Posted on July 27th, 2020 by Tim

Heroes – James Calvert

In recent months it has been a joy to hear reports, mostly from countries where it can be dangerous to be a Christian, of local believers going to great lengths to feed the hungry and tend to the sick.

Much of this work has been done unofficially, below the radar of repressive governments, but it has made a huge difference to the local population as they see the love of Jesus shown to them by believers.  Evidently, people of a variety of other faiths have been willing to receive prayer and to listen to the Gospel, because of the example of compassion shown by those whom previously they too might have oppressed.

The Christians have risked their lives to do this.  They could be imprisoned by the government, they could get sick themselves.  Why would they take such risks when they could stay home and keep themselves safe?  A 19th century missionary to Fiji might have the answer.

James Calvert is not a household name.  He was a trainee Wesleyan minister who was sent with his wife and several others to minister in Fiji in 1838.  A story is told about him that when they arrived, the ship’s captain begged them not to disembark, as they would doubtless be killed by the warring cannibals ashore.  Calvert’s reponse?

We died before we came here.

In fact, the missionaries weren’t eaten, and Calvert went on to minister influentially in Fiji before also serving in South Africa and as a minister in the UK.  But that’s not the point.  He, like so many other mission workers ancient and modern, recognized that “my life is no longer my own” (Galatians 2:20), that “we have died and been buried with Christ” and that He deserves our obedience, even to the point of death.  After all, we have nothing left to lose: “for me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21)

Meanwhile Fiji has been the focus of much missionary attention and almost 2/3 of the population identify as Christian, according to Operation World.  But there remain some large gaps: indigenous tribes living in remote areas, and the significant Asian-background communities who continue in the religious traditions of their ancestors.  Who will lay down their lives to bring the gospel to them?

You can read more about James Calvert and his colleagues at:

Australian Dictionary of Biography

Evangelical Times

Posted on November 25th, 2019 by Tim

The last moments before you die

By F.G.O. Stuart (1843-1923)

This story has been doing the rounds on social media and is too good not to reshare…

 

We all know the story of the Titanic, how on April 14, 1912 an iceberg scraped the ships’s starboard side, ripping open six watertight compartments and leading to the death of over 1500 people.

On board the ship that night was John Harper and his much-beloved six-year-old daughter Nana. According to documented reports, as soon as it was apparent that the ship was going to sink, John Harper immediately took his daughter to a lifeboat. It is reasonable to assume that this widowed preacher could have easily gotten on board this boat to safety; however, it never seems to have crossed his mind.

He bent down and kissed his precious little girl; looking into her eyes he told her that she would see him again someday. The flares going off in the dark sky above reflected the tears on his face as he turned and headed towards the crowd of desperate humanity on the sinking ocean liner. As the rear of the huge ship began to lurch upwards, it was reported that Harper was seen making his way up the deck yelling “Women, children and unsaved into the lifeboats!” It was only minutes later that the Titanic began to rumble deep within. Most people thought it was an explosion; actually the gargantuan ship was literally breaking in half. At this point, many people jumped off the decks and into the icy, dark waters below. John Harper was one of these people.

That night 1528 people went into the frigid waters. John Harper was seen swimming frantically to people in the water leading them to Jesus before the hypothermia became fatal. Mr. Harper swam up to one young man who had climbed up on a piece of debris. Rev. Harper asked him between breaths, “Are you saved?” The young man replied that he was not.

Harper then tried to lead him to Christ only to have the young man who was near shock, reply no. John Harper then took off his life jacket and threw it to the man and said “Here then, you need this more than I do…” and swam away to other people. A few minutes later Harper swam back to the young man and succeeded in leading him to salvation. Of the 1528 people that went into the water that night, six were rescued by the lifeboats. One of them was this young man on the debris.

Four years later, at a survivors meeting, this young man stood up and in tears recounted how John Harper had led him to Christ. Mr. Harper had tried to swim back to help other people, yet because of the intense cold, had grown too weak to swim. His last words before going under in the frigid waters were “Believe on the Name of the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.” This servant of God did what he had to do. While other people were trying to buy their way onto the lifeboats and selfishly trying to save their own lives, John Harper gave up his life so that others could be saved.

Which raises an important question: what would you do in the last few minutes before you died?

Posted on September 23rd, 2019 by Tim

The man in the red shirt

The expendables?

There’s a meme among Star Trek fans that any character wearing a red shirt (except for Scottie) will die before the end of the episode.  People wearing yellow are important; people wearing blue are useful; people wearing red are expendable.  The security men in the red shirts haven’t got names, they’re not played by famous actors, and most of them won’t even have lines.  They are really just there to show how dangerous the situation is.*

In a world where most people want to be Kirk, Spock or Uhura, most of us are the redshirts.  We’re not missionary heroes like the ones featured in Syzygy blogs.  Our names will never been known to the general public.  We live, we serve, we die.  In the world of mission, most of us are playing a walk-on role rather than being a leading actor.  That means making a huge sacrifice in terms of our ambition, our goals, and sometimes even our lives.  Yes, sometimes the mission workers get killed too.

I was once told a story by an elderly nurse how when she first went out to the mission field there were separatist rebels in the area she served in.  One of her colleagues was kidnapped and a ransom demanded.  The mission agency refused to pay and the body was found a few days later.  The nurse told me “She bought freedom for the rest of us.  Because they knew we wouldn’t pay ransom, they never bothered us again.”

We all have our job to do, our person to be.  We don’t look at the others and compare ourselves to them, because that’s not the role the director has cast us for.  Our job is to do our very best with what we’ve been given.

The difference between Star Trek and the Kingdom of God is that although we may have a bit-part, nobody is expendable.  Every one of us is of immense value to God, and every death is significant to him (Psalm 116:15).  The souls of the martyrs are kept in a precious place close to God (Revelation 6:9).  And one day, we will all wear a yellow shirt.

* I’ve subsequently been advised by a Trekker that statistically speaking, blueshirts have a higher mortality rate than redshirts.  But since there are so many more redshirts, the numbers who don’t get off the planet are higher.

Star Trek is copyright of CBS Corporation

Posted on October 15th, 2018 by Tim

Oscar Romero – an inspiration

Oscar Romero, pictured shortly before he was killed

Yesterday, Pope Francis presided over a ceremony in which Archbishop Oscar Romero was canonised, to great rejoicing from thousands of Salvadorans and other Latin Americans who already consider Romero a saint.

Canonisation does not mean much to most evangelicals, since we are an egalitarian group, who believe that we have free access to pray direct to God and don’t need the departed to intercede for us.  Moreover, we believe that we are all saints.  But we do have people we consider worthy of respect and emulation for their lives and character, though with few exceptions we prefer to keep these roles for Protestants rather than Roman Catholics.

San Romero, however, is one of these exceptions, whom we may laud for his courage in speaking out against extra-judicial oppression of priests and the poor in his country.  At a time when politics in El Salvador was heavily polarised between the left and the right, death squads would routinely attack, torture or murder priests, nuns and civilians who put themselves on the side of the poor, and in his regular radio broadcasts Romero would denounce the latest incidents, which would also be listed in the diocesan newspaper.  Reflecting later on the death of his close friend the priest Rutilio Grande, Romero observed: When I looked at Rutilio lying there dead I thought, “If they have killed him for doing what he did, then I too have to walk the same path.”

These days El Salvador may have changed, but there are many of our fellow believers who need a Romero.  Recent crackdowns on independent churches in China have meant that millions of believers are unable to worship together in freedom.  Hindu nationalism threatens the lives of millions more in India.  And throughout the Middle East the remaining Christians who have not yet been displaced have no hope of a peaceful future.

Open Doors continues to advocate for the oppressed church through its World Watch List.  Let each of us stand up with Archbishop Romero to advocate for our brothers and sisters who are poor, marginalised and oppressed.  Support the work of Open Doors, engage with your MP, encourage local believers whom you know.  Let’s let our persecuted family know that we haven’t forgotten them.

 

 

Posted on September 17th, 2018 by Tim

Heroes: Oswald Chambers

Chambers, looking more like a matinee idol than a Bible College principal!

Those who follow Syzygy on social media may have noticed that every Friday for the last few months we have been publishing a quote from Oswald Chambers’ much-loved devotional My Utmost for his Highest.  Chambers is well-known for his inspiring writing but the man himself is not often talked about.  Which is just how he would have liked it!

Born in Scotland in the 19th century, he was an artist, pastor, and principal of a Bible College who had experience of short-term mission in Japan.  Passionate for the lost and oblivious to hierarchy and education, he ploughed his own furrow caring for the poor and ministering to anyone he came across.

While running the YMCA in Cairo during the First World War, he surprised everyone by cancelling entertainments for soldiers from Australia and New Zealand who were billeted there, and replacing them with Bible studies, which proved to be amazingly popular as he encouraged the troops to live lives totally sold out for God.

My Utmost for His Highest, published posthumously by his widow, contains numerous quotes about mission, which you can see if you trawl back through our feed.  Although Chambers was not an overseas mission worker like other heroes we’ve highlighted in the past, we nevertheless remain inspired by not only his passion for God but his absolute dedication to seeing God glorified through his life.

“The great word of Jesus to his disciples is abandon,” he wrote. “When God has brought us into the relationship of disciples, we have to venture on his word; trust entirely to him and watch that when he brings us to the venture, we take it.”

Which is good advice for any mission worker.

Posted on June 25th, 2018 by Tim

Heroes – Wilson Carlile

A recent visit to the Wilson Carlile Centre in Sheffield, home of the Church Army, prompted me to find out more about this remarkable evangelist.  A successful Victorian businessman who suffered a breakdown following financial ruin, he turned to Christ and, heavily influenced by D L Moody, discovered a passion for evangelism.

But unlike others of his day, his passion was for the people on the margins.  London, where he served his curacy, was full of soldiers, working class labourers, sex workers, addicts and the homeless.  Carlile concluded they would not go near a church because the feared they wouldn’t receive a welcome from the respectable Christians in them.  So he began to hold open air meetings to take the gospel out of the church and into the streets, but these got so large that he eventually had to stop them.

Resigning his curacy to devote himself full time to slum ministry, he created the Church Army to focus on outreach to the working class.  Not unlike the already-functioning Salvation Army, but with a crucial distinction that instead of becoming a separate church, Wilson determined to keep the Church Army within the Anglican church, as it still is today.

Carlile set up a school in Oxford to train working-class evangelists to reach their own class, thus avoiding the potential class-barrier that could hinder others in outreach.  Today the Church Army still welcomes and trains evangelists who might not be welcome in other places, but who are adept at forming connections with people on the margins of society.  They have ministries in 20 different countries.

My visit challenged me again with the problem of how to reach out to people who are different to us.  Many churches are monocultural even if they are multiracial, and tend to reproduce (if they do at all) in their own image, rather than adapting themselves to be genuinely accessible to people of other backgrounds – especially those who are already marginalised.

Some years ago, an urban outreach worker who lived in a very deprived area of the city but was attached to a church in the suburbs told me: “I’ve got a problem – a man on my estate just became a Christian”.

“Why’s that a problem?” I asked.

“Because I can’t take him to church.  They’ll reject him.”

Let’s hope things have changed in our churches.

Posted on January 29th, 2018 by Tim

Name your heroes

“Hudson Taylor”

As regular followers of Syzygy will be aware, we have four cars which we lend to mission workers on home assignment in the UK.  You can read more about this on the Syzygy Cars page.  By the grace of God we have been given money – and cars – generously which has enabled us to have very nice cars, but an interesting problem has emerged: we now have two VW Passat estates and we occasionally get confused about which one we’re talking about.  So we have tried calling them 57 and 58 (referring to the registration number), or could simply use their colours, blue and silver.

But we’ve decided to give them names.  And we’re choosing names which will honour our missionary heroes.  We’re calling them CT Studd and Hudson Taylor.  And just to keep things balanced, the other two are being called Gladys Aylward and Amy Carmichael.  Which prompts me to wonder who are your missionary heroes, and why?

They may not be giants of the faith, but then most of us aren’t.  They may not have got everything right, and none of us do, not even the great missionary apostle St Paul.  They may not have seen many converts themselves, like David Livingstone, but their faith inspired others to incredible acts of service for God.

One of my own personal favourites is an old man I met in Mozambique.  He had spent many years as a mission worker in Brazil before retiring and returning to England.  When he was 80 he asked God for 10 more years of life so that he could resume serving as a mission worker, and went to start a new work in Mozambique.  So much for a quiet retirement perfecting the golf swing and maintaining the garden!

Who are your inspirations?  If we are truly standing on the shoulders of giants, do we know who the giants are, and what contribution they’ve made to our lives?  Are we able to emulate them in their strengths, while being fully aware of their weaknesses and avoiding them?  And if they are still alive, have we thanked them?  And if not, how do we honour their memory?

Posted on November 13th, 2017 by Tim

A boy, a baker and the power of the Word of God

J O Fraser (courtesy www.omf.org)

The following story is adapted with permission from ‘Mountain Rain’ by Eileen Crossman.

In 1908 James O. Fraser set sail to China to serve with the China Inland Mission, now OMF International, and based himself in Yunnan province.  When he had enough language to begin sharing the gospel he started to talk to groups of people in the market places, on street corners or in tea shops.  He took with him copies of Mark’s Gospel and some tracts for those who could read and wanted to know more.

One day, during a visit to an area four days journey away, Fraser was in a crowded market.  He often used a little table for his booklets which he would sell cheaply or sometimes give away.  That day someone knocked into his table and the booklets fell, some into puddles, some trodden over by mules and some grabbed by people in the crowd.  A six year old boy quickly stuffed a copy of Mark’s Gospel down his shirt and disappeared into the crowd. The boy’s father, Moh, was a pastry cook who had sent him to sell his cakes in the market.  His son thought he might be interested to read the book and took it on the long journey back over the mountain trail where it “began a quiet revolution in that remote mountain home.”

Five years later, Fraser, on another of his many journeys to share the gospel in mountain towns and villages and while en-route to another destination, arrived worn out at nightfall in a small town. In his diary he records that he spent the next day “mostly in Bible reading and prayer, alone on the mountains.  Felt I needed it. Asked God to give a blessing in the evening – my first visit to the place.”

Heading back into the town he saw a group of performers setting up in the market place.  As they hadn’t started their show yet, Fraser got out his accordion and starting singing.  After a crowd gathered he shared the gospel with them.  Despite some opposition, about a hundred people listened late into the evening.

James closed by asking if anyone wanted to know more about Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world.  A man stepped forward saying he wanted to follow Jesus.  He said he had come to believe that He was the Son of God.  Inviting James back to his shop the man showed him “a small, well-read copy of Mark’s gospel.”  It was Moh.  He told James how his son had come home with it five years earlier. Moh had read the little book many times and was “stirred by the story” and had longed to learn more.

Fraser nurtured this new disciple whose testimony aroused a lot of curiosity and not a little persecution and who went on to point many to Christ in that region.  He recalled later that he “never knew a braver man in his witness for Christ.”

Fraser became instrumental in a wonderful work of God among the Lisu people whom he dedicated his life to bringing the gospel to.  With no written language, Fraser created a script and together with others worked on translating the Bible into Lisu.  I spoke recently with a mission worker serving in Yunnan who told me that today even local authorities say the Lisu are a Christian people group.  The church there has taken root since it was planted through the efforts of Fraser and others in the early and mid 20th century.

Hebrews 4:12 says that “the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”  God says of His word in Jeremiah 23:29 that it is ‘like fire…and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces.” John Stott wrote that ‘The Word of God will prove its divine origin by its divine power.  Let’s let it loose in the world!”

Recently I gave a MicroSD card loaded with the New Testament, evangelistic messages and some songs to a man I’ve been witnessing to here in South East Asia.  A friend told me about a woman living in the Middle East who has given loads of Mp3 players containing the Bible to shut-in maids.  I also just heard about a nominally Muslim man in central Europe given a Bible to read by a friend.  His wife, more religious, didn’t want him to read it, believing it would contaminate them so she kept hiding it from him.

However, every time she hid it she’d read a bit from it. One day she read Matthew 5:27-30 where it is written, “I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt 5:28).  She was amazed and deeply struck that Jesus cares about women.  Her heart was opened to the gospel and she came to Christ.  She said she’d never heard of a God like that, who cares so much about women that He put this teaching in His holy book.  Now they are both committed Christians serving refugees.  Not a passage you would have expected to be key in someone coming to Jesus!

Whether it’s in print-form, through storytelling, audio, video or braille, we must continue to distribute and teach the Bible, so it can have its powerful impact on individuals and communities.  Bible translation is also still much needed with, according to Wycliffe Bible Translators, approximately 1.5 billion people without the Bible in their heart language. While there is a lot of needed and exciting work happening in world mission, none of it is more important than the communication of God’s Word by which people can discover Jesus and learn to live as His disciples.  What God says in the Bible can cause revolutions in hearts and homes, destroy the power of lies and deception, explain who we are and how to live and ultimately draw people to God Himself.  By all necessary means may we press on to ‘hold out the word of life’ (Philippians 2:16) so that more people may experience its divine, transforming power in this broken world.

Today’s guest blogger is Alex Hawke, a mission worker in southeast Asia. You can follow him on Twitter at @AlexGTHawke.

Posted on January 25th, 2016 by Tim

Heroes in mission: William Carey

William CareyWilliam Carey was a poor Northamptonshire shoemaker who is better known today as the ‘father of modern missions’.  Despite his humble origins he was an intelligent though uneducated man, who taught himself several languages, acquired skills as a craftsman, and became a schoolmaster and a Baptist minister by the time he was 25.

His studies lead to him becoming convinced that the mandate to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:20) was binding not merely on the original 11 but on all subsequent disciples of Jesus.  In support of this argument he published in 1792 his influential essay An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens, a powerful apologetic which challenged the received wisdom that God was perfectly capable of saving unbelievers without the help of his followers.  This discussion led to the foundation of a mission society which later became BMS World Mission.

Despite his bad health, low social standing, and rejection by the British authorities in Calcutta which forced him to move inland to live and work in a Danish colony, he was a determined plodder who achieved a great deal simply by working hard and keeping going.  Yet he was also a man of faith, and his maxim “Expect great things from God.  Attempt great things for God.” continues to be popular.

Many of the attitudes and values pioneered in the mission field by Carey have formed the bedrock of missionary practice over the last two centuries, such as:

  • Campaigning against cultural practices that harm people such as the caste system, suttee and child sacrifice;
  • Establishing educational establishments to help people out of poverty;
  • Language and culture acquisition as a means to sharing the gospel in a relevant way;
  • Bible translation and printing as a means of propagating the word of God;
  • Promoting agricultural development to improve people’s quality of life.

However, one practice of Carey’s which has remained largely unemulated by subsequent generations of mission workers is his willingness to support himself financially.  Carey worked for a living, earning money from planting indigo while also translating the Bible into a number of Asian languages for the first time.  The practice of mission workers taking employment to support themselves is only recently taking off again.

Hard-working and modest, one of Carey’s actions towards the end of his life indicates the quality of his character.  When disputes within the mission he had founded proved to be irreconcilable, rather than become dictatorial and contend with those who disagreed with him, he walked away, leaving the mission and continuing his work independently.

Among his great legacy to the world of missions, one that stands out is the words that he and some friends wrote together in the founding statement of their mission society.  They echo his wholehearted service for God and stand as a challenge to the values of mission workers to this day:

 “Let us give unreservedly to this glorious cause.  Let us never think that our time, or gifts, our strength, our families or even the clothes we wear are our own.”

Posted on December 1st, 2015 by Tim

Featured Ministry: Open Doors

hist_beetle_driveIn 1955, a young Dutchman went to a youth congress in communist Poland carrying hundreds of Christian tracts to distribute.  During his visit he discovered an isolated evangelical church struggling to retain its morale in the face of communist persecution.  The young man, now known throughout the world by the name ‘Brother Andrew’, embarked on a life travelling to difficult and dangerous places, smuggling Bibles to a needy church, inspired by the words of Revelation 3:2 –

Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die.

Driving his battered VW Beetle all over the Soviet bloc, Brother Andrew smuggled Bibles into communist eastern Europe.  But his exploits did not stop there.  He pioneered work into China, and then the Middle East and parts of central Africa.  Open Doors, the organisation he founded, has gone on to print Bibles, broadcast the Gospel by radio, coordinate international prayer ministry, keep the church informed about persecution  and become well-known for delivering practical support to the suffering church.  They also advocate on behalf of the oppressed, and their annual World Watch List is a must-have for Christians seeking information about how to pray for countries where Christians are oppressed.

60 years on from Brother Andrew’s first journey, Open Doors has become a worldwide agency working in over 60 countries through nearly 1000 workers – most of them national partners, because in the places they work people who are obviously foreign can’t always be effective.  Many of them work in challenging and dangerous places, training up new generations of church leaders and equipping the church to survive in the most hostile places on the planet.

All this is true to the adventurous spirit of Brother Andrew, who is famous for pointing out that there are no countries which are closed to the gospel.  There are of course countries from which it may be hard for Christians who preach the gospel to come back alive, but Brother Andrew has proved throughout his escapades in places like Palestine, Iraq, China and the Soviet Union, that God really can shut the eyes of the authorities and open doors.

Today tens of thousands of suffering Christians are supported and encouraged by Open Doors’ campaigns of aid and encouragement.  You can read more about these on their website, where you can find more details on how to pray for them and to join in the ministry.  As the UK CEO of Open Doors, Lisa Pearce said at a recent celebration of 60s of Open Doors’ ministry:

There isn’t a persecuted church and a free church – there is one church.

Or as St Paul put it: “If one part of the body suffers, every part suffers with it” (1 Corinthians 12:26).  Let’s be inspired by the example of Brother Andrew and his many colleagues to relieve the suffering and pray for the parts that suffer.

Posted on July 27th, 2015 by Tim

Heroes in mission: St Andrew

andrewSt Andrew may not be the most obvious choice for a missionary hero.  Eclipsed by Peter, his more famous brother, often left out of the Gang of Four (Jesus, James, Peter & John) but occasionally included, without significant participation in the gospels, he’s not the most obscure of the disciples, but he is certainly not prominent.

Yet what is unique about him is that every time we are told about him in the gospels, he is bringing people to Jesus.  First, and most significantly for church history, he brings his brother Peter (John 1:40-42), using a phrase of unparalleled faith so early in Jesus’ ministry: “We have found the Messiah”.  Then, it is Andrew who finds the boy who gave Jesus his lunch (John 6:8) – and we know what happened after that!  And after that Andrew is found introducing some Hellenistic Jews to Jesus (John 12:22).  Later on, tradition tells us, he preached the gospel in eastern Europe, including in what is now Ukraine and Russia, both of which honour him as their patron saint.  He is also credited with founding the Patriarchate of Byzantium.

What can we learn from Andrew?

  • As already stated, he is regularly bringing people to Jesus. In all that we do, we must not forget that this is a key objective, whether we do it directly ourselves or facilitate others doing it.
  • He does not appear to have sulked. As one of the first disciples to have followed Jesus, he might have had a claim to be part of the inner circle, but when he wasn’t, there is no evidence of him becoming upset, and he certainly didn’t walk out.  He just got on with the job.
  • He wasn’t afraid to go beyond the boundaries of his world. Although Greece, Thrace, Byzantium and Romania would have very different cultures from what Andrew would have been used to in Judea, they were at least part of the Roman Empire.  As he worked his way round the Black Sea and up the Dniester River as far as Kiev, and possibly even going as far as Novgorod, he would have been in the territory of ‘barbarians’.

Legend tells us that Andrew when he was crucified, he asked to be tied to a diagonal cross, as he was unworthy to die on the same sort of cross as Jesus died.  May we also be as passionate about serving, representing, and (if called to) dying for Jesus.

Posted on July 21st, 2014 by Tim

Heroes in mission: Robert Thomas

Robert Jermain Thomas (1839-1866)

Robert Jermain Thomas (1839-1866)

On the face of it, Robert Thomas has to be one of the world’s worst missionaries (sorry Jamie!).  He had hardly set foot in the country he was called to before he was martyred, while according to some accounts, pleading with his murderers to accept Christ.

Christianity had come to Korea, been accepted and then harshly suppressed a couple of times before Thomas, a Welsh Presbyterian serving in China felt the call to Korea, then a closed country, and embarked with a consignment of Bibles on the General Sherman, a heavily-armed US trading ship which was hoping to open up trade (by force, if necessary) with the isolationist Korean kingdom.  As the ship sailed up river towards Pyongyang, Thomas apparently threw Bibles ashore to the Koreans.

Accounts differ of what happened next, and who started shooting, but an incident flared up and the US ship was set on fire.  The fleeing crew were fired upon but Thomas stayed on board till the last minute, still throwing Bibles ashore.  Leaving at the last minute, he was killed as soon as he swam ashore, while offering a Bible to his killer.

A local Korean took the Bibles and used them for wallpaper.  Some years later other mission workers brought Christianity once again to Korea, and local believers discovered the wallpaper and flocked to the house to read it.  The church continued to grow steadily and in 1932 Korean Christians built a memorial church on the riverbank near where Thomas died, but it was later destroyed during the communist revolution and the site is now part of the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology.

Today it is not known how many Christians there are in North Korea, but they are the victims of the most anti-Christian government on the planet.  Most of the believers are in labour camps.  South Korea, on the other hand, has embraced Christianity.  Nearly a third of the population are Christians, the highest proportion in Asia, and they are one of the world’s leading missionary sending nations.

What can we learn from Robert Thomas?

  • He was keen to open new frontiers to the gospel.  Even though there were so many unevangelised Chinese, Thomas was led to go to a closed country where he knew the risk.  Today, when there are so many unevangelised countries in the 10/40 window and 41% of people who have not heard the gospel live in the thousands of neglected people groups, many British mission workers go to safe countries which already have strong indigenous churches. (You can read more about this in our blog Is it time to move on?)
  • He was zealous to propagate the gospel even when his own life was threatened.  In our risk-averse world, how many of us would even have gone to Korea, let alone offered a Bible to the soldier about to kill us?
  • There are dangers of being too closely involved with non-Christians.  If Thomas had not gone with armed traders, his reception may have been different.  We need to be wary of joining forces with those who do not share our aims and values.

Today, many thousands of South Korean pilgrims visit Wales to visit the birthplace of Robert Thomas in Rhayadr and the manse which was his childhood home.  The Christians in North Korea cannot, of course, even leave their prison camps leave alone their country.  Please pray for them.

Posted on March 17th, 2014 by Tim

St Patrick – the man who saved Civilisation?

How_the_Irish_Saved_Civilization

Today is St Patrick’s Day.  A visitor to this planet could be forgiven for thinking Patrick is the patron saint of green wigs and black beer, but the Irish national festivities bring colour to a celebration of the life and work of a highly influential missionary without whom the history of Europe might have been very different.

Little remains in verifiable fact about Patrick’s life.  He was born in late fourth century in Britain in the dying days of the Roman Empire, though the date and location are unclear. Even his given name is uncertain – Patrick may actually be a nickname given him by his captors – ‘posh kid’ – as in the Roman Empire a patricius was the opposite of a ‘pleb’, a commoner.  Nearly all of what we know about him comes from two documents which  are believed to have been written by him, one a ‘confession’ which was written towards the end of his life.

Despite this, modern mission workers can draw inspiration from this brave man who was so used by God:

Cross-cultural mission.  One legend is that Patrick used the shamrock as a means of explaining the Trinity, its three-lobed leaves representing the godhead with each lobe distinct but part of the whole.  In fact, the shamrock was already a sacred symbol of rebirth in Ireland, and the Morrigan was portrayed as a ‘trinity’ of goddesses in pagan Irish religion.  He picked up on features within Irish culture which would help him communicate his message.

The role of suffering in our lives.  When he was 16, Patrick was captured by pirates and taken to Ireland where he was sold as a slave.  He spent six years there before escaping and returning home.  He later claimed that this experience was critical to his conversion to Christianity.  Although he grew up in a Christian family, he had never personally accepted Christ.  He felt that through his capture was God disciplining him for his lack of faith, and as a result he became a Christian while working as a shepherd.

A sense of calling.  Having returned home, Patrick writes in his confession that he became a missionary in response to a vision calling him over to Ireland, rather like Paul’s Macedonian vision.

Perseverance in adversity.  As a foreigner, Patrick did not enjoy the protection of Irish kings like some other British missionaries did.  As such he knew beatings, imprisonment and theft.  He also was accused of financial impropriety by other Christians, possibly jealous of his success, and he also felt lonely.  He commented “How I would have loved to go to my country and my parents, and also to Gaul in order to visit the brethren and to see the face of the saints of my Lord!  God knows that I much desired it but I am bound by the Spirit.”

Patrick planted churches, baptised thousands of converts, and as bishop appointed church officials, established councils, founded convents and monasteries, and laid the foundation for Christianity to take root in Ireland.  He was also, notably, the first great celtic missionary, unlike others at the time who came out of a continental catholic background.  As such he was the direct ancestor of that great missionary movement which came out of Ireland to take the gospel to the Scots and from there to the pagan Anglo-Saxons.  And as we all know, the Irish missionaries didn’t stop there but went on to save the whole of Civilisation.

Posted on November 10th, 2013 by Tim

Heroes in mission: David Livingstone

Livingstone

David Livingstone (1813-1873)

On this day (10th November) in 1871 Henry Morton Stanley walked into a small African town, found an elderly white man and uttered the famous words “Dr Livingstone, I presume?”  Or at least he may have done – there is some suggestion that his story of the encounter was subsequently embellished.

200 years after his birth, the Scottish missionary doctor David Livingstone remains an icon to many despite much recent criticism of him as an ineffective evangelist or a lackey of colonialism.  It is true, that during his lifetime he did not make many converts, but neither do most mission workers, so that accusation does not really hold much water.  He did through his exploration pave the way for later colonialism, but that does not take account of the full picture.  In fact, Livingstone was missiologically 150 years ahead of his time in that he engaged with the socio-cultural environment rather than simply preaching the gospel.

As a mission worker wanting to take the gospel to the African interior, Livingstone became aware that the greatest challenge to the gospel was the slave trade, which broke up families, caused conflict between tribes, and impoverished many of the survivors.  But simply abolishing it would also cause poverty – as many of the African chiefs benefitted from it.  He concluded that trade with Europe would bring prosperity and stability in the aftermath of abolition, and create a more positive environment for the gospel to flourish.  This inspired him to take up exploration in a search for suitable sites for European settlers.

While Livingstone may be seen in the west as a precursor to colonialism, many Africans see him differently.  They love him for treating Africans with respect and courtesy, for not forcing his way into their territory with soldiers, for playing a huge role in the abolition of the slave trade and for bringing them Christianity.  Many millions of Africans owe their salvation directly to his pioneering ministry which contributed to the demise of the slave trade and gave significant impetus to Christian mission to the continent’s interior.

The most eloquent testimony to the respect that Africans have for him is that in the immediate post-colonial era, when names like Leopold, Victoria, Speke and Rhodes were being systematically obliterated from  the map of Africa, the name of Livingstone still remains commemorated by cities, mountains, waterfalls, parks, streets, schools and colleges.

Yet the quest to abolish slavery still continues.  It is frequently cited that there are more slaves today than at any time in history.  They include:

  • child domestic workers
  • forced labourers on construction sites
  • people trafficked into the sex trade
  • agricultural workers growing cash crops like cotton, coffee or cocoa for western consumption
  • miners of jewels and precious metals
  • waste reprocessors
  • manufacturers of beauty products
  • sweat shop workers

Many are kept in debt or in physical custody to prevent their escape.  Others choose not to escape because of threats made to their families.  Millions more may not technically be ‘slaves’ but are held in bondage and deprived of basic human rights by poor wages and lack of opportunity.

What can we do about it?  We can campaign or protest through organisations like Abolish Slavery,  Anti-Slavery International, Save the Children, Stop the Traffik, and the Fairtrade Foundation, but the simplest thing most of us can do is vote with our money.  Author and educator Anna Lappé commented:

Every time you spend money, you are casting a vote for the kind of world you want.

While ethical trading still has its issues, it has demonstrated the power of consumer choice.  As little as ten years ago, many of us had to search around for fairly-traded products or buy them from specialist retailers.  Now ethically-traded tea, coffee, sugar, chocolate and bananas are available in every supermarket.  This is now extending to clothing, staple foodstuffs, gold and even mobile phones.  We now need to be asking our suppliers ‘Where did this come from? Who made it?  Why isn’t it Fairtrade certified?’

Many of us Western consumers may find it hard to afford the premium on such products, but despite our financial challenges we are probably still significantly wealthier than the people who produced them.  It is now 200 years since David Livingstone was born, and 80 years since the UK officially abolished slavery, but every time we shop we still need to be asking ourselves

How might I be enslaving someone today?

You can find out by clicking this link how many slaves work for you.