At the Christian Scholars Conference in June, 2022, Mission Alive’s founder, Dr. Gailyn Van Rheenen, was honored with a series of academic papers written to follow the three phases of his ministry:
- Mission work in East Africa
- Teaching missions at Abilene Christian University
- North American church planting through Mission Alive
Dr. Charles Kiser, Mission Alive church planter of Storyline Christian Community and Tod Vogt, Executive Director of Mission Alive, were asked to contribute an article. They conducted a study of Mission Alive church planters and the role spirituality plays in their work. The paper was titled, Contemplative Mission: The Interplay Between Spirituality and Missional Practice in Mission Alive Church Planters.
That paper, plus eight others written by a variety of authors, were merged into a festschrift, a collection of writings published to honor a scholar. It is available on Amazon.