Perspectives- Tad de Bordenave

Tad de Bordenave, the Director of Anglican Frontier Missions, was small as a kid and nicknamed "Tadpole," which stuck. He addressed the Perspectives topic of "The Task Remaining," which he expanded to "The Scandal of the Task Remaining," which he thought was more appropriate due to the clear potential to reach all people groups with the gospel but lack of mobilization. Here are a few thoughts that Tad shared on why the task remains, how to recover the vision, and the tools that are available:

• Many Christians never go into missions because they ask the wrong questions. The point is "where is the greatest need," not "where am I called." How could you be called to a people group you have never heard of?
• Some don't sense the need because there are many missions efforts already. But over 70% of evangelical missionaries work within groups that are already predominantly Christian.
• There are many reasons to delay, from more pressing needs that take precedence at home (once we fix the floor over there we'll go), to the heresies at home (we need to get our house in order first), to the messiness of missions (we just want to get it right, so we'll keep training). These will never be resolved; at some point you just need to invest.
• We can regain the vision by recognizing the call of the church, which is to be God's witnesses to the ends of the earth. The Bible is clear on this. God's glory is being usurped by idols.
• Tad brought up justification without distinction, the idea that we as Americans have done nothing to deserve grace, yet we have all the toys (money and stuff). Why do 22 million people in Yemen live without Christ? Because we would rather enjoy our toys than accept God's call to serve.

To start to get involved, Tad recommended living virtually in a local foreign community, learning all you can about a people group, meeting them, hanging out with them, and praying for them. A two-year commitment will change you. Tad closed by narrating amazing stories of breakthrough in the Aceh of Indonesia, the Qashqa'i of Iran, and the Marwari of India, each unique demonstrations of how Christ can overcome what seem to to be insurmountable barriers.

Perspectives- Karen Michener

Karen Michener of the US Center for World Mission taught us about Eras of Mission History and Pioneers of the World Christian Movement, an essential history to understand the progress that has been made and the task remaining. She pointed out the most important point of Perspectives, a quote by an Indian evangelist: "Do not bring us the gospel as a potted plant. Bring us the seed of the gospel and plant it in our soil." Several key concepts were explored:

• Modality (local church, inward focused, stability) vs. Sodality (missions focus, risk tolerant to achieve big goals) in missions efforts. Both are necessary for healthy churches.
• Through the centuries, people groups have heard the gospel by coming to Christ-followers and by apostles going to the unreached, both voluntarily and involuntarily, all of which God has used for His glory.
• The 1st Era of Missions History was led by William Carey, with Europe as the primary sending region, and was focused on the coastlands with a church and kingdom mission.
• The 2nd Era of Missions History was led by Hudson Taylor, with America as the primary sending region, focused on inland areas with a church mission.
• The 3rd Era of Missions History was led by Cameron Townsend and Donald McGavran, with the non-west as the primary sending region and a focus on unreached people groups and a recover of the kingdom mission.
• The E-Scale rates evangelization of non-Christians from similar through very different cultures. E1 (same culture) is the most powerful because it spreads quickly and easily, though E2 and E3 are the highest priority strategic efforts because they can spark new movements.
• Missions efforts should go through the following phases: Pioneer, Parent, Partner, and Participant. As local churches gain momentum, the expat church planters should empower local leaders and step back.

Karen reminded us not to be people blind, a term for the tendency to lump local people groups rather than acknowledging the differences. She recommended "From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya" by Tucker to learn more about missions history and http://www.partnersfortransformation.net/ to get involved.

Perspectives- Fran Patt

We opened this session hearing from Ravi Zacharias on Adonirum Judson, which is worth a listen (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0RRU67DKwc). Fran Patt of the US Center for World Mission is also a professor of history at Penn State. He broadened our historical understanding speaking on "The Expansion of the World Christian Movement." To build on this base, he recommended Fox's Book of Martyrs to dive deeper into what passion for Christ looks like. Here are some key points:

• Pax Romana, Roman Peace, was the atmosphere in the most powerful empire in the world, a diverse, pluralistic, assimilating world, with a dominant Latin presence. Romans were excellent engineers, builders, and organizers, and total control freaks. Into this world, Paul and Barnabus planted house churches.
• The first century church saw tremendous growth through the Roman empire and was assimilated into the culture, to the point that Christianity became associated with Rome. The gospel became "Learn Latin, become Roman, then be baptized and saved." Constantine organized the church, efficiently chopping neighborhoods into diocese that had to go to specific churches.
• In the 3rd and 4th centuries the west was overrun by Germannic tribes the east became the Byzantine Empire, and the Roman church became organized in a power structure to match the government. There was no accountability because lives were driven by power, not humility.
• Patrick was an apostle to the Celts, establishing a totally different approach to Christian life, focused on contextual mission to other cultures,and strong lay leadership, as opposed to the Roman ethno-centric order with a strong clergy-laity dichotomy. Patrick baptized over 100,000 Irish.
• The Roman model of evangelism was contrasted with the Celtic model, both of which are important and appropriate for different circumstances. Roman: present message, invite decision, welcome them into your church and culture. Celtic: bring people into fellowship in your community, engage in conversation of prayer and worship, in time they discover they believe what you do and you invite them to commit to it.
• Logic works when someone agrees with you (i.e. intraculturally) and is cheaper and easier than the Celtic model, though not as relevant in cross-cultural ministry.
• After no Christian missionaries went to Arabia for six centuries, Muhammad proclaimed that God was speaking through him. The task of his followers is to spread submission to God to all the ends of the earth. Moslems originally thought they were converting to another kind or denomination of Christianity.
• Then for over 250 years, "Christians" killed Moslems in the name of Jesus, and the cross came to represent this atrocity.
• Ramon Llull tried another approach, and went to North Africa in his mid-60's, preached and was deported (the aged were revered, so they didn't kill him). He spread the word through Europe to teach Arabic to reach the Middle East and North Africa, then returned to Algeria, only to be stoned. 650 years later in Algeria, a man saw a dream of a man being stoned in a village that looked like his. After it recurred for several nights, he told his wife and neighbors, and eventually found out that all 700 in the village had the same dream. Then Jesus appeared to them in dreams and many came to know Him and trust Him.

Fran left us with two questions: are we here to dominate the world or live the life of Christ, oftentimes suffering the same way to demonstrate His love? Is victory or suffering our motif? This session also made me think a lot about Catholicism in the cultural context, theology aside. Catholics carry on the traditions and cultural style of Roman worshipers. The fact that the Catholic style of worship is still comfortable for many should not be criticized as wrong, nor should any traditions and rituals that honor God be shunned. Whatever brings people closer to God in a righteous way is good. However, it is similarly wrong to push traditions that are not relevant to upcoming generations on them as the only way to worship. By insisting that Catholic traditions, or American Protestant styles for that matter, are the correct way to honor God, we copy the Pharisees, those most criticized by Jesus. We should approach our American neighbors with the same cultural awareness, bringing the gospel in the most accessible way.

Perspectives- Bruce Koch

This session started with a screening of "Ee-taow" a pretty remarkable documentary of missions to Papua New Guinea. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSBLLuzqfBQ&feature=related (part 1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyOBPvZSjtE&feature=related (part 2)) Part 2 at 3:45 is what this is all about.

Bruce Koch is a co-editor of the Perspectives course and part of the staff. He took us through "Unleashing the Gospel," a lesson on how the gospel spreads across cultures and people groups, with a focus on Acts 15:19- that the early church deliberately decided that people are free to follow Christ in their own cultures.

• The Old Covenant required sacrifices every year, which still didn't relieve the conscience. The New Covenant is once for all, enabling us to freely come to God. The Old Covenant dealt with external issues (cleansing, rituals, behaviors), which is why it was hard to accept that outsiders were coming in to enjoy what they had come to know for thousands of years.
• The term "Christian" was first applied to Gentile believers as a derogatory term.
• Evangelicals should not try to "convert people" as Jews tried to convert people to their religion and culture, but see people come to know Christ and the freedom He brings.
• In Peter's encounter with Cornelius, the Roman soldier (Acts 10), Peter is the one that is converted. The Gentiles come to Christ and receive the Holy Spirit, which converts Peter's mindset to that of a multi-cultural missionary rather than an ethnocentric Messianic Jew.
• Christianity is not a religion because there are no rules. It is wrong for some to eat meat sacrificed to idols and ok for others. There are guidelines not to indulge in sin and to have to conform to some leadership, but the whole body is diverse in the way it follows Christ. It is God that purifies men's hearts, not our teaching or conformity to the practice of our religion.
• We need to be slow to judge- "do not call anything impure or unclean that I have made clean." God can change traditional cultural practices to bring Him glory.
• People do not need to become "Christians" as we use the term, which has negative connotations of loose morals and greed to many Middle-Easterners.
• It is the believer's responsibility to become like another culture to get past communication barriers, and allow an audience to remain like their cultural norms in their belief and obedience to Christ. Following Christ is not about how you dress, what songs you sing, and how you worship.

This session closed with a cross-cultural worship experience where we learned some Arabic words and prayed as Middle-Eastern Christians might. It solidified that Western worship styles are no better than those of other cultures, but that all worship in Spirit and in Truth brings God glory.

Perspectives- Jim Rhodes

Jim Rhodes is a 30-year Campus Crusades missionary that has planted ministries in the USSR, Japan, Africa, and most recently the Middle East. His introduction to Middle Eastern ministry came when his friend convinced him to join him on a trip to Cairo in the mid-1990's, dropped him in the middle of a crowded plaza and took a taxi to take care of some things. The crowd turned and shouted "American!" and though he thought this would be the end, he really just had to work his way through the crowd buying trinkets and sharing personal space. He said that though it was a new strange place, he felt at home like never before, and his ministry has flourished there. The topic was "Mandate for the Nations," which dug into the Great Commission and related commands. We walked through the history of Judaism and how the These points struck me:

• Every kingdom has a king, so Christianity is not a democracy.
• Al Qaeda is the modern-day Ninevah, where Jonah tried not to go. What is our response for today's "evil empires?" Are we praying for those people?
• God's heart is to bless and save, ours is to curse and destroy.
• The Israelites were under 700 years of military rule, 400 of which God was quiet, and into this world Jesus came.
• To protect their core tenets, Jews were ethnocentric (our culture is best), legalistic (built 6,000 hedge-laws around the 613 laws of Moses to protect against serious infractions), and had a fortress mentality (protect blessing by keeping others out).
• Accountability, a popular Christian discipline, can protect against sins but does not change the heart.
• Street interviews have revealed that Christians are perceived to be against lots of things, which is exactly like the Pharisees of Jesus' time. Christ was against the Pharisees most of all.
• Matthew (a tax collector that took Jews' money to pay Rome, i.e. a traitor) is used to proclaim the Messiah to the Jews. He explains that Jesus has a clear blood line to Abraham and David, but also has blood of other nations mixed in. Therefore, He is the King of the Nations.
• Jews of His time were not as mad about His claim to be the Messiah, but that Gentiles were in God's favor. The Samaritan woman, a line descended from mixed-blood Jews, was the first that Jesus told that He was the Messiah.
• In Mark 4, Jesus goes across a stormy lake where the disciples nearly drown to a really bad town where the disciples are attacked by a demon-possessed lunatic. Jesus heals the guy, then they turn around and go back. This one guy was important enough to Jesus for the whole trip.
• If people really know who Jesus is, they will want to follow Him. But so few know Him.

Jim closed with two points. First, if you are going to walk with Jesus, you have to go with Him, to seek and save what is lost. We were created to have a place in the Kingdom, we just have to find out what it is. Second, it is impossible to say that the Spirit indwells you and not be involved in evangelization. We are blessed to bless others. The question is how we will follow Him.

Perspectives- Scott Simmons

This week we heard from Scott Simmons, Assistant Pastor at Chapelgate Presbyterian Church in Marriottsville (http://www.chapelgate.org/), on "Your Kingdom Come," which bridged the Old and New Testaments. This quote kicked off the teaching:

"North American evangelicals tend to read the Bible through an individualistic and spiritualized lens. Built into that lens is the idea that future-individual-salvation of the soul is the center of Christianity. The lens causes many evangelicals to interpret all else in relation to this center... As long as this lens is in place, much of the Biblical holistic gospel will either be spiritualized, rejected or considered an appendix to the gospel."

• The gospel is both individual and global. Both the individual blessings of justification by faith, forgiveness of sins, and eternal life and the global blessings of reconciliation with God, reclaim of creation, and social justice are immensely important.
• Jesus proclaimed the radical idea that salvation has nothing to do with race and nationality but just faith, which drove His contemporaries nuts.
• The Old Testament scripture foretold the coming Christ (Isaiah 61), but when Christ preaches on this (Luke 4), He makes it clear that only part of the prophecy was fulfilled at that point. It had become, and remains today, "the favorable year of the Lord," though when Christ returns it will be "the day of vengeance of our God."
• Similar to D-Day (when the war turned to an inevitable win for the Allies), the victory for the Kingdom has already been won, but VE-Day (when the soldiers came home victorious) is not yet here. We need to continue fighting for the Kingdom until there is a witness in all people groups.
• The Lord's Prayer acknowledges that God's name is hallowed too irregularly, his Kingdom has come too little, His will is done too infrequently, and that God can change this situation. Our prayer, as a rebellion against the status quo, should reflect this.

The session closed with this clip: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJtSWqedMK4).