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  • Dr. Michael Stroope interview

    Dr. Michael Stroope interview
    Description:
    Audio is low quality. Dr. Michael Stroope was a Southern Baptist area director of missions in Sri Lanka. The interview begins with Stroope giving the details of his background and call to missions, and he talks about the influences that shaped his own theology and ethos of missions (0:00:00-0:0:18:17). Stroope speaks about the vision of his work as area director of missions in Sri Lanka, and he describes the administrative day to day operations on the field and how it fit his missions ethos (0:18:18-0:37:53). Stroope says that his model for missions prohibited the establishment of western institutions such as schools and conventions to not hinder indigenous church growth, and he defines the strategy his team used to enter a country or region and how they engaged the indigenous population (0:37:54-1:00:57). Stroope speaks about how the missionaries leveraged resources on the field through multiple sources, and he describes the reasons why the International Mission Board (IMB) restructured their mission strategy (1:00:58-1:10:56). Stroope speaks about the need of training missionaries by starting with the basics to avoid bad thinking and theological reasoning on the field, and he says that he is hopeful that Southern Baptist will be motivated to use the best and most biblical strategy to reach the nations with the gospel in the future. He also believes that the IMB will be less centralized and focused more on cooperation in the future (1:10:57-1:18:46). The interview concludes with Stroope stating that Southern Baptist must hold on to their distinctive while at the same time prioritizing the biblical mandate, and part of this priority means guarding the autonomy of indigenous churches (1:18:47-1:26:51).
    Subject:
    Indigenous church administration, Missions, and Sociology--Fieldwork
    Creator:
    Lewis A. Drummond Center for Great Commission Studies
    Owner:
    ddickerson@sebts.edu
    Language:
    English
    Date Uploaded:
    02/12/2026
    Date Modified:
    02/13/2026
    Date Created:
    1998-02-25
    Resource Type:
    Audio
    Identifier:
    Dr. Michael Stroope 25Feb98_orig_1_1