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.

Priorities

Our priority is seeing disciple making in every people group of the world. Evangelism is not enough. Teaching others to observe all that Jesus has commanded (Matthew 28:20) must be an ongoing process. When Ralph Winter brought this idea of unreached people groups to the attention of the first Lausanne Congress in 1974, there were an estimated 16,750 groups. There are now just 2,365 groups with populations of more than 5,000 that remain unengaged. Not all of the groups that have been engaged are reached.  

Our priority is to concentrate on where the Church is NOT. 

Every part of the world is called to go to every part of the world. No country is exempt from sending and no country is exempt from receiving. There is no room for triumphalism. Our lives should be characterized by obedience to God, servanthood to one another, and humility with grace. No sanctified business plans or entrepreneurial ventures can replace the supreme importance of His blessing.

We believe that living out our faith is an absolute imperative. Every believer should be a humble reflection of Jesus. Our message is hollow if our lives do not back up the words we speak. The Holy Spirit is still the source of our power. And, we need to be sure we are living lives that are holy and pure.

We believe that loving one another and working together should be the standard of the Church. God has given each person and organization unique gifts and callings. We should honour those callings. But all of us can give some percentage of our time and resources to work together on the priorities of the whole Body of Christ.  

An invitation to mission

You were not placed on earth to do nothing or just live for yourself. God invites you to participate in what he is doing in the world. Whenever you see God at work, its an invitation to join Him.

 "The Book of Acts records the earliest steps in the spread of Christianity from the central point of

Jerusalem outward like radiated light into the lands beyond. “And you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). How comfortable to think that the proclamation begins at home (we do, after all, refer to our “home church” when we speak.) But how uncomfortable to be told that the proclamation must be taken to those we consider so unlike us, those not a part of our culture and values, those we otherwise avoid because they are “unclean” (our modern day “samaritans”). If we could but stay at home with our proclamation, we could nestle into a preoccupation with doing the practices and rituals of the church. When we are asked to take the message beyond home, we are being asked to risk and to change. Yet it is our duty and delight “as each has received a gift, (to) employ it for one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace"  1 Peter 4:10

 

So evangelism is not programmatic marketing techniques, but rather it is pragmatic interactions

with others as Christ’s loving relationship with his church is lived out in his sisters and brothers

here on earth. How do we, the ecclesia, the church, live out this practical understanding of

evangelism as an ongoing outgrowth of right relationships? It is then that we will truly be living

the good message, evangelism.

We should want the Lord’s Kingdom to be realized now! In us! In our words and deeds! In other

words, in the relationships we establish with others. Evangelism is the good message of Jesus.

Christ manifesting not just in our breath, but also in flesh and bone, in our very being! But what

is to be manifested in us?

John gives us insight when he records Jesus’ charge to his disciples as he prepares to leave them,

“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for others.” (John 13:35)

Love of others is a key element for our identity as Christ’s messengers. So Christian evangelism

can be nothing other than relational, and within the scriptures relationships are to be lived out

rightly or righteously. Righteousness means right relationships, and relationships must be lived

O God, bring to our minds and hearts the conviction that our lives are not about ourselves, but about you and the Kingdom that you are drawing together. May we see beyond our own experience,

and experience instead the saving work you are doing through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, among all the peoples of the earth. Amen.

 

 

 

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The fame of God

When people are pursuing their pleasure in God, they will seek their happiness by spreading the fame of God to the nations. It is an infallible connection. The question I am asking is how do I and how do we overcome our lethargy, our indifference to the rest of the world? How do we become a people that are so energized by the glory of God that we cannot help but spread his glory to the nations? I believe that Psalm 67 holds the key to unlocking our hearts and our lives for the sake of all the unreached peoples of the world.

God is saying that He is saving His people in order to become famous; He is acting in behalf of His glory or fame among the nations.

 

Everything God does is for the sake of His name, for His own reputation, for His fame and His glory. The wonderful result? We come to know that He is the LORD, and He gets the praise!

 

Does it surprise you to learn that the driving force in God’s heart in restoring your soul and providing guidance for your life and enabling you to walk in righteousness is the fame of HIS name?

 

God Is Passionately Committed to His Fame. God’s Ultimate Goal Is That His Name Be Known and Praised by All the Peoples of the Earth.

 

Fame is the reputation gained by individuals or groups of people as a result of their achievements. Scripture shows how God’s fame among the nations rested upon His saving actions and, in the NT, how the miracles of Jesus Christ brought Him widespread fame. God’s people are to rejoice in His fame, without lapsing into arrogance.

 

 

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Anchor the race

Jesus alone stimulates and evokes our faith. Jesus is the source or origin of our faith. He is the originator of Christian faith within the believer. He initiated and sustained it. He is the completer or finisher who has gone before us and has completed the course. He is waiting for us in heaven (John 14:1-3; 1 John 3:1-3). "This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil, where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek" (Hebrews 6:19-20).


The optimistic belief in the possibility of actually finishing the task is diminished by the way in which we define the task in terms of reaching lost people everywhere. In contrast to this, when the task is conceived in terms of penetrating peoples it opens the door to a host of specific definitions that can measure in terms of those definitions the progress of the task. Thus changing missiological reality, which now becomes measurable through the “reaching” of people groups, fuels the hope of closure, completing this aspect of the task of the Great Commission and fulfilling the condition of Matthew 24:14 so that the end of this age can come.


This reminds of St. Joseph only because Tyndale University College & Seminary purchased the convent of the Sister of St. Joseph and I learned a few things.


"St. Joseph was an ordinary sort of man on whom God relied to do great things. He did exactly what the Lord wanted him to do, in each and every event that went to make up his life."


One has to feel sorry for individuals like George Whitfield who lost touch with the extraordinary.

"As for the extraordinary operations of the Holy Ghost, such as working of miracles, or speaking with divers kinds of tongues, they are long since ceased."

William Carey reminded his readers of the ultimate significance of missionary work:
“What a heaven will it be to see the many myriads of poor heathens, of Britons amongst the rest, who by their labours have been brought to the knowledge of God. Surely a crown of rejoicing like this is worth aspiring to. Surely it is worth while to lay ourselves out with all our might, in promoting the cause, and kingdom of Christ.”

To the average Christian there is no distinction between evangelism and evangelization. But to the World Christian Movement there is a distinction. Essentially, that distinction is that evangelism involves the saving of souls, while evangelization means the saving of whole nations or "people groups spiritually and temporally through political and social action.

A major obstacle to understanding the true motives and goals of the World Christian Movement is the inability to discern this distinction. That such a distinction exists is openly acknowledged by the Lausanne Committee on World Evangelization, from which the World Christian Movement has sprung. In an interview prior to the first International Congress on World Evangelization, Bishop A. Jack Dam of the Anglican Church in Sydney, Australia, who served as Executive Chairman of ICOWE, stated:


"Lausanne is a Congress on evangelization, not a Congress on evangelism. [The World Congress on Evangelism in Berlin, held in 1966] was the first of many congresses on evangelism. But I think now the present thought in the minds of many leaders around the world is that we need not only to think of evangelism, that is, the proclamation of the Gospel, but the whole task given to us by the risen Christ. This, I think more aptly, is called evangelization."

Maybe this is a good time to end this post with the anchor of choice - women. Love this quote from a gathering in Edinborough in 2010 of the world leaders - which had this to particular say about women and missions --


"Since both women and men are made in the image of God, they should both be present, working side by side in mission. Failure to fully integrate women will hinder the capacity of Edinburgh 2010 to assess critically the status of the world, to renew our understanding of God’s purpose for creation in Christ, and to further a renewed vision of spirituality and mission for the 21st century’.

They concluded with a prayer:‘Let us all, women together with men, hold up the highest possible vision for this important historical moment and walk together as we open ourselves to the movement of the Triune God’."

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