reflections on world mission, pt (ii)

Taught by Lindsay Brown at UCCF South Team Days, March 2009.

11 areas worthy of consideration as we think of global mission:

1. The growth of the church.
There is no parallel with the last 20 years, apart from the early church.  In 1989 there were 100 IFES movements, with 270,000 students; now there are over 150 movements, with half a million students involved.  Key factors:

• The break up of communism and opening up of countries.  The number of baptist churches in Russia has quadrupled.  Nepal 1954 The first church in Nepal started in 1954; by 1989 the number of churches had risen to 1000 with 800,000 believers!  Key factors in this have been imprisoning of pastors, rise of charismatic movement.  It’s God’s time for Nepal!  It’s the same in Algeria and Mauritania; in Tunisia there were 25 believers in 2000, and around 4-500 today.  An official government statement 3 months ago put the number of believers in China at 120 million; there are probably 80 million evangelicals in that country alone.
• Increasing number of non-western missionaries.
• Pockets of sensational growth which were previously very closed; but at the same time increasing restrictions.
• Emergence of hostile new atheism.  9/11 was a wake up call; religion wasn’t just wrong, it was evil.

reflections on world mission, pt (i)

Taught by Lindsay Brown at UCCF South Team Days, March 09.

Why Bother With Mission?
Some say, “it’s not for me”.  Michael Griffiths in his book ‘Cinderella With Amnesia’ says that engagement with global mission is the Cinderella of the Christian culture – it’s been forgotten about.  Why should I be bothered?

Firstly let’s give a definition of mission:

Mission = the proclamation and demonstration of the truth, wonder, and power of the gospel by word and deed.

So mission involves:

• proclamation and demonstration.

Like the two wings of a bird, like the two legs of scissors, are justice and justification.

- John Stott

• the truth of the gospel, ie the defensibility of it.  There is exhaustive/sufficient knowledge for salvation

• the wonder of the gospel: what keeps people going for 30 years is not just that the gospel is true, but that it is wonderful.  It is a subjective experience as well as cerebral.

Secondly, let’s tackle 3 common reasons, among students, not to engage with cross cultural mission.

word and image pt (ii)

Part 2 of 2.  Taught by Ann Brown, at UCCF South Team Days March 09.

In the Acts 17 account of Mars Hill, Paul gives us a brilliant example of how to engage with the surrounding culture:
- He was greatly distressed by it
- He studied their culture and uses a cultural cue v23 (possibly a classical sculpture) to begin his address
- He reinforces his argument by quoting from the Stoic philosopher Aratus, v28
- He demonstrates the inadequacy of the Athenians’ polytheistic worldview – focuses on the point of tension and highlights their inconsistency.

This is what Francis Schaeffer called “taking the roof off someone’s argument”.  Every non-Christian protects themselves from the reality of life and the gospel by building a roof over themselves.  It is helpful to very gently prise the roof off, by finding the inconsistencies.  Visual art & apologetics are a brilliant bridge builder in this.

4 different ways to use visual art as such a bridge builder:

how to reach postmodern pluralists (2): preach the whole Scriptures

From ‘The Gagging of God’ by Don Carson (Apollos), Chapter 12: On Heralding the Gospel in a Pluralistic Culture.  

How do we present the gospel as we face the perils of postmodernism?

2. Preach the whole Scriptures

 

In our evangelism we must start further back and nail down the turning points in redemptive history.

 

(i) The primacy of biblical theology

Many evangelistic tools take a systematic theological approach, eg asking the following questions: What is God like?  What is sin?  What is sin’s solution?  “There is nothing intrinsically wrong with this pattern, as long as most of the people to whom it is presented have already bought into the Judean-Christian heritage”, or have some knowledge of the creation-fall-redemption-glory pattern.  But if we present this pattern to someone who is biblically illiterate, or have been influenced by a form of New-Age, they may hear something completely different.  Take the classic line “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.”  This is comforting to hear, but consider the potential confusion: which God do you mean?   What does it mean for him to love me? Why is this a surprise – I’m lovable anyway, aren’t I?  What is this wonderful life – wonderful kids/sex/finance/fun – can I define the terms?

This is evident in communication with the postmodern, biblically illiterate, young generation.  This was the conversation of a Christian trying to communicate with an undergraduate who had come along to a Christian meeting out of mild curiosity to find out what Christianity is:

 

“I told him Jesus was the solution to his problem.  He wondered, ‘What problem?’  I told him Jesus could forgive his sins.  He wondered, ‘Why is that necessary?’  I told him he could escape the fear of death.  He told me that he never really thinks about death.  He wasn’t trying to be difficult.  He was one of the most sincere students I’ve ever met.”

who should evangelise?

A helpful article by Mark Dever, taken from ‘The Gospel and Personal Evangelism’ (Crossway 2007).  

 

 

Many “ordinary” Christians feel scared or ill-equipped in evangelism, and often the “professional” clergy folk give the impression – intentionally or unintentionally – that they’re the only ones who can do it.  Should we leave evangelism up to the extroverts and the professionals?

No – it’s for all Christians!  What Scripture says on the subject:

the original jesus

‘The Original Jesus, or How the New Testament bears witness to him’

A Christological Survey & Summary of the New Testament, taught by John Stott at The London Lectures in Contemporary Christianity, 2000

Regardless of whatever people may think of him, Jesus of Nazareth has been the dominant figure in Western culture for almost 20 centuries. 3 particular ways we can notice his dominance:

(i) He is the centre of human history.  One third of world claims to be Christian, split history into BC/AD

(ii) He is the focus of Scripture.  Jerome: “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ, because the Scriptures are full of Christ.”

(iii) He is the heart of mission.  Why do Christians cross continents and cultures as missionaries?  To commend a person, Jesus Christ.

In this lecture, Stott considers the New Testament evidence for the Original Jesus, in general, except for the book of Revelation which he considers in a later lecture.  He summarises each New Testament book and in particular considers their teaching on Jesus Christ.  He proposes that the lecture series is appropriately called ‘The Incomparable Christ’, for there is nobody – past, present, or future – like Jesus. 

calvin’s institutes: book 1, chapter 5

 

Ch 5: Knowledge of God – in creation and governance of the world.

(follows from previous post)

 

True blessedness is found in knowing God.  So, that none may be excluded, God has been pleased “to daily place himself in our view, that we cannot open our eyes without being compelled to behold him.”

“His essence indeed is incomprehensible, utterly transcending all human thought; but on each of his works his glory is engraven in characters so bright, distinct, and illustrious that none, however dull & illiterate, can plead ignorance as their excuse.”  (see Romans 1:20).  The heavens and the earth (and the human body, as a “miniature world” in this respect) give innumerable proofs for even “the most illiterate peasant”, indeed for anyone with the gift of sight!  

But if, in order to apprehend God, we need not look further than even our own human bodies, “what excuse can there be for the sloth of any man who will not take the trouble of descending into himself that he may find him?”

an introduction to apologetics (pt 1)

From Chris Sinkinson, speaking at UCCF Joint South Team Days, April 2008.  

 

1. What is Apologetics?

Apologia = ‘a word back’.  In 1 Peter 3:15, and Acts 10:3-5.  Was used in a legal context, in reference to giving a defence.  

In evangelism, are we just about winning people’s hearts?  Some argue this, and say apologetics is too intellectual.  But often in Scripture, the heart = the thinking part of us (when used in context such as “heart & soul & strength”).  So we are about winning hearts, but that means their thinking!

2 Corinthians 10:3-5.  This and 1 Peter show the two sides of apologetics: negative & positive; defence & offence.  Apologetics = “the task of commending Christianity to thinking people as needed truth”. – Jim Packer

 

2. Different Methods of Apologetics

 

This is an issue that is divisive among evangelicals, especially in the US.