Revolution in World Missions

Revolution in World Missions by K.P. Yohannan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is an interesting book. The author, KP Yohannan, makes a case that missions should be done by people from that country, especially in Asia. He states often, when Westerners go to Asia that they have to try to make Asia like America with customs and traditions instead of teaching all Biblical concepts.

I have added quotes that made me stop and think. I may not agree with all of them however I (we) should consider his thoughts.

For some reason, Americans seemed to have a need to surround themselves with noise all the time. [Isn’t this true? Even during prayer time in our churches often we have background music playing.]

They [western churches] usually took an offering and presented me with a check for what seemed like a great amount of money. Then with their usual hospitality, they invited me to eat with the leaders following the meeting. To my horror, the food and “fellowship” frequently cost more money than the money they had just given to missions. And I was amazed to find that American families routinely eat enough meat at one meal to feed an Asian family for a week. No one ever seemed to notice this but me, and slowly I realized they just had not heard the meaning of my message. They were simply incapable of understanding the enormous needs overseas.

The $74 million spent on one new building in the United States could build nearly 7,000 average-sized churches in India. The same $74 million would be enough to guarantee that the Good News of Jesus Christ could be proclaimed to a whole Indian state – or even some of the smaller countries of Asia.

There is such an emphasis on church buildings in the United States that we sometimes forget that the Church is the people – not the place where people meet.

Religion, I discovered, is a multi-billion dollar business in the United States. Entering churches, I was astonished at the carpeting, furnishings, air-conditioning and ornamentation. Many churches have gymnasiums and fellowships that cater to a busy schedule of activities having little or nothing to do with Christ. The orchestras, choirs, “special” music – and sometimes even the preaching – seemed to me more like entertainment than worship.

Social concern is a natural fruit of the Gospel. But to put it first is to put the cart before the horse; and from experience, we have seen it fail in India for more than 200 years. It was an attempt to exclusively concentrate on people’s obvious needs.

God changes the heart and spirit, the physical changes also. If you want to meet the needs of the poor in this world, there is no better place to start than by preaching the Gospel. If has done more to lift up the downtrodden, the hungry and the needy than all the social programs ever imagined by secular humanists.

However, this does not mean that we must not be involved in compassion-type ministries that reach out to the poor, needy and hurting people all around us.

In Matthew 22:38-40, Jesus clearly marked the Christian’s social responsibility when He said that loving God is the first and greatest commandment and “the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” All the Law and Prophets are summed up in both – loving God and loving others. It was not one or the other – but again both, for the glory of God.

C.S. Lewis, that great British defender of the faith, wrote, “There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this [hell]. I would pay any price to be able to say truthfully, ‘All will be saved.’” But Lewis, like us, realized that was neither truthful nor within his power to change.


KP Yohannan is the founder of Gospel for Asia. It would be worth checking out their website . Also, there was a lawsuit against the organization that might be worth checking out. Here is the response about the lawsuit from Yohannan. And here is a wikipedia article about the lawsuit. I will continue to pray that a nation-wide revival will break out in India.

If you like missions then you will enjoy this book!

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Tramp for the Lord

Tramp for the Lord by Corrie ten Boom
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Corrie Ten Boom and her family were an amazing people. The hide Jews in their home until the were caught and were send to a concentration camp, Ravensbruck. This is where her sister dies. Corrie was eventually released from this prison and spent the rest of her life preaching the gospel.

Please find below several quotes from the book.

My life is but a weaving, between my God and me,
I do not choose the colors, He worketh steadily,
Oftimes He weaveth sorrow, and I in foolish pride,
Forget He sees the upper, and I the underside.
Not till the loom is silent, and shuttles cease to fly,
Will God unroll the canvas and explain the reason why.
Will God unroll the canvas and explain the reason why.
The dark threads are as needful in the skillful Weaver’s hand,
As the threads of gold and silver in the pattern He has planned. ~Anonymous

Although the threads of my life have often seemed knotted, I know, by faith, that on the other side of the embroidery there is a crown. ~Corrie Ten Boom

What I spent, I had; what I saved, I lost; what I gave, I have. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

. . . the deepest darkness is outshone by the light of Jesus. ~Corrie Ten Boom

God does not fill with His Holy Spirit those who believe in the fullness of the Spirit, or those who desire Him, but those who obey Him. ~Corrie Ten Boom

Down in the human heart, crush’d by the tempter,
Feelings lie buried that grace can restore;
Touched by a loving heart, wakened by kindness
Chords that were broken will vibrate once more. ~Franny J. Crosby

Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. ~Corrie Ten Boom

Someone once asked my opinion of the missionaries in a certain country. My answer was, “They have given all, but they have not taken all. They have given homeland, time, money, luxury, and more; but they have not taken all of the boundless resources of God’s promises. ~Corrie Ten Boom

Our fight is not against a physical army, a political party, an atheistic organization – or anything like that. Our fight is against organizations and powers that are spiritual. ~Corrie Ten Boom

You see, you never touch so much the ocean of God’s love as when you love your enemies. ~Corrie Ten Boom

O love of God, how deep and great,
Far deeper than man’s deepest hate. ~Corrie Ten Boom

I would much rather be the trusting child of a rich Father, than a beggar at the door of worldly men. ~Corrie Ten Boom

The valley of the shadow of death holds no darkness for the child of God. There must be light, else there could be no shadow. Jesus is the Light. He has overcome death. ~Dwight Moody

To travel through the desert with others, to suffer thirst, to find a spring, to drink of it, and not tell the others that they may be spared is exactly the same as enjoying Christ and not telling others about Him. ~Corrie Ten Boom

Then I picked up my Bible and said, “It is the same with this Book. If you try to analyze it as a book of science or even a book of theology, you cannot be nourished by it. Like chocolate, it is to be eaten and enjoyed, not picked apart bit by bit.” ~Corrie Ten Boom

“When I was a little girl,” I said, “I want to my father and said, “Daddy, I am afraid that I will never be strong enough to be a martyr for Jesus Christ.” “Tell me,” Father said, “when you take a train trip from Haarlem to Amsterdam, when do I give you the money for the ticket? “That is right,” my father said, “and so it is with God’s strength. Our wise Father in heaven knows when you are going to need things too. Today you do not need the strength to be a martyr; but as soon as you are called upon for the honor of facing death for Jesus, He will supply the strength you need – just in time.” ~Corrie Ten Boom

There’s a land that is fairer than day,
And by faith we can see it afar.
For the Father waits over the way,
To prepare us a dwelling place there.
In the sweet by and by, we shall meet on that beautiful shore,
In the sweet by and by, we shall meet on that beautiful shore. ~Sanford Fillmore Bennett

“You are not called to convince anyone,” he said. “You are simply called to be an open channel for the Spirit of God to flow through. You can never be anything else, even though you may think so at times. Follow the pathway of obedience, let the Word of God do its own work, and you will be used by God far beyond your own powers.” ~Corrie Ten Boom

Happiness is not dependent on happenings, but on relationship in the happenings. ~Corrie Ten Boom

God does not take away from us. He might ask us to turn our backs on something, or someone, we should not have. God never takes away, however; God gives. If I reach out and take someone for myself and the Lord steps in between, that does not mean God takes. Rather it means He is protecting us from someone we should not have because He has a far greater purpose for our lives. ~Corrie Ten Boom

When she enters the beautiful city
And the saved all around her appear,
Many people around will tell her:
It was you that invited me here. ~Author Unknown

All believers will enjoy and be challenged by this book!

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Charter Schools and Their Enemies

Charter Schools and Their Enemies by Thomas Sowell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I so much enjoy reading Thomas Sowell. In this book he explains the success of the charter schools in America and why a lot of traditional public schools dislike them. Below are quotes from this outstanding book. The first section explains what a charter is and the second section explains why some public educators of traditional schools are against charter schools. As always he includes many facts and stats to back up his words.

Public charter schools are public schools not created by the existing government education authorities, but by some private groups who gain government approval by meeting various preconditions set by authorizing agencies. These agencies issue charters enabling these schools to operate as public schools eligible for taxpayer money and to enroll public school students who apply. By allowing more autonomy and flexibility in public charter schools than the more tightly controlled traditional public schools, it was hoped that new educational policies and practices that emerge from this experiment might produce some better educational results. In that case, traditional public schools would have these new policies and practices available to use if they chose to, thereby benefitting the much larger number of students in the traditional public school sector. If, however, a charter school has educational outcomes that fail to satisfy the authorities, those authorities can revoke its charter and end its access to taxpayer money and public school students.
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What reason can there be to be hostile to successful charter schools? Actually, there are millions of reasons - namely, millions of dollars. The 50,000-plus students on waiting lists for admission to charter schools in New York City, where per-pupil expenditures average more than $20,000 a year, represent more than a billion dollars a year that could be lost by the traditional public school system in New York City alone, if all the students on those waiting lists were able to get into charter schools. And that is just the initial financial loss in one city during one year.

Substantial declines in the number of students remaining in traditional public schools would also mean fewer teachers employed there, and correspondingly declining union dues, since most charter school teachers do not belong to a teachers union. The sums of money involved in union dues nationwide are billions of dollars.

Schools of education would likewise be affected negatively, if many more students were able to transfer out of traditional public schools, where degrees in education are important for advancement in a teaching career, and go into charter schools, where those degrees mean far less than a teacher's actual performance in educating students.

Although charter schools are a small part of the education sector-educating less than 10 percent of the students in kindergarten through high school nationwide-the threat that they represent to a whole way of life in the much larger traditional public school system is out of proportion to their current size.

Charter schools' rate of growth, over their relatively brief existence since the 1990s, has been much higher than that in the traditional public school sector. Over the period from 2001 to 2016, enrollment in traditional public schools rose 1 percent, while enrollment in public charter schools rose 571 percent. Moreover, the concentration of charter schools in low-income minority neighborhoods across the country has made them a far larger presence in those communities, with the net result that most charter school students nationwide are either black or Hispanic. Most important of all, the abysmal educational outcomes that have long been the norm in such communities have now been highlighted in the glare of disproportionately better outcomes in many charter schools in those same communities.

I hope that gives you a taste for this excellent book. If you enjoy reading truths about education then you will enjoy this book.

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