| Virginian
Pilot Beacon: May 7, 2006
Author
Says Getting Back to Roots Will Help Evangelism
 VIRGINIA:
Howard Foltz believes that sometimes the best way to
move forward is to go back. A professor of global evangelization
at Regent University's School of Divinity, Foltz explains
his idea in "Paradigm Lost: Rediscovering God's
Plan for Spiritual Harvest."
Co-authored
with Ruth Ford, a 1991 Regent journalism graduate, the
new book compares the physical harvest to the spiritual
harvest in our lives.
"Paradigm
Lost" was published by Authentic Publishing and
released in 2005. Throughout the 288-page book, Foltz,
67, says the best way to move forward in evangelism
is to go back to an agrarian mindset - all bu tlost
in the fast-paced, technocratic world, hence a paradigm
lost.
As
a teacher and the founder and president of Accelerating
International Mission Strategies, or AIMS, the Brigadoon
Pines resident travels the world several times each
year and has incorporated the concepts he describes
in his latest and fourth book.
Twenty
years after starting AIMS, Foltz has ministered in more
than 80 countries and trained more than 75,000 national
pastors and leaders in mission's mobilization. He has
also networked hundreds of churches together to plant
churches and bring the Gospel to the world's least reached
people groups.
"It's
been my observation in doing this, and I felt that I
finally needed to write about it. I see a need all over
the world for a greater harvest to help build God's
kingdom. Jesus calls us to make disciples not just make
converts," said Foltz, who took two years to write
the book.
In
"Paradigm Lost," Foltz describes the agricultural
process and cycle of the harvest from clearing the land,
preparing the soil, planting the seeds, and growing
all while applying spiritual purpose to it.
"I'm
looking at Scripture through a farmer's perspective,"
he said.
That
is just what Gerald Martin of Harrisonburg liked about
"Paradigm Lost." A senior pastor of Cornerstone
Church and Ministries International, Martin said the
book put into words what he'd been sensing and practicing
in his church. Martin
uses the book as a resource for leadership training
and retreats.
"It
helps us verbalize what we've been trying to convey
for years," said Martin. "It's been a real
blessing to us and I'm so glad to see someone write
something in this way because it contains principles
that we'd lose in our technological age. Computers cannot
do what a seed can do and that's how Jesus described
the kingdom of God - as a seed."
-Written
by Sandra Jill Pennecke
(Correspondant with the Virginian
Pilot)
Purchase
a copy of Paradigm Lost from the AIMS online bookstore
>
For
reprint information, please call the AIMS publication
office at (757) 495-5850 or email the editor at aims@aims.org.
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