A CALL FOR NEW MISSIONAL INITIATIVES -- Acts 11: 19-26
INTRO
Yesterday -- the first Saturday in August -- is reckoned to be the happiest day of the year. To be even more specific: 7pm is the happiest moment of the happiest day of the year.
The statistics are based on a study of more than 9,000 people. It was discovered that they smiled most between 7pm and 8pm each day, enjoyed Saturdays the most and listed August as their favourite month of the year.
POINT
Over the last couple of years I have perceived that there is a new interest, even obsession, developing in the nation about happiness. I suspect it has blown across with the cultural trade winds from America, which people always seem to get there a bit ahead of us. Happiness is surely something to aspire to along with the experience of deep inner joy.
The Amplified Bible tells us:
1[a]BLESSED (HAPPY, fortunate, prosperous, and enviable) is the man who walks and lives not in the counsel of the ungodly [following their advice, their plans and purposes], nor stands [submissive and inactive] in the path where sinners walk, nor sits down [to relax and rest] where the scornful [and the mockers] gather.
2But his delight and desire are in the law of the Lord, and on His law (the precepts, the instructions, the teachings of God) he habitually meditates (ponders and studies) by day and by night.
POINT
There is no doubt that holding to true Christian values is the way to true joy and happiness. It does not promise a trouble free life but faith in God gives us an anchor, a hope, a foundation, a meaning to life and the presence and peace of God in times of uncertainty, suffering or difficulty.
THESIS
People will find true happiness in a saving relationship with God through what Jesus has done for us on the cross.
We, the Church, have truly good news for others who have had no exposure to or understanding of the Gospel. God wills that others come to know the Good News and God continues to look to the Church to be the messengers.
Why is it that we have such difficulty in sharing the Gospel with others?
POINT
We are not alone in this. It might surprise you if I say that at times even some of the early apostles of Jesus had great difficulty with this -- including the Apostle Peter!
READING Acts 11:19-16
We should be ever grateful for the people who created the conditions that made it possible for us to believe -- whether by sharing the Gospel with us or preparing us through Sunday School -- whether parents or friends. God wills that we become the means by which others hear and believe also. But how do we do it?
I am nearing the end of a very interesting book entitled: 'You don't have to cross the Ocean to reach the World' by David Boyd.
There are some insights in the book that I have found fascinating. But the thesis is of the book is that bicultural people are the most suited to taking the Gospel across cultural barriers.
BIBLE BACKGROUND
It may surprise you to learn that the Hebraic Jewish Apostles were less effect and not as well placed as their counterpart Hellenistic Jewish Christian believers in planting churches in the surrounding Gentile provinces and cities.
To give you the background, in Jesus' day there were Hebraic Jews -- Jews whose worship was at the temple; who spoke mainly Hebrew and Aramaic.
And there were Hellenistic Jews -- Jews who had dispersed and not returned after the exile -- who were bicultural; speaking common Greek and who worshipped in the synagogues.
The Acts of the Apostles reveals that the most effective church planters were the bicultural Hellenistic Jews who formed the church in Antioch.
The Hebraic Jews had the greatest difficulty of all communicating the Gospel across culture. Peter had to be persuaded by a vision before he went to the home of Cornelius in Joppa. He was quick to return to his cultural comfort zone.
It was the Apostles in Jerusalem who became the legislators for developments taking place when Gentiles were converted, and Gentile converts were required to accommodate their practices to suit the Jerusalem church. But the church planting that took place did so through the Church in Antioch rather than through the Church of Jerusalem.
Paul and Barnabus (both Hellenistic Jews) were sent.
APPLIC
The world we know has changed and is constantly changing. And the Church we know has changed and is constantly changing.
But these changes work against the effectiveness of our mission.
Churches change from beginnings when the founders are most purposeful about evangelism and mission.
This drifts over a couple of generations to church that places greater value on being a community that values care for each other.
We agree that we are to be missional but we don't know how to do it.
The culture around us has changed. In the time when new churches were being planted with a strong missional intention of reaching people with the Gospel, door to door visitation worked well as a means of evangelism, as did the large tent 'crusades' (as we called them) with speakers like Billy Graham calling people to conversion. This too has changed, and we find it difficult to make the connection.
Exceptions -- Pioneers like William Carey and Hudson Taylor who set up para-church missions.
POINT
It appears that in critical times God intervenes and new movements of the Holy Spirit are initiated.
Without question we need the intervention of God. The anointing of the Holy Spirit is needed, but the anointing is not the full qualification, there needs to the ability to communicate the Gospel across cultural divides.
* The conversion of Paul is an interesting example. He experienced a transforming encounter with the risen Christ. He was powerfully converted.
* He was also a Hellenistic Jew who and a person who could relate to people in both Hebrew and Hellenistic cultures.
* In addition he was also a strategist -- planning church planting initiatives under the guidance of the Holy Spirit after being sent out by the praying Church at Antioch.
APPLIC
This has profound implications for reaching new generations of people in our land with the Gospel.
Just as with the Hebraic Jewish Christians we find it difficult to connect with people of a different sub-culture.
* Some of us have issues about running an Alpha Course in a pub
* Others of us have issues with doing evangelism in experimental and creative environments and ways, and we feel least equipped to participate
The best suited people to reach the people whose sub-culture is far removed from our own are those who have recently converted and are still bicultural.
We are nearly always most effective in presenting the Gospel with others when we first become Christians because we are fresh from the culture of the world and we have not yet become so conditioned as Christians as to lose touch with this.
POINT/ APPLIC
There is no disputing the fact that church membership of the longstanding denominations in Scotland is in numerical decline. And whilst this is not impacting the Baptist churches to the same degree at this time, we should not be complacent. Unless it addressed now, our time will come. The demographics reveal this.
We should not be driven by fear, but encouraged by hope.
It is time to look to God for new and imaginative ways to be involved in fresh expressions of mission we CAN engage in, and also to explore the potential for new church plants in cooperation with other Baptist churches in the region.
MISSION ACTION PLAN
We are presently revising our Mission Action Plan.
Sector Leaders are proposing new initiatives.
Some of these are already in place.
We are planning a 24/2 prayer initiative in September followed by a Church Open Day and then a Big Welcome Sunday.
But it is my belief that we should be thinking more boldly than this -- Exploring the possibilities of planting new missional expressions and networking with other churches with a view to planting a new church amongst an unreached group.
CLOSING
What do we make of the observation that those of us who are bicultural are best placed to communicate the Gospel cross-culturally?
We are to be in the world but not of the world!
Jesus told the disciples in John 15:
'You do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.
And he prayed for them in John 17:
"I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one
Paul instructed that we should not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds.
Jesus spent time with tax collectors and sinners.
In I Corinthians 5 Paul made it clear that he was not instructing Christians to isolate themselves from worldly people. He said, 'otherwise you would have to leave this world'.
If getting directly involved is just a bridge too far for us we can all provide a supporting role to those who are directly involved in seeking the lost.
But let us all keep in mind that God may stir us all up to get behind some new, bold initiative of evangelism or church planting that at some time in the future God may reveal.
