Pray for Zimbabwe Tomorrow
April 17, 2008
Tomorrow is the International Day of Prayer for Zimbabwe. The crisis there is grow worse by the day. Violence is escalating and it appears China is trying to influence the region. Of note:
Incidents of Violence and Intimidation
- The number of land grabs has increased to 120. Workers on the occupied farms have been severely beaten, chased off the lands and told that if they return they would be killed. The crops, so desperately needed by the country, are not being harvested and sheep, cattle and chickens are being slain indiscriminately. Police intervention, when called for, is not all that forthcoming. Read more
Pray for Afghanistan
February 28, 2008
I wish I could go into more detail right now, but there is a great need to pray for those helping to rebuild this country.
Lessons From Spain: Redefining Success
February 19, 2008
I’m finally feeling like I am over this Spanish Flu bug. So I have another Lesson from Spain. We have to redefine success.
One of the things that I heard while sitting around the coffee/cola table with these missionaries is that we have to understand that how success is viewed needs to be redefined. When these missionaries from Western Europe look around at their work, they are not seeing 10,000 churches a month being planted like those in Asia. They are seeing 2-3 people per year coming into a relationship with Christ. Do you know how disheartening that is to tell people back home? When you come home on furlough and people ask how many churches were planted or how many people came to Christ this past year, or something like that, and you know you have worked your hardest, been obedient to God and yet you are not seeing the astounding numbers or the expected numbers that other missionaries are seeing in in other parts of the world, there is part of you that feels like you are a failure. That is because we in the States are intrigued and in love with numbers as the defining aspect of success. Sadly, if that was the case, Jesus and Paul could be described as failures.
The reality is that Western Europe needs people who are willing to do the hard work of preparing the soil. They need people to understand that in a land where the gospel seed has not been planted, you can’t reap huge numbers. You cannot and will not for some time see huge explosions of churches and hundreds of thousands of people being saved - except for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit which can and does happen. The soil hasn’t been freed of the rocks and thorns and hard ground.
Sadly, in a world where success is defined by largeness and not obedience, many don’t really understand the context in which those wonderful men and women who spend their lives in Western Europe are working. People in the states don’t see “success”, and the missionaries struggle themselves to feel like they are accomplishing God’s work.
So church in America, we need to rethink success. Because it’s become this way here.
Let me share a note from Bob Roberts new book, Multiplying Churches (page 25):
I have a vision and a dream. Let’s start a thousand churches over the next ten years, each one running a minimum of two thousand members, and in just ten years we will turn America upside down with the gospel! That would work, right? Wrong - that scenario just happened over the past ten years, and there are fewer people in the church today than ever before…Thom Rainer, author and columnist, wrote:
I am by nature an optimist. I have seen the hand of God too often in my life to live in a state of despair and defeatism. However, the state of evangelism in the American Church is such that I do have my moments when I wonder if the Church is headed down the path of many European congregations: decline and death. The facts of a 2004 research project I led are sobering.
In Delaware, we are seeing much of the same responses as those in Western Europe. I was having a discussion last week with our state Church Multiplication missionary, and he noted to me that Delaware was more like the Northeast than Maryland. Delaware takes time to be able to engage people in a discussion about them considering Christ - at least a discussion where they will continue to talk with you and not just ignore you after the conversation. The work is hard and success is seen in small ways, not large numbers. We don’t have 1000’s coming to Christ every year. People are not open to talking about the gospel. People don’t have a lot of interest in Christianity. It’s ok if you embrace it, but they have other issues to worry about other than the church.
We are going to have to wake up to the post-Christendom that is moving in on the US, and to transition our thoughts and feelings about the largeness of Christianity and the rules of success.
At our church, we use this measure for determining success: Have a I made another person’s life better today. Did the person I met on the street or in the restaurant or wherever, is their life better after I met them?
What is success to you? You define success by what you measure…
Lessons from Spain: Evangelism
February 13, 2008
I want to do a few posts, now that I am getting back to some degree of health, about what I learned by spending a week in Spain as it applies to ministry in the US. Western Europe is post-Christian, maybe better stated post-christendom. People do not view the church as important or necessary, and because their lives are generally taken care of by the government, they have no real pressing needs. One of the people we hung out with made the comment, “Spaniards work to live. Americans live to work.” The desire for more isn’t as strong as in the US. They actually answer the question, how much is enough?Despite the fact that cities spend millions of dollars on building and maintaining churches, they are mainly empty on the weekends. This is becoming the norm in America. The missionaries in Western Europe spend more time plowing the ground than reaping. The ground is hard from centuries not spent preparing the soil and planting the seed evangelistically. They have difficult work. They told of how confrontational evangelism, ie. the Way of the Master, or CWT, or EE or the 4 Spiritual Laws, would not work in Western Europe. People will not engage you in those conversations. Guilt doesn’t work either. As a side note, I find it interesting that Jesus never used this type of evangelism. The missionaries I talked with noted that as well.
The church harvesting and planting movements of the East do not happen in Western Europe. And it’s hard for the missionaries to come home to the traditional churches and share that, because people don’t understand why they can’t be starting 10,000 churches a month like those missionaries in Asia.
What I was told worked was relationships. Long-term relationships, being there when crisis hits, just being a friend, was the most effective method of evangelism for these missionaries. Now hop a plane across the pond…
In Delaware, the same things are evident. People are busy and despite the many needs they do have, don’t really recognize them. We are not seeing large numbers of people coming to Christ. It is more like a Northeast culture than a Mid-Atlantic culture. If you are an outsider, it takes a long time to get integrated into the community. Confrontational, guilt-oriented evangelism does not work here either. The way that I have been able to express the Gospel in a way that people hear it is through sustained relationships and through blessing other people. What I see happening in Europe I see already in parts of the US. And in 10-15 years, I have to believe it will be widespread throughout the country.
This will mean reframing our evangelistic conversations. It will me engaging the culture relationally through already established groups and organizations. It will mean that we may have to deconstruct our understanding of how to understand and express the gospel in a world that will be at best ambivalent to it. This means we will have to see people as people, not as numbers or projects. It will also mean we have to redefine success.
This will be difficult for the SBC, and for many of its churches. We might consider preparing our people for it now.
PS…to my new friends in Western Europe, please let me know if I get any of this wrong! I would hate to have misunderstood my experience…
Journeys:Transitioning Churches to Relevance
February 13, 2008
Marty Duren is getting ready to be an author. His book, co-authored with Todd Wright, is available for pre-ordering at the Missional Press Website. Just make sure you enter the pre publication code 86BT7S when you check out and it will be sent to you as soon as it is published, hopefully, within the next few weeks.
You will notice that Ed “The greatest missiologist in the country” Stetzer, Dan Southerland and Dr. Frank Page have all endorsed the book. Well done my friend!
I look forward to getting my copy!
