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Partnership in Christian missions is of great importance because of its necessity for the effectiveness of all missions engagements. Partnership in missions has a biblical basis, and it is theologically correct. The concept of Missio Dei demonstrates the Triune God as the owner of Christian missions. Likewise, as a body of Christ, the church must work together to achieve God’s purpose. The church can utilise each member’s gifts and virtues through partnership to glorify God. Christian missions will not be tedious with practical knowledge of partnership in missions. This paper provided vital information related to partnerships in the Nigerian Baptist Convention missions. A partnership creates an avenue for effective and holistic missions. The researcher used the descriptive research method and discovered that some challenges, such as misunderstanding, selfishness, miss-appropriateness of resources and information gap, are sometimes part of the partnership. Contribution: Apart from the challenges, partnership in missions has many prospects amid technological advancement and globalisation if the appropriate partnership models, credible partnership principles and accurate theological perspectives are inculcated. This will result in more converts, planting churches, making disciples and raising more Christian leaders.

This article attempts to reconstruct an early history of the Norwegian Pentecostal Mission’s (NPM) work in Kenya. The Free Pentecostal Church (FPC), known as the Free Pentecostal Fellowship in Kenya (FPFK) until April 2018, was born out of a 1984 merger between the Swedish Free Mission and the NPM. The Norwegians came earlier in 1955, whereas their Scandinavian counterparts arrived in 1960. The article contests that during the period under review, the first 29 years of NPM’s presence in Kenya, the NPM was characterised by a fast-growing enthusiasm in establishing mission stations and local churches through evangelism and social work activities in education, medical care, orphanages, midwifery and compassionate handouts of commodities to villagers. These would be overtaken by the efforts to merge Swedish and Norwegian interests and establishments into one denomination in 1976 and the move towards nationalising the FPFK by handing over church leadership to the Kenyans by 1997. The article contests that the zeal and successes of the missionaries and local church workers in sowing the seeds of the gospel were checked by cultural and socio-economic setbacks in Kenya’s colonial context as well as the nationalisation process. The increased presence of Norwegian missionaries in Kenya during the 1960s were largely motivated by, among other factors, the channelling of Norwegian government aid monies to foreign development regions through missionary agencies and the imminent independence of the East African state.

The African church has the most growing figures compared to the west and yet it contributes the least to world missions. This article analyses the issue of disparity in funding mission practices between the African church and its mother church, the Western church. It then explores reasons behind the African church’s struggles to support missions and identifies opportunities for world missions to which the eastern Congolese church is exposed. A critical analysis of different arguments and reports from different authors was used to draw the main conclusions and, therefore, identify the central reason of the disparity and provide recommendations for the two churches. The paper suggests how scholars and the church should rethink mission, missions and money in Eastern Congo.

The current global escalation of refugees and involuntary migration, due to the effects of war and world disasters, makes it imperative to devise an effective approach to care for refugees. This article, therefore examines the problem of displacement from the perspective of missio Dei. It presents God’s active involvement in his creation, recreating it and providing particular care for the vulnerable and refugees.

This article posits that Christians, while being in the world, are not of this world. This duality confronts them with the twofold need to be fully compliant with the demands of their faith and its calling to evangelise this world, on the one hand; and to live fully as fellow citizens of this world, and to cooperate with them in search of solutions for this world’s challenges, on the other hand. Lessons are drawn from cultural anthropology theories to underscore dynamic processes of change, that start from non-threatening positions of working together inclusively, thus building trust, and advancing progressively, paving ways for dialogically sharing the Gospel. These developments are at the end argued and justified theologically, and then concluded with pragmatic examples drawn from live ministries born out of the co-author’s initiatives. Keywords: Evangelism; missions; cultural-anthropology; inclusiveness; change; trust; convivential; society-transformative

The concern which prompted the letter and the author�s digression in Ephesians 3:2�12 represents a lacuna in Ephesians scholarship. Its function within the wider discourse remains uncertain. The term οἰκονομία is prominent in the discourse and has been interpreted as an administrative office or activity in the Pauline corpus. This article shows that the term has a missional nuance in Ephesians. It is used for the role of Christ in the execution of the plan of God (Eph 1:10) and the role of Paul in the implementation of the plan (Eph 3:2). The author of Ephesians acknowledges the role Paul played in the mission�s movement of the gospel itself, �I Paul the prisoner of Jesus Christ� (Eph 3:1, 7). He is identified as the person to whom �the stewardship of the grace of God has been given� (Eph 3:2). The οἰκονομία of the gospel is committed by Paul to the church, marking a new phase in the development of the mission of the church.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The article suggests that in Ephesians 3:10, which is a crux interpretum, that the missional nuance of the term οἰκονομία indicates in Ephesians 3:10 the role of the Church in the execution of the plan of God and the missio Dei is implied.Keywords: oikonomia; missions; Ephesians

It is an undeniable fact that mission remains the cardinal essence of the Church. However, in Africa and in Nigeria, the Church seems to have lost focus regarding the main reason for its existence, namely mission. One of the factors responsible for this may be the form of theological education in vogue. In view of this anomaly, this paper reflects on how the study of the Bible, which serves as the primary basis for theological education in some institutions, can be repositioned to enhance a mission-oriented theological education. The importance of proper interpretation of the Bible in enhancing missions can be premised on the fact that a sound biblical hermeneutics is prerequisite to the formulation of an effective and functional theology of missions. If our theology of mission is faulty, the practice cannot be anything but flawed. In view of this, the paper explores ways in which the Bible can be meaningfully studied in order to promote a mission-oriented theological education.