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.

Enter Through Prayer

 

Compassion is a mighty demonstration of love which shows its involvement and interest in other matters not according to their own self interest or profit, such as how much will this hospital make or what fame will be reckoned to me in such a university. Genuine compassion is the outpouring of love of someone in need. The passion involved is not dependent on what he can see himself doing, but what God wants to do through him. And this is where we need to pay special attention to in the book of Nehemiah. Godly compassion will demand that we regularly come to God for beseeching help that He alone is able to do. This type of intercessory prayer is powerful. For it gets God involved in places where He longs to pour out His wonderful grace and mercy.

Issue of Gospel and Culture

James did not ONLY reframe the conflict, he also proposed a solution that addressed both groups. He quoted Scripture confirming apostolic experience among the Gentiles and concluded, “We do not trouble those who are turning to God from among the Gentiles” (Acts15:19). James the peacemaker focused on truth. He concluded that the gospel is free from Jewish law. It is about Jesus plus nothing. Salvation is by grace alone!

Strategy of suffering

"If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself."  2 Timothy 2:13 

Let suffering saints remember, and look to Jesus, the Author and Finisher of their faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despised the shame, and is now set down at the right hand of the throne of God. We must not think it strange if the best men meet with the worst treatment; but this is cheering, that the word of God is not bound. Here we see the real and true cause of the apostle's suffering trouble in, or for, the sake of the gospel. If we are dead to this world, its pleasures, profits, and honours, we shall be for ever with Christ in a better world. He is faithful to his threatenings, and faithful to his promises. This truth makes sure the unbeliever's condemnation, and the believer's salvation. Matthew Henry
 

 Down from the Mount of Transfiguration, Jesus confronts the suffering caused by Satan and sin. To seek and to save the lost, who are showing their lack of faith, Jesus mercifully casts out a demon from a boy, whom his disciples could not help. Knowing the evil powers of Satan are about to be unleashed against himself as well, Jesus tells his disciples that he will be betrayed, which they do not understand, Luke 9:37-45

"A witness is what you are far more than it is something that you do.  God arranges for His servants to display what they declare.  By public testimony in the face of hostility,ordinary people accomplish fare more than merely affirming the truth of Christ.  Witnesses establish the value of following Christ.  Their persuasive power is not only because their words match their life - their words and their life match those of Christ Himself.  It is as if Christ Himself stands to testify before the world." Perspectives on the World Christian Movement
 

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The local church - mission and culture

What is saturation church planting?

Saturation means to fill up one substance with the greatest possible amount of another substance; to soak thoroughly.
Church means the called out ones. Those called out of sin and the world. Those who have been called out of the kingdom of darkness and called into the Kingdom of God. Church also means the called together ones. Wherever two or more of the called believers are together in Jesus' name, they constitute a local church.
Planting means placing a seed or seedling into the ground that it may grow into maturity.

The redemptive dimension of the Christian message and its role in inculturation implies all that the transformation of the cross means. Incarnation always points to the Cross and the Resurrection. Redemption is won through the power of the Father raising up Jesus on the third day. This central Christological dimension is essential to the understanding of inculturation as the transformation of a people and its culture. The people and their culture is called to die and rise with Christ in order to become a Christian people: a Christian culture.

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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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Your life is significant

The Bible does not paint a picture of a religion that is always the same, simply a conformity to exact patterns of worship that have never changed and never will.

Instead it covers the history of God’s relationship with His people, it shows a progression and expansion as God draws ever nearer to His own, and it finishes with a glorious climax when He takes the initiative to redeem His people and invites them to a living, personal relationship with Him.

The passion of our Lord overflows, as an inestimable privilege, into the bodies of His followers in order to conform them ever more perfectly to His own likeness.

So we respond to that passion with our own passion - a heart set free to pursue that which is truly worthy - the glory of God - living lives with joy-filled abandon.

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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.

Planting Churches

According to the Lausanne 1982 Convention, for evangelistic purposes, a people group is "the largest group within which the Gospel can spread as a church planting movement without encountering barriers of understanding or acceptance". A people group segment is a subset of a people group, where understanding may not much of a problem, but acceptance is.

In round figures, 3,000 non-Christian peoples still need cross- cultural pioneer church planting ministry. Many already have this, but the breakthroughs for which we pray are yet to come among the Fula of West Africa, the Turks of the Middle East, the Hindi speakers of North India, and others. There are already many working among these peoples, however, with increasing cooperation of effort.

Consider when a Western unbeliever comes to faith, he or she will already be aware of some biblical stories and teaching.  It is part of our cultural background, whether or not we were “raised Christian.” As a result, expatriate workers in developing countries can sometimes take for granted a minimum biblical understanding. That, of course, is a mistake. We mustn’t assume anything. For example, according to Islam Abraham’s most important son was Ishmael; people don’t sin, they just make mistakes; there was no “fall,” but rather man has always been immoral (no pre-fall sinless Adam and Eve); blood sacrifice is only a ritual with no atonement meaning; Jesus did not die on the cross; and no man—even al-Masih (Christ)—can pay for the sins of another. The point is, every important truth must be explicitly taught from the Word.

But neither do we want to minimize the cultural and linguistic differences that often exist between the sent- out-ones and the unbelieving context where pioneer church planting takes place. I like to say that any assembly that is planted in a Muslim background context will probably make me a little uncomfortable, even if I had a hand in helping establish that church. If it makes someone uncomfortable who knows the language fairly well and understands the culture well enough to be considered an acceptable outsider, how much more uncomfortable might it make the visiting elders, pastors or guest from the West. What I mean is that pioneer church planters cannot make the comfort of short term visitors or sending churches their motivating goal as they undertake to practice biblical contextualization in showing and telling the gospel. They need the accountability of dialogue with trusted outsiders for sure. But it needs to be a dialogue, I think, and contextualization, even good contextualization often makes outsiders clearly uncomfortable, as perhaps it should.

There is a book authored by Roland Muller which I have not read yet, but want to. It is titled, The Message, the Messenger and the Community.   It begins by looking at what it takes to be accepted as a 'messenger' with something of value to say. He then moves on to look at the gospel message that we share, and ends up examining the community of believers that we want to gather. This book includes a frank look at shame- based cultures, and also the importance of building a sense of community into a new group of believers.

I am always challenged how I can learn these truths in my own home before I head out to the unknown. Especially now that I am working with SAT-7 in Canada.  One idea I saw today was to take the extra room in my home and open it up to a refugee. 

I also come across this blog - Church Planting Movements – Ten Common Elements - it is rarely simply stated and yet incredibly powerful.

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World Need

If we develop a survey of world need, we can get a better strategic perspective on where Christian community development can start.

Let me suggest that a lot of what we are looking for is already being done at the local level - just move it forward, globally.

In a local church setting, here are the four aspects of surveying need that come into play.

1. Define the geographic boundaries of community to serve

• Target your resources to a specific area
• Designate landmarks that border the area

2. Describe the needs of the community, giving special consideration to the felt needs of the people living there

• Study the area's demographics and life situation
• Determine the food, housing, clothing, education, safety, job training, counseling and spiritual needs
• Identify which people to serve
• Survey the community and determine other programs serving area residents

3. Distribute resources and services to the community through relationships with the people

• Share resources, skills, and services to match the described needs
• Develop programs that allow people to build relationships
• Establish criteria for interacting with other agencies and churches
• Initiate relationships with other churches and agencies that wish to participate
• Create and use various ministries and programs to help distribute resources

4. Develop responsibility among people in the community, especially the youth, for its continuing development

• Target the young children to prevent damage from lack of education and drug addiction
• Use programs that develop Christian community leaders
• Raise up community members who walk with Christ, graduate from high school, pursue higher education, get jobs to provide for their families, find decent & affordable housing and become leaders in their community

All this and still remembering this truth - only when the Church is rooted in a vertical relationship to God in worship can the church's two ministries of kerygma (proclamation) and diakonia (service) be held in proper balance and tension. Only in this way, too, can evangelism and social responsibility be kept from degenerating into merely human activity and even propaganda. The mission of any church can fall into this trap.

The gospel, rightly understood, is wholistic. It responds to people as whole people; it does not single out just spiritual or just physical needs and speak to those. Christian Community Development begins with people transformed by the love of God, who then respond to God's call to share the gospel with others through evangelism, social action, economic development, and justice.

Critics seem to suggest that if only missionaries stay home, primitive people will be left undisturbed to live out the myth of Rousseau’s “noble savage.” In fact, David Livingstone was preceded by Arab slave traders; Amy Carmichael by victimizers who dragged boys and girls to the terrors of child

prostitution in the temples. At times, evil forces like these have destroyed entire peoples. In North America, not only California’s Yahi but also the Hurons—and possibly 20 other Indian tribes—were pushed into extinction by land-hungry settlers. On one occasion, pioneers sent gifts to a tribe, wagon loads of blankets known to be infected with smallpox.

More than any other person, perhaps St. Francis of Assisi caught that vision of world need and gave it new life. He once summed up the mission of the community he founded. “Brothers,” he said, “we have been called to heal wounds, to unite what has fallen apart, and to bring home those who have lost their way.” The prayer attributed to him begins with the words, “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.”

http://youtu.be/vp1F16_7lO0


 

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God's purpose is three-fold

When we think of God as a missionary God, we realize that there is a plan, a biblical plan in place. 

Understand that my context is not just identifying God's purpose for our life, but that context is in the form of engaging God's missionary character within that purpose.

- against evil - kingdom victory: The magnificent vision which John saw in Revelations 4-5 will be the main consolation for him and for the struggling Church and an assurance for the final victory. God and Christ are in control of history, and truth and love will prevail, while evil will finally disappear from the world (Rev. 20:10), and a new life will come to the world created and saved by God in Christ (Rev. chs. 21-22)

- for the nations - redemption and blessing: From Abraham on, the pattern is to focus on God’s redemption and blessing. The customs of Genesis often differ considerably from those of our modern day. They must be explained against their ancient Near Eastern background. Each custom must be treated according to the immediate context of the passage before any attempt is made to explain it based on customs recorded in extra biblical sources or even elsewhere in Scripture.


- for God - global glory in worship: Missions is all about GOD who knows the works and thoughts of peoples and has set a time to gather all nations and tongues. Missions is about God who wanted His name to be known and his glory be seen. This God is the One who said,

“Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be.” (Isaiah 66:1)

In other words, The God of Missions is not only all-knowing; He is also all-powerful and all-consuming. He can do everything, He knows everything and He is everywhere. This God cannot be localized - His power unmatchable, His presence universal, His knowledge unlimited. This is the God of Missions and this is the God we serve.

Missions is also about the God who is not only able to do everything but is also sovereign. He is not only able, He is also in control. He said,

“I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.’” (Isaiah 46:9-10

In other words, He planned everything, He decreed everything and He will accomplish everything. There is nothing He cannot do. In fact, He will do whatever He pleased. “He does everything according to his will and none can stay his hand or say to him, “What have you done?” (Daniel 4:35)

The God of Missions is the same God, who said,

“For my name's sake I defer my anger, for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off. Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another. (Isaiah 48:9-11)

In other words, God is not only able to do whatever He pleased; He does everything to please himself. He does everything to glorify himself. The most passionate heart in the whole universe for the glory of God is the heart of God. He said six times in this passage the motive behind his every action: “for my name's sake, for the sake of my praise, for my own sake, for my own sake, how should my name be profaned, My glory I will not give to another.”

Many times, we think Missions is about saving people, planting churches, sending missionaries, rarely we think that Missions is about God who is eager to make Himself known. God is the center of Missions, not souls, not churches, not missionaries, not us. Missions is about God.

This great and sovereign God revealed himself to Abram in a vision, just so He could bless him and his descendants. What grace the LORD shows to His people. Sure Abram had concerns about how this was all going to “pan out”- - he is human. He doesn’t know how this will all come about, but because God has graciously revealed himself to Abram, He knows the LORD is able to keep His promises. In fact, the LORD not only accommodated and stooped to reveal himself to sinful Abram, but was about confirm His promise in an even more astounding manner. What was about to happen, Abram could have never imagined.

In light of His resurrection, Jesus simply restated the Father‟s purpose from the beginning – that all the world‟s peoples know Him as God.

"I was speaking at a Christian conference. But suddenly it hit me. In the folder on my lap was a flyer about a missionary conference with me as the keynote speaker. I did my best not to let the flyer fall out! This incident illustrates the tensions we face. The term “missionary conference” can imply a design for aggressive proselytism, polemical attack’s defaming Muslim culture and history, western colonialism or imperialism. As I sat next to my Muslim acquaintance musing, I thought how much better it would be if the theme of the conference was “blessing the nations.”"

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