Chris Howles

Director of Cross-Cultural Training

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Chris is passionate about Christians recognising and participating fully in God's global purposes for God's global church. In his role of 'Director of Cross-Cultural Training' Chris loves helping staff and students think carefully about ministry and mission to and from those who belong to different cultures. He believes that all of us are enriched and strengthened in faith and Christ-likeness by doing so.

Before joining Oak Hill Chris and his wife Ros served as Crosslinks mission partners in Uganda, where they spent 12 years living and working at Uganda Martyrs Seminary in Kampala. Chris was involved in equipping and discipling students from across East Africa for gospel ministry in local church settings. Chris and Ros also taught each week at their local Sunday school, often to over 450 children at a time!

Going further back, Chris was a school-teacher, and then a student himself at Oak Hill (2007-11) where he hugely benefitted from the preparation for cross-cultural ministry overseas he received. Chris enjoys long-distance running, listening to podcasts, following West Bromwich Albion FC, and enjoying the music and history of The Beatles. Chris and Ros have three children.

Oak Hill College enjoys a strong tradition of cultivating Christian leaders who are biblically grounded and missiologically informed. Chris is hugely excited to play a part in developing this still further.

Please find examples of Chris's work linked below:

A Giant on Clay Legs? African Theological Education and the Formation of Missiocentric, Missionary-sending Church Leaders

In this article for the Global Missiology journal, Chris argues that African theological institutions have commonly inherited fragmented and mission-deprioritized systems of theological training from Western contexts through processes of colonial and postcolonial transfer—to the extent that Rwandan theologian Tharcisse Gatwa calls Bible colleges the “clay legs” on which the African Church perilously stands. This article utilizes Congolese missiologist Fohle Lygunda li-M’s Antioch Model to propose one way that sub-Saharan institutions might form missiocentric, missionary-sending church leaders through their theological education programs.

Fromeverynation.net

Chris is the founder and manager of www.fromeverynation.net, a website that collates, curates and communicates top quality resources related to world mission and world Christianity. Each month he sends an email post to over 1000 missiologists, missionaries, mission pastors and other interested subscribers containing links to a selection of excellent recent books, articles, podcasts, videos, tweets and other recent resources. Click above to see all the archives.

10 tips for healthy links between missionaries and their sending church

In this article for the Oak Hill College blog Chris draws on his experience as a sent-out mission partner serving in East Africa to give churches some advice for best practices in sending and supporting missionaries.

New Year’s Eve Countdown: 2024’s Must-Read Missions Books

At the end of each year Chris curates a list of ten world mission-related books for people to benefit from in the year ahead. This 'Missions Podcast' episode is an interview with Chris explaining why his 2024 selection is worth devoting our time to reading.