Affluence

It is a little ludicrous to hear a leading presidential contender suggest that we are at the start of another great depression. What he really means is that there are people who are losing million dollar homes because they over bought. There are people who will have to pare down to two cars instead of four. There are people who will have to move to normal cable coverage instead of four movie channels and six sport channels. There are people who will have to wait to buy that 50 inch screen TV. There are people who may not be able to cruise down the Danube this year and wait until next year to go. That is not to say that there are no people who are hurting. Obviously every person has lost a job, home, or 401k is feeling the pinch.
At the same time, we are people who have too much and don’t know it. We have come to accept a standard of living as normal instead of understanding that we have become excessive. If you ever have to stand on the dirt floor of a house which has no running water or electricity, you will begin to see the difference between where most Americans are and where a large portion of the world is.
The answers to this glaring inequity are not easy ones. What each of us can do as individuals is very little, and most of it would be for show rather than to accomplish something meaningful. A hungry person does not understand the person who drives a Mercedes to go for a $50.00 dinner. It does not seem fair to that person. It is easy to sit back and say that what that person needs is a different education and everything will be all right.
A different education will make a major change for a person in many situations, but when the unemployment is at 40 or fifty per cent, an education is not going to change that. That high rate of unemployment such as is true in South Africa breeds an extremely high rate of crime. The person without a job assumes that it is his/her right to rob the person who has too much or in some cases just the person who has more than he/she.
Those are societal problems that need to be faced by the world community with a clear focus on what can be done to help produce situations where the inequities can be corrected.
Our focus in this blog is on a believer in Jesus Christ. What should we be expected to do? Should we sell all that we have and give it to the poor? I think not. The Lord had a very important message for that young man who had a pile of riches standing between him and Jesus. The only way that he could make his commitment to Christ and follow the Lord was to get rid of that stock pile of riches.
It is easy to say that the people need to hear the Gospel more than they need clothes and food. It is true that the most important thing a person needs is to settle a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. It is also true that the pain of hunger and the embarrassment of too little clothing, and the cold felt by a homeless person may all be so overwhelming that the message of the Gospel either seems irrelevant or is not being heard at all.
We have set our goals in such a way that we often walk by the homeless, street people, children, and poor because they really don’t seem to be viable members of a successful church. This is a tragedy when it may not be recognized, but is essential the actual method of operation. We may not be able to reach these people in the same way that we assemble others into a local assembly. Is it possible that we need to think in terms of the development of programs that give people a chance to be assimilated into the world which now seems to shun them? These people do not just need love. They need help. If they didn’t need help they would not be where they are now.
We don’t need and these people do not need a “social gospel.” What they need is a relevant gospel. It is a plan to help them in a caring way that demonstrates the love of Christ by the creative help we provide. People do not need handouts, but something that helps lift them out of the desperate and hopeless situations they are in.
This is not to say that nobody is doing anything, but is a reminder that we need to have a strong focus on people in need. We respond in times of crisis like earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, fires, etc. and that is great. What about the rest of the time. Many times we ride right by people in need and don’t help them for a variety of reasons. We piously say that they are controlled by some kind of mafia so we ignore them. Even if they have been sucked into a corrupt system, is that a valid excuse for doing nothing?
I know that there are thousands of homeless in America, but I am also aware that there are countless numbers of some type of street people in every country I have lived in. I have been criticized for giving help because it was deemed that I had been duped by the needy person. The world is full of con artists who need Christ just as much as any other unsaved person. If the answer is not in giving help then how do we find an answer?
We must be creative in understanding the problem, developing answers, and having the compassion that Christ expects in His children. There are malls in the world that have guards to keep people like this out. Is it possible that we have guards that keep them out of our churches. We should be just as happy to see a homeless person come to Christ as we are when the town’s wealthiest person comes to Christ.

NEW HOMES FOR SALE

The sign says, “NEW HOMES FOR SALE.” Is that what those buildings are. Not really. They are empty houses, just a shell waiting for some family to move in and make them homes.
In about the same way, that building that houses the church is not a church, but just an empty shell that houses the church. The church is the people who inhabit that building and make it a living organism.
It is not Methodist, Baptist, or Presbyterian until the people move in and begin to practice their church polity. The church becomes alive when the people move in.
It is always hard to know when we are in the business of missions what order we should follow as we reach people and see those people established into a local assembly. At what point do the people become a church? That is a question we have to ask because the way we do missions, we are starting churches across cultural lines and we do not want to put those new converts into a new building until we are sure they are a church. If they are not a church, what are they?
Back up with me a minute. Is it possible that the reason we need to know when the people become a church is that the wrong people are starting the church. Paul wrote his disciple, Titus, that he had sent him to Crete to finish the job that was started and to see that there were elders in every church. As far as we know they were meeting in homes and this means that they were churches when they were not buildings and had no pastors.
It is interesting to note that there are no instructions given by Paul as to how a church should be started or when a church became a church. There are a lot of instructions given as to how to reach People, disciple people, and how the people should behave in the local assemblies.
If Paul left people where they were and did not hover over them in their development then he must have known that there were many other factors at work. Not the least of these factors was that the new converts had the resident Holy Spirit directing them and controlling them. We might think that Paul trusted the Holy Spirit to do what He does best in the lives of those new believers and in the life of the developing churches.
It is interesting to see a current movement beyond the basic concept of “church planting” that recognizes that the very best expansion of the church within a culture is going to be under the direction of the national leadership that the Spirit of God moves to accomplish this vital mission. Is there any question that a committed Brazilian believer can start a better Brazilian church than a committed American believer? If that is true why is it that it often takes us so long to get to that point in the development of the national church. Can it be that our obsession with the development of local churches hinders us and keeps us from seeing the bigger picture of the body of Christ in that national setting.
There are several movements in India where churches are being started by the hundreds with no foreign missionaries involved. China has seen the expansion of the national church through the growth of the three-self church and the house church movements. In many Latin countries, the Pentecostal churches have evolved at a rapid pace with only national leadership. We may not be comfortable with all that is happening in those different movements, but we should be mature enough to evaluate and assimilate what is right in them and move on putting the appropriate and Biblical methods into operation.
It is important to note that when we step back and just allow the work of the Lord to develop in these ways without our involvement, error can take over and the results are disastrous. At the same time, if we are the model that we should be and have appropriate involvement with the developing leadership in a nation then we can be used of God to give effective guidance and spiritual leadership.
It is important that we allow God to be God and work in our lives so that we develop spiritual in the midst of accomplishing a spiritual work of God. It is terrible when national Christians grow very close to us and then really don’t like what they see. Paul was effective in growing disciples because the closer that people came to him, the better they liked what they saw because they found out that getting close to Paul was getting close to Christ.

A Lesson From a Cow!

Take a look at that cow in the picture above. In a very real sense it represents what missions is all about.
We were at the Upfold farm. Luke and Sharon Upfold were members of our church in Richards Bay, South Africa. They were a lovely couple who loved the Lord and wanted to please him in all that they did. They have now moved to New Zealand because they were concerned for the safety of their wonderful family.
When I drove around the farm with Luke and noticed all of the different animals they had, I was impressed. They had a great variety of wild animals that roamed freely on their property, but they also had a large number of cows and cattle. If you look carefully at the picture above, you will notice that the coloring is different from any cow that you have ever seen. The reason for that is that it is a South African breed.
As we looked at their herd, Luke proudly stated that they were all African breeds. There were no Jerseys, Holsteins, etc. They would buy animals from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and other countries that had African breeds. They did not want any foreign cattle on their farm.
As I have thought about that, it occurred to me that thie is where the church in South Africa should be. It should be a South African breed of church. We should be able to leave every non-biblical cutrural idea at home and allow the local church to grow within its own culture. It is great to look out on that crowd of Afrikaans, Indian, Zulu, colored, English, and whatever else and see it grow as a vital unit one in Christ.
It is not easy for us to leave our culture at home. It means that there will be times when someone in the church will chat with you and speak strongly about the sanctions that my country imposed on his people. That person is delighted that apartheid is over, but does not appreciate the fact that it was the sanctions that had a large part in its being ended. That is alright. History will record what was good for the country and what was not.
We had tea after every service. I had never done that before. I have been in American churches where you cannot eat a cookie in the church. The fellowship drinking a cup of tea was wonderful and the ladies who prepared the special items had a great part in helping to develop that fellowship. There is something Biblical about oneness.
Yes, that South African cow says something good. I think I will make a picture of it and put it on the wall as a reminder of the importance of the South African church being South African in every way possible without losing what the Bible says a church should be. Let us never allow our religious tradition keep that from happening.

What a World We are in!

When we go to a foreign country to proclaim the Good News of the Gospel, we go as American missionaries. Neither of those appellations should be considered a big asset in many places.
We are proud to be Americans, but in many parts of the world, being an American may be envied but not liked. It used to be that we had to worry about being the “ugly American.” That still is a concern, but perhaps a greater concern is that being an American under any circumstances may be considered being “ugly.” There are people who look at our invasion of Iraq as some sort of colonial type maneuvers. We know that the motives of our government were not to entrap a people into our nets, but to free a people from the tyranny that surrounded their lives for many years.
It does not matter how pure the motives of our government have been. What matters is the perception that many have. They may envy Americans while not really liking them. While in South Africa I had some friends who spoke freely of their bad feelings about the apartheid sanctions promoted by the US. I think they liked the result of the sanctions without liking the sanctions.
How do we stay on the side of the people we are working with while being identified with the government they resent. It is not easy. If it is at all possible it is preferable to try and not defend policies that bring resentment in the hearts of the good people with whom we are working.
We not only go as Americans, but we also go as missionaries. In that we represent the King of Kings and all of His policies rather than the policies of our earthly government. In this it is important that we don’t allow the American nature of our lives and background to override the development of a work within a foreign culture.
It concerned me when we were in the Philippines that we saw churches that were duplicates of the churches of the missionaries who had brought the Gospel to the people there. The things that were distinctive to those churches may have been fine, but there were many things that should have been left in the States.
I remember reading a book by a Chinese missionary who was describing how there was a comity agreement between Southern and what was then Northern Baptists in their ministries in China. He said that the Northern Baptists agreed to work in the south and the Southern Baptist agreed to work in the north. This meant that the churches in the south were called northern Baptist churches and the churches in the north were called Southern Baptist churches. The Americans understood why but the Chinese people didn’t understand why.
We can do many things like that which are unfortunate. We carry concepts and procedures with us and most of them should really be left at home. There was a conversation I had with a missionary who felt that the races should not be mixed in a church. He was working in France where that concept was foreign to the people. He should have left his prejudices at home.
We probably have trouble knowing what it is that makes a church a church that is not encumbered with cultural prejudices. It would be nice if we could just say to the people, “Here is the Bible. Go ahead and build a church that is consistent with all the biblical teaching. It is hard to sit back and let that happen.
It is a great privilege to carry the good news of the Gospel to another people. We should pray that we don’t do anything to stand in the way of the work in that new area being hindered in any way by our prejudices. It is possible that we are afraid to let the Holy Spirit work in the hearts of people and allow them to become the very best Christian they can be in their own land. God is able to do that.

What does it take to make a disciple?

Christ’s great commission was clearly given in Matthew 28. We have often made it sound like His commission was that we should go into the entire world. That idea is implicit in the commission but it is really not the commission. His commission is that we are to make disciples.
That has never changed from the time that Jesus gave the command to the day we live and until the day that we enter into His presence. Since that is the case we need to be sure that we know how we are to go about making disciples. Discipleship is not a Friday night meeting over coffee and donuts while we discuss great Biblical truths or perhaps just talk about life’s problems.
That kind of a meeting may be incorporated into a life committed to discipleship, but it is not an end in itself and many times fails in its purpose because that concept of discipleship may be too shallow.
Discipleship is built on the promise and power of the Lord Himself. He has declared in verse 18 that “all power is given unto me,” and then He concludes, “Lo, I am with you always.” The impetus of the presence and power of Christ Himself should be enough to stimulate a successful discipleship ministry. Certainly it should remind us that while we are not sufficient, we go in the power of the all sufficient Christ.
The Commission makes it clear that baptism is a first step in the life of an obedient disciple. Obedience should be a mark of a believer evident in the life and walk of a follower of Christ. There is a question about the commitment of a follower of Christ who does not do the first thing He says should be done.
Obviously we are not able to do the making of disciples, but we are able to aid people in becoming disciples. Jesus says that we should do that by teaching these disciples everything that He has commanded. Implicit in that is that the true disciple learns what Jesus has taught and understands that all of His commands are to be obeyed.
That is a very simple program. It is not hard to understand that as we go into all the world, we are to teach everything that the Lord commanded so that those whom we reach learn to obey all that He has commanded. The great thing about this simple program is that He then promises to be with us each step of the way. We don’t have to rely on our own smarts, but we have the presence of Christ in our lives speaking to those are in the process of becoming His disciples.
Too often we fail in seeing believers become disciples because we have set our own methods and our own standards in determining how to reach that goal. Sometimes the failure comes because we do not model what that disciples should be. We can’t teach new believers to trust completely if we are not trusting completely. We can’t see new believers really loving others as they ought if we are not really loving as we ought. We must be ready to see that the new disciple may not becoming all that he/she should be because that new believer is not seeing a model that is all that a disciple should be.
All of this means that when we don’t see the final product that should be the result of carrying out the Great Commission, we ought to take a hard look at ourselves and be sure that we are the model that the new believer needs to see. Trust begets trust. Love begets love. Disciples beget disciples.

More Than Conquerors

HERE I STAND

I once heard a young man speak to the question raised about his going to a country where his life was in danger. His answer to the question was, “God has called me to go. He has not promised I will return.”
There are new dangers in the world every day. We seldom think in terms of our lives being the ones that are on the line. We marvel at those who are like that young man and can handle the danger with such calm resolve to do what God has called them to do.
We do not have to be someplace where there is an imminent danger, but we have to be prepared to face that kind of danger. I am sure that the missionaries in the Philippines that were captured on their vacation did not expect to be taken as hostages at that point, but it is evident that they were ready for it and when death came to the husband, the wife showed the kind of resolve that we all should have.
We need to be reminded that death is certainly not the worst thing that can happen to a child of God. Death is the entrance into the presence of the Savior. No one likes the prospect of facing torture or any kind of mistreatment, but God is ready to give us the strength to go through that kind of experience. We just have to put it in His hands and expect Him to give that great strength He has promised.
Recently I read of an Indian pastor in the Indian province of Orissa who, when he left his home, the Hindu forces who were persecuting the believers in that area, burned his home and took everything that he had there. When he arrived at the conference to which he was going, he said that he would not return to his ministry in that place of persecution.
The conference was a refreshing time of study in the Word of God and challenge to be committed to whatever God has in store for you. By the end of the conference that pastor indicated that he had to go back. It is difficult to understand what it would be like to return to a place where your home has been burned. The place of your ministry has been burned. Those who did those terrible deeds were still there to carry out all the threats that they had made for the safety of the believers.
We have to admire the commitment that makes a person willing to face persecution that has been promised. It would be much easier to conclude that God brought you out with your life and your family and it would be unwise to return to what looked like certain persecution and probably death.
Even though most of the people in the world do not like committed believers, the worst prospect for most of us is a little embarrassment for our testimony. What is Paul talking about when he says that we are to present our bodies as a living sacrifice. Paul knew what it was to be stoned, thrown out of town, and on occasion, escape with his life.
We need to shore up our lives and be sure that we are ready to face whatever it is that the world has for us. It is important to realize that this is not something that can be done in our own strength. That is the wonder of it. He has promised the strength for the trials and we can know that this resource is ours right now. We can be prepared because we are more than conquerors in Christ.
We need to be ready to be like Martin Luther who when he nailed hi 95 Theses to the door said, "Here I Stand."

Questions missionaries need to ask #1

Do They Really Like Me?

How do I know if I am a good missionary and if I am doing what I should be doing?

If you need to ask that question, then I might wonder if you are a good missionary and if you are really doing what you should be doing. The reason I say this is that doing the right thing is a matter of attitude. We need to think right in order to do right.

Thinking right means really loving the people God has sent you to reach. Loving people is not just saying, “I love you.” Loving is always words with shoe leather. It is not enough to feel love in our hearts, but our hands and feet must find it out. It may be going over to a widow’s house and unloading a load of coal for her. It may be a teenager who needs a ride being picked up and taken to school or work. It may be tasks that are not even as pleasant as those mentioned.

We must be a John 13 Christian. The Lord taught this lesson to His Disciples at the very end of His ministry. The Twelve had all wanted a king, but when they thought that it was just about king time, He said that they had to be a very humble servant. Wow! They were ready for a place alongside the throne and He said they had to get out in the pantry.

The problem here is that many of us go to a foreign country with the idea that we are the super race coming to see that these people find out what a wonderful model we are for them. If they just follow our lead they will be able to bring themselves up to a new high level of living. How do we follow Paul’s admonition in Philippians two where he says:

3 Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself.
4 Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.

He answers the question of how this is to be done in the next verse

5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,

One of the amazing things about this is that the great missionary happens because he or she becomes a great Christian and follows the simple Biblical admonitions. The thing that the people we are trying to reach need to see is Jesus Christ living out His life in us. The whole thing is so simple. They don’t really need to see us at all. They just need to see Him.