What is missiology?

Missiology is a study of missionary praxis (activity). As an academic discipline, it is relatively new and quietly becoming established in a number of centres around the world—including Fuller School of Intercultural Studies, with whom I conducted my doctoral research. Missiology draws upon numerous other disciplines, besides theology, in its search to understand mission. This can make a definitive definition hard to nail down.

Its significance is revealed by David J. Bosch when he identifies the “almost imperceptible shift from an emphasis on a church-centred mission to a mission-centred church” (Transforming Mission, 2005, p.370). This implies or leads to recognition of several vital realities:

• The church is, by its nature, missionary, because God is missionary.
• The church is a servant community, called into existence to serve God’s purpose.
• The church exists in tension with, but not separate to, a world in which injustice and corruption is both intrinsic and endemic.

Real food, farming

 

Real food is essential to human health. It is the outcome of a farming system that is respectful of human dignity and health, animal welfare, food sovereignty, social justice and environmental sustainability; a system that nourishes and sustains producers, consumers, communities and the ecologies that nourish and sustain production.

Heart and hearth in harmony

A couple of years ago, a good friend, near to whom I formerly lived, now living several hours away from me, wrote informing me about a debilitating physical condition that had recently begun attacking the integrity of his body. Upon diagnosis, he was immediately admitted into the care of an NHS hospital. Sensing his distress, I shared this “blessing-prayer” with him.

A New Economic Framework

The contemporary economic system has broken the vital relationship between Land, Food and People. There is a crucial need to renew the system that has produced this breakdown.

“Brexit” represents a propitious historical moment to respond decisively to a range of critical issues relating to the disproportionate empowerment of corporations, landowners and shareholders, at the cost of national health, the concerns of systemic stakeholders and the expectations of land-workers, in particular.

Where’s the Long Man?

The latest technology from OS Maps is stunning. It’s called Aerial 3D and it renders high-density satellite imagery onto OS surveyed land maps, to provide fabulous 3D imagery of walking routes.

The angle and rotation can be varied; it even has an auto-rotate option to allow you to sit back and watch the world go around. Brilliant fun, but actually a superb resource potentially, for use in understanding a route and how it interacts with the landscape.

Diet Doctor

Diet Doctor is a relatively new resource, appearing in the current format in the last year, after starting out in Sweden, in 2011. It’s entered the sphere of dietary nutrition at what I believe is a critical moment for the world. Seriously:

Something is badly wrong. While the prosperity of the world has never been higher, people are suffering. More and more people – the majority in the Western world – are obese or overweight, and a large proportion are on prescription drugs every day for the rest of their lives. Every year new people add to the sad statistics. As we get ever richer as a society our health appears to decline. Why is this?

With that backdrop, it’s clear: there’s a crucial need for accessible, accurate, reliable nutritional dietary information to be delivered through the medium of the internet—the “printing press” of the twenty-first century.

Real Meal Revolution

Professor Tim Noakes is a South African Professor of Exercise and Sports Science at the University of Cape Town. As qualified as it’s possible to be from a scientific point of view, he has also participated in over 70 marathons and authored Lore of Running, Challenging Beliefs and Waterlogged. Since moving into the sphere of dietary nutrition, Professor Noakes

…has dedicated his life to opening people’s eyes to the myth of low-fat eating and the nutritional and environmental crisis it has now left us in.

Effortless Healing — Joseph Mercola

Most of what I learned from the highly-qualified, informed, committed and seemingly indefatigable, Chicago born-and-bred Dr Mercola came via his website, Mercola.com—with 25 million monthly visitors, “The World’s #1 Natural Health Website” —and its email newsletter.

After digesting Dr Mercola’s daily emails for the best part of a year or more, I came to recognise and understand the basic underlying health and wellness principles that he espouses. They supported, enhanced and considerably expanded upon what I had already learnt from The Primal Blueprint and Nutritious Traditions.

Dr Mercola’s dietary, nutrition and lifestyle principles can be accessed online, as a nutrition plan, but probably more succinctly and accessibly, via the book, Effortless Healing, which presents them as:

9 Simple Ways to Sidestep Illness, Shed Excess Weight and Help Your Body Fix Itself.

Nourishing Traditions — Sally Fallon

We refer to this as our “Yellow Food Bible.” Sally Fallon is President of the Weston A Price Foundation. Weston Price was a dentist who travelled the world and observed traditional, indigenous groups and their diets:

“Whilst the diets of these peoples differed in many particulars…(they all) ate fats, meats, fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds and whole grains in the whole, unrefined state…(and) some raw foods… Almost every member…enjoyed superb health…free of chronic disease, dental decay and mental illness; they were strong, sturdy and attractive; and they produced healthy children with ease, generation after generation.”

Primal Blueprint — Mark Sisson

This is where I began my LCHF journey. I gave it a try because it came highly recommended by readers. I thought at the time:

Ok, but why go so over-the-top with the front cover claims? “Effortless weight loss, vibrant health & boundless energy” it claimed. Tone it down a bit, I thought!

Then I tried it. Wow. Practically everything Mark Sisson claims began to happen. More energy. Less irritation and indigestion. Weight began to reduce, without any calorie-counting. People began asking me what I’d done to produce the changes they could see in me. I was so thrilled with the results that I bought several copies as gifts, for family members and friends.

‘Real Food’ Resources

A friend wrote to me, having encountered my introduction to real food and farming and how beneficial I’d found it to be. They said:

I find this genuinely inspiring…if I wanted to start moving towards this kind of eating, can you point me to any good resources for a simple start, please?

In response, over the course of the next five days, I’ll provide an introduction to four books and one website, each of which I have researched and referenced personally, to some degree or other, in my own nutritional and lifestyle transformation. All of these resources are aimed squarely at the popular market, whilst presenting advise based on the latest scientific understanding of nutrition and physiology. They are:

My “real food” transformation

During the past 2-3 years, the importance of real food and the farming practices that supply our food has come home to me with genuine impact—both theoretically and practically.

This is how my awakening took place…