All good and worthy activity can lapse into training people in how to exist for the sake of the church.  We can subtly communicate that one’s highest calling is to support the organizational objectives of the church, to show up at every church event, and to speak and behave in a churchly manner.  The objectives can become getting people into the church building and then teaching them our language, disconnecting them from old friends, reconnecting them to us, re-arranging their schedule around church events, and instructing them to give time, money and service to support the church.  In so doing, we risk reorienting their lives solely toward church, and thus, making them into churchly Christians.  In the end, they become ghettoized.

To ensure that means remains means and not become ends, we must continually ask – Does our activity lead toward the formation of character and the development of competencies that will move people toward faithful presence and clear witness in the world?  If we only teach people how to be morally good and to behave in church, then we have failed.  They must be formed in such a way that they can live – fully, faithfully live – in the world – at work, school, home, on the road, at the sporting event, on vacation, at the family reunion, at the funeral, in the hospital, during elections, in job loss, at news of cancer, in an earthquake, or in a national disaster.

In Letters and Papers from Prison, Dietrich Bonhoeffer conceives of the Christian life as not lived toward religion but toward the world.  “The ‘religious act’ is always something partial; ‘faith’ is something whole, involving the whole of one’s life.  Jesus calls men, not to a new religion, but to life” (362).  Christianity for the sake of Christianity, holiness for the sake of holiness, and church for the sake of church are insufficient aims.  As Christ came for others, loved others, and suffered and died for others, we are called to do the same.  Christians, according to Bonhoeffer, “must live a ‘secular’ life and thereby share in God’s suffering. … It is not the religious act that makes the Christian, but participation in the sufferings of God in the secular life” (361).  To be alive in Christ is to be alive to the world; to give our lives to Christ is to give ourselves to the world.

Among actions that ghettoize Christians, two are probably most common.  First, we demonize culture, and thereby, encourage Christians to withdraw from the world.  When culture is named as the enemy, we explicitly communicate that people should oppose or fear ‘the culture’.  The truth is that the gospel cannot be separated from ‘the culture’, as it is always clothed in culture of some sort – language, technology, structures, music, processes, forms, etc.  Thus, the gospel happens in the stream of life, and must continually intersect with culture, speak into it, and become party to it (contextualization).  This is not the weakness of the gospel but its power.  The gospel must dress itself in ‘the culture’, or it is not present and at work.  And by being present and at work in the culture, gospel mends and restores culture to its higher purposes.  But by naming ‘the culture’ as the enemy, we merely urge people to join a ghettoized religious culture and rob the wider culture of the salt and light of the gospel.

Second, we segregate mission from evangelism.  We have made mission what groups of specialized, highly trained professionals do in Japan, Cambodia, or Peru (the world).  On the other hand, evangelism is what the rest of us do occasionally as part of our church obligation.  Thus, missionaries go to the world and become like the world to which they are called.  Church members go to church and go out from the church now and then to evangelize people into the church.

Divides between church and world, mission and evangelism are artificial and unfortunate.  There should not be two opposing cultures – church and world, two activities – mission and evangelism, or two kinds of people – missionaries and church members.  The church exists in and for the world.  Every Christ follower is meant to participate in God’s mission in and to the world.  Whenever the church exists for its own growth, its programs, and its success, the church looses sight of its essential purpose of forming and equipping Christ followers to be a faithful presence in and a clear witness to the world.

The aim of forming people toward the world has caused a group of pastors, missionaries, and educators to create a unique, church-based, world-focused learning experience called Panorama.  Panorama is forty plus web-based lessons designed to be facilitated in a local church setting.  The lessons address issues related to faithful presence and clear witness, such as approaching people of other faiths, cross-cultural living, contextualization of the gospel, language learning, teamwork, etc.  We believe these approaches and skills, once thought to be only necessary for missionaries in international settings, are essential for the formation of believers who live in such places as Waco, Tulsa, and Little Rock.

Panorama has been developed with three premises in mind: life transformation is the goal, facilitated group learning is the means, and reflective practice is the dynamic.  Therefore, those who facilitate Panorama in their local church must understand these aims and processes.  Thus far, approximately seventy people from twenty churches have participated in seven Facilitators Workshops.  I invite you to join us for the next workshop on April 13-14 at First Baptist Church, Woodway, Texas.  To learn more about Panorama and to register for the upcoming workshop, go to GCPN – Panorama,  or contact Remey Terrell at remey.terrell@fbca.org.

The presence of the church in the world must be more than its facilities or programs, and the witness of the church must be more than what is spoken from the pulpit or in a Sunday School class.  The church is those of us who have been captured by Jesus Christ and are continually being formed to live and speak in such a way that those with whom we work, play, eat, weep, celebrate, listen to music, view movies, drink coffee, and live life may see truth and experience love.  In this manner, we – the church – live toward a wider vista, join a greater mission.

I will be there and hope to see you there as well.

Dr. Sanneh will lecture at 9:30 am each of these days under the general theme of Connecting World Christianity: New World Parameters.  This is a rare opportunity to hear a leading voice in the interpretation and shaping of world Christianity.

This conference is shaping up to be a unique attempt to translate Big Ideas into Action, to assist the church in how live out the gospel in a radical manner, and to create understand how to be faithful in our fragmented world.  Speakers and workshop leaders include Kay Warren, Eric Swanson, Rick Rusaw, Rick McKinley, Lynne Hybels, Walter Bradley, Diana Garland, Dennis Tucker, Mack McCarter, Alan Nelson, Dennis Myers, Amy Sherman, Heidi Unruh, Gaynor Yancey, and myself.  Topics include human trafficking, church renewal, AIDS, poverty, disease, new technologies, world Christianity, youth, family, community ministry, volunteers, and new ideas about the church’s outreach.  In sum, the conversation is about how the church becomes externally focused.  Come to Waco and join us for this conversation. 

Early Bird registration runs until Dec. 31st.  To learn more about details of the program and register, click here.

Malaria is utterly treatable, yet, incredibly, it still claims up to three million lives per year, mostly young children, about 90 percent of whom live in Africa  (Jeffrey D. Sachs, The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time, 196).

Three million lives per year … mostly young children … 90 percent live in Africa … and yet … utterly treatable!  That would be like one half of all the children 18 years and younger in Texas dying in one year!  As I have turned this sentence over and over in my mind, I have wanted somehow to insert the word church somewhere into the middle of it.  Could the church in some way intervene in the lives of three million human beings dying of malaria every year?  Isn’t such intervention part of the mission of God to which we are called?  And yet, more than empathy or concern, we must know what to do about malaria, how best to act in its prevention, and where to put our efforts.  Zeal and rhetoric without knowledge and know how is empty.

Malaria alone is not the problem – it causes poverty and poverty causes malaria.  Jeffrey Sachs points out that with five billion clinical cases of malaria per year, the disease causes poverty through absentism, anemia, poor school attendance, and reduction of the labor force (pp. 196-200).  And on the other hand, poor households cannot take the simple measures necessary to prevent the disease – netting, sprays, or screens.  And so malaria and poverty progress hand-in-hand.

A group of people are getting together October 23-25, 2008 to consider a response to the causes of global poverty.  “Bottom-up Approaches to Global Poverty: Appropriate Technology, Social Entrepreneurship and the Church” is sponsored by the Baylor school of engineering, business school, and Truett Seminary.  These three perspectives on the world issues contributing to poverty will converge for a unique conversation.  I am extremely encouraged that the church, the most grassroot organization in the world, will be in the conversation.  The church must be part of the response to malaria and poverty.  I encourage you to come and be a part of the conversation.  Whether the conference produces definitive answers or not, I feel it will at least call the church to take up these issues and become a full participant in offering hope to mothers who watch their children die.

Three million a year …