Well I gave my speech yesterday at Missions class. A couple people came up afterwards and told me it was really good. So I thought I'd share with you all. :-)
It was actually a group project, and there was three in my group including myself. Alyssa gave the introduction and talked about Africa and Scott talked about South America. I talked about Asia and gave the conclusion. Our speech was entitled, "The dissapearing Center." See if you can figure out what it's on.
"Asia: Honestly, the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of Asia is bugs. Usually big ones with a poisonous stinger on one end and really big painful chompers on the other end. Then I think of high humidity, huge rice paddies, larg rural areas and very short people. In actually fact Asia is home to some of the largest rural areas in the world, such as Seoul and Hong Kong. Japan hosts the world's largest city, Tokyo. Cities in Asia today are usually very familiar with Christianity, and the world's largest churches are found in Asia.
While this is the case, Christianity is the majority religion in five of the six continents and Asia is not one of those five. This is partially due to it's huge land mass and very diverse people groups.
South Asia alone is home to 1/4 of the world's unsaved population. The pacific rim has 350 unreached people groups with populations over 100,000. That's not even touching the people groups with smaller populations. 150 of these large people groups are not even being engaged right now by missionaries (at least according to the Baptist Missions convention)
On the flip side, the Philippines are 93% christian. The Chinese church is experiancing phenominal growth. South Korea is 31.6% Christian, and about 12,000 koreans are serving as overseas missionaries.
An interesting thing about Christianity in Korea: Almost all of the pioneer missionaries during the 19th century, when missions first took effect in that country, were American. In 1890 a Presbyterian named John L. Nevius began the "Nevius method' of Evangelism. This method called for "Self Governing, Self Supporting, and Self Propogating" Churches. This made the Korean churches almost virtually independant of foriegn support.
Another helpful dynamic of these American missionaries is that they avoided using an imported word for God. The Roman Catholic missionaries who had arrived earlier tried using a Chinese term for God and this made the Koreans resentful and suspicious of worshiping what they viewed as a foreign Diety. The Americans used a Korean word, Hananim, for God, and this made the Koreans much more receptive and enthusiastic about the gospel.
The fruit of these American missionaries is that today Seoul Korea hosts the largest mainline denominational churches in the world.
The effects of the Asian church on the world today is 1. they've given the world great Evangelists and ministers such as Watchman Nee, K.P. Johannan, and Ravi Zecharias.
2. The Asian church is consulted heavily in major international Christian conferences.
Conclusion: So what do we do with all this information? How does it apply to us today, here, in this classroom?
First, we need to realize that Global Christianity is a testimony to Missionary faithfullness, and try to become that kind of Missionary.
To become this kind of missionary we need to realize that effective missionaries don't do the work, the Holy Spirit does. We're just His vessals.
We also need to realize the very important fact that WE ARE ALL CALLED.
Keith Greene was a hippie in the 1970's who experianced a very interesting conversion and started ministering to the hippies and young people of the 70's and 80's. He said:
"There is a command in the Bible that says, "Go ye into all the nations and preach the Gospel unto every creature and make disciples of men." We like to think 'Well, that was for the disciples. You know that was for the apostles. That's for the Missionaires. That's for humanitarians. That's for real Christians. I mean really, they're so spiritual they can't stay in society, so they've got to go overseas and bury themselves in some tribe somewhere down in the Amazon." But I'll tell you what, folks, the world isn't being won today because we're not doing it. It's our fault. This generation of Christians is responsible for this generation of souls on the earth, and nowhere in the world is the Gospel so plentiful as in the United States! Nowehere. I don't want to see us stand before God on that day an dsay, 'Gut God, I didn't hear you call me." Here's something for you to chew on. You didn't need to hear a call - you're already called! In fact, if you stay home from going into all nations, you had better be able to say to God, 'You called me to stay home God. I know that as a fact." Unless God tells you otherwise, you are called."
One thing that is important to realize, though, is that reaching out to all nations includes our own. A lot of times we think that if the gospel has been preached in that area it's fine and we don't have to worry about sharing our faith.
I was talking with my friend from India and he told me the story about an American Missionary in India. They had set up their headquarters in one of the cities and were reaching out to rural areas. One night God woke up the son of this missionary and said, 'Go to the Hindu temple." So the young man went and was watching behind a pillar, and he saw this old woman start worshipping this idol of a cow. And she was passionately worshipping this idol more ferverently than he had seen some Christians in the church worship. And started grieving in his spirit and praying, "Lord, how can she do this? It's an idol made of stone!" And God answered, 'Because no one told her the Truth."
"How can she not know the Truth, God? We have our headquarters right here near this temple!"
"Someone didn't obey. She has never heard the gospel preached to her."
So even when we think we've got it covered, there are always more fields to be harvested.
Also, Global Christianity owes it's survival to the indiginous churches and believers in the third world.
The persecuted church prays for the American church, because their walk with God and their world is black and white. Ours is very grey. For them, it's either follow God 100% or live in paganism. For us, it's much easier to integrate social norms and unchristian practices into our lives. So they pray for us.
There was a community in India who heard about Communism in Romania, and so they prayed that God would make Communism fall so that Romania could start sending out missionaries. Well about ten years after they started praying Communism fell and a young Romanian woman was sent to Bible college in Hungary. She ended up going on a mission trip to India and went to the same community who had been praying for her country and people. When they found out where she was from they got emotional and said, "You are the first fruits of our prayers. We have been praying for God to send you to us, because you in Romania can get spiritual training that we can't, and we need you to come teach us."
Christians in the third world also keep the peace and reach out to those that others won't. Christians in Bethlehem aren't accepted socially by either the Jews or the Muslims and want to leave. But neither the Jews nor the Muslims want the Christians to leave as they act as a social buffer between the two groups that hate each other.
Also, Christians in the third world restore Supernatural expectations to the church. My friend Joy from India said that Africans are very spiritually aware in their paganism. When they become Christians, they are able to live in Christian spiritual authority over both the Seen and the Unseen worlds.
Application for American Christians: A quote from the book (Changing the face of World Missions)
"As the Church grows globally, the diversity and numbers of believers doing ministry 'from all nations, to all nations' requrie Cooperation, Consideration, and Consultation. This is the only way to bring the incredible resources of the international Christian Community to bear on the challenges and opportunities abounding today."
Oftentimes, Americans think that we will go into the ministry and do the providing and ministering. We've got it covered, and it's almost a pride thing for us.
I remember this last summer God told me to go to Romania, and I had just barely enough money to cover my costs getting to where I needed to go. But I was going to stay with some missionaries there, and they needed me to help them with food costs, and I didn't have that money so I was afraid that I would be a burden. And God said 'don't worry about it. Go." So I did. And when I first got there, I stayed with my host family for a few days. The night before I left my host mom walked up to me and put something in my hand and said, "This is yours." It turned out to be enough money for me to live on for the next week. And for me it was really humbling, because the AMERICAN was being provided for and supported by the HUNGARIAN PEASANT woman! Many times we think we're the ones supposed to do all the blessing but God wants us to be able to BLESS EACH OTHER.
An insight from my friend in India is that as Americans we often go on mission trips with a lot of suitcases. In these suitcases is plenty of supplies to support our comfort zone. We then do the job and go home. Joy said that "the biggest blessing wuld be an American with only ONE suitcase who said, 'I'm not going back'"
We like our comfort zone. Both the book and Joy said that the biggest need for missionaries is NOT in a comfortable or safe place. Joy said, "The places the Gospel is needed most today are places with no electricity."
His dad has a church in one of the cities in India, and once he went on an Evangelist visit up to one of the villages to the north. And one night he shared the Gospel story the cheif of the village walked up to him and said, "Your God cannot be true. How is it that if your God is sovereign, you are JUST NOW telling us this after 2,000 years!!" And it was really convicting to this pastor because he had lived only a few hours from these people with his large church and they were just NOW hearing about the gospel.
An insight from a young pastor in Romania was that we need to redifine Evangelism methods. "Not just preaching in the church and to the many living dead in the church, but to GO OUT and LIVE OUT Christ." We need to be bringing new believers into the Church and discipling them.
Another thing as Americans we need to be careful that we don't let our culture dictate or ruin potential ministry opportunitys. My friend Silvana is a missionary to the Gypsies in Romania and she said,
"About that American thing: you are American, you can't change that. But what is good in you, you have the heart and attitude to let aside your Americanism, and to allow the Lord to do His will in you. It's nothing bad to be an American girl, it is bad when this American girl walks in her flesh and seeks first her interests. Romanian girls can be the same, the same problem but under a different color. Everything is about the relationship with God and how much we allow Him to change us into His image and not into Romanians (or Americans."
So in a nutshell, what the book and the testimonies from our brothers and sisters overseas are saying is this:
No one culture is less than or greater than any other. As iron sharpenes iron, the global Church needs the checks and balances we give each other through outside perspective and insight gained by growing up in a different culture and country.
A man named David Brainard Woodward said,
"To undertsand our mission to witness and our mission to welcome our fellow men to the love of Christ, we must start with the source of missions. They do not begin with men: their origin is found in the heart of God. When we know what He intendsd to do, we can believe and work for the accomplishment of His will, the coming of His kingdom." "
So that was my speech. In case you couldn't tell, the "Dissapearing Center" is the evaporation of Christianity's center in Europe and America, but how it is becoming a Global religion.
Alright well now my hands are hurting from typing all this up, and it's cold outside (I guess fall decided to show up) and I have class in thirty six minutes, and I only had a molasses cookie for breakfast. Hey, I'm in college. ;-D So going to go get something that counts as nutrition to eat and then going to class. Yay.
Cheers,
Princess Ouch.
