God and Culture
From its beginning, Iwa has been seeking ways to enable the gospel message to go beyond the doorstep of the minds of people of Japanese and Asian ancestry and penetrate deeply into their hearts by discovering the cultural touching points of the gospel. Another way to describe what Iwa has been doing is to say that Iwa has been “contextualizing” the gospel for Japanese and Asian cultures.
Often, people who contextualize for a particular culture do it subjectively by looking inward at their own cultural sensibilities and identifying what feels right to them. Iwa has relied on a more objective process of reflecting on Scripture, praying for insight to see the Scripture through different cultural eyes, sharing new insights through writings and speaking opportunities to test whether or not they resonate with the people they were meant to touch, and then creating and testing resources based on what has been confirmed and affirmed by the people. It was Iwa’s purpose from the start, to blaze a path that could be followed by others who could contextualize the gospel for every other culture in the world. It is still Iwa’s vision and hope for that to take place, and for the entire world to be reached for Christ as a result. All of Iwa’s resources have come out of this process of contextualization. But featured here are those that have more to do specifically with culture and contextualization. Learn about the reasons behind what makes Iwa's resources different here. |
Foundations for Asian American Ministry
This seven-unit series represents the cumulative wisdom of Iwa Founder Stan Inouye gained through his over 30 years of equipping leaders to minister more effectively in Japanese- and Asian American churches. It covers the following topics:
This resource will be available for order in the online store. |
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Adoptive and Adaptive: The Role of Biculturals in World Redemption
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Reflections on Mirror Christianity
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Iwa Insight No. 1:
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Iwa Insight No. 2
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Iwa Insight No. 3
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Seeing the Contagious Christian Course With Asian American Eyes
This booklet provides a review of the Willow Creek Association’s popular evangelism training program, the Contagious Christian Course, with suggestions on how to maximize its effectiveness for Asian Americans and other Asian people. It is not only valuable as an assessment of a particular evangelism training program, but is also valuable as an exposition of Iwa’s philosophy of evangelism. |
Cultural Dynamics:
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Bicultural Dynamics:
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Leadership Identification Process:
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