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Blog Entries by Wayne Haston

Wayne’s Portrait

Wayne Haston

After six years as Director of ABWE Media Ministries, in July 2001 Wayne was appointed to lead ABWE’s international training efforts. Prior to his ministry with ABWE, he served for twenty nine years in a variety of local church staff roles, primarily in the areas of Christian education and youth ministry. Wayne was a seminary teacher for twenty two years and chaired a seminary Christian Education department for twenty of those years. He holds graduate degrees in theology and education.

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  • The Roots of Faith - Course Overview

    May 4, 2010
    Filed Under: The Roots of Faith

    The Roots of Faith: Exploring the Bible from Beginning to End is the extended version of The Story of Hope that includes 100 stories from the Bible’s Big Story of redemption, 50 from the Old Testament and 50 from the New Testament.  We sometimes call it “a Biblical centipede that doesn’t limp” because every era in the Bible’s Big Story is included, even the 400 years between the Old and New testaments.  Each of the 100 stories is summarily illustrated by one of the images from our new, high quality Good Soil image collection.

  • Thoughts on Biblical Theology

    December 13, 2009
    Filed Under: Theological Issues

    Here are some key quotations from an 1894 essay by Dr. Geerhardus Vos (1862-1949), the leading evangelical theologian in the early development and popularization of the discipline of Biblical Theology.  The entire essay is available in the Resources section of this site--The Idea of Biblical Theology as a Science and as a Theological Discipline (his inaugural address as Professor of Biblical Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1894).

  • Good Soil E&D in a Local Church

    December 12, 2009
    Filed Under: Good Soil in Local Church

    In our training and promotions, we have resisted the term “program” because it often connotes a firmly fixed set of steps that, if followed, will automatically produce good results.  However, that does not mean that local churches cannot implement this Good Soil approach with its associated resources in the form of a ministry program.  But the key is that local churches need to determine how Good Soil E&D will work best in their church, in their local setting with their people.  

  • Should The Way to Joy Be in a Narrative Form?

    December 4, 2009
    Filed Under: The Way to Joy

    We've been asked this question a few times.  In order to support the concept of a narrative-based discipleship book (a narrative edition of The Way to Joy), several reasons have been proposed:

    • People today are interested in narratives.
    • Jesus discipled his followers by telling stories.
    • In some non-literate cultures, people are not able to understand propositional concepts, such as those in The Way to Joy.

  • Worldview Evangelism on Mars Hill - Lessons for Today

    October 3, 2009
    Filed Under: Worldview Relevant E&D—General

    The exposition of Acts 17:16-34 by D.A. Carson is a valuable resource for anyone involved in evangelism with unbelievers in any non-Christian worldview context. Hopefully, the concluding remarks from that exposition will encourage you to read the entire chapter. A link to a free downloadable document is included at the end of this article.

  • Importance of the Bible’s Story Line in Evangelism with Pluralists

    October 3, 2009
    Filed Under: Metanarrative (ChronoBible) Evangelism

    From Telling the Truth: Evangelizing Postmoderns, Edited by D.A. Carson In chapter three, Harold Netland and Keith E. Johnson present two vital reasons for using the Bible's story line in presenting the gospel to people who believe that no religion is superior to others.

  • Repentance and Faith = Two Sides of Turning

    October 2, 2009
    Filed Under: Theological Issues

    Quotes from Repentance: The First Word of the Gospel by Richard Owen Roberts Some have reasoned that, because a call for faith sometimes appears in the New Testament without any mention of repentance, it is faith alone that is necessary for salvation. But it can also be said that there are occasional Scriptures in which repentance is demanded with no mention of faith. It is necessary to turn from in order to turn to. Repentance and faith are different sides of the same turning.

  • Confronting Pluralism with the Bible’s Story

    September 30, 2009
    Filed Under: Metanarrative (ChronoBible) Evangelism

    From The Gospel in a Pluralist Society by Lesslie Newbigin Lesslie Newbigin (1909-1998) was a Church of Scotland missionary to South India from 1936 to 1974. Although he was a leading figure in the World Council of Churches, Newbigin certainly did not succumb to the error of pluralism, as have many in the ecumenical movement. Upon returning to Britain from his missionary life in India, Newbigin dedicated himself to confronting secularism in post-Christian Western culture. He viewed the secularism of Western societies not at atheistic, but as pagan, embracing its own forms of false gods. Newbigin is known most for his numerous books on this subject, one of which is The Gospel in a Pluralist Society.

  • Worldview Transformation in Conversion

    September 28, 2009
    Filed Under: Worldview Relevant E&D—General

    Transforming Worldviews: An Anthropological Understanding of How People Change by Paul Hiebert
    A leading evangelical anthropologist/missiologist and distinguished professor of mission and anthropology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School provides students of intercultural ministry with an understanding of worldview and a strategy for effective, long-term ministry.

  • Selection Criteria for TSOH Events

    September 23, 2009
    Filed Under: The Story of Hope

    How many unique events or stories are there in the Bible? That's really impossible to answer for sure, since it's often difficult to determine where one event or story begins and another one starts. But any way you look at it, there are hundreds of events or stories in the Bible. So how does a person determine which Bible stories or events should be selected to best summarize God's Big Story if the limit is 40 stories or events?

  • End-Focus for The Story of Hope

    September 23, 2009
    Filed Under: The Story of Hope

    Evangelistic chronological Bible teaching resources all begin with the creation account in Genesis. They continue through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ in the gospels, but many of them stop there. Our Good Soil E&D resources (The Story of Hope and The Journey to Faith, for example) cover key events in the Bible’s redemptive story from the creation account in Genesis 1 & 2 through the establishment of the eternal state in Revelation 21 & 22. Why did we choose to include key events that go beyond the resurrection of Christ?

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