SPIRITUAL FORMATION + GLOBAL MISSIONS
My name is Bradley Bell. Over the past twenty years I have served as a missionary, missions pastor, and lead pastor, all while contending with anxiety and depression. I now serve as the executive director of Upstream Equipping, a missions organization that helps churches send well. Louisville, Kentucky is where I currently call home, along with my wife, Katie, and daughters Elisabeth, Charlotte, Anneliese, and Madeleine.
"Beautiful Missiology" (formerly "Broken Missiology") is more than the compilation of my writing and speaking, which mostly focuses on the intersection of spiritual formation and global missions. It is a vision of missiology that holds as its defining lens that God is creating something beautiful through the brokenness of our world, and we are invited to join him in it.
THE SENDING CHURCH DEFINED
In order to biblically clarify the nature of a sending church, this book unpacks the following definition one word at a time:
A Sending Church is a local community of Christ-followers who have made a covenant together to be prayerful, deliberate, and proactive in developing, commissioning, and sending their own members both locally and globally, often in partnership with other churches or agencies, and continuing to encourage, support, and advocate for them while making disciples cross-culturally, and upon their return.
LENT AND MISSIONS: A 40-DAY DEVOTIONAL
Lent is the forty days that Christians have historically set aside to prepare for Easter through repentance and renewal. This devotional was written to help the local church experience this special season with even greater significance by remembering God’s global purpose for Easter, and being sent into Pentecost with the same passion of the early church. It follows a simple liturgical pattern: a Scripture reading, a brief reflection, a prayer, and—on Fridays—a guide for fasting.
