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Title: The Ministry Driven Church
Author: Dr. Robert D. Hosken
Price: $10.00 for printed version, $1.99 for e-book, or free
Language: English
Size: 5.5 x 8.5
Number of Pages: 160
ISBN: 1-59872-605-6
Publication Date: August 2006
Website: http://www.agape-biblia.org/ministry
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About this book:
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THE MINISTRY DRIVEN CHURCH:
THE BIBLICAL BASIS FOR MINISTRY IN BOTH
THE SPIRITUAL AND PHYSICAL SPHERES, AND
ITS IMPACT ON THE RAPID MULTIPLICATION OF CHURCHES
- A Biblical Theology of Social Ministry
© Copyright 2006-2008 Dr. Robert D. Hosken
(to Russian version)
The Ministry Driven Church replicates the work of Jesus Christ,
the Apostles and the Early Church,
explaining the rapid growth of the Church in the first few centuries.
What is the purpose of the Church? This book, The Ministry Driven Church, builds on Rick Warren's book The Purpose Driven Church to forcefully demonstrate that ministry is the purpose, the missing key in the formula for rapid multiplication of churches. Ministry in all its diverse meanings ties together the manifold aspects of a living, healthy and growing church. Many modern books on small groups, evangelism, missions, discipleship and church growth rely upon new methods, techniques and technology. This is not entirely mistaken, but they run the risk of ignoring the foundational truths of the New Testament for the sake of novelty. This work tries to adhere very closely to the New Testament teachings on "ministering to the building up of the Body of Christ." It utilizes the inspired Word of God as the primary bibliographical source, and taps into other sources, old and new, only as secondary witnesses to God's unchanging truth in Scripture.
The Ministry Driven Church covers the following twenty-one aspects of ministry as found in the Bible: fellowship (koinonia), making disciples (matheteuo), worship (latreia) and divine service (leitourgia), servanthood (pais) and bondservice (douleuo), practical service (diakonia), sanctification (hagiasmos), evangelizing (euaggelizo), proclamation (kerusso), love (agape), joy (khara) and peace (eirene), moderation (epieikes) and self-control (egkrateia), liberation (eleutheria), wholeness (teleiosis), edification (oikodome), grace (kharis), truth (aletheia) and light (fos), intercession (enteuxia) and unity (henotes).
In doing so, The Ministry Driven Church draws today's minister back to first-century, revolutionary, world-changing practical ministry that shook the Roman Empire to its knees. It looks forward to and prepares for another great shaking: "For so says Jehovah of Hosts: Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land. And I will shake all the nations; and the Desire of all nations shall come; and I will fill this house with glory, says Jehovah of Hosts" - Haggai 2:6-7, MKJV.
Robert Duwayne Hosken, dipl. translator, B.A., A.A., M.Min., D.Min.
March 2006, revised January 2007
Robert was raised in a Christian home, a "middle child" among an older brother and four sisters. All six children are serving the Lord in foreign mission work or in U.S. churches. His mother's family descends from Edward Doty, who came to the New World on the Mayflower in 1620. Edward wasn't one of the Pilgrims originally, he was an indentured servant who had been sold to Stephen Hopkins, one of the Pilgrims. So you might say that Robert is the descendant of a "white slave." On the way across the ocean, the Pilgrims decided they shouldn't allow slavery in the New World, so they freed all their slaves, and Edward Doty became one of the Pilgrims. But he remained something of a ruffian: he fought the first duel in the New World, and was put in stocks twice for brawling.
Edward Doty finally settled down and married. His descendants include Jonathan Edwards, leader of the First Great Awakening and one of the first presidents of Princeton Seminary; Roger Sherman, the only man who signed all four U.S. founding documents (Articles of Association, Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and U.S. Constitution); Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman; poet and Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes; Presidents Franklin Pierce, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush. Through them Robert is also related to Presidents Zachary Taylor, James Madison, Grover Cleveland, Martin Van Buren, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt and Gerald Ford.
Robert's great-grandfather, Nicholas Richards, was a circuit riding Methodist preacher in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin who was active in the "underground railroad" before and during the U.S. Civil War, helping slaves escape to Canada. Nicholas married Ann Stephens whose mother Sarah was from the Doty line. Sarah's mother Lucy had married the Quaker Daniel Anthony, and their other daughter Susan is Robert's great-great-aunt, Susan B. Anthony, who led the struggle for women's right to vote, and is the first woman whose portrait is on U.S. money. Sarah and Susan's cousin was James Duane Doty, a governor of the Wisconsin Territory and founder of the capital city, Madison, where Robert and his wife Cheryl live when in the U.S. Robert's older brother is named James and Robert's middle name is Duwayne - spelled with a "w" and a "y" - as his mother said - "just to be different."
Robert committed his life to Christ as his Savior and Lord in 1957, and about one year later, he received a vision as he stood on the balcony of a U-shaped apartment complex. A voice said to him, "Remember this plan: you will build it many years from now, when you're an old man." He asked, "Why do I have to wait so long?" Then he saw a map or outline of Russia in the sky, and also was given the clear impression that there was something very unusual and special about the stairways, but he didn't understand what it was. Immediately after receiving this vision he began studying about Russia. Over the course of years he drew these plans several times, even built his own house incorporating some of these ideas, but there were always questions about the stairways.
He has been a student of Russian and Central European affairs since 1961 (diploma as a Russian interpreter, B.A. in Central and East European Studies), and has been actively working for freedom of religious confession and for mutual understanding among Christians in this area since 1969. He is fluent in Russian and German, has studied French, Spanish, Greek, Hungarian, Udmurt and Mari, and also has a third diploma in programming, knows over twenty computer languages and has about twenty-five years of experience developing computer software. Over the years he has written, translated or edited ten books in five languages, among them editing Agape-Biblia, the first Russian Bible for Windows operating system. It is a revision of the standard Russian Synodal Translation for which he served as general editor. He has earned M.Min. and D.Min. degrees, and lived in Russia from early 1991 through 2007. In 1996 he became acquainted with a very talented handicapped young man in Russia, and immediately he understood what was wrong with his plans - those "stairways" should be ramps!
Click HERE to read the Introduction and Chapter 1: Ministry as Fellowship/Community (koinonia) online. You can also read and download Chapter 11: Ministry-Driven-Church-ch11.pdf .
Thanks for your encouraging note and the copy of... The Ministry Driven Church. I'm pleased to have it as part of our library, and I'm sure it will be a great resource for us here. I really appreciate your thinking of me.
I'm honored to be serving with you in ministry. Keep up the good work!
God Bless,
(signed)
Rick Warren
Thanks for sending a copy of your book. I trust you will get wide distribution on it.
Dr. Charles Williams, President, Southern Baptist School for Biblical Studies
We want you to have this book! It will shake up your paradigms about what the purpose of the Church really is! Here are four ways you can get it:
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Dr. Robert Hosken
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