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Sacred?

Sacred space is something that many western Christians are not particularly aware of, yet it has an important place in our history and culture, and overlooking it can be to ignore a key tool in our missional toolkit.

Sacred space is where the divine intersects with our experience, where the transcendent becomes numinous, typically but not necessarily in a sanctuary or shrine of some sort.  It can also be in an unspoilt natural feature, such a hilltop, spring or seashore, but many sacred sites were ‘validated’ centuries ago by the construction of a religious building on them.  Our experience of God in such places is the reason why many of them have become a place of pilgrimage, and the value we place on these sites contributes to the ongoing spiritual power they have.  So for example, once one person was healed at Lourdes, others went there in the anticipating of meeting with the power of God which was already at work in that place, and this faith fuelled their anticipation even more.

Evangelical Christians have tended to play down the significance of such locations, partly as a reaction to what they have perceived as a superstitious belief in the power of holy sites or relics rather than a living faith in God, and partly because the significance they place on meeting God personally in our day to day lives, which can render a specific location redundant.  Yet in a simple way, any location can aid our faith.  My mother felt that praying in her local Anglican church was more effective than praying at home, since she felt that the cumulative weight of the prayers that have been said in that building for the last 800 years was added to hers.  That’s the significance of a sacred space for her.

Sacred?

A biblical example of a sacred space might be Bethel.  We don’t know why Abraham built an altar there (Genesis 12:8), but just a couple of generations later Jacob was sleeping rough there after he had fled from his home, and had a powerful encounter with God in a dream.  His verdict was “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it… This is none other than the house of God” (Genesis 28:16-17).  The place continued to have spiritual significance throughout the period of the judges and became a centre of idolatry in Israel when Jeroboam placed a golden calf there for cultic reasons (1 Kings 12:28-29).

Another example would be Zion, the place where God said His ‘Name’ would dwell.  This builds on the significance of the Tabernacle, which God commanded the Israelites to build so that He could dwell among them (Exodus 25:8).  That was God’s initiative, expressing a desire to live not set apart in heaven, but among humanity.  This, accompanied by the visual manifestations of God’s presence, led to sense of God literally dwelling in the temple, and subsequently in the church building – the house of God – and which will be eventually fulfilled when there is no temple at all because the Lord and the Lamb dwell among humanity (Revelation 21:3, 22).

So how does this understanding of sacred space help us with our missional endeavours?  Firstly, we can learn that we don’t need to be afraid of buildings, but can use them creatively to draw people into an encounter with God.  They don’t even need to be ‘religious’ buildings.  My own church is responsible for running the community centre in which we meet, and by our constant prayer, worship and incarnational service to the community in every part of the building we have invaded what might otherwise be considered ‘secular’ space to such an extent that people who come into the building remark “There’s a lovely sense of peace here”.  They may not recognise it, but it’s a sense of the presence of God.  The building has become a sacred space.

Sacred?

The other way in which we can use sacred space is to think about the messages we send with our buildings to those who are not yet Christians.  In many cultures, you can see the vestiges of a European definition of spirituality in pictures of a blue-eyed Jesus in India or church buildings with steeples in Indonesia.  Do the architecture, décor and furnishings in church premises speak of something that local people do not identify with sacred?  What can be imported from their culture which they would find familiar and would speak of sacred to them?  Would it be inappropriate, for example, to build a minaret on a church in a muslim country, or to have pictures in which Jesus looks like the people we’re working among?  Does the music we use for worship reflect our own cultural tradition when it might be more appropriate to use that of the local people group?

In my own city, one group is grappling with these issues as it seeks to create a culturally appropriate sacred space for a minority people group to engage with Jesus.  It uses furnishings, religious symbolism and music that would be found in their home culture.  They engage with the religious festivals of that community and embrace their culture.  In consequence, these people have found a safe and sensitive place to worship.  They do not have to cross a cultural divide in order to cross a religious one.

Before I can preach love, mercy, and grace, I must preach sin, law, and judgment. - John Wesley

Some while ago I came across an old tract entitled What excuse can we give? It envisages a scenario of us arriving in heaven and finding a lot of empty seats.  They had been prepared for people whom God wanted to join him, but they had never accepted Jesus because WE had never told them about Him.

It may be an outmoded paradigm, but nevertheless this is a serious question we should ask ourselves.  How many people won’t make it to heaven because we never passed on the vital information?  And how do we justify that to God?  We were too busy?  We had important things to do?  We didn’t want to impose our religious beliefs on others?  I should imagine that such excuses will feel very shallow when we realise how many people have missed out because we didn’t consider the message important enough.

Perhaps the reason why we don’t spend every waking minute talking to the lost about Jesus is that we don’t believe any more that they really are lost.  We like the idea of heaven, but we have airbrushed hell out of the picture because it’s just too distasteful to us.  Can we really believe that a loving God will vindictively punish for all eternity those people who didn’t worship him in this life – just because they didn’t know who he is?  Surely a merciful God would just annihilate them, or even find a way to let them in the back door?

Yet this is not what the New Testament teaches us, no matter how much the likes of Rob Bell try to persuade us that we’ve misunderstood it.  It paints a vivid picture of a terrible doom that awaits the unsaved.  We may legitimately debate how much that picture is literal or figurative, but whichever way we interpret the message, we cannot get away from the fact that the future looks extremely unpleasant for the lost.  Why else would Jesus talk about weeping and gnashing of teeth?

This is the traditional impetus behind mission, whether at home or abroad.  We reach out to the lost not merely so that Jesus can help them in this life, or make them feel better about themselves, but so that he can save them from the wrath of God.  Mission builds not merely on Jesus’ instructions to his own disciples – ‘Go into all the world…’ (Matthew 28:19) and ‘As the Father sent me, so I send you…’ (John 20:21) and the example of the New Testament church – but on an Old Testament image of a God who seeks (Genesis 3:9), sends (Jonah 1:2) and warns (Jeremiah 26:3).

We don’t do much warning these days.  We do a lot more enticing.  Our Gospel is no longer ‘Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand’ so much as ‘God loves you and can solve all your problems.’  I’m not suggesting that we should go back to the days of trying to scare people into heaven by preaching hell and damnation.  But I am painfully aware that on the day of judgment an entire generation could stand up and accuse us: ‘You never warned us!’

God told Ezekiel that he was like a watchman on the city wall (Ezekiel 33:1-9).  If an enemy came to attack the city, and the watchman didn’t warn the people, and they died, it would be the watchman’s fault.  If however he warned them, and they died because they didn’t take any notice of him, it would be their own fault.

As we set out into a brand new year, let each of us resolve to take personal responsibility for warning those in danger.

Jesus does not often share his titles with others. There is no reference in the Bible to other people being Prince of Peace, Bread of Life, Logos or the Lamb of God, so when he does, we should listen carefully.

Jesus himself is the Light.  John’s gospel makes this clear in six separate but related passages*, most notably in the first chapter, and in the powerful statement of Jesus I am the Light of the World (John 8:12, 9:5).  This imagery, echoed in the writings of Peter and Paul as well as John’s letters, builds on the famous Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah, which are often read out at Christmas, such as:

The people who walk in darkness will see a great light;

those who live in a dark land, the light will shine upon them (Isaiah 9:2)

These prophecies feed powerfully into the birth narrative in Luke’s gospel as well, and light is an essential part of the Christmas imagery – the star, the angels, God’s glory shining – which we now express in candles and Christmas tree lights.  The light comes into the world, exposes the darkness, and shows people how to live.  Literally appropriate in the dark heart of a European winter, figuratively light has both an intellectual aspect and a moral aspect – we understand better and we behave more responsibly.  In the New Testament letters, ‘walking in the light’ thus becomes a metaphor for both theological learning and ethical  living.

This capacity to reform the world makes Jesus utterly unique.  Nobody else is associated with bringing light into the world.  It is an attribute of God alone, and underlying the imagery of light in the darkness is an implicit statement of the divinity of Jesus – only he is associated with God – is God – dwelling in unapproachable light (1 Timothy 6:16).

Until he shares this with us. You are the light of the world, he says to his followers in Matthew 5:14.  He calls us children of light (Luke 16:8, John 12:36), thereby making us partakers in the divine nature and participants in the divine mission.  Our identity is wrapped up in his.  We are instructed not to hide this light but let it shine in front of people, something we are often reluctant to do in this politically correct generation.

How we live our lives will determine how effective we are in spreading this light.  The light has shone in our hearts and we are lights in the middle of this world (Philippians 2:15).  We are called to let this inner transformation inform our choices and impact our behaviour.  Let us therefore consider how we may go into the world, as the Father sent Jesus, to bring light to the people who still walk in darkness.

* John 1:4-9, 3:19-21, 8:12, 9:5, 12:35-6, 12:46

Celebrations in Bulgarian churches?

This month’s guest blogger is Valentin Kozhuharov, who lectures in missiology at the University of Plovdiv and is a consultant on missions to the Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church.

Since the changes of 1990 (and before that no religious life was possible in Eastern Europe because of the persecutions the communists systematically carried out against Christians and any other religion), the church in Bulgaria has grown rapidly and fruitfully.

The Orthodox church has mostly been occupied with restoring its internal ecclesiastical life, so mission has not been its main goal of church work, but anyway this church organised a nationwide network of Sunday schools, undertook various charitable activities and started (only in the last 7-8 years) mission in prisons, orphanages, old people’s homes and other social institutions.  It even started “external” mission by sending a priest to South Africa in July 2010 to plant an Orthodox church in Pretoria.

The amount of mission work, which has mostly been done in a bit chaotic way, needed systematisation and theoretical-practical foundations, and in the diocese of Veliko Tarnovo a mission department was opened in January 2010 and a missionary document has been developed: “Principles of mission for the Bulgarian Orthodox church”.  In June 2011 the Principles were considered by the Holy Synod, and now in several diocesan centres the bishops have appointed mission educators to further develop mission strategy in their dioceses and to practically carry out missionary activities.

Devotional art at Rila Monastery

The evangelical churches in Bulgaria have been more active in the so called “social mission” where they carried out mission work in almost all social institutions in the country dealing with children and the disadvantaged (children’s homes, prisons, orphanages, old people’s homes, hospitals, etc). In many areas the Orthodox church and the evangelical churches have competed with each other in these mission fields, and often they would oppose the mission work of the “other” church; in some instances the Orthodox church used the authority of the state to oust the “sectarian” Christian organisations (as they treated the evangelical churches in the country).

This made Christians of both the Orthodox and the evangelical churches to think, and to come to practical recommendations, about mission of Christian unity where all the churches in the country are able to combine resources and efforts in their God-commanded mission work in society.  In the last two to three years, in many social institutions these Christians work together with the same marginalised and needy people and children.  Still the day when they all will be working together in one spirit and one heart is far away, but a good start has been made.

Valentin Kozhuharov

Bulgarian missionaries take part (and some of them took the leading role) in the newly-established Orthodox Mission Network which aims to increase mission awareness within the Orthodox churches in Europe and to initiate true missions on their territories.  Bulgarian missiologists develop theoretical issues of mission, and for the first time missiology has been taught as a theological discipline since February 2011 in one of the university theological faculties.  These missionaries and missiologists cooperate with many other missionaries and missiologists both Orthodox and non-Orthodox and both in Europe and worldwide.

Please pray:

• for Valentin as he lectures on missiology and stimulates a passion for outreach among all Bulgarian denominations
• for the gospel to flourish in Bulgaria
• for more mission workers, both foreign and local, to train and inspire the church

For more information about praying for Bulgaria visit the World Prayer Map

As I write this blog, I’m thinking a lot about short-term mission.  I’m writing new material about short-term mission for our series of online-guides to doing mission well.  I’m preparing to brief one of my trustees who is coming with me on a visit to Zambia later this year, and I’m preparing to train a youth group I’m leading on a short-term expedition to Brazil in the summer.

A lot of effort goes into short-term mission, and one of the questions that is repeatedly asked is ‘Why not just send the money?’  It’s a question that people like me are used to hearing, and we justify the time, effort and funding involved in doing short-term mission by talking about partnering with an overseas church, encouraging believers in other countries, gaining a bigger picture of life in different parts of the world, and seeing people growing in faith and character as they serve others.  But the question itself reveals a pragmatic and materialistic mindset.

Yes, if we wanted to get the job done, we would send the money.  I’m going to Brazil in July with the primary goal of building a wall.  I’m sure there are people in Brazil who can do that.  But there’s so much more to it than that.  It’s about relationships.  My relationships with the people who will fund, support and pray for me.  My relationship with the team going with me.  Our relationship with our sending churches and agency.  Our relationship with the Brazilians we will serve.  Our churches’ relationship with them.  And above all, our relationship with our God who sends us.

God is a sending God.  He sent Joseph into Egypt to save lives (Gen 45:5) and sent Moses to the Israelites to deliver them from Egypt (Ex 3:14).  These images speak of God sending a rescuer, and his ultimate response to humanity’s dire need was to send Jesus (Luke 4:43, John 8:42, 1 John 4:10) to rescue us.  Jesus called some of his disciples apostles (Luke 6:13) – the word means in Greek someone who is sent out – whom he then sent out to make more disciples (Matthew 28:19).  God sent Ananias to minister to Paul (Acts 9:11), who in turn was sent to preach the gospel (Galatians 1:1).  He wrote in Romans 10 about people who haven’t heard about God:

How can they call on the One they have not believed in?

And how can they believe in Him who they have not heard of?

And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?

And how can those preach unless they are sent?

We go because we are sent, not merely to build a wall but to preach the gospel.  We may not be able to communicate effectively in Portuguese but we hope by our actions and attitudes to demonstrate the love of Jesus and the truth of the gospel.  Our relationship with God will hopefully be reflected in our relationship with the people we serve, and lead them into relationship with God too.

Money talks, but it can’t preach the gospel.

Anyone considering doing some short-term mission might like to read the Syzygy Guide to Doing Short-Term Missions Well, one of a series of guides designed to help people prepare for missions, whatever stage of their journey they’re at.

Building the church?

Last month (see ‘Researching Mission in Europe’) we told you about the Report on Missional Church Planting in Europe which Syzygy is producing for Eurochurch.net, and today Syzygy is  proud to release the Interim report.

Nearly 400 people involved in church planting, leading mission agencies, churches and  networks, and working academically in universities and bible colleges have participated in our research.  They work in 35 European countries and represent all the major churches, and are ministering in a wide variety of contexts both within their home cultures and as cross-cultural mission workers.  It is believed that this is the largest study of its type carried out in Europe, and we hope it will be highly influential in linking together and supporting church planting individuals and networks.  One notable academic commented that we have succeeded in identifying and involving all the key church planting individuals in his country.

The report contains overviews of the missional environment in each country covered by our research, and a directory of the 318 participating individuals working in those countries who did not ask us to keep their details confidential for reasons of confidentiality and security.  It brings together practical church planters and academic missiologists and will hopefully stimulate discussion and help people working in different roles to network together more effectively and further develop church planting activity throughout the continent.

The overall impression gained is of an immense variety of activities being carried out by a large number of denominations and networks, who do not always seem to be linking together and networking effectively.  One story that emerged in the process of gathering information concerned some church planters who felt called to go to a particular city to prayer walk, and did it for a month before bumping into people from a different organisation doing exactly the same thing.  We hope that our work will be able to reduce such instances of duplication and promote co-operation.

97 of the respondents to our survey are working in the UK, which is understandable since the existing networks we used to start our research are primarily based here, and we hope in future to be able to increase the number of participants in the several countries where we have few contacts.  The other countries where we had a good response are Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, and Switzerland.

Following the formal release of the Interim Report at the Hope II conference in Budapest this week, Eurochurch.net will be organising consultations in various European countries to promote co-operation between church planters and to investigate the potential for future networking.  The final report will be delivered following these consultations.

The final report will be released by October this year so it’s still not too late to be included.  People involved in Missional Church Planting in Europe can participate in our research by completing a short survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/eurochurch or by contacting info@syzygy.org.uk.

Syzygy produced this report in partnership with Nova Research Centre and Springdale College: Together in Mission, and the research is being sponsored by the McLellan Foundation.

Despite the prevalent perception that Europe considers God is dead, and that churches are in terminal decline, there is much going on in Europe for us to be excited about.  Many postmodern young Europeans have a willingness to explore their spirituality and engage with God in a way that would puzzle the preceding two generations, who have mainly felt that Christianity is increasingly irrelevant and discredited.  A new generation however, being largely unchurched, has no such reservations and is often interested in the Christian faith while being untouched by the cynicism of their predecessors.

The upshot of this is that there is a great deal of evangelism, mission and church-planting going on right across Europe.  Much of this is carried out by small mission organisations, simple churches, independent mission workers and informal networks.  Often focussed tightly at specific groups – young people, bikers, Moslem-background believers, ethnic minorities – these many, diverse operations add up to an evangelistic explosion across the continent.  While established denominations and sending agencies also see significant growth, diversity and informality have been particularly effective.  More evangelistic activity is taking place now than at any time over the last 50 years.

The result is that the picture of evangelism in Europe has become so localised and complex that no single person or organization has an overall picture of all the developments, initiatives, networks or new organizations even in an individual country, still less across Europe as a whole.   For this reason Syzygy is pleased to be co-operating with Eurochurch.net, Nova Research Centre and Springdale College: Together in Mission to undertake research that will identify the significant missional organisations and networks functioning within the nations and across the continent of Europe, and determine in what ways they can be more effective either by being part of an existing network or by tacit co-operation with other networks.

It is our conviction that this information is crucial to academics, church leaders, networks and agencies for forging strategic alliances which will facilitate the work of mission throughout the continent.  The objective is to produce a comprehensive directory of all churches, agencies and individuals involved in church planting in Europe.  That knowledge will be used to form a map of activity which will then be made widely available to denominations, churches, organisations and individuals who would find it helpful to know what it happening.

The preliminary results of our research will be presented at a seminar at Hope II in Budapest in May and there will continue to be follow-up consultations in a variety of European locations to determine with other participants how better to foster cooperation between the various agencies, individuals and groupings involved in this massive task of taking the good news back to the least reached continent.

If you are involved in any way in European missions and are willing to spend just five minutes completing an online form to help with our research, please contact me on tim@syzygy.org.uk.

A youth event considering the appeal of pornography in society

ICF is an exciting and innovative way of doing church which is growing quickly throughout Europe.

Since the first church was started in Zurich in 1996, the movement has spread rapidly and now has 40 churches in 8 different European countries, mostly in Switzerland, with plans to start up in several other countries.   With a lively worship style, youthful leadership and up to date use of technology, they are attracting a large number of young people wherever they set up.

ICF’s youngest church leader is Christian Gfeller, who started a new church in Schaffhausen just two years ago, which has already grown to some 200 people worshipping  God in three separate Sunday services.  When Syzygy met Christian at a conference recently, he explained that their vision is to bring people back to church by letting them see that church can be dynamic, relevant and contemporary.  This, he believes, is what attracts people who are not accustomed to thinking of church as anything other than old-fashioned, irrelevant and boring.

Christian Gfeller

ICF has a strong ‘corporate identity’ (to use their own words!)which clearly cascades right through the movement.  Quality and fun manage to walk hand in hand.  In their desire to be relevant, they are willing to change things, be experimental, and take risks.  They’re also committed to planting new churches.  By the time a church grows to 350 members, they’re already thinking about moving to multi-site meetings to enable the growth to continue.  This has attracted attention in the Swiss press, which can’t quite get its head around the fact that church can be fun and Christians can have an infectious zest for life.

Surprisingly, the bulk of the church growth has not come from disaffected Christians leaving other churches and joining ICF.  Christian says that only about 10% of the members of his church in Schaffhausen joined from other churches.  Half the members had been churchgoers as children but had long since ceased attending, and the remainder were mainly unchurched.

Asked about the sort of social work that the church does, Christian  explained, The biggest social work we do is offer community. This may well be the key to why ICF is bucking the trend among young people, who research shows are increasingly disinterested in church while becoming more open to exploring their spirituality.  In an age when many young people have to cope with social dislocation and fractured families, offering them a loving and committed Christian community may just be the way to reach a generation for Christ.

You can find out more about ICF at http://www.icf-movement.org/

At this time of year, it’s common for many of us to think about a newborn baby lying in a manger.  It’s a sanitised, sentimental scene where we’ve airbrushed out the smell of cattle dung and the sounds of a teenage girl giving birth in squalor.  We think humanitarian thoughts about peace and goodwill to everyone.  It’s a vaguely aspirational time when we try to be kind and be slightly generous to those who have less than us, generous enough at least to salve our consciences about how much high-calorie food we will throw away and how much alcohol we will consume.

What we often overlook is that this little child who is the focus of our nativity scenes is the ultimate cross-cultural mission worker.

He gave up a wealthy, safe and comfortable existence to live a life of poverty, hardship and danger in order to tell people that God loves them.  Many didn’t listen, or were only interested in the food handouts or his medical ministry.  Some of those who followed his teaching clearly misunderstood it, or cracked under pressure of persecution.  One even betrayed him to the authorities.  In the end he paid the ultimate price for his mission.

Today, many millions of people claim to be his followers.  Many of them live their lives like he did, boldly taking his message of good news to those who haven’t heard it, or don’t want to hear it, and they count it a privilege to pay the price for it.  We salute you, and pray that you will be encouraged in your ministries this Christmas.

Sadly, many of his followers are too much like the thousands who liked his catchy stories, and loved being entertained or fed or healed by him, but were all too obviously absent when the time came to stand up and be counted.  We wish these people not peace and joy but challenge and conviction.  We re-tweet his call to costly discipleship – take up your cross and follow me. The path to genuine peace and joy is not a safe and comfortable one.  The road from Bethlehem to Heaven runs through Calvary.

Karen Bible College students in worship

First of all, it’s not a typo!  The name really is Chrestos.  It’s the Greek word for ‘kind’.  Founders Geoffrey & Pat Atkinson decided that they wanted to be kind to the people they work with.  They certainly need some kindness.  Based in northwest Thailand, not too far from the tourist capital of Chiang Mai, Chrestos Mission works with Karen people, a marginalised minority group who have suffered much, particularly at the hands of the Burmese military.  Many of them have fled from Burma across the Salween River into Thailand, where they are billeted in overcrowded refugee camps while they continue the interminable wait for asylum in western countries.  Without Thai ID cards, they can’t leave the camps for fear of being repatriated.

After a lifetime of work in missions in south east Asia, you would think that Geoffrey & Pat would want to retire.  But in 2002, already well into their 60s, God called them to start this work up from scratch.  It is a testament to their prayerfulness and drive that in such a short time they have managed to achieve so much.

Chrestos works extensively in these camps, supporting churches, orphanages and even bible colleges by providing food, clothing and medicine.  Through this support lives are saved, children are cared for and educated, and people meet Jesus.  Many of them go on to graduate from bible colleges and perpetuate a victorious cycle of taking the gospel to their own people.

Through the work of a number of mission agencies as well as the efforts of the indigenous church, the Karen church is the fastest growing in Thailand.  At its base in Mae Sariang, Chrestos runs its own bible college with some 75 students, training Karen believers to go back to their people with the gospel.  Chrestos also has a high quality recording studio which produces teaching, worship, drama and Sunday School lessons on dvd so that the Karen church is even better equipped to spread the gospel.  In the same town Chrestos also operates and orphanage called the Home of Peace & Joy.

When I visited Chrestos in 2008, one of their Karen leaders walked with me across the ‘Friendship Bridge’ into Burma at Mae Sot.  It was the first time he had been back to the country of his birth since he fled to Thailand as a child.  His father was subsequently killed by the Burmese army.  I find it very hard to forgive them, he told me.

• Please pray for change in Burma so that the Karen can return to their villages and live in safety.  Praise God that there is ample opportunity for them to hear the gospel in the refugee camps.  Pray that they will respond to it, and take it home with them when they are finally repatriated.
• Pray for the Atkinsons, that they will continue to have health and energy, and for God to raise up indigenous successors for them to run the Chrestos community.
• Pray that the Karen will be able to forgive those who have made them suffer, and that this will be a testimony to the grace of God which will lead many to Jesus.

You can read more about Chrestos at http://www.chrestos-mission.org/

This story came to me from Agape and is too good to waste!

Several months ago, some Christian groups in Bologna (Italy) gave out 10,000 flyers and invited people to a Christian concert.  Not one seeker came at all.  Only a few insiders.  Yet at the end of October, Apollo XVI astronaut Charlie Duke was invited to speak, and crowds of several hundred students came.  Jesse Marco from Bologna reports: ‘We have no words to describe what just happened these last days here in Bologna.  One church planter commented,  Charlie, we have been here 23 years, and never have we seen these kinds of crowds, and never have we seen doors open like this.’

Charlie spoke at the scientific high school where nothing Christian is ever let in the door.  The previous week a 15 year old student had shot himself.  Charlie was able to share his testimony in detail, and part of  his testimony is that his wife was suicidal before she gave her life to Jesus.  He shared that and the students were listening to his every word.  After he had finished with his testimony and closed, the headmaster came up and thanked Charlie for coming and reviewed the main points he shared in his testimony.  Jesse said, ‘WOW!!  Never in our wildest dreams in a school where atheism is their god could we have imagined this would happen.’

In the Astronomy Department of the University of Bologna over 120 students turned up to hear Charlie.  Some had to stand outside the hall listening.  This event was set up by the university and specifically by a man who asked that God shouldn’t even be mentioned.  After speaking, there was a time for questions and answers and the man who said no God asked Charlie to share about the challenges of life after reaching the pinnacle of your career at age 36.  Then that night at dinner, he told Charlie again to make sure he talked about his personal life.

Jesse writes:  ’On Tuesday evening we met for dinner with all the university officials who were responsible for the evening.  As we walked into the room which seats 300, it was standing room only again.  Charlie walked into the hall I was behind him and had not seen the crowd yet.  We then heard a very loud applause and were overwhelmed as were the school officials.  He opened his talk by thanking Agape Italia for bringing him to Bologna.  This was in a room with many students.  We are so thankful for all God did and again the doors this opened for all of us here in Bologna.’

Please pray that Agape team in Italy and associated churches in Bologna would be able to follow up their many contacts from this event.

Pray for the many students who have head a Christian testimony for the first time.

Pray for the ministry of Charlie as he shares his testimony around the world.  You can read more about him at www.charlieduke.net

Last month the world went back to Cape Town for the second time this year, but this time not for football.  The third Lausanne Conference on World Evangelisation was being held there.  In a truly worldwide consultation, 4000 church leaders and representatives, from nearly 200 countries, were joined virtually by remote participants at 650 different venues across the globe where live streaming of the events was shown, and by over 100,000 individuals observing online.

John Oh embraces an Asian believer after she shared the story of her family's struggles as Christians.

This was a marked contrast to the historic Edinburgh Convention which took place 100 years earlier, and which is being commemorated in this and several other missions conferences taking place in 2010.  On that occasion the delegates were overwhelmingly from northern Europe and North America, and no Roman Catholic or Orthodox delegates were invited.  The Cape Town conference, however, brought together people from diverse cultures and denominations, who brought colour and spectacle to the proceedings by dressing proudly in a variety of ethnic and ecclesiastical clothing.  This time round, over 50% of the delegates represented countries which would been considered largely unevangelised by the delegates in 1910.

One contingent sadly lacking was the Chinese church.  A constitutional commitment to global evangelisation was required from churches wishing to send delegates, and since the official Three Self Patriotic Movement does not have this, it was anticipated that China would be represented by leaders of various unregistered churches.  Sadly they were all prevented from leaving the country at the last minute.  The absence of this dynamic delegation representing one of the world’s largest Christian communities was deeply significant.

Another notable absence was former Archbishop of Cape Town Desmond Tutu, who has recently retired from public life.  A tireless and prominent campaigner against apartheid, and subsequently a vocal advocate of forgiveness and reconciliation, he would have been a highly visible testament to the conference’s twin motifs of faithfulness to historic Christian truth and a call to radical action encapsulated in the conference’s theme: ‘God in Christ, reconciling the world to himself’ (2 Corinthians 5:19).

Nevertheless, many global leaders made significant contributions to the proceedings.  Billy Graham and John Stott, founders of the Lausanne Movement who are both now too old to travel, sent recorded greetings.  Other headline names led expositions of Ephesians but significantly many of the speakers were from Africa, South America and various parts of Asia, often representing areas not traditionally considered Christian.  It was encouraging to see the western world relinquishing its traditional dominance over such events, since it now represents so few Christians in comparison to the rest of the world.

Perhaps the most significant outcome from the conference is The Cape Town Commitment, a statement of faith and a call to action.  A draft of the first part, a declaration of belief crafted by evangelical theologians representing all the continents, is available at

http://conversation.lausanne.org/en/conversations/detail/11544.

The second part is due for publication later this year.  The aim of this document is to provide a firm evangelical commitment to truth and action to inspire the church globally in its mission.

Lloyd Estrada (Philippines) tells a Bible story.

After the second Lausanne conference in Manila in 1989, over 350 missional partnerships between different churches and agencies were started.  Syzygy hopes that Cape Town 2010 will give the global church the impetus and sense of urgency needed to finish the task of global evangelisation in this generation, which ironically was one of the objectives of the conference in Edinburgh one hundred years ago.  Let us pray that this generation achieves even more than that one did.

The success of the work of missions and the work of evangelism depends upon the ability to arouse envy.

With these words Dutch missionary J H Bavinck hit the nail on the head.  All too frequently the church seems to be selling a product that the consumer doesn’t want.  The bulk of non-Christians simply do not believe that our faith would add anything substantial to their lives, and in fact would probably stop them enjoying themselves.  We might claim that meeting Jesus is the best thing that ever happened to us, but do we really show it?  Where in the Christian community is the real incontrovertible evidence of transformed lives?  If Jesus has made such an impact on us, why does it not show?

The reason for this is that the bulk of the Christian community, at least in the West, does not want its lives transformed.  We are quite comfortable as we are, and if a veneer of religiosity on top of our materialistic consumerism helps us find meaning in life and feel better about ourselves, that’s as far as it goes.  This increasingly prevalent attitude has recently been called Moral Therapeutic Deism, a term coined by Christian Smith of Notre Dame University.  He suggests that “a significant part of Christianity in the United States is actually only tenuously Christian in any sense that is seriously connected to the actual historical Christian tradition”.

So what is our response to the lack of public interest in the Christianity we are modelling?  We ramp up our marketing.  Millions of pounds are spent on running and promoting the Alpha Course (which is arguably the most effective evangelistic tool of this generation) while we completely ignore the best marketing tool in the business: a satisfied customer.

It has long been my contention that if we were all living transformed lives we wouldn’t need to ‘do’ evangelism – our very lives would speak good news to others.  This is one of the reasons why the early church (as recorded in Acts) grew so rapidly without any preaching of good news specifically mentioned till the end of chapter 5, by which time there were already some 10,000 believers worshipping regularly together, with a fellowship fund and a soup kitchen.  Everyone in Jerusalem could see the difference in the lives of the Jesus-followers.

Nearly 20 years ago, Bill Hybels wrote: “Authentic Christians are persons who stand apart from others, even other Christians, as though listening to a different drummer.  Their character seems deeper, their ideas fresher, their spirit softer, their courage greater, their leadership stronger, their concerns wider, their compassion more genuine, their convictions more concrete.  They are joyful in spite of difficult circumstances and show wisdom beyond their years.”

Sadly these authentic Christians still seem far too few in number.  While people see us stressed by our ministry, frustrated with our church, confused about our beliefs, heartless towards the needy, and unwilling to talk about Jesus to the lost, we will never convince them that what we have is better than what they have.

This month I thought you’d like to read this very ordinary and down to earth progress report from an evangelist in India.  He doesn’t waste time embellishing it, he just tells it like it is:

REPORT FOR JANUARY – JUNE 2010

1. How many new House Churches were planted?   109

2. Training Seminars – how many? 33

How many participants? 1132

3. How many Baptisms:  2639

Little Stories:

• Sister Y accepted the Lord last year and has been reunited with her husband after 7 years of separation.
• BS’s young daughter who suffered from chronic asthma was healed as God’s people prayed for her in April 2010 at a Conference.
• HS wept with joy as he was given 60 Bibles for distribution in his House Churches. He reports that Children in his House Churches are reading Stories from the Bible to their illiterate Parents and Grand Parents.
• M who suffered a stroke and could not walk was healed as God’s people prayed. Today one can hardly tell if she had a stroke at all.

GOALS FOR JULY – DECEMBER 2010

(1) New Believers: 8000

(2) Baptisms: 8000

(3) New House Churches : 800

Please pray for the safety of this dynamic man as he ministers.

Pray for those who hear his message, and for the safety of those who respond.

Pray that others would be inspired to spread the gospel.

Pray that he’ll exceed his target for the current six months!