STEPHEN DAVIS

AUTHOR, PASTOR, CHURCH PLANTER. PROFESSOR

MY BOOKS

About STEVE

Steve is an elder at Grace Church, a multilingual church in Philadelphia that he and his brother John planted in 2010. He and his wife Kathy have been involved in church planting in the United States, France, and Romania since 1982.

He earned a PhD in Intercultural Studies from Columbia International University and a DMin in Missiology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He has been involved in pastoral training in Cameroon, France, Lebanon, Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Peru, South Africa, and limited access countries. He has taught cross-cultural ministry, church planting, world religions, biblical theology of missions, and contextualization.

In France, he developed a love for the French language and history. Three of his books are on French history: Rise of French Laïcité in the Evangelical Missiological Society Monograph Series (2020), The French Huguenots and Wars of Religion, (2021) winner of the National Huguenot Society’s 2022 Scholarly Works Award, and French Protestantism’s Struggle for Survival and Legitimacy, 1517-1905 (2023). He also has a chapter in The Palgrave Handbook of Religion and State Vol II: Global Perspectives on “France’s Long March from State Religion to Secular State” (2023). His articles on French religious history can be found at World History Encyclopedia.

Steve is an elder at Grace Church, a multilingual church in Philadelphia that he and his brother John planted in 2010. He and his wife Kathy have been involved in church planting in the United States, France, and Romania since 1982.

He earned a PhD in Intercultural Studies from Columbia International University and a DMin in Missiology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He has been involved in pastoral training in Cameroon, France, Lebanon, Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Peru, South Africa, and limited access countries. He has taught cross-cultural ministry, church planting, world religions, biblical theology of missions, and contextualization.

In France, he developed a love for the French language and history. Three of his books are on French history: Rise of French Laïcité in the Evangelical Missiological Society Monograph Series (2020), The French Huguenots and Wars of Religion, (2021) winner of the National Huguenot Society’s 2022 Scholarly Works Award, and French Protestantism’s Struggle for Survival and Legitimacy, 1517-1905 (2023). He also has a chapter in The Palgrave Handbook of Religion and State Vol II: Global Perspectives on “France’s Long March from State Religion to Secular State” (2023). His articles on French religious history can be found at World History Encyclopedia

SELECT ARTICLES

“Ministry in laïque France: Understanding History to Confront Present Challenges.” Missiology: An International Review (July 2020).

“Islamic Headscarf Affair of 1989: A Window for Understanding the Muslim Immigration Crisis in France.” Evangelical Missions Quarterly, vol. 56, 3 (July–September 2020).

“Secularization and Laïcité in France: What Cross-Cultural Workers Should Know About French Resistance to the Gospel.” Evangelical Missiological Society Occasional Bulletin (Spring 2019).

“The Challenge of Missions in the 21st Century.” Lausanne World Pulse (April 2008).

“The Long, Forgotten Reformation in France: A Brief History of the Huguenots,” Desiring God (December 5, 2023).

SELECT BOOK REVIEWS

Review of Christian Hospitality and Muslim Immigration in an Age of Fear, by Matthew Kaemingk (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018), in Missiology: An International Review 47:3 (July 2019): 341.

Review of Contextualizing the Faith: A Holistic Approach by A. Scott Moreau (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018), in Evangelical Missions Quarterly 55:2 (April–June 2019): 42.

Review of Infants and Children in the Church: Five Views on Theology and Ministry, edited by Adam Harwood and Kevin Lawson (Nashville: B & H Academic, 2017), in Criswell Theological Journal 16:2 (Spring 2019): 119-22.

Review of City Shaped Churches: Planting Churches in the Global Era by Linda Bergquist and Michael D. Crane (Sky Forest, CA: Urban Loft Publishers), in Themelios 44:1 (April 2019): 199-200.

Review of Four Views on the Church’s Mission,  by Jonathan Leeman, Christopher J. H. Wright, John R. Franke, and Peter J. Leithart. Jason Sexton, ed. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, in Missiology: An International Review 47:2 (April 2019): 200.