Dr. Petersen teaches courses in the graduate program in inter-cultural studies on subjects relating to world missions, having lived and served on the mission field for many years.  He is also the founding director of CINCEL, VUSC’s Costa Rica Study Center that prepares students for work on a variety of levels within Latin America by intense language study, cultural immersion and significant issues related to the mission field.  Dr. Petersen has also co-authored a number of books with fellow VU faculty including The Globalization of Pentecostalism:  A Religion made to Travel (World Council of Churches); Called and Empowered:  Global Mission in Pentecostal Perspective (Hendrickson) both co-authored with Murray W. Dempster and Byron D. Klaus.  He is also the editor of Transformation An International Dialogue on Mission and Ethic, a magazine with worldwide distribution, published by The Oxford Center for Mission Studies.