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Interview: DTS Missions Professor on 2006 World Evangelization Conference

Dallas Theological Seminary (DTS) hosted an annual World Evangelization Conference (WEC) last week with the theme of “Missio Dei “or “God’s mission.” The event ran from Mar. 6-10 and included seminars, workshops, prayer meetings, and a cultural fellowship. WEC 2006 focused on discovering God’s mission and the role of the Church in its fulfillment.

DTS mission professor, Dr. Walt Baker, spoke to The Christian Post last Friday about the purpose of the conference and about the sessions on how to reach the Muslim world with the Word of God.

Dr. Baker has been at the seminary for 32 years and has helped guide and organize the event during all his 32 years at the school. Prior to his teaching career at DTS, Baker spent most of his life ministering in Haiti.

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The following are excerpts from the interview:

The theme this year focused on discovering God’s mission and the role of the Church in its fulfillment. Why do you think this is an important theme for mission people and Christians to hold onto in 2006?

Because I think that when we define the mission of the church, so often we are looking at various strategies, but the ‘missio dei,’ or the purpose of God in the world, is the focus of the church. The church exists today for the sake of the world. I think many people looking at the church today perceive it as a hospital to take care of the spiritual or a school where you keep on learning but you never graduate. But in looking at the mission of God in the world means that the body of Christ is always preparing itself to make a difference not only in its community but in the entire world.

What was one of the most popular or unique workshops this year?

Some of the workshops that were really touching was how strategically to send your own church into the world. Others deal with how to effectively demonstrate the love of Christ and earning the right to be heard in the Muslim world. Also, we have a lot of students today who see needs and one was the need for counseling skills as we go around the world.

There was a session Tuesday evening on street evangelism at local bus stops. Could you summarize what the speaker’s advice was for open air campaigners?

Open air campaigners gave how to approach ministering in the market place – but not just giving the theory, but in the afternoon students went with the speaker to the bus stop and into inner city Dallas to see a demonstration. They learned how to reach people, get people’s attention, and how to share in a clear way but not offensive way. So it was a practicum.

What kind of issues or topics was discussed during the “Muslims Confidential: A People Group Briefing?”

In one session it was dealing with primarily how women and what the role of women would be in ministering to the Muslim world today. We had a couple of women graduates working in the Middle East here to share their own experience. They also spoke about the issue of how to build the bridges in the Muslim world – being holistic in our approach.

What was your reflection of the conference?

The whole conference, in seeing God’s purpose in the world, started with what we would call international praise. And our first evening we have many, many international students here. And the whole evening was led in praise by internationals. We had Korean, Chinese, Africans, Indians all leading us in praise. And we all had a fellowship time where we had international dessert from 17 countries. We had 41 different countries represented on campus and this was an evening to start to realize that the body of Christ is very diverse.

Basically throughout the week we were trying to develop to where we would end our conference with every single person realizing that no matter where they are in ministry there had to be an international involvement. So our purpose in the conference was not just to recruit our students to go overseas but to demonstrate that whether you are a pastor, counselor, or teacher, you need to have a global concept.

Wherever you are, God still loves the entire world. At the bottom of everything is the doctrine of the triune God that loves the world and if we are the people of God, so should we.

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