Vocation and promise

The special vocation of missionaries "for life" retains all its validity: it is the model of the Church's missionary commitment, which always stands in need of radical and total self-giving, of new and bold endeavors. Therefore the men and women missionaries who have devoted their whole lives to bearing witness to the risen Lord among the nations must not allow themselves to be daunted by doubts, misunderstanding, rejection or persecution. They should revive the grace of their specific charism and courageously press on, preferring - in a spirit of faith, obedience and communion with their pastors - to seek the lowliest and most demanding places.

God’s promise to bless all the “families of the earth,” first given to Abraham 4,000 years ago, is becoming a reality at a pace “you would not believe.” Although some may dispute some of the details, the overall trend is indisputable. Biblical faith is growing and spreading to the ends of the earth as never before in history.

Days of Prophecy, Promise and Hope: The 2014 Canadian Vocation Conference

Willing to give all

What’s the difference between a good idea and a God idea? A good idea will work some of the time; a God idea will work all the time. Scripture warns us not to lean on our own understanding but to trust God wholeheartedly (Proverbs 3:5). When we’re not willing to submit to God’s leadership and authority in our lives, God will let us follow our own devices. In following them, we will never experience what God is waiting and wanting to do in us and through us.

In the book of Job, this man with incredible trials in his life, says the simple but profound statement, “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return.” The same is true of all of us. We came into the world with empty hands, and when we die, we take nothing with us. When you understand this basic truth, then you understand that everything that passes through your control and possession in this life is not about ownership, but about “stewardship”. Picture in your mind the following: your house, your bank account, your cars, your family, your friends, your talents and skills, the months of your life. You’ll notice everything is temporary, everything is limited and everything stays here.

Church planters, whether full-time or bi-vocational, no matter what strategy or model they have chosen, are always in need of financial support for their church’s general budget and material support towards their outreach endeavors. Direct financial support may seem to be the least connected way of encouraging a church planter, but in many ways it is the most important. Often the level of financial support a church planter receives directly effects if they are able to stay on that field or take the next step in their strategy. In center-city or urban centers the living expenses can be astronomical. Bi-vocational work is usually not enough to meet the needs of their families and can be very difficult to secure in this economy. However God calls you to be involved in church planting, we pray that He leads you to directly invest financially in church plants as an offering to Him above your tithes to your local church. Please also consider discussing the possibility of direct financial assistance with your church’s missions committee. Often it is difficult for churches to imagine the need for missions giving beyond their denominational projects or people who have been sent out from their local congregation.

The strength of Christ is found in grace. More grace is released to us when we press in and actually boast how in our infirmities (how powerless we are within our own power – our own abilities, in other words), rather than complain or remain frustrated in them. God says there is sufficient power available for all our trials when we are able to fully surrender in our human weakness to the sufficiency of God’s grace for each particular situation.

KELLY WILLARD Willing Heart PSALM 51 10 12 With Lyrics

A BOY WHO GAVE LIFE

Christ's global cause

The story of Adam and Even grips our hearts because it is not simply an ancient account of two people and their tragic mistake. It is our story as well. It is our personal tragedy. We share in this story both because Adam and Eve are our spiritual ancestors and because we mirror their behaviour in our own lives. Like the first humans, we have rebelled against God. Thus we live outside of God’s paradise. We yearn for the peace for which we were created, but never experience that peace, except in bits and pieces. Though we were meant to live in peace with God, our neighbours, our world, and even ourselves, we experience brokenness in all of these relationships.

For instance, we often assume that money exists for our own benefit, rather than for God or others. Pastor Andy Stanley tells a story about a little boy who was scolded by his mother because he refused to share his lunch with a classmate who had brought no lunch to school that day. The ironic point, Stanley says, is that we expect our children to know that possessions are for sharing, yet when it comes to our own affairs, we act as if possessions are for keeping. But why else, according to the Bible, should we give? First, we should give because it is a reasonable response to all God has done. Because God has shown such great mercy to His people by sending Christ to suffer in our place, it is fitting that we should offer ourselves as sacrifices to Him (Romans 12:1) and specifically in part by giving our money (2 Corinthians 8:8-9). Generous giving is an act of Christian worship. Second, we should give to show the genuineness of our Christian confession. Many people say they know Jesus, but those who really know Him show it by their lives, especially by their generosity (Matthew 25:31-46). When we give to the Lord, we put our money where our mouth is, so to speak. Third, we should give because the Lord Jesus (Luke 12:33) and His apostles (2 Corinthians 8:7) command us to give. Christian giving is certainly much more than a duty, but the biblical commands are unavoidable. Fourth, if specific instruction from the Scriptures were not enough, we should give because God promises to reward us for doing so (Luke 12:33). As it turns out, to give is not to throw money away, but rather to invest it for a staggering return. The Bible is certainly not lacking for reasons that we should give. Why would we not give?

We also remember Ecclesiastes 12 verse 14, which promises, "God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil" as well as Romans 2 verses 5 and 6, where Paul speaks of the day of God's wrath "when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God will give to each person according to what he has done". It is a fearful thing even to imagine standing before God "from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away", and have nothing but our own wicked works to show for the time on earth the Almighty had given us. On that day the words of Paul the apostle will come true: "Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God". (Rom 3 verse 19) The final word, of course, will be God's.

Recently, mega-church pastor Rick Warren found another way to describe what it means to live as a World Christian with the helpful phrase “the purpose-driven life”. The idea of being impelled and focused on God’s global concerns has encouraged many. But in the long run, to flourish in a purpose-driven life, we need to know first what it means to live a Person-driven life. For all of our activities and general support for Kingdom work, many may not be, in fact, the Person-driven people we thought we were.

To avoid any spirit of trivial “triumphalism”, however, let’s be clear on one thing: Christ’s missionary story not only initiates harvest fields, it also instigates battlefields — just as the children experience in Narnia at the climax of Aslan’s return. Any war is costly, sometimes bloody. Skirmishes are lost and won. Not every moment in the service of Jesus’ Kingdom offers visible, unalloyed advances in His mission. There are Forces of Darkness opposed to God’s promises, ready to fight them, and us, to the death. This, too, is part of the narrative of Christ’s global cause in which we each play our part.

What it means to be a World Christian

Catch The Vision! My World-Sized Part With Christ

Basic principles of unity

We need to emphasize the unity and basic Biblical principles we share as believers in Christ.

“Denomination” takes on a less-than-ideal sense when one considers its popular use in the lexicon of “Christendom.” “Christendom” is a term that embraces the entire religious terrain that professes any identification – however remote the connection may be – with Jesus Christ. This would include every kind of organism, from the Unitarian Universalist Church, to the various cults that allege an association with Christ (e.g., Christian Science, the Watchtower movement, etc.).

The study of sacred liturgy is to be ranked among the compulsory and major courses in seminaries and religious houses of studies; in theological faculties it is to rank among the principal courses. It is to be taught under its theological, historical, spiritual, pastoral, and juridical aspects. Moreover, other professors, while striving to expound the mystery of Christ and the history of salvation from the angle proper to each of their own subjects, must nevertheless do so in a way which will clearly bring out the connection between their subjects and the liturgy, as also the unity which underlies all priestly training. This consideration is especially important for professors of dogmatic, spiritual, and pastoral theology and for those of holy scripture.

Sunday school is more content-centered and less experience-centered. Evening youth groups are more experience-centered than content-centered. Because our understanding of education in general is so content-centered, we sometimes forget about the power of learning that comes through fellowship and shared experiences. Sunday evening youth groups often exert as much, or more, impact on the spiritual development of youth than does content-centered learning by itself.

Examining the New Testament, Newbigin simply did not find there the same concern for results or anxiety about numbers that characterizes Church Growth thought. Paul, he pointed out, never agonizes about results. Instead, in one of his most profoundly missiological passages, he speaks of salvation in eschatological terms and suggests that no one is perfect until the end. God “has consigned all people to disobedience in order that he may have mercy on all.” (Romans 11:32-36). It is then, says Newbigin, that “the fathomless depths of God’s wisdom and grace will be revealed.” Meanwhile, “creation groans in travail.” (Romans 8:22). Thus, Christians should be neither anxious about their failure or boast about their success, but should faithfully witness “to the one in whom the whole purpose of God for cosmic history has been revealed.” Newbigin preferred to speak of the “logic of mission,” predicated on the truthfulness of the message as one that cannot but be proclaimed. We do not control the result. This is the Holy Spirit’s task. Some people may join the church, others may respond in ways that are invisible to us.

Persian Christian

In the last ten years a new term has become widespread throughout Iran, which can be literally translated “Persian-Christian,” or as they would conceptually translate it “Muslim-Christian” (farsimasihi). For centuries, it was assumed that if you were a Christian, you were Armenian. If someone saw you wearing a cross they might ask, “Are you Armenian?” or “Have you become Armenian?” But today the question has changed.

This new identity is highly significant, testifying to the presence of a truly indigenous, self-reproducing movement. It has long been believed that a breakthrough among Persians could have significant impact on surrounding peoples in Central Asia and the Middle East. This has certainly proved to be the case in Iran itself. Persian missionaries are now being sent to nearby minority peoples, such as the Azeri, Luri and Kurds, with funding coming directly from the Persian believers themselves.

Christians have favour

Muslim opinion on most issues is not monolithic, and there are some apparent anomalies in Muslims’ views of the West and its people. While large percentages in nearly every Muslim country attribute several negative traits to Westerners – including violence, immorality and selfishness – solid majorities in Indonesia, Jordan and Nigeria express favorable opinions of Christians.

Still, the work needs to be done in wisdom - 

“It was a joyful occasion for each one of us to get together in a small room and worship the Lord.  In the beginning we were instructed by the pastor to sing and speak in a low voice.  We sang a few choruses and songs in low voices.  Mrs. M shared about The Tide’s ministry, Bhutanese Dzongkha radio program,  and  and the need to have a Follow-up Office in Bhutan.  She encouraged the group that our acts of faith, large or small make a big difference.  May we lift our eyes to see the needy souls around us and have passion for the lost.”

  

 

Why did Constantine favour the Christian Church?

Holy Spirit giving rapid increase moving through the peoples of the earth

The outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost as recorded in Acts 2 changed the church and they changed the world. The same has happened since the renewal of Pentecostal experience 100 years ago. 614 million people or over 30% of all adherents to Christianity are now Spirit Empowered (Charismatic/Pentecostal) according to the most recent Pew Forum survey. Growth rates in this Empowered movement between 1910 and 2010 were nearly four times the growth rate of Christianity and the world’s population. Harvey Cox, a Harvard University professor, says of Spirit Empowered Christianity that it is “the fastest growing Christian movement on earth.”

The rapid increase in urbanization and the socio-political oppression of Black South Africans between 1960 and 1990 may be one reason for the remarkable growth of Pentecostalism during this time. The insecurities inherent in rapid urbanization provide strong incentives for people separated from their roots to seek new, culturally and socially meaningful religious expressions, especially in a society where there was no access to the instruments of social and political power. The increasing disillusionment experienced by Black people in South Africa's political matrix resulted in a rejection of European values and religious expressions such as those found in ‘mainline’ churches. As Jean Comaroff has demonstrated, the Zionist churches were ‘a more radical expression of cultural resistance’ for those dispossessed by colonialism than that of the more orthodox Protestant churches. She sees the symbols of Zionist ritual as an enduring form of resistance to White hegemony, ‘returning to the displaced a tangible identity and the power to impose coherence upon a disarticulated world’. Comaroff’s study suggests that the forms of socio-political protest exhibited by this ‘cultural resistance’ are implicit rather than explicit, but are nevertheless all-pervasive. This is true of all kinds of African Pentecostalism, which have not yet adjusted to the new political freedom, but this preoccupation with ‘cultural resistance’ may be one of the reasons why the ZCC could not contribute much more than to protest about violence to the TRC. The prolongation of this ‘cultural resistance’ mindset, although not as escapist as the ‘evil forces’ mindset of the White Pentecostals, nevertheless may be out of touch with the new political realities.

Practically speaking, the peoples of the earth are a reality that we dare not ignore, even if we want to. They are a God-created reality that will be with us until the end. Every ministry, strategy, or methodology that ignores the reality of people group dynamics and the need for an indigenous church- planting movement within each people will do so at the cost of wasted time, money and manpower.

The equipment of small native congregations of Christians with full power and authority as local Churches would remove most, if not all, of the present causes of trouble. We should cease to talk of a native church as something to be attained after long years, or generations of probation. There would be native Churches at once which all men would recognize as native. There would be ample opportunity for the ablest and strongest native minds to exercise all their powers in the direction and advancement of the churches. Without further words we should have proved to all men that we do not preach Christ in order to extend our dominion as our enemies assert: we should have proved that we really mean the words which we now too often use without any demonstration that we really know their meaning--that we desire to be helpers, not lords over other men's souls.

Though it is true that this mission demands great generosity on our part, it would be wrong to see it as a heroic individual undertaking, for it is first and foremost the Lord’s work, surpassing anything which we can see and understand. Jesus is “the first and greatest evangelizer”. In every activity of evangelization, the primacy always belongs to God, who has called us to cooperate with Him and who leads us on by the power of His Spirit. The real newness is the newness which God Himself mysteriously brings about and inspires, provokes, guides and accompanies in a thousand ways. The life of the Church should always reveal clearly that God takes the initiative, that “he has loved us first” (1 Jn 4:19) and that He alone “gives the growth” (1 Cor 3:7). This conviction enables us to maintain a spirit of joy in the midst of a task so demanding and challenging that it engages our entire life. God asks everything of us, yet at the same time He offers everything to us.

Who Is the Holy Spirit and Why Did He Come?

THE HOLY SPIRIT

GREAT HEALING REVIVALISTS - 

HOW GOD'S POWER CAME

Great problems

"The Church will last for eternity, and because it is God’s instrument for ministry here on earth, it is truly the greatest force on the face of the planet. That’s why I believe tackling the world’s biggest problems -– the giants of spiritual lostness, egocentric leadership, poverty, disease and ignorance -– can only be done through the Church." - Rick Warren

Communicate widely and broadly the opportunity and responsibility we have as a church and as global Christians to expand the Kingdom and influence the course of world history through reaching the nations.

To keep churches multiplying, they must mobilize many ‘tentmakers’ to do the five key ministries - apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. Few mission agencies mobilize true tentmakers; recruits raise full-time support, and merely pretend to be tentmakers. Make sure that any agency that you engage encourages true tentmakers. Too often nationals see a missionary living a lifestyle more costly than what he is earning from a business that he is using as a “cover” and they know for sure that he is either CIA, or–much worse–a missionary. This phony lifestyle causes severe psychological strain.

Christian evangelism today is rooted in a misunderstanding of salvation. People have been told they are Christians because they have confessed they believe Jesus died for their sins, but the total package is presented in such a way that it leaves their general life untouched… The problem is that we have been obsessed with this idea that the real issue is ‘making the cut’ to get to heaven. We have taken the discipleship out of conversion (quoted from Willard, “Rethinking Evangelism”).

The kingdom aims at transforming human relationships; it grows gradually as people slowly learn to love, forgive and serve one another. Jesus sums up the whole Law, focusing it on the commandment of love (cf. Mt 22:34-40; Lk 10:25-28). Before leaving His disciples, He gives them a "new commandment": "Love one another; even as I have loved you" (Jn 13:34; cf. 15:12). Jesus' love for the world finds its highest expression in the gift of His life for mankind (cf. Jn 15:13), which manifests the love which the Father has for the world (cf. Jn 3:16). The kingdom's nature, therefore, is one of communion among all human beings-with one another and with God.

The kingdom is the concern of everyone: individuals, society, and the world. Working for the kingdom means acknowledging and promoting God's activity, which is present in human history and transforms it. Building the kingdom means working for liberation from evil in all its forms. In a word, the kingdom of God is the manifestation and the realization of God's plan of salvation in all its fullness.

Spontaneous

Church multiplication — or a ‘church planting movement’ — happens when God prepares many people within a cultural group to embrace the Good News. They trust in Jesus Christ and pass on His promise of forgiveness and life to relatives and friends. It is spontaneous;  requiring little or no help from outsiders to keep spreading once it is under way. The Holy Spirit moves new believers and churches to reproduce as in the parable in which the seed of the Kingdom potentially multiplies 100 times per harvest. Church history shows us that church multiplication is the norm for healthy churches. But we do not achieve it simply by spending money or consulting with professional missiologists. Nor do we get it from pricey, quick-start
programs. Funds and good strategy help, but do not drive the movement. We seldom see churches multiply rapidly now in the English-speaking West where funds are most available and well-researched strategies abound. Most American Christians, for example, have few friends or relatives that live where there are no churches. Furthermore, few Westerners are aware that healthy, normal churches reproduce. God promises to every church gifted ‘sent ones’ (apostles, Ephesians 4:11) to carry its spiritual DNA to her daughter churches.

Biblical truth is intensely practical. We must use it in teaching to build up the body of Christ, not just to impart knowledge. Good teaching applies God’s Word to people’s lives and ministries. 2 Timothy 3:14-17 reveals the purpose of biblical instruction: to equip believers for service. Biblical teaching has the clear objective of mobilizing church members for ministry, as explained in Ephesians 4:11-16.

Church history, Scripture and current field observations reveal that church multiplication is God’s norm. Objective researchers, like David Garrison in Church Planting Movements, see it resulting from many new believers and young churches doing hard work in love for Christ. Sterile church bodies that fail to reproduce are the abnormal ones.

Faith Comes by Hearing shared a story of one Saramaccan village, parents requested a Sunday school class and, seeing the positive effects of Christians on the community, the chief demanded that a church be established. A second village saw 42 young people come to Christ following the film and many healings that displayed the greatness of God took place during the prayer time. Two listening groups started immediately and, by the time a follow-up visit was performed, these had multiplied into several more through passing the Proclaimer around the village.

The primary duties of elders include praying and studying Scripture, leading the vision of the church, caring for the people of the church, teaching, living lives that are exemplary, protecting the people of the church from false doctrine and teachers, and developing other leaders.

Change and Hope

We may mention the situations of poverty - often on an intolerable scale - which have been created in not a few countries, and which are often the cause of mass migration. The community of believers in Christ is challenged by these inhuman situations: the proclamation of Christ and the kingdom of God must become the means for restoring the human dignity of these people.

Evangelism and Social Action

While evangelism can be said to deal with a person’s ultimate need and destiny in terms of his or her salvation, social action is a missional response to the presenting need. Social action communicates hope to the individual that his or her situation can be transformed.

Here is a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King - 

"In our day, we must connect the dots of problems like unequal access to quality education and economic inequality to the problem of gang violence. We must also connect the dots of the negative forces of gentrification to gang violence. According to a professor of urban studies at Portland State University, for many African Americans in Portland, urban renewal is Negro removal. Such vulnerability and transiency, where people are uprooted from their communities, makes a damaging difference. We must also connect the dots involving these problems to a prison system so often based on retribution, not reformation. How are people to be reintroduced to society and make a vital contribution to society if they are never prepared to become vital participants and welcomed back through networks of support? We must come together to right the wrongs of a prison system that enslaves black men (it has been argued that the percentage of black men in prison far outweighs their proportionate presence in society). We must also attend to the fatherlessness so rampant in our society. Do we honor the fathers and mothers in the home, the fathers and mothers in our churches, and the fathers and mothers in our society as a whole? We must make sure everyone is welcome at the table of beloved community and make sure that we bring honor not simply to Dr. King but to the fathers and mothers and sons and daughters who have marched in the band that King led as a drum major for justice. These marchers are here this evening. They include you. We must support one another in the ongoing efforts to build beloved community in our day."

Jesus provides a balance of motives for our sharing of our resources—he invokes both 

compassion (or ‘mercy’) and justice.

At the other end of the pendulum are the scholars of the Church Growth Movement. David J. Hesselgrave insists that the “primary mission of the church is to proclaim the gospel of Christ and to gather believers into local churches where they can be built up in faith and made effective in service thereby planting new congregations throughout the world.” Donald A. McGavran, in his reaction to the debate, insists, “Deeply as I sympathize with the problem and as long as I myself have ministered to desperate physical needs (for years I superintended a leprosy home), I cannot ally myself on this point with those who put social action first.” On the contrary, McGavran states, “My conviction is that the salvation granted to those who believe in Jesus Christ is still the supreme need of human beings, and all other human good flows from that prior 

reconciliation to God.”

 

However, Padilla--a leading Latin American evangelical theologian who incidentally contributed much in the shaping of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization position in respect to the relationship between evangelism and social responsibility--contends that --

"There is no place for an “otherworldliness” that does not result in a Christian’s commitment to his neighbor, rooted in the gospel. There is no room for eschatological paralysis nor for a social strike. There is no place for statistics on how many souls die without Christ every minute if they do not take into account how many of those who die are dying of hunger."

 

The Great Commission is not normally understood as a prediction of the success of the church in converting the nations, but it should be. The plan of the Great Commission is for the church to disciple all nations. It is Christ’s will that all peoples and lands be brought to believe in Him and submit to His authority through the Spirit-empowered ministry of the church. The church is to preach the gospel and disciple the converts so that the law of God becomes the law of men and nations. Will Christ’s will be fulfilled? Most certainly, for all authority is given to Him in heaven and earth so that He might conquer His enemies and bring all nations under His rule (cf. Ps. 2:8; 110:1-3). Since Christ has all authority in heaven and earth and the church goes forth in His name with His power, who or what can stop the church from fulfilling its task?

Are Evangelism and Social Action an Either/Or?

Balance of Social Action & evangelism

Servant Evangelism vs Social Action

The Great Commission: Social Work, Political Action, or Evangelism? 

The Best Balance - Social Action & Evangelism

Social Justice Vs. Evangelism | Earning the Right to Be Heard

Urgency

The urgency of missionary activity derives from the radical newness of life brought by Christ and lived by his followers. This new life is a gift from God, and people are asked to accept and develop it, if they wish to realize the fullness of their vocation in conformity to Christ. The whole New Testament is a hymn to the new life of those who believe in Christ and live in his Church. Salvation in Christ, as witnessed to and proclaimed by the Church, is God's self-communication: "It is love which not only creates the good, but also grants participation in the very life of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. For he who loves desires to give Himself."

Urgency Quotes

Our Areopagus - Mars Hill

The first Areopagus of the modern age is the world of communications, which is unifying humanity and turning it into what is known as a "global village." The means of social communication have become so important as to be for many the chief means of information and education, of guidance and inspiration in their behavior as individuals, families and within society at large. In particular, the younger generation is growing up in a world conditioned by the mass media. To some degree perhaps this Areopagus has been neglected. Generally, preference has been given to other means of preaching the Gospel and of Christian education, while the mass media are left to the initiative of individuals or small groups and enter into pastoral planning only in a secondary way. Involvement in the mass media, however, is not meant merely to strengthen the preaching of the Gospel. There is a deeper reality involved here: since the very evangelization of modern culture depends to a great extent on the influence of the media, it is not enough to use the media simply to spread the Christian message and the Church's authentic teaching. It is also necessary to integrate that message into the "new culture" created by modern communications. This is a complex issue, since the "new culture" originates not just from whatever content is eventually expressed, but from the very fact that there exist new ways of communicating, with new languages, new techniques and a new psychology. Pope Paul VI said that "the split between the Gospel and culture is undoubtedly the tragedy of our time," and the field of communications fully confirms this judgment.


It is clear that from the very origins of Christianity, the laity - as individuals, families, and entire communities - shared in spreading the faith. In modern times, this active participation of lay men and women missionaries has not been lacking. How can we forget the important role played by women: their work in the family, in schools, in political, social and cultural life, and especially their teaching of Christian doctrine? Indeed, it is necessary to recognize - and it is a title of honour - that some churches owe their origins to the activity of lay men and women missionaries.


If I knew I would be planting a church in any metropolitan area I would begin by going on the Internet and looking up information available from the Census Bureau about the community. This information can give vital
insight about what your future congregation may look like. It will have information about the demographics of an area, including median age, median income, and whether or not the population is blue-collar or white-collar.

Contrast this with a story from a current British mission. Traditional churchgoing has been in decline for many years in Western Europe. In Liverpool, a large city struggling to make the transition to new forms of
livelihood after the collapse of its industrial economy, the mighty Methodist Central Hall faced closure. In a previous generation it had drawn hundreds of worshipers to the city centre and hosted a wide range of midweek activities, but successive ministries had been unable to reverse the decline in worship
attendance. In the late 1990’s Central Hall closed. But rather than withdraw from the city centre, the Methodist Church appointed a minister, the Rev. Dr. Barbara Glasson, to plant something new. She was given free licence to try to discern what the shape of God’s mission might be in a context where the
traditional methods had failed.

What would any of us do with such an assignment? The temptation was to attempt high-energy evangelism or church planting according to one of the many models available from other people and places. That way, given enough hard work, there would hopefully be something to show for the denomination’s resources and trust. But this would have been an expression of that functional atheism: there isn’t any God to direct this, so I need to do something myself.

Instead, Dr. Glasson chose to trust God. She immersed herself both in God and in the city, and for the first year she simply walked the streets, met the people who live and work in the city centre, and reflected and prayed as she observed the changing seasons and moods of the city. In her wanderings God gave her a word, “bread”. She didn’t know what it meant, but in time she found herself led to invite some of her new friends to make bread with her. This simple action grew into a ministry that has now touched the lives of hundreds of people, from homeless people and asylum seekers to city bankers and university professors. They meet in a shop front “church”, and they make bread together, and they talk of God. While the bread is rising they share in simple Bible study and worship. They exercise a presence in the city centre where the welcome is unconditional, human need is met with the compassion and wisdom of Christ, and a Christian community is formed out of a band of unlikely individuals.

The fact that there is a diversity of activities in the Church's one mission is not intrinsic to that mission, but arises from the variety of circumstances in which that mission is carried out. Looking at today's world from the view point of evangelization, we can distinguish three situations.

First, there is the situation which the Church's missionary activity addresses: peoples, groups, and socio-cultural contexts in which Christ and his Gospel are not known, or which lack Christian communities sufficiently mature to be able to incarnate the faith in their own environment and proclaim it to other groups. This is mission ad gentes in the proper sense of the term.

Secondly, there are Christian communities with adequate and solid ecclesial structures. They are fervent in their faith and in Christian living. They bear witness to the Gospel in their surroundings and have a sense of commitment to the universal mission. In these communities the Church carries out her activity and pastoral care.

Thirdly, there is an intermediate situation, particularly in countries with ancient Christian roots, and occasionally in the younger Churches as well, where entire groups of the baptized have lost a living sense of the faith, or even no longer consider themselves members of the Church, and live a life far removed from Christ and his Gospel. In this case what is needed is a "new evangelization" or a "re-evangelization."

Christmas on Mars Hill

Paul: An Examination of His Areopagus Address in the Light of its Historical and Philosophical Background 

Value and build relationship

“Relationships are at the heart of teaching since it is an activity based on communication” (MacGrath). Some of the necessary elements that build and maintain constructive relationship include trust, be on their side, treat everyone with respect all of the time, be in charge and lead them to achievement, work together, and show you can listen and accept what the student says. Empathy can help to build a trusting relationship.

"RELATIONSHIP EVANGELISM"

Mandate versus Command

When our Lord presented Himself as Israel’s Messiah, He taught a great deal about the blessings of God. His teaching was radically different from that of the Jewish religious leaders of His day. His teaching was different not as the result of a change in God’s plan, but due to the Jew’s misconceptions concerning God’s promised blessings.

Wolterstorff ties the image of God to the dominion mandate (or blessing). In other words, of all the ways in which human beings might be said to reflect or image God, that set that is “necessary for receiving and exercising the blessing or mandate of dominion” ties together those that are in fact used by ancient Hebrew writers when they expound on the idea of the image of God in man.

Covenantal pledging or promise is then the means whereby one loves what the other loves. Through His promise, God establishes the basis for a loving relationship between Himself and us.

God's promises to Abraham—physical and spiritual—became unconditional. His words, "By Myself have I sworn" (Genesis 22:16), show that the fulfillment of the promise no longer depended on Abraham. The fulfillment of the promise would now depend solely on God Himself. He unconditionally committed Himself to fulfill His promise to Abraham and his descendants.