The challenge of dealing well with the different cultures in our modern cities is the most significant challenge facing theological schools today, according to Dr. Alvin Padilla, former Dean of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary’s Boston campus. In this issue, he begins to unravel the problem by offering several perspectives to help us move from being bewildered to better understanding what God might be doing in our cities.
Helping Urban Churches Motivate & Support Underserved Students
BEC: Helping Urban Churches Motivate & Support Underserved Students
Perhaps because Boston is home to over 50 colleges and universities (inside the I-95 belt), or perhaps because education has always been an important value in the New England culture, the desire to give our children a good education remains a top priority for Bostonians. And today it’s not just parents, educators, and politicians who focus on education, but urban churches and faith-based nonprofits also have education on their minds.
When the Faith of Our Fathers Collides with the Culture of our Children
While it is the nature of teens to consider their parents to be “out of touch” and the nature of older people to complain about the younger generation, the biblical mandate to pass the faith on to our children becomes extremely difficult in immigrant communities where younger people rapidly assimilate into a culture very different from their parents’. While this is not a new issue, to those experiencing the conflict, it is an issue that seems to threaten the very future of their faith.
Intro to Hexagoning: Groups Listening to Their Own Social System
Spiritual, Social and Systemic Conversion
Christians need to change. Sometimes that change is so radical, we could call it conversion. But how can those who have been converted be converted all over again? Here, Dr. Hall talks about three types of conversion, a spiritual, social, and systemic conversion. Using examples from his own life, he explains how each type of transformation was needed for him to do ministry effectively, and all three types of change were empowered by the redemption won by Jesus Christ on the cross.
Cambodian Ministries
The Killing Fields of the Cambodian holocaust that took place from 1975 to 1979 under the leadership of the Khmer Rouge left over a million dead and led to a flood of refugees fleeing from Cambodia. Many escaped from this horrific event to neighboring countries, while others sought safety around the world. A portion of the refugees came to the United States in the early 1980s in an attempt to start their lives afresh. Today, the Greater Boston area has the second highest concentration of Cambodians in America, some estimating as many as 30,000, with the majority living in Lynn, just 10 miles north of Boston, and Lowell, 30 miles to the northwest.