Come, St Thomas’s Crookes is given as an example of a church that is shaped around its participation in God’s mission to the world. The basic level of the church consists of cells whose aim is to relate relevantly and redemptively with a particular [...]
Posted on December 5th, 2006 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Contextualization • Culture • Islam • Language • Missional • Missionary • Religion • Sindhi • Worldview
Categories: Missional Church
An Inward or Outward focus?
Hudson Taylor was a pioneer missionary to China who recognized the need to immerse himself in the Chinese culture in order to relate the gospel to the people in ways that made sense to his audience. He learned their language, wore his hair in a pigtail, wore their [...]
Posted on November 5th, 2006 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Islam • Missional • Missionary • Sindhi
Categories: Missional Church
In the previous article, a missional church was defined as the communal relationship between followers of Christ which stems from intentional gospel transformation in the world (outward orientation). In contrast the more prevalent communal oriented church can be defined as the communal relationship between followers of Christ as an expression of [...]
Posted on October 5th, 2006 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Culture • Leadership • Missional • Sindhi
Categories: Missional Church
FEBI goal: missional churches
FEBInternational, the mission arm of the Fellowship of Evangelical Baptist Churches of Canada, is a church planting mission and has been from its inception over 40 years ago. Recently under the leadership of the current director, Richard Flemming, this goal has been clarified as planting missional churches. This [...]
Posted on September 5th, 2006 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Bible Version • Church • Communication • Culture • Language • Sindhi • Translation
Categories: Bible Translation
I admit it: I am doing Bible translation1 because I want to see the Sindhi culture change. I want to see people affected by the word of God so that they put Christ at the center of their lives. As people use God’s word as their guide to life [...]
Posted on August 5th, 2006 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Communication • Culture • Islam • Language • Missionary • Sindhi • Translation
Categories: Bible Translation
Bible Translation Shapes Faith
A missionary colleague phoned me up quite irate about a translation choice in the Sindhi NT1. A couple of Muslim friends had dropped in for a chat and asked him why Christians did not pray like Muslims by prostrating themselves to the ground. My colleague replied that the Bible speaks of worship [...]
Posted on July 5th, 2006 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Bible Version • Church • Communication • Culture • Language • Sindhi • Translation
Categories: Bible Translation
Importance of Clarity in Bible Translation
In discussing Bible translation and Bible versions with a number of people in our churches I have discovered a not uncommon assumption - that the more formal or literal a translation is in maintaining the form of the original language of the text, e.g., NASB, the [...]
Posted on June 4th, 2006 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Cross-Cultural • Culture • Language • Sindhi • Translation • Worldview
Categories: Bible Translation
Accuracy requires a single standard
I remember seeing an ad for a new translation of the Bible claiming to be the “most accurate translation” available today. Although a good marketing tactic, it is less than honest because accuracy in Bible translation is relative to the underlying philosophy and goals of the translation. [...]
Posted on May 4th, 2006 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Cross-Cultural • Culture • Islam • Language • Missionary • Missions • Sindhi • Training • Translation • Worldview
Categories: Culture and Worldview
Part V: Theological Basis for “Christ centered worldviews”
What would this worldview look like if Christ was Lord?
I remember the time a young believer brought a friend to me so that I could explain the gospel to him. We were living among the Muslim Sindhi people of Pakistan working with [...]
Posted on October 4th, 2005 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Cross-Cultural • Culture • Language • Missions • Short Term Missions • Training
Categories: Missions
A team of Canadian youth was involved with young people from another culture for an intense two weeks of ministry in children’s camps. They came back excited and impacted, but apart from relief at their safe return home, the church and parents showed little interest in the effect that experience had [...]
Posted on September 4th, 2005 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Cross-Cultural • Culture • Ethnic • Evangelism • Language • Leadership • Mentoring • Missional • Missionary • Missions • Training
Categories: Cross-cultural leadership training
The Need for Cross-cultural Leadership Training:
Why FEBInternational is developing
the CLTP program
“We no longer need ‘general practitioner’ missionaries here.” This comment from an experienced FEBI missionary points to an important reality in missions today: the need for quality personnel who can provide “value added” ministry. A guiding principle to validate [...]
Posted on March 4th, 2005 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Cross-Cultural • Evangelism • Leadership • Missional • Missionary • Missions
Categories: Missions
The Fear of Dilution
I was recently talking with a colleague who voiced a concern about the expanding understanding of missions in some of our more missional churches. The missions committee at his church expressed the desire to incorporate local evangelistic and social efforts under the broad umbrella of “missions.” My [...]
Posted on December 4th, 2004 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Communication • Contextualization • Cross-Cultural • Culture • Evangelism • Language • Missionary • Religion
Categories: Contextualization
Learning to be an effective change agent for Jesus Christ in another culture is the goal of a missionary. This can be mistakenly reduced to methods of communicating the gospel message which do not reflect sufficient appreciation or validation of the existing culture. Cross-cultural ministry is not a matter of learning [...]
Posted on October 4th, 2004 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Cross-Cultural • Culture • Missions • Pluralism • Religion
Categories: Culture and Worldview
In Canada we live in a pluralistic (1) society. How are we as Christians to respond to different philosophies, lifestyles, religions and cultures? What is the right attitude for those who believe in the exclusive claims of Christ? Should we appreciate other people’s cultures? Should we appreciate other people’s religious [...]
Posted on August 4th, 2004 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Culture • Evangelism • Pluralism • Religion
Categories: Culture and Worldview
Adapted from Crucial Issues for Christian Mission 5.3 Living in a Pluralistic Society
by Mark Naylor Oct, 2002
Through our church Karen and I run an unconventional Bible study which we affectionately call our "heretics Bible study". Within this group we welcome unorthodox opinions and encourage questions that reflect belief [...]
Posted on June 4th, 2004 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Communication • Cross-Cultural • Dialogue • Evangelism • Islam • Missions • Religion • Sindhi
Categories: Culture and Worldview
In Pakistan we lived next door to a mosque. The Maolvi (Muslim clergy) and I would occasionally talk and one day I gave him a New Testament to read. The next time we met he informed me that "this is not God’s Word. But it contains God’s Word." Further clarification revealed [...]
Posted on May 4th, 2004 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Cross-Cultural • Missionary • Missions
Categories: Missions
Implications for the Church Oriented Sending Agency
The Partnership Trend
Stemming from a college professor’s interest in his international students, members from a local church began to build relationships with families from that people group. Some of the church members went on to minister full time to these people in their homeland. [...]
Posted on April 4th, 2004 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Missional • Missions
Categories: Missions
Proactive Churches in Missions
Field, Candidate and Church oriented Missions Agencies
Field Oriented Agencies
It may be possible to trace an historical development among North American sending agencies from being "field oriented" to becoming "candidate oriented" and now shifting to a "church oriented" initiative. A traditionally field oriented sending agency actively looks [...]
Posted on March 1st, 2004 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Cross-Cultural • Ethnic • Leadership • Missionary • Missions • Short Term Missions
Categories: Missions
Proactive Churches in Missions
It was only a decade ago that common wisdom for finding support for missionaries said, "Forget the churches and focus on individual contacts." Some missions organizations even encouraged their members to use the churches as a means for raising individual support. In this way they sometimes [...]
Posted on February 3rd, 2004 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Culture • Language • Sindhi • Translation
Categories: Bible Translation
Is Meaning Related to Form?
A colleague in Pakistan more familiar with Sindhi(1) poetry than I am, recently pointed out some similarities between the Song of Deborah in the book of Judges and a type of Sindhi poetry called "qawwali." He noted that both qawwalis and the Song of Deborah range [...]
Posted on October 3rd, 2003 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Missions
Categories: Missions
During our time in Pakistan the area of the Thar desert was afflicted with a four year drought. People made destitute from the famine migrated out to more habitable regions only to be met by unscrupulous landlords who took advantage of their impoverished state to hire them for mere pennies a [...]
Posted on October 3rd, 2003 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Communication • Cross-Cultural • Culture • Ethnic • Intercultural • Language • Mentoring • Religion • Sindhi • Training • Worldview
Categories: Cross-cultural leadership training
<p>While we were learning the Sindhi language in Pakistan during the 1980s my wife, Karen, tried to discover the word for "share" and was given a word essentially equivalent to the English "give". The problem was that "share" is a concept based on a principle of individual ownership and the permission required for another to [...]
Posted on September 3rd, 2003 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Communication • Cross-Cultural • Culture • Dialogue • Language • Leadership • Mentoring • Missionary • Missions • Training • Translation
Categories: Cross-cultural leadership training
The people in the best position to teach others are those who are actually involved in doing the task that needs to be taught. This conviction is behind the goal of creating an experience-based mentored environment for the training of cross-cultural ministers through Northwest Baptist Seminary (www.nbseminary.com/), located on the [...]
Posted on August 3rd, 2003 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Cross-Cultural
Categories: Missions
Even though in our churches, salvation in Christ is primarily described in terms of justice and mercy using the analogy of a celestial court, the focus of justice as a major issue for society is often overshadowed in Evangelical circles by other concerns. The death of thousands of infants through [...]
Posted on July 3rd, 2003 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Cross-Cultural • Evangelism • Missionary • Missions
Categories: Missions
"Don’t plant churches, plant ministries!"
In our recent BC convention (May, 2003) Dr. Ray Bakke challenged us to reach the city for Christ. At one point he said "Don’t plant churches, plant ministries!" Focus on meeting the needs of people in practical ways and the transforming power of the cross will [...]
Posted on June 3rd, 2003 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Cross-Cultural • Culture • Evangelism • Islam • Leadership • Missionary • Missions • Sindhi
Categories: Contextualization
Karen and I worked in evangelism and church planting for 10 years among the Sindhi Muslim people in Pakistan. Although our goal was to plant a church and a number of Sindhis became followers of Christ, we were not successful in establishing a "3-selfs" church (self-governing, self-supporting, self-propogating). Whenever we [...]
Posted on April 3rd, 2003 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Cross-Cultural • Evangelism • Islam
Categories: Evangelism
As an evangelical I cringe when evangelism is described as "humanizing," as if the focus of salvation has somehow changed from what God has done for us in Christ, to what we are to accomplish for ourselves. However it is never wise to quickly dismiss another point of view without grappling with the questions [...]
Posted on March 3rd, 2003 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Evangelism • Missions
Categories: Missions
Can Mission be measured?
Mission has been defined narrowly as "carrying the gospel across cultural boundaries to those who owe no allegiance to the Jesus Christ," (Glasser & McGavran 1983:26) and more comprehensively as missio Dei - God’s mission in the world. This contrast of viewpoint is [...]
Posted on February 1st, 2003 by Mark Naylor
Tags: Church • Cross-Cultural • Culture • Missionary • Missions • Pluralism
Categories: Missions
Global technological and political developments have changed the face of the world and altered forever the way the church can participate in God’s work of establishing his kingdom. The great gods of science and secularism of the 20th century are making room for the pluralism and skepticism of the postmodern mind. An increasing [...]