Papers by Gideon Petersen
Journal of Adventist Mission Studies
Presented in fulfilment of the course requirements for the
Background to the study Chapter Two: What does Christian mission hope to achieve? 11 Chapter One:... more Background to the study Chapter Two: What does Christian mission hope to achieve? 11 Chapter One: Background to the study Research is to see what everyone else has seen, and to think what nobody else has thought.
is a Ph.D. in Missiology candidate at the University of the Free State and currently serves as a ... more is a Ph.D. in Missiology candidate at the University of the Free State and currently serves as a cross-cultural church planter in Namibia, Africa.
As a missionary to the Ovahimba, in north Kunene Region (Namibia), this researcher has discovered... more As a missionary to the Ovahimba, in north Kunene Region (Namibia), this researcher has discovered that although the Christian Church has had a presence for five decades it has not been able to establish roots in the Ovahimba community. In these five decades of ministry the Christian mission concentrated on teaching the children and/or youth about the gospel. This implied uprooting the children from their cultural moorings and introducing new and different moorings. Yet when family and friends challenged their Christian allegiance they returned to their traditional life experience. Jesus became an appendage to their ancestor-mediators. Jesus was just another helper. The underlying worldview of the person remained the same. The premise of this study suggests that mission belongs to God (Missio Dei). It starts with God and it ends with Him. He desires to have humanity in His presence. Based upon this premise it becomes imperative that the Christian community find a way to share the Bib...
Journal of Adventist Mission Studies, 2009
I was invited to attend a traditional Himba wedding. Excited, I took along my tape player. The ca... more I was invited to attend a traditional Himba wedding. Excited, I took along my tape player. The cassette contained the latest Himba Bible stories I had recorded. I found an older man and gave him the player. Some hours later he sent for me. He said, “This machine you gave has stopped talking to me.” Communicating the gospel is a challenge to many mission practitioners around the world. Missiologists often speak about communicating the gospel in the context of other religions. I would like to highlight a different context, that of oral people. Oral people are important because they cannot hear the gospel when their worldview is addressed with Western rhetoric. Their communication forms are different, so it is important that the mission practitioner speak so they can hear the gospel with the least noise interfering with the communication process. This article holds the premise that mission belongs to God (missio Dei). The hypothesis for this article is that millions and perhaps billion...
Page 1. Contextualization and the Ovahimba Christian Youth Gideon P. Petersen Presented in fulfil... more Page 1. Contextualization and the Ovahimba Christian Youth Gideon P. Petersen Presented in fulfillment for the course Master of Arts in the Faculty of Theology, Department of Missiology University of the Free State Supervisor: Prof. Pieter Verster January 2006 Page 2. 2 ...
Nederduitse Gereformeerde Teologiese Tydskrif, 2013
Karl barth poignantly argues that the essence of the christian message is that God "makes time fo... more Karl barth poignantly argues that the essence of the christian message is that God "makes time for" humanity. Nomads are people on the move. Although in tune with nature, they have a limited understanding of the God of nature. Many nomads do not recognise that the God of nature has time for them and longs to walk their cattle trails with them. In this article, the focus falls on the value of mission communication. It is argued that such communication must use the nomadic genre and recognise the oral worldview of nomads. In this way, the mission practitioner will communicate God's message more effectively. It will also be argued that immersion is necessary in order to be able to gain such knowledge. However, this immersion is not aimed at converting people; rather, its purpose is to demonstrate that God is one with nomads in their quest to connect with him. This suggests that God redeems the culture and the individual, so that, although the individual lives in the world, he is protected from the evil one. Thus, in this article, we contend that the messenger is the message that God is one with humanity-or, to quote barth: "God makes time for man". 1. In this article, the term "nomad" refers to a member of the original nomadic group, the pastoralists. Salzman (2004:17) explains that the original Greek term from which the concept is derived means "to raise livestock on pasture". The later, additional groups, namely the hunter-gatherers and peripatetic people, are not included.
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Papers by Gideon Petersen