Free to Serve

Kimyal Bible

This went around the blogosphere a couple of years ago. It has come up again. I just saw it for the first time. Seeing the Kimyal people delighting in the reception of the New Testament in their own langauage brings Psalm 119 to life, "Let your mercy come to me, that I may live; for your law is my delight" (v. 77).

HT: Eden Hutchins, Paul Wood!!

 

Ambassadors for Christ

I had the privilege last week of speaking to the staff of Ambassadors for Christ who were on retreat in the Atlanta area. Former member and friend of MVBC, Wallace Francis, put the retreat together. The highlight for me was conversations with numerous folks who have devoted their lives to sharing the Good News. They are eager to be theologically sound, and they are committed to sharing the Gospel wherever and whenever they can.

My message was entitled, "You Pick: Emergent, Emerging, or Enduring?" I talked about some different methods of "doing" church in the twenty-first century. However we go about engaging in church ministry, our goal has to be to protect the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Some churches try to change the Gospel to meet the times. This is the Emergent movement. They insist that as the culture changes the Gospel changes. They argue that the Gospel is a story, not a declaration. Stories can (and must) be changed to fit the context. As our culture is more diversified, the Gospel message needs to be diversified as well--so they say. The problem with this approach is that the Gospel is a declaration. There is no way around it! It is true yesterday and it is true today: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners through a cross.

Some churches ignore the Gospel to meet the times. Such churches would not say that the Gospel changes, but you get the sense that they don't pay much attention to the Gospel. It is assumed more than anything. It may be offered in a private counseling session or a Christmas Eve service, but the Gospel just isn't part of the fabric of the church. It isn't everywhere. The reasons why churches ignore the Gospel are legion and different. Some do it because they don't want to be offensive to seekers. Others do it because they don't think a specific message about the cross is necessary for salvation. Others don't intend to ignore the Gospel, it just sort of happened--other stuff got in the way.

Finally, some churches eclipse the Gospel. Churches like this may very well be Gospel-centered and yet, one can't help but get the impression that other things are more important--a style of music or dress or target audience. The packaging of the church has a way of taking center stage. Sometimes, when you get really dressed up, all people can do is think of what you are wearing, they don't actually get to know you. It can be like that with churches. There is a lot of good content here, but the conversation so quickly moves to context (where the church is, how the music sounds, how good the preacher is) that the Gospel is just sort of eclipsed.

So, at MVBC, we need to be careful. Of course we don't want to change the Gospel--that is to abandon the faith altogether. We certainly don't want to ignore the Gospel. The damage would be nearly as bad as changing it. A good Gospel, ignored, is really no Gospel at all. Finally, we need to be careful not to focus so much on demographics or style in such a way that our focus on the Gospel is diminished.

The missionaries of Ambassadors for Christ have a real heart for the local church. They want to see the people they witness come to know Christ as Savior plugged into a church. My prayer has been that my comments would encourage them to stay personally involved in a church while understanding some of the dangers methods of ministry pose today.

Marks of the Messenger

We had a great weekend with Mack Stiles. He shared with us what it is like being in Dubai and serving as an elder at Redeemer Church. Mack always brings with him a love for people. I couldn't get him to the main service on time because he wanted to talk to everyone we passed. What a great example! 

If you haven't, please take the time to buy and read his book, Marks of the Messenger: Knowing, Living and Speaking the Gospel. Mack challenges to make the Gospel clear and to share it with great boldness. He put it this way:

Finally, we need boldness to invite response to the message once we've presented it fully. This is overcoming the fear of rejection.

Perhaps you have been studying the Gospel of Mark with a non-Christian friend. There comes a point when you need boldness to say, "You know, I think that this is an urgent matter in your life. I think that you understand the gospel, and really what is left is for you to place your complete faith and trust in Christ. What is stopping you from doing that?"

We tend to hate putting people on the spot, but the gospel is not really the gospel without letting people know that a response is required.

So remember: to be healthy evangelists requires boldness that overcomes the fear of man by replacing it with the fear of God. Healthy evangelism is cultivated by exposing our faith to others, by anticipating how to be bold in our conversations and by being willing to invite a response to the message.

Bold Chinese Christians

On July 28 the Wall Street Journal ran a front page article on the state of China's underground churches. The underground, Protestant church in China is very large. Government-backed (and therefore conservative) estimates say China has 23 million Protestants. The number is probably at least triple that. According to this article, the city of Beijing has 20 underground seminaries. 

One of the underground churches is called the Shouwang Church. It has over 1,000 members. These members were evicted from their meeting place last April. But the churches are becoming defiant. Brian Spegele, writing for the WSJ:

A vast national network of underground churches across the country promises to have staying power. No sooner was Shouwang shut down, for example, than [Beijing] Zion [Church] became more prominent.

Beijing Zion is a church of 800 with a pastor who is increasingly outspoken. The government is making statements, trying to keep the believers under control. The following excerpt is from an editorial printed in the Global Times, a newspaper run by the state:

A church should not become a power which can promote radical change . . . Otherwise, the church is not engaged in religion but in politics, which is not allowed for a church.

Such is life in Communist China. When members of Shouwang Church assembled outside, they were shut down by the police. According to Spegele, "Some have been confined to their homes while others have been expelled to their hometowns in the provinces."

Jesus knew this would happen. So he preached:

Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

It is hard for Americans to understand what it is like to wake up with the realization that this very day you could be banned from attending of Bible study, refused entrance into a city, or imprisoned--all because you want to assemble in the name of Jesus Christ.

I'm sure it is hard for many of these Chinese believers to understand how we can be so timid when it comes to sharing our faith when we have the freedom to do so. 

Gospel Outreach

Several months ago MVBC set up a booth at the Sandy Springs Festival to meet people, share the Gospel, and give out copies of Greg Gilbert's book, What is the Gospel? The book's publisher, Crossway, was excited to hear about it and asked our own Dan Taylor to give them a summary of what happened. You can read his article here. 

We have so many excuses for not sharing the Gospel:

• "I'm not prepared."
• "I haven't earned the credit to speak into their lives."
• "There are others better at it than me."
• "I'll have another opportunity tomorrow."

And yet since Jesus Christ is the King of the Universe, and since we can know Him now, and since following Him is more rewarding than anything, why wouldn't we let others know that He is Lord? After all, one day every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord, but only those who, in this life, submit to Christ, will spend eternity with Him in heaven.

Remember Jesus' words as you go about your daily life:

You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In teh same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven (Matt. 5:14-16).

Muslim Resistance to the Gospel

After my trip to the MIddle East, I read Al Mohler's post, "Why is the Muslim World So Resistant to the Gospel?" He summarizes an argument presented by a Christian professor, J. Herbert Kane, over thirty years ago. I found the six points Kane offers very helpful. Take a look.

Thinking through evangelism to the Muslim world is important because Islam is the world's second-largest religion. Out of sheer compassion we should reach out to our Muslim neighbors with the Gospel.

I had a conversation with a Muslim in Egypt who was convinced I would one day turn to Islam. "Islam," he told me, "is the fulfillment of Christianity. If you are truly a faithful Christian, one day you will submit to Allah."

He is wrong. Christ is and forever will be my Lord. He is more than a prophet, he is God. I shared with my new friend how I became a Christian. I told him Jesus must be more than a prophet since he is God. My new friend listened patiently, but kindly disagreed. I got his email so I could follow up. In the back of my mind was 1 Corinthians 1:18, "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."

I pray he sees the cross as the power of God.

 

Lessons from Overseas

I'm back in Atlanta now, and have had some time to reflect on our trip to Egypt and Dubai. Egypt is a third-world country. Years of a political corruption and spiritual darkness have decimated this nation. Dubai is is a modern wonder of the world. It boasts the world's tallest building and largest mall and yet in that city rampant materialism and an Islamic state meet, making one of the strangest unions imaginable. Over the course of two weeks we visited churches, talked with pastors, looked at efforts to reach the Middle East with the Gospel, and prayed about what role MVBC should play in the weeks, months, and years ahead.

For now, here are five lessons I think we as a church need to take away from this trip.

1. We should be humbled by the risks many Christians are taking to follow Christ. A few nights into the trip I joined a group of Christians in Egypt learning about evangelism. Many of these believers spoke the Gospel into the lives of Muslims, knowing full well they would be targeted as anarchists. Yet they persist. We take no real risks in America to share the Gospel. We should be humbled by those who do.

2. We should be amazed at how God uses the local church throughout the world. One church we visited is carefully and deliberately raising up men and women to leave for the sake of the Gospel. Another church is equipping believers with the Word and watching while they start ministries of their own. Another church has started a pastoral intern program and plans on sending these men out to some of the most difficult places in Asia and the Middle East. The common denominator in each church is the Gospel that grips our lives, brings us into community with other believers, and uses us to make the glory of God known.

3. We should be aware that Satan has a powerful hold on millions and millions throughout the Middle East through the false teaching of Islam. Only God can break Satan's hold. We should be ready to contend for the faith. Muslims see Islam as the fulfillment of Christianity. They see faithful Christians as people who have yet to arrive because we fail to accept God's final revelation Allah gave to Mohammed. The Koran binds its adherents to a religion of works where one never has assurance or hope. It is a religion without true joy. In Egypt and Dubai it is the dominant faith and, sadly, it is growing fast.

4. We should be thankful for the freedom we have to gather as Christians. Police officers stand outside churches in Cairo when they meet. The government says this is so the state can protect the church from radical Muslim attacks. In reality it is so the state can listen to make sure that the Christians within don't speak against Islam. One church in Dubai had a gathering shut down because it wasn't in an approved location. Another church we met meets regularly without approval and could be shut down at any moment. Another church in Egypt meets in secret. But the believers are eager to meet! They want to be together, learn together, and encourage one another.  What freedoms we have here in the United States. Be thankful.

5. We should support the persecuted church. The most poignant time of the trip was when we met with Iranian believers temporarily out of Tehran. They explained how they cannot meet in public, how the secret police tap their phones. They told us how their pastor was killed and the new leader was in jail. There is no freedom of religion. Evangelical Christianity is seen as a threat to the state and it is shut down with the full force of the police. These believers are about to head back to Tehran. They will face real danger. As we minister in the States we should be supporting brothers and sisters like this. 

Update from Cairo

Mike, Bryan, and I are in Cairo visiting with local church pastors and missionaries. It is remarkable being in a city of 20 million that is overwhelmingly Muslim. We hear calls to prayer five times a day. One pastor shared about a recent convert from Islam to Christianity. When his wife found out she contacted the Secret Police. They arrested him and detained him for several days. When he was finally released, his wife had divorced him, taken the kids, and he had lost his job. Thankfully, a church welcomed him with open arms. 

We have had a safe, productive visit thus far. Please pray for meaningful conversations in the days ahead. As you can see from the picture below, there is a form of godliness here--men praying practically all the time. But it has no power.

Middle East

For several days, Mike Wilkinson, Bryan Pillsbury, and I will be serving in the Middle East. We plan to meet with many ministries and churches that Mount Vernon supports in this area. Please pray for us:

• That we would be loving and bold in our evangelism
• That we would encourage the believers we meet
• That we would have a better sense of those ministries we support by seeing them firsthand
• That we would see how to involve MVBC in these ministries
• That our entire congregation would have an greater desire to reach the nation

To the extent possible (and it may not be very possible!) I will give updates when I can.

The Evangelicals

A couple weeks ago I began a sermon quoting from Christopher Catherwood's new book, The Evangelicals: What They Believe, Where They Are, and Their Politics. I was most amazed by the discussion regarding where evangelicals are. They are growing by leaps and bounds--just not in the United States. He talks about the rising number of true believers in Africa, but ends with these words about China:

So the country with the world's greatest number of evangelicals in the twenty-first century could indeed be the People's Republic of China! Could those brave missionaries from Britain and the United States in the nineteenth century ever have thought it? Going to China was not the "white man's grave" (a few years of service followed by an early death) that a missionary in West Africa often faced--but with transport in the Victorian era not being what it is now, leaving the West for China was often a lifetime commitment. Now, in the twenty-first century, overt missionaries are illegal, but the evangelical and all other kinds of Christian population of China probably exceeds the total population of even the biggest countries of Western Europe, such as Germany, France, or Britain. Such has been the changing nature of Christianity in the twentieth and now twenty-first centuries.

This is exciting! How often do we grow discouraged because we fail to see our gospel work reaping benefits? How often do we grow discouraged because we don't see the numbers of conversions (in our own families, our own churches, our own mission fields). Perhaps God does this to humble us. Our generation is given the privilege of reaping amazing spiritual fruit in China so that it is clear that it was not our work, it was the work of missionaries who labored decades ago and, ultimately, the work of God. 

Do not grow weary in doing good, in being faithful, in making the Gospel known. God is at work.