God’s Family Business

About the Book

If we have inherited the gift of God’s family blessings, we have also inherited a job in God’s family business! The Bible tells the story of God’s unwavering commitment to create a people for his glory that includes all the peoples of the world. Jesus’ redeemed family is called to find ways to bring God, the people of God, and the peoples of the world together in space and time. All who belong to Christ are members of a Spirit-empowered missionary people.
Missions is a real-life partnership with God that reaches across deep cultural boundaries to bring God the glory he deserves, and to bring people the missing peace for which all humanity is searching. God’s Family Business takes a lively look at three areas of growth that work together to shape the mind and ministry of a missionary.
This Bible-based, culturally aware introduction to Pentecostal missiology reveals essential dynamics which have helped Spirit-filled Christians make disciples on every continent for the last 120 years. Welcome to a practical introduction to the world of missions written to illuminate the church’s God-given missionary identity and to help sincere followers of Jesus grow into their personal missionary calling.

About the Author

Dr. Paul York is a mentor, teacher, preacher, writer, and missiologist specializing in cross-cultural disciple making. Paul was raised as a third-culture kid in West Africa where he ate pepper stew and pounded yam with egusi soup. He hand-pumped rainwater for the house out of a concrete cistern, hand-cranked the diesel generator at dusk, visited hundreds of churches, and read a lot of books. He also followed the Nigeria Green Eagles (football) in the newspapers and the Dallas Cowboys (the other football) with his dad late at night on short-wave radio.
Paul has experience teaching courses in missions and theology from diploma to doctoral levels. An ordained minister, he has preached in Ethiopia, Kenya, Burundi, Swaziland, Nigeria, Togo, Uganda, Mozambique, and many states in the USA. He has worked with church planting teams in Seattle, Swaziland, and Burundi and has also ministered in El Salvador, Hungary, and Indonesia. Paul led the Missions BA program of Central Bible College (USA) for ten years. His role at CBC involved teaching, advising a student missions fellowship, developing degree programs, discipling students personally, and doing ministry with students outside of class. Paul and his wife Lisa served as missionaries in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in the 1990s. They now work as Chi Alpha university missionaries.
Paul is the author of A Biblical Theology of Missions (Africa’s Hope Discovery Series, 2017), a book for pastors and lay ministers which is available in English and eighteen other African languages. He holds a BA in religion and philosophy from Northwest University in Washington, an MA in missiology from AGTS in Missouri, and a PhD from Pan-Africa Theological Seminary (PATHS) in Lome, Togo. His doctoral research at PATHS, an ethnographic study of effective disciple making movements at three American universities, identified a hidden level of mentors in disciple making movements and a sequence of necessary developmental stages for producing disciple makers.
Paul is married to Lisa, a life coach and licensed professional counselor. They mentor young Christians toward healthy lives in mission and help campus ministries to disciple international students. They are parents of two adventurous grown-up children, John and Lauren. The Yorks live in central Texas with a large collection of books, a free cat, and a golden retriever.