God accomplishing His purposes

There was a time not too long ago when people thought the oceans extended without end and the world was flat. Now we know the exact extent of the surface of the oceans, and it is still magnificent to us in it’s scope. But it is limited. The oceans have shores, and those shores were created by our God. God has measured out not only the waters of the earth, but His entire creation.

God measures our gifts with a measure different from that of the world. He is not impressed with large numbers. Rather, He measures according to (1) the giver’s capacity (because He knows what we possess) and (2) the giver’s attitude (because He knows the state of our hearts). Jesus spoke to this question directly when He compared the temple gifts of the rich men with the gift of the poor widow (Luke 21:1-4). By Jesus’ reckoning, the widow gave more than the others because she gave all she had to live on. Her capacity was prohibitively little, but her attitude was extravagant. The rich, on the other hand, had so much wealth that even large gifts required little devotion of them. Biblical generosity is not any given dollar amount. Nor it is even just a given percentage rate (although percentage of assets is an important indicator of attitude, which is of great importance to God.) To be biblically generous is to recognize God’s infinite beneficence toward us in Christ, and to give extravagantly in worship to Him, relative to what one has. To put it differently, biblical generosity is best gauged by asking not, “How much am I giving to God?” but, “How much am I keeping for myself?”

The world is growing at an extremely rapid pace, and we are charged with preaching the gospel to the whole world. When a missionary goes into a new region, their primary goal is to develop their converts to become effective ministers to their own people, who know the culture, the language and pathways to the heart of people in their own culture, things that would take many years to teach an outsider. Western youth culture needs young men and women who understand the cultural language through a Biblical perspective and can effectively speak enticingly to that culture about the impact of the gospel.

Evangelism, of course, is a legitimate name and a legitimate endeavor. It is the work of the Church to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ in order to bring souls into the Kingdom of God. True evangelism follows the spreading of the pure Gospel with the planting churches and the discipling of believers that will guard the biblical truths and practices vital to sustaining a viable relationship between individual believers and the Lord Jesus Christ.

"The Bible gives us plenty of proof that God uses all types of personalities. Peter was a sanguine. Paul was a choleric. Jeremiah was a melancholy. When you look at the personality differences in the twelve disciples, it is easy to see why they sometimes had interpersonal conflict. There is no 'right’ or 'wrong’ temperament for ministry" (The Purpose Driven Life p. 245).

Statement of Faith

The God Who Accomplishes His Purposes

Graveyard of Missions and Contextualization

Some of the places that have been called graveyards of missionaries in this sense are: Burma; the West Indies; Sierra Leone; Mosul; Suriname; Africa; Liberia; western Africa.

"1872 Baptist Missionary Mag. 52/6 o.s. (2/6 n.s.) (Jun.) 189 : Even in Arracan, the disappointer of hopes and the graveyard of missionaries, there was light. Mr. Ingalls went there in 1846. Soon there was one conversion. Then, one night in an inquiry meeting ten presented themselves for prayer—a rare thing indeed for Burmans. 1880 The Christian Treasury 441 : Fourteen brethren and four sisters had arrived to found a missionary colony at St. Croix, an island which Dober knew to be fatally unhealthy, and nothing but a rank wilderness. He looke dupon the colony as doomed to failure. A few months proved his fears to have been correct, as no less than ten of the settlers fell victims to the pestilential climate, and the rest had to take temporary refuge on other islands. It was many years before this “Graveyard of missionaries,” as Zinzendorff called it, became habitable, though now among the most flourishing and healthy of the missions in the West Indies."

The Church serves the kingdom by her intercession, since the kingdom by its very nature is God's gift and work, as we are reminded by the gospel parables and by the prayer which Jesus taught us. We must ask for the kingdom, welcome it and make it grow within us; but we must also work together so that it will be welcomed and will grow among all people, until the time when Christ "delivers the kingdom to God the Father" and "God will be everything to everyone" (cf. 1 Cor 15:24, 28).

In planting new simple churches it is important to follow Jesus strategy of looking for a “child of peace” or a “house of peace”. When found one, you can start a new simple church among their web of relationships.

The presence of God’s people in a given location will affect daily life as individuals experience a renewal of traditional social patterns. This renewal, however, will substantially be a renewal of the existing patterns. For this reason, planters must quickly learn the real life issues associated with the people among whom they intend to plant a church. What does it look like for people in this community to celebrate, mourn, confess and repent, encourage each other, and show love? Where do people go to have fun, relax, worship, grow, shop, and eat? These questions address issues of social-relational contextualization that are integral to reaching people from a culture that differs from one’s own culture. Understanding transition rituals, crisis rituals, and other types of rituals provides helpful insight for the church planter attempting to understand local life expressions, but may also provide an entry point for the pastor to minister in the midst of these crucial community and family processes.

In addition to right preaching, those early believers had right life-style. They actually practised what they
preached, and Acts 2.42-47 gives us a glimpse of that. Before we start to think that the early church was just a wonderful community centre looking after people’s social needs, let’s just look at v42 to see their priorities, … : God’s Word, holy communion, prayer. And because they were Bible-based,
prayerful people, the Spirit was doing great things among them, v43… They had an expectation that God could and would do miraculous things in their lives. Do you? I know lots of churches which have great social programs, but the Word of God is not central, nor is prayer. I also know churches where gospel preaching and prayer are at the heart, but there’s little social concern. Acts 2 shews we need both. Doesn't 3 James in his letter famously teach us that ‘faith without works is dead, being alone’ (ie useless)?

You will never build the walls of your life until you have first become greatly concerned about the ruins. Have you ever taken a good look at the ruins in your own life? Have you ever stopped long enough to assess what you could be under God, and compared that with what you are? Have you looked at the possibilities that God gave you in your life, and seen how far you have deviated from that potential? Like Nehemiah, you have received word, in some form or other, of the desolation and ruin there. When Nehemiah hears this report about Jerusalem, he weeps and prays for days, showing his intense concern. You will never rebuild the walls of your life until you first weep over the ruins.

Today, as in the past, that mission is difficult and complex, and demands the courage and light of the Spirit. We often experience the dramatic situation of the first Christian community which witnessed unbelieving and hostile forces "gathered together against the Lord and His Anointed" (Acts 4:26). Now, as then, we must pray that God will grant us boldness in preaching the Gospel; we must ponder the mysterious ways of the Spirit and allow ourselves to be led by Him into all the truth (cf. Jn 16:13).

The Cross in the Nuclear Age

Contextualizing the Power and the Glory

The Insider Movement in Missions

MISSION AND CONTEXTUALIZATION

from Graveyard to Vineyard

 Contextualization Revisited

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?

Plant for the unchurched

In the last eighteen years of the twentieth century, the goal of Christian mission should be to preach the Gospel and, by God's grace, to plant in every unchurched segment of mankind--what shall we say-- "a church" or "a cluster of growing churches"?

In the latter half of the twentieth century one of the most influential areas of research from a theoretical and methodological foundation has been that of the church growth movement. Church growth can be defined as:

Church growth is that discipline which investigates the nature, expansion,
planting, multiplication, function and health of Christian churches as they relate to
the effective implementation of God’s commission to “make disciples of all
peoples.” (Mt 28:18-20) Students of church growth strive to integrate the eternal
theological principles of God’s word concerning the expansion of the church with
the best insights of contemporary social and behavioral sciences, employing as the
initial frame of reference the foundational work done by Donald McGavran.

In 2005 one of the visions put forward by the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC) was that evangelical churches would aim to have an evangelical church per 2,000 people in an given geographical area (they point out, however, that an area is “generally viewed to be reached when there exists one evangelistic congregation for each 1,000 persons”)

According to Hawthorne missionaries should aim to draw converts from one segment of society. While a church movement should aim to grow a cluster of congregations generally to aim for a single sociopeople.  It's very important that people feel a sense of belonging in a church movement and this is best achieved through a single cultural identity of a single people group. Often a missionary will try to start a church and people from various social groups will join and it'll start up as a sort of segmented social unit that is all it's own. Unfortunately this approach is not effective because people leave their sociopeoples to join the new hybrid social unit and the rest of the people in those sociopeople groups consider the converts traitors.  Church movements grow very slowly when done this way. The approach of pulling people from various people groups to a single church movement is effective in countries where Christianity is loved and considered a good thing. It is a much wiser approach to concentrate all efforts on a single people group instead of attempting multiple people groups at the same time.

Encourage converts to remain thoroughly one with their own people in most matters. They should continue to eat what their people eat. They should not say, "My people are vegetarians but, now that I have become a Christian, I'm going to eat meat." After they become Christians they should be more rigidly vegetarian than they were before. In the matter of clothing, they should continue to look precisely like their kinfolk. In the matter of marriage, most people are endogamous, they insist that "our people marry only our people." They look with great disfavor on our marrying other people. And yet when Christians come in one-by-one, they cannot marry their own people. None of them have become Christian. Where only a few of a given people become Christians, when it comes time for them or their children to marry, they have to take husbands or wives from other segments of the population. So their own kin look at them and say, "Yes, become a Christian and mongrelize your children. You have left us and have joined them."

Today more than ever we need men and women who, on the basis of their experience of accompanying others, are familiar with processes which call for prudence, understanding, patience and docility to the Spirit, so that they can protect the sheep from wolves who would scatter the flock. We need to practice the art of listening, which is more than simply hearing. Listening, in communication, is an openness of heart which makes possible that closeness without which genuine spiritual encounter cannot occur. Listening helps us to find the right gesture and word which shows that we are more than simply bystanders. Only through such respectful and compassionate listening can we enter on the paths of true growth and awaken a yearning for the Christian ideal: the desire to respond fully to God’s love and to bring to fruition what he has sown in our lives. But this always demands the patience of one who knows full well what Saint Thomas Aquinas tells us: that anyone can have grace and charity, and yet falter in the exercise of the virtues because of persistent “contrary inclinations”. In other words, the organic unity of the virtues always and necessarily exists in habitu, even though forms of conditioning can hinder the operations of those virtuous habits. Hence the need for “a pedagogy which will introduce people step by step to the full appropriation of the mystery”. Reaching a level of maturity where individuals can make truly free and responsible decisions calls for much time and patience.

Missionary responsibility

 While acknowledging that statements about the missionary responsibility of the Church are not credible unless they are backed up by a serious commitment to a new evangelization in the traditionally Christian countries, it does not seem justified to regard as identical the situation of a people which has never known Jesus Christ and that of a people which has known Him, accepted Him and then rejected Him, while continuing to live in a culture which in large part has absorbed gospel principles and values. These are two basically different situations with regard to the faith.

REDEMPTORIS MISSIO

Starting over as the learner

Culture shock is a much misunderstood phenomenon. Workers going on a short-term mission or visit of less than two months are unlikely to experience real culture shock.

The reaction that is often mistaken for real culture shock is what we might call the ‘wow factor’. This is an initial reaction on arriving in the new culture. It is the wide-eyed amazement at just how different everything is. It is essential for agencies to know the difference between the two phenomena and brief their
workers accordingly. Unfortunately many agencies and particularly local churches who send out workers, often fail in this area, sometimes with unfortunate and avoidable results.

The ‘wow factor’ is a confusing reaction that can range from delight to panic. Delight at the warm welcome or the open, smiling reaction of ordinary people to a foreign guest in their country. Fascination at the noise, customs, architecture, food and even the dress of people in their new surroundings.

Panic at the unaccustomed heat, the flies, or participants' reaction to the first time they have to use a ‘long-drop’ pit latrine, or even worse a ‘short-drop’ one!

Real culture shock is a more serious problem. It usually comes on after about six to eight months in the location, and lasts three to six months. During that time the worker may hate the location and everything to do with it. Some things that were novel, interesting and even fun to the short-term worker when they first arrived, can for the medium or long-term worker after six months become a serious source of irritation and contributes to an overall negative attitude. They will crave anything that was remotely to do with their own
culture. Food will be near the top of the list. Fawcett points out that the problem may well be the sense of loss of one's own cultural comforts more than an adverse reaction to the one being currently experienced. This is an interesting observation. It is certainly true that a longing for aspects of the home culture is one of the main symptoms of culture shock. Other symptoms of culture shock: homesickness, loss of interest, irritation, loss of appetite, poor concentration, tiredness, a feeling of guilt, anger, disturbed sleep, a
breakdown in good relationships.

Missionaries, who come from other churches and countries, must immerse themselves in the cultural milieu of those to whom they are sent, moving beyond their own cultural limitations. Hence they must learn the language of the place in which they work, become familiar with the most important expressions of the local culture, and discover its values through direct experience. Only if they have this kind of awareness will they be able to bring to people the knowledge of the hidden mystery (cf. Rom 16:25-27; Eph 3:5) in a credible and fruitful way. It is not of course a matter of missionaries renouncing their own cultural identity, but of understanding, appreciating, fostering and evangelizing the culture of the environment in which they are working, and therefore of equipping themselves to communicate effectively with it, adopting a manner of living which is a sign of gospel witness and of solidarity with the people.

What does it mean to be a blessing?

Steven Hawthorne shares these thoughts --

If our only source were the book of Genesis, we would still learn a great deal about the idea of blessing. In Genesis, the word “blessing” is used to describe a pronouncement or endowment of blessing. It is an act in which a future destiny or goodness is spoken, and thus bestowed upon the person or entity being blessed. The term blessing is used to describe the fulfillment of what was promised, whether material or otherwise. God pronounced blessing at creation, empowering animal life and humanity to fulfill the mandate He had given, to “be fruitful and multiply and fill” their respective domains. Throughout the rest of Scripture, when blessing is fulfilled in creatures, people, households or nations, they are enabled to flourish and to move toward their intended fullness and destiny.

In Genesis we also see clear references to how the promise of blessing was fulfilled in tangible ways. Near the close of Abraham’s life we read that God “had blessed Abraham in every way” (24:1). What exactly were these diverse ways that Abraham had been blessed?

We can find three broad categories of blessing in the Genesis story. First, we see blessing as material wealth and fruitfulness (24:35, 30:27, 30). Second, we see blessing as favored relationship with God and the experience of His presence (14:19-20, 21:22, 26:22). And third, we see blessing bringing about a measure of peace amidst families and peoples (21:22-23, 26:18-29).

Most Christians have been taught well about Jesus Christ coming to provide a way for people to be adopted as sons and daughters into the family of God. In the book of Galatians, Paul says that “when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son… that we might receive” adoption as children of God (Gal 4:4-5). But a few verses earlier in the same book Paul says that those who believe in Christ have been joined with Christ in such a way that they become part of Abraham’s family. “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise” (Gal 3:29).
The way the promise was given to Abraham, blessing would be fulfilled in the “seed” of Abraham. This word is often used as a “collective singular,” speaking of many seeds. Thus, the term can refer to one descendant or to a multitude of descendants. Which is it?

Paul answers the question this way: Both are true. There is one pre-eminent son of Abraham: “The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, ‘And to seeds,’ as referring to many, but rather to one, ‘And to your seed,’ that is, Christ” (Gal 3:29). Christ is the one seed of Abraham, but Paul also declares that since people become sons and daughters of Abraham’s family by faith, the promise is being fulfilled by their faith as those who inherit the promise:
“It is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham. The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, ‘All the nations will be blessed in you.’ So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham” (Gal 3:7-9).

Christ has now ended the curse and opened the family of God. Now people from every family on earth can be part of Abraham’s family by faith in Christ. They inherit the full family heritage of being blessed in order to be a blessing to the nations.

God’s promise to bless the nations through Abraham’s descendants carries mandate force for all who have been joined with Christ by faith. The promise so clearly reveals God’s purpose, that Christians rightly consider it to convey God’s mandate to serve as His agents of blessing among all the peoples of the earth. We are blessed in Christ in order to bring forth the blessing of Christ among all the nations. But what are we hoping for? What does it mean for the nations to be blessed? And how are we to pursue it? The promise of blessing shapes and integrates our mission in two important ways.

The greatest blessing imaginable is the privilege of belonging to God’s people, and therefore, belonging to God as His children. Christ has opened Abraham’s family to all. We now participate in bringing people from every people, tribe and clan to be joined with Christ by faith and enfolded into the people of God. Extending the invitation to belong to God’s family is the greater part of what it means to bring blessing to the nations. We cannot consider that the Abrahamic blessing has visited a people today if the gospel of Jesus Christ has not yet been clearly conveyed to them.

What will it look like when this aspect of God’s blessing is fulfilled? We can look forward to the day when we will see at least some from every people on earth trusting and following Christ. The blessing of the nations means much more than evangelism, but it certainly can mean no less than the evangelization of every people.

We have seen in the book of Genesis that God displayed evidence of His dynamic presence with His people. God will be no less present amidst the peoples of the earth as groups of obedient followers of Christ emerge and grow among the nations. As in the book of Genesis, the presence of God with His people in our day is the beginning of all of the more tangible aspects of blessing that God brought about. This means that evangelization has a special priority (in order, not importance). God’s promise to bless the nations is the framework in which Christ’s commission makes sense. This same promise authorizes Christ’s followers to hope and to work for God’s life to abound in every people.

We can expect the blessing of belonging to God to become a reality amidst every people. But we can look forward to so much more! We can expect to see significant displays of the abundance of God’s life. We should not expect a utopian perfection. But we can work and pray with a strong hope, partly informed by what we see in the book of Genesis, that God will be with His people to bring forth significant measures of blessing among the nations.

And so we ask again, what will the fulfillment of God’s promise to bless the nations look like? Of course, it will be different in every place and people, but we should expect God to bring forth every kind of blessing, such as economies that flourish with justice and righteousness, agricultures and industries that abound with plenty for all, and peace throughout communities and between peoples and races. We can expect that God will enable His people to wage war with disease, to break the vicious cycles of poverty, to provide water in desert lands, and to be present with healing in the midst of catastrophe.

We should expect that some of Abraham’s children by faith will be used by God to preserve life after the example of Joseph. We are probably seeing now in many cities an answer to Abraham’s prayer for the city of Sodom in Genesis 18. In that prayer God said that an entire city would be spared the immediate consequences of their sin because of the righteousness of a few. In Abraham’s day there were less than ten. Now there are millions of his faith family spread throughout many of the cities of the earth.

Recently the term “transformation” has helped many express hope that Christian mission can be directed beyond successful evangelism to also seek lasting changes in society which reflect the justice and character of Christ. The biblical ground for integrating evangelism with social action is usually found in numerous biblical texts dealing with the hope and reality of the kingdom of God. It could be that we have been overlooking another body of biblical truth that supports a robust and strategic holism. God’s ancient promise of blessing provides a vivid, rich and powerful framework for integrating the pursuit of societal transformation and the completion of world evangelization.

We find in the Genesis account a remarkably clear prophetic sketch of the broad scope of God’s purpose for His people. Since God’s promise to Abraham embodies His purpose and our mission, then we are right to expect that our mission will lead to social and material change or transformation. But the main lesson to be learned is not that God’s mission includes concerns for social and physical issues. The greatest lessons we may find are those which show us how to co-work with God to bring forth His blessing. To be God’s blessing among all the peoples will require our utmost effort somehow blended with the exertion of God’s miraculous, life-giving power.

As God continues the fulfillment of His promise in our day, we can learn important lessons about how we can co-work with God from the lives of Abraham’s family. Perhaps the person in Genesis that best exemplifies the mystery of God at work with His people to bring forth blessing is Abraham’s great-grandson Joseph.

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