Unfamiliar Paths: The Challenge of Recognizing the Work of Christ in Strange Clothing

About the Book

The Challenge of Recognizing the Work of Christ in Strange Clothing
Unfamiliar Paths explores how Christ's presence can be found outside traditional Western evangelical structures, particularly in secular Europe. Drawing from his experiences as a missionary in France, Bjork challenges the prevailing assumption that authentic Christian faith must conform to specific cultural forms. He critiques conventional mission approaches that emphasize programs, institutions, and separation from local culture. Instead, he advocates for a kenotic (self-emptying) approach to missions that seeks to discover how God is already at work in unfamiliar contexts. Central to the book is the call to discern Christ in unexpected places and to embrace a relational model of Christian unity rooted in the Trinity's perichoretic (mutually indwelling) love.
Bjork invites readers to shift from controlling religious expressions to participating humbly in the mysterious and dynamic movements of God's Spirit across cultural boundaries.

About the Author :
David Bjork was Director of Servant of Servants Foundation. He is a Ph.D. student of missiology at Fuller Theological Seminary School of World Mission, Pasadena, California, and serves in a ministry of evangelism, discipleship, and leadership training in a suburb of Dijon, France. He received his B.A. in French from the University of California, Irvine, his M.A. in Intercultural Studies from Fuller Theological Seminary, and his M.Div. (pastoral ministry) from Trinity Theological Seminary, Newburgh, Indiana. His ministry experience includes four years of training with the Navigators. In 1979, David and his wife began the missionary work of World Partners of the Missionary Church in France, and for fourteen years he served as the Field Director.

Review :

If we follow Jesus Christ, we follow Unfamiliar Paths, but we also are firmly grounded in the assurance of the Holy Spirit as the final impulse for mission. If this volume helps us to reflect more seriously on the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and our imperative in its service, then we have begun an important step on that path, a path which we trust will lead us to that goal which Christ has laid out for us as the end of history.

-from the Foreword by Brother Jeffrey Gros, FSC, Secretarait for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs National Conference of Catholic Bishops

Paul's record of genuine, uncompromising recognition of true faith in two radically different cultures (Semitic and Hellenic) stands as a powerful symbol for all time and also as an unrelenting measure of our true insight into our own faith. ...in so far as we confuse our faith with our particular culture we may miss the meaning of our faith. And this is where the global, multicultural Biblical faith is seen to be crucially interdependent, like a body, where one part can say, "I have no need of you." Precisely where differences may seem to be a puzzling nuisance lies gold to be mined that will enable us to rise above our own culture to embrace the full reality of the Bible and the Christ event as seen from many different angles.

-from the Foreword by Ralph D. Winter, Former General Director, Frontier Mission Fellowship

If we follow Jesus Christ, we follow Unfamiliar Paths, but we also are firmly grounded in the assurance of the Holy Spirit as the final impulse for mission. If this volume helps us to reflect more seriously on the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and our imperative in its service, then we have begun an important step on that path, a path which we trust will lead us to that goal which Christ has laid out for us as the end of history.-from the Foreword by Brother Jeffrey Gros, FSC, Secretarait for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs National Conference of Catholic Bishops Paul's record of genuine, uncompromising recognition of true faith in two radically different cultures (Semitic and Hellenic) stands as a powerful symbol for all time and also as an unrelenting measure of our true insight into our own faith. ...in so far as we confuse our faith with our particular culture we may miss the meaning of our faith. And this is where the global, multicultural Biblical faith is seen to be crucially interdependent, like a body, where one part can say, "I have no need of you." Precisely where differences may seem to be a puzzling nuisance lies gold to be mined that will enable us to rise above our own culture to embrace the full reality of the Bible and the Christ event as seen from many different angles.-from the Foreword by Ralph D. Winter, Former General Director, Frontier Mission Fellowship