Volunteer Teams

In class the other day a group did a presentation on volunteer teams.  Like most things there are both pros and cons to volunteer teams.  It's cool that those who participate in volunteer teams get an experience in a new culture and can free the missionary to build relationships when they would normally be too busy to do so.  But sometimes I think we go in as volunteer teams with this mentality that we are doing something really great and really significant.  Don't get me wrong, I think volunteer teams can definitely have and impact on the people they serve, but I think it's important to realize that, in most cases, the organization with which we partner could carry on the activities without us; we aren't really needed.  The real impact is made through the long-term commitment of permanent missionaries who spend months and years building relationships and making disciples.  Being on a volunteer team is great.  But a lot of it is about the work God is doing in us rather than the work we do as a volunteer.

God Doesn't Belong in a Box

Sometimes we underestimate the power of the Holy Spirit.  When we plant churches we often believe that it will be a while before they can stand on their own and we put practices into place which sometimes make them dependent on the church or person who founded them.  We think they can't handle their own money or run their own programs.  But in doing this we are making church planting about our doing and underestimating the power of the Holy Spirit.

I think a lot of times we put God in a box.  We are certain that we can't accomplish the things we think He might be calling us to, and we are right.  We can't accomplish them.  But I think we also forget that we are never asked to accomplish them.  We are asked to follow Christ and let Him work through us.

It makes me think of the story of Esther.  Mordecai's response to her when she is faced with a decision that may cost her life is, "For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish."  God's plan will be carried out.  It could be by someone else, but it will happen.  The question isn't whether we can do it, the question is whether we will choose to follow God and allow Him to use us.

Learning

School is a good thing.  We learn a lot of things by studying and listening to the experiences of others, but there are some things we can only learn from experience.  When we go into our fields, wherever they may be, we have to remember that school doesn't teach us everything.  We have to be willing to sometimes put our education aside and accept that we know little about what we are doing and learn as we go, because education is not limited to what we learn in an institution.  And sometimes it also involves unlearning things we thought we knew.  Learning is something we will do all of our lives, and sometimes, it comes from the most unexpected of teachers.

The Gospel isn't Always Warm and Fuzzy

I think a lot of times we want to make the Gospel out to be warm and fuzzy all the time.  We like to think that we worship this God who wants life for us to be as easy as possible.  One of my favorites is when people take verses in the Bible out of context to make themselves feel better when things are difficult.

On of my favorites is Jeremiah 29:11 which says, "'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'"  This verse is often used as "proof" that God wants great things for us that don't involve too much suffering.  It's funny, though, because this verse was written to a people who died.  It wasn't written to the individuals as much as it was to the entire people, which, by the way, is kind of a foreign concept to us with our individualistic, western thinking that sometimes clouds our ability to really see what God is saying because it involves setting aside our individualistic mindsets, but we'll save that for another time.

But the reality is that the Gospel isn't always warm and fuzzy.  It's messy.  It involves suffering.  It always costs something, and sometimes everything.  And in our misconceptions of what the Gospel is we've done a lot of people a great injustice because they aren't informed of how difficult a life for Christ really is.  They think that having Christ means they will no longer suffer, they will have luxuries, they will be healthy and successful.  However, many times the opposite is quite true.  Being a disciple of Christ isn't easy.

Lifestyle Evangelism Vs. Preaching

A common debate currently has to do with lifestyle evangelism versus preaching the Gospel.  Some believe that the best way to evangelize is to live out the Gospel through lives of service and that words aren't really needed.  Others believe in telling the Gospel to all, but that telling them is enough.  Personally, I believe that both are needed; I don't think it's really a question of which one is better.  Escobar puts it nicely when he writes, "I believe that providing relief and service cannot be divorced from evangelism, because the world needs both their presence and their proclamation.  The test of missionary faithfulness to Jesus will not only be the practice of certain virtues and the embodiment of certain attitudes but also the proclamation of the name that makes them possible" (151).  Preaching the Gospel without also serving the people is not enough, nor is it enough to serve without proclaiming the name of Jesus.

The Gospel, Social Structures, and Responsibility

The Gospel not only changes people, but it also influences social structures.  Time and time again the Bible tells stories of those whose lives were transformed by Christ and, because of this, their families were changed.  When the Gospel touches a person so deeply, every relationship he or she has is affected.  When we believe deeply in the Gospel and truly let it transform us, we then begin to transform social structures and feel convicted to do something about unjust things.

In Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller writes, "But the trouble with deep belief is that is costs something.  And there is something inside me, some selfish beast of a subtle thing that doesn't like the truth at all because it carries responsibility, and if I actually believe these things then I have to do something about them."  Being transformed by the Gospel does cost something.  Many stories of transformed people are followed by stories of sacrifice, but when we are truly transformed, when we possess this kind of deep belief, we become convicted to do something bigger than us.

Insights from Others

It used to be that missionaries came from the West to reach other parts of the world.  These other parts of the world were often less educated not only on the Gospel, but sometimes also in subjects like math, science, and literacy.  However, this has changed.  Many other parts of the world are now very educated in both school and the Gospel.  We are seeing insights from those in non-western cultures such as Africa, Latin America, Asia, and many other areas.  

Sometimes I think we as westerners think we know it all.  We still see ourselves as the ones who spread the Gospel and share our insights, not the ones who listen to the insights from other cultures and have the Gospel brought to us.  It's quite unfortunate because there's a lot we could learn from other cultures.

Contextualization

As a social work major I've studied a lot about the culture of poverty.  It's not something we often think of as a culture.  We think of cultures as being directly related to race or geographical location, but the reality is that cultures have subcultures, and these subcultures are often very different from what we would normally think of as a culture.

So when we talk about contextualizing the Gospel it is also important to remember cultures like poverty. Escobar writes, "Some aspects of Pentecostal religious life and theological emphasis coincide with characteristics of the culture of poverty, such as an oral liturgy, narrative theology, uninhibited emotionalism, maximum participation in prayer, worship, dreams, and visions, and an intense search for community and belonging" (115).  I think one of the most beautiful things about the Gospel is its ability to be contextualized and to fit into every culture through different expressions, but we sometimes rob cultures of seeing this beauty when we limit contextualization.

Incarnational Ministry

In The New Global Mission, Samuel Escobar writes, 

If Jesus' incarnational pattern is taken seriously by missionaries today within the social and structural realities of our time and space, mission will not be done from a platform of power and privilege, nor will the gospel be watered down to make it palatable to the rich and powerful (107).

This goes along with the idea of John 1:14.  We sometimes forget that what makes Jesus' ministry so unique is the incarnational aspect and His willingness to dwell among us.  Living a life for Jesus means living a life of service and compassion.  To water down the gospel and allow the rich and powerful to believe that a lifestyle of oppression and greed is okay is doing them a great injustice.

John 1:14

One of my favorite verses from the Bible is John 1:14 which says, "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us."  I love it because it tells us so much about who God is and who we should be.  God could have done anything He wanted.  He could have performed all the miracles and spoke to us all from Heaven to tell us who He is, but He didn't.  He chose to become man and come to us, living among us in the pain and suffering and brokenness of this world.

I want to have this same practice with the people I serve.  It is easy to preach to others surrounded by luxuries and the familiar comforts of our own culture and ideas, but true service involves living in the midst of others and dwelling among them.

Mountaintops and Numbers

In chapter 5 of The New Global Mission by Samuel Escobar writes about the tendency for missions to become about human enterprise defined by numbers.  It made me think about my friend who went on a missions trip to a poor country this past summer where the main focus was an event they were holding hoping to have a large number of people give their lives to Christ on that one night.  It seemed crazy to me to think that people would really think this is effective.  It's easy to jump on the bandwagon and make a decision on a mountaintop experience when everyone else is doing it, but the real test of faith and commitment to Christ comes in the daily choice to die to ourselves and live in Him when the costs are high and the rewards seem minimal.  It would be interesting to see how many of those people who made decisions on that night are still living out their faith today.  Even if they truly wanted to it would be difficult with no guidance or direction of how to do so.

Pleasure and Money

I've been on several missions trips to the heart of Appalachia and I live in a part of Ohio that, although it is by far not the poorest part of Appalachia, is still considered Appalachia and knows poverty and need.  Both on missions trips as well as in my own town I have noticed some interesting things about people and the things they value.

It's quite often that I've witnessed children go to bed hungry and go without adequate clothing for the weather, families lack running water or proper indoor plumbing, yet they have an Xbox, Wii, or other console, an iPhone, flat screen TVs, and other very expensive electronics.

Escobar writes,

The media portrays this hedonistic was of life and through, and propagates it across the globe.  Incitement to expensive pleasure fills the screens of TV sets in the poor societies, and young people especially crave for the symbols and instruments of a sophisticated, hedonistic West while lacking some of the basic necessities of life such as adequate housing and running water (75).

It seems that the influence of the media has turned Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs upside down and led many to believe that pleasure and expensive items go hand-in-hand.  I think we sometimes forget that this happens in our own backyards among our neighbors.

Cultural Lenses and Worldviews

I wish we talked more about the importance of understanding the cultural lenses through which we view what Christianity should look like in church.  It's something we learn a lot about in school, but something that is rarely spoken about in church, at least not in any church I've ever been to.  In Samuel Escobar's The New Global Mission, Escobar quotes a section from the Lausanne Covenant which says,

Missions have all too frequently exported with the Gospel and alien culture and churches have sometimes been in bondage to culture rather than to the Scripture.  Christ's evangelists must humbly seek to empty themselves of all but their personal authenticity in order to become the servants of others, and churches must seek to transform and enrich the culture, all for the glory of God (par. 10).

I've participated in many conversations over the last three years that have had to do with the importance of recognizing my western lens through which I view the world and the importance of letting go of my own assumptions that I may attach to Christianity and the Gospel that may actually have nothing to do with either. And I always seem to get frustrated when I go into churches or hear others talking about what church should be like and their lists contain cultural practices rather than Biblical ones.  But maybe the problem is that the conversations about such issues remain among the leaders and never quite make it down to the average lay person.

So what if this changed?  What if we actually started educating our congregations on cultural lenses and worldviews and how these things play into how we view the Gospel?