One of the characteristics of modernity, according to Anthony Giddens (The Consequence of Modernity, p. 27), is the rise of “expert systems” of “technical accomplishments or professional expertise that organize large areas of material and social environments in which we live today.” These systems and experts allow the layperson to trust in the system and the expertise of the professional and thus stand apart from or live without intimate knowledge of huge areas of life. So, whether the professional is a lawyer, doctor, or counselor, we trust the expert knowledge of that professional without question. (more…)
Archive for the ‘Church’ Category
Finding their Voice
Tuesday, August 31st, 2010Globalized Answers
Monday, August 16th, 2010As moderns, we have the tendency to globalize when it comes answers. We want to find the one method, the one strategy, or the single solution that will answer every situation, for every location. We want to find the ‘silver bullet’ or discover the ‘mega-strategy’ that will work whether we are in Los Angeles, Munich, Nairobi or Hong Kong. (more…)
BWA
Saturday, July 31st, 2010I have been part of a truly unique meeting … at least for Baptists. While I am tempted to write about what it was not, in comparison to previous denominational meetings and conferences, I really only need to describe what the Baptist World Alliance Congress was. The difference is clear! (more…)
The ‘Mission/Church’ Question
Friday, July 16th, 2010One of my chief concerns, both intellectually and practically, has been the relationship between church and mission. Since 1997 I have been trying to connect the two in both understanding and practice. (more…)
Don’t Judge Me!
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010Judge you? Of course not! You and I are brothers, sisters – we are community. (more…)
Renovate – Educate
Saturday, November 14th, 2009For the majority of Christians, church and missions operate in separate and distinct realms. The church nurtures and instructs the ’saved’, and missionaries cross cultures and evangelize the ‘heathen’. Church is here and familiar, missions is over there and foreign. The points at which church and missions usually connect are money and recruitment. Because the work of missions requires money and fresh recruits and since the church is where both can be found, mission organizations and agencies find it necessary to relate to the church. Likewise, since people within the church have full-time, secular jobs, they ‘do missions’ by providing finances for those who do the work of ‘fulltime’ missions.
Viva la Revolucion!
Monday, October 26th, 2009A revolution is taking place right before our eyes – a mission revolution. Some might mistake it to be a rebellion against power and authority, but such a characterization would be wrong. A rebellion is an attempt to overthrow and unseat, while a revolution is the act of re-creating or re-forming from the bottom up. Rebellion takes place in the halls of power, revolution takes to the streets. Over coffee at Starbuck, on airplanes returning from Niger, in church offices, and at small gatherings, ‘like-hearted’ pastors and church folk are joining passions and resources into mission collectives.
These Answers
Saturday, October 24th, 2009Even though I am driven by particular questions, I am not without answers. I open my hands toward what I do not know, and at the same time, I stand firmly in what I do know. For example …
… and then the end will come.
Wednesday, September 9th, 2009It’s Sunday morning. A man rises and reads the following text:
This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come (Matt. 24:14).
The speaker then exhorts his hearers to do missions in order that they might hasten the return of the Lord. They are told that through missionary activity they can actually accelerate or speed up Christ’s return. Since every sincere Christian wants to see Christ return as quickly as possible, it makes logical sense that they should be involved in missions. In fact, they are told that one of them could possibly be the actual person who preaches the gospel to the last people group and thus initiate the Second Coming.
While this may be a popular interpretation of Jesus’ words and seems to be a persuasive reason for missionary service, several questions need to be raised …
Will we actually cause Christ to return? The implication is that in some logical, mechanistic manner we trigger or force God to bring human history to a close. Rather than merely living in the expectation of his coming and being acted upon by his return, we stand above this event in a controlling, initiating manner. On the contrary, Jesus is not issuing a command or prescribing a strategy. He is stating a fact – “the gospel of the kingdom shall be preached.” God will return when he decides to do so and will conclude human history for reasons that are far beyond our comprehension or control. Thus, it seems unwise for any of us to obligate God to a timetable conditioned by our actions.
Doesn’t such an interpretation encourage escapism? The message is – the world is evil, you want to get out of it as soon as you can, and therefore, do yourself a favor by doing missions. And yet, in the preceding verses, Jesus encourages his disciples to do just the opposite. Even though things will become harder and harder before the end, Jesus tells them to remain firm and faithful in the present, evil age. It seems that an appeal to do missions in order to bring about the end may have more to do with our desire to escape suffering than the redemption of the world.
What constitutes ‘the whole world’? It seems the speaker makes clear what Jesus has left unclear. Does ‘the whole world’ mean all geo-political entities (nations), ethno-linguistic groups, dialects, cultures, provinces, cities, or villages? Must these be 25%, 45%, or 65% evangelized or Christianized? Do each of these portions of the world have to have one or two churches, a group of churches, or a ‘church planting movement’ before Jesus returns? Do these churches have to be self-supporting, self-governing, and self-propagating? In my lifetime, I have seen various definitions of ‘the whole world’ come and go. What is now in vogue will surely be replaced with a fresh explanation. Jesus does not give specifics at this point, and thus, it seems unwise for any of us to speak in quantifiable absolutes about what will precipitate his return.
What does it mean that the gospel of the kingdom will be preached? The speaker implies that proclaiming the kingdom is a verbal sermon about personal salvation. Could it be that the gospel of the kingdom encompasses much more than people merely hearing a message or even giving intellectual or emotional assent to it? It seems that the Kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed was a call to lordship and discipleship (Matt. 5-7) – the transformation of life, family, clan, and village. We may be proclaiming less than the gospel of the kingdom, if all we are doing is preaching evangelistic sermons in hopes of representative converts from people groups.
I confidently expect the gospel of the kingdom to be proclaimed in the whole world, and I fervently desire to see the whole church involved in this mission. At the same time, I believe that our motivation should flow from interpretation that is true to the historical context, as well as the intent and aims of Jesus’ life and ministry. Rather than appealing to a desire to escape this world, or a desire to make our actions significant, or to fulfill some nebulous aim, shouldn’t we base our motives for mission on Jesus’ summon to love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and to love our neighbors as ourselves? May you and I be found loving well when the end does come!
Missions and Bath Water
Sunday, August 16th, 2009‘Throwing the baby out with the bath water’ is a way of saying that in an attempt to rid ourselves of the dirty, bad, or undesirable, we toss out that which is essential or prized. The idiom is quite graphic. Imagine a mother lovingly washing her daughter’s face, arms, and hair. She is careful not to rub too hard but thoroughly washes between fingers, behind ears, and around eyes and mouth. All the while, she softly reassures the child that she loves her. Once the mother is done, she takes the tub full of water and baby to back door and toss both into the yard! We get the message – you don’t throw out something or someone of value just because it sits in that which of no value. Besides being mentally unstable or out of touch with reality, a mother might throw her child out with bath water because she thinks (wrongly) that the only way to dispose of the nasty water is throw it and its contents into the yard. The problem is that she cannot differentiate between the value of the child and the filth of the water.
A surprising number of people inside the church feel that the only way to deal with the ugly past of missions is to throw it out with the bath water. They want to “own up” to the fact that missions was party to some of the ugliest episodes of human history – colonial aggression, slavery, cultural genocide, and power grabs. For its distractors, missions belongs to an era of unenlightened and even brutish abuse and disregard, motivated by religious naiveté and simplicity. They insist that in order to be free from this unsavory past, we must distance ourselves from every part of it. And yet, such an opinion is itself too simplistic and, frankly, is an over-reaction motivated by an attempt to resolve an uncomfortable past.
We must differentiate between value and filth. Missions is too valuable to throw out for at least three reasons. First, the value of missions can be seen in the myriad of good done by men and women on mission. In fact, I would say that far more good has been done in the name of missions than bad. We must not allow ourselves to be blinded to the vast amount of good and noble by dark and unsavory exceptions.
Second, missions is valuable because it is an enactment of the mission of God. Missions is a human endeavor, carried out by culturally bound and sinful men and women, and thus, it will always be in need of a bath – repentance, refinement and humility. And yet, in some miraculous way God demonstrates his love, grace, and glory through the human means of missions.
And third, without missions the church becomes too established and secure in itself. Much of the reason for rejecting missions is that it is not respectable, or it is unsophisticated. Missions is an embarrassment. The church needs missions because of its embarrassment and offense. Through participation in missions, we are reminded that we are a pilgrim people, exiles, sojourners, and witnesses of someone far greater than ourselves.
Who am I to dismiss, vilify, or reject missions? I am merely a broken, and yet redeemed, man invited to participate in God’s movement toward humanity. God’s mission uses me – my dirty bath water and all – to reveal his love, grace and glory to the world.