Reaching and Teaching: A Call to Great Commission Obedience (Paperback)

"Reaching every people group with the gospel is the task of the church. In Reaching and Teaching, Sills provides helpful guidance about the pace of the discipleship and training process of indigenous church leaders. With passion, he calls on missionaries, agencies, and the church to make theological training a cornerstone in the work of reaching the nations for Christ."

"Reaching and Teaching is a welcome expos of what sorely lacks in much mission that emanates from the 21st Century Western church, including, sadly, its mission agencies and seminaries. No serious-minded missionary of significant tenure in cross-cultural ministry can read the first forty pages without acknowledging the frequent and sometimes ruinous mistakes often made by rookie missionaries. Brave that gentle rebuke and you will find the remainder of the pages to provide hard-won wisdom and insight that only comes from one that has learned hard lessons the hard way. Dr. Sills has earned that right to be heard. I encourage missionaries and those who train them to listen well and learn."

"David Sills knows what it means to be a missionary, taking the gospel to those who have never heard the transforming message of King Jesus. He also knows what it means to be a seminary professor, training the pastors who will build up the churches of the next generation. In this provocative book, Sills calls on Great Commission Christians to rejoin the training of pastors with the global proclamation of the gospel. Even those who do not agree with all of Sills’ recommendations will benefit by engaging with the questions he raises. This book is gospel-fiery, heart-empathetic, and mission-practical. It is provocative in the best sense of the word."

"David Sills is a brilliant missiologist, a faithful teacher, and a missionary of long experience. In this book he puts all that on the line to clarify some of the most urgent issues in Great Commission ministries today. This book must be read by any serious person committed to the Great Commission."

"Is the missionary to reach the unreached and move on to other unreached peoples? Or is the missionary also to teach and disciple those reached? Dr. David Sills deals with all the issues swirling around this fascinating topic. His credentials as an experienced missionary and a fully qualified scholar give him authenticity to grapple with this important issue. I highly recommend this book for its breadth and depth of biblical, theological, and pragmatic insights and its highly readable style."

"North American missions had no more than gotten off the ground when missiologist Rufus Anderson visited the fields and made an all-important observation. He concluded that, if missionaries were suddenly to be withdrawn, schools, clinics and similar institutions would most likely continue on. The institution that would suffer most would be the church! Why? For lack of adequate leadership. Both missions and missiology have undergone a sea change since then. But one characteristic persists to this present hour: imbalance! Some missionaries engage in hit and run evangelism. Others are intent on eliminating poverty and transforming society. Bothand much elseat the expense of raising up responsible, New Testament churches.Providentially, the Lord of the Church has been prompting concerned missiologists to research and write with a view to correcting the imbalanceseach from a somewhat different though complementary perspective. Dr. Sills’ Reaching and Teaching represents one of those efforts, and a most worthy one. All mission-minded believers should read this book. All missionaries should put its principles into practice. All instructors should read and teach it. This to the establishment and maturation of Christian churches all around the world."

"This is a book I have prayed would be written. You may not agree with everything in it. I didn’t. However, David Sills makes the argument that a holistic and biblical methodology for missions must include both search and harvest strategies. It must include evangelism and discipleship, church planting and theological training. Each of these are essential elements in reaching the nations for King Jesus. To neglect even one is to do serious damage to the task of world missions. This book is long overdue. I welcome its arrival. I pray for its implementation.

"I’m not sure if this is destined to be a classic, but I just read this new release and found it very helpful. Sills reminds us that the Great Commission is about making disciples, not making decisions. He criticizes the need for speed mentality among some mission groups where evangelists aim at little besides getting the message out to as many people as possible. Sills wants to see the unreached come in contact with the gospel, but he says we need to teach, train, and write more than we are currently. The book is a bit repetitive and speaks most clearly into Southern Baptist life, but Sills’ wisdom, experience, and clear-headedness will benefit everyone with a passion for reading and teaching the nations."