Grateful to see my short article on unreached people groups featured on The Gospel Coalition. Check it out!
Installed as President
Caroline and I first came to Japan in the summer of 2008 to see if this is where God might be calling us to serve. After spending the summer here and teaching two courses at Christ Bible Seminary, we felt the Lord directing us to live and minister here. At the end of that …
The Great Commission: Are We Actually Commanded to “Go”?
When theological students first begin to learn the biblical languages, previously untraversed trails of exegesis suddenly present themselves, leading to a vast new world of interpretation that was formerly unavailable. Having received the basic tools necessary to enter this new world, many a young theologian packs up his gear and enters it with confidence, believing …
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On Writing a Sermon in a Foreign Language
In one sense, I’m not especially qualified to write a post giving advice on writing sermons in another language. After all, I have a whopping one sermon in Japanese under my belt. But the process that has led up to this single sermon has taught me something about writing a sermon in another language that …
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The Labor and Benefits of Language Learning
Our family has lived in Japan now for 6 months. After spending our first month adjusting and getting our house and life set up, for the past several months I've been ensconced in Japanese language school, studying what has been rated the most difficult language in the world for English speakers to learn. By God's …
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Missions and (Grand)Parents
We in the Newkirk clan are nearing our departure for Japan, and as we stand here toward the end of this preparation journey, I thought I'd say a word about missions and (grand)parents. I say (grand)parents here to refer to the parents of missionaries and, more significantly, the grandparents of missionary kids. As we have …
Do you take the church for granted?
It was most poignantly on a flimsy folding chair in the middle of a dirt “field” in Juarez, Mexico that I (Caroline) began to grasp the concept that the church is far more than a building. It was a Sunday morning, and I was 18, on a short-term mission trip. As our church’s mission team …
