Megachurches and Short-Term Missions: New Priorities and Paradigms of Mission

Prior to coming to Trinity, Priest served nine years as a professor at Columbia Biblical Seminary and Graduate School of Missions. He has served in a variety of ministries, including the roles of youth director and assistant pastor. Born to career missionaries, he was raised in Bolivia and eventually returned to South America, conducting nearly two years of anthropological field research among the Aguaruna of Peru, focusing both on traditional religion and on conversion to Christianity. Priest’s research interests have focused on race and ethnicity, short-term missions, moral discourse, witchcraft, preaching and culture, money and missions, religious conversion, and anthropology of religion. At Trinity he has worked closely with PhD students in Intercultural Studies, and has supervised more than 30 PhD dissertations in the last decade. He serves as vice president on the boards of both the American Society of Missiology and the Evangelical Missiological Society.