Defending the Crusades (Not really, they sucked)

I am grateful to a friend who pointed out this piece. I've held my tongue while the heat was high following the National Pontificating Breakfast. I have no interest in either defending or critiquing President Obama's comments - it never occurs to me to look to sanded down, poll-tested speeches for profound insight anyway. 

However, the subsequent rush to defend the Crusades by many of my fellow Christ-followers was downright embarrassing. At first, I thought it was a joke - something like the Onion. Surely no one would actually try to defend the Crusades.  But, the more I read and saw posted, the more I blushed.  It was true. Which meant that the hatred towards President Obama was felt so hotly by some that they would seek to actually defend one of the darkest moments in Church history. 

Now, I know that some have taken pains to point out the larger context surrounding Crusade history and the various pressures that gave rise to a war between European and Islamic powers. This is well and good. A passing reference to the Crusades as "bad" is certainly abbreviating matters. However, it isn't abbreviating matters incorrectly. Yes, there were genuine acts of piety and golden feats of heroism along with understandable and necessary military campaigns designed for legitimate defensive aims.  But, the Crusades featured so much evil and of such a wretched sort and so blatantly "in the name of Christ" that the only reasonable response of the modern day disciple of Jesus is to lament.  

I would respectfully urge those who have tried to defend the Crusades to read this very solid NYTimes article on the first victims of the First Crusade. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/opinion/sunday/the-first-victims-of-the-first-crusade.html

If the massacre of Jews that started off the Crusades had been the only atrocity committed, it would be enough for me to condemn the whole affair. But, so much more would follow. 

Our history is what it is. And there is a lot of garbage there. And none of it makes any of the horrors being carried out by ISIS, Boko Haram, etc. even the least bit more acceptable or understandable. Indeed, it seems to me that the Church today would find its prophetic word all the more powerful in the face of such evils if we could soundly and unanimously condemn the sin we ourselves have been guilty of in the past.

Four Reasons Why Spiritual Maturity is Impossible Without Global Partnerships

Photo: "Somos" by Miguel Cabrera

First, two moments . . .

#1.  As I sat listening to the Sunday sermon at Worship Harvest Ministries in Kampala, Uganda my mind filled with gratitude at the countless and consistent opportunities I have to learn from, work with and be sharpened and challenged by brothers and sisters, friends and partners from every part of the globe.  I relished in the thought and praised God and then tweeted this:

Ministries/churches based in the West which have no intentional means of regularly learning from leaders in the Majority World are insane.
— Cody Lorance (@cclorance) December 2, 2014

#2.  Yesterday in a fairly randomly (from my perspective) chosen coffee house in the Chicago suburbs, I caught wind of a business as mission venture that they just happened to be starting up that involved coffee, coffee beans, Uganda, and community transformation.  Now, that sounds pretty much exactly like what we are working on with Endiro Coffee so my fist thought was, "Ahh, DRAT ... competitors!"  But then, the Lord graciously let me to a new thought, "No, no, no ... partners!"  And we started to talk.

The evangelical missions world has always been sparsely populated, but when you are in the midst of it, it seems like everyone and their dog is clamoring around one or two ideas -- usually the same ones you are -- and it feels crowded.  It's like Toronto.  There are two valid and biblical options for dealing with the crowds.  First, you can move to Manitoba or, two, you can learn to make friends and work together.  

So, let's talk about this idea of global partnership for a moment.  I'll begin with a quote from the Lausanne Movement which is as poingnant today as when it was written a few years ago in advance of the 3rd Lausanne Congress in Cape Town, South Africa:

Partnering in the Body of Christ: Toward a New Global Equilibrium

Seismic Shifts in Global Christianity.  Global PARNTERSHIPS for world evangelization, unlike anything possible in the previous twenty centuries, are now attainable as we develop relationships that are based on mutual respect – acknowledging that God has called us to be one in Him. These new partnerships, increasingly led by visionary leaders from the majority world, will also involve more lay people who comprise the vast majority of those who bear witness to Christ in this Century.  By sharing the best available resources and best practices, together “the whole church (will) take the whole gospel to the whole world.”

Now the practical question for me as a mission leader is, Why?  Why should I lead my team and seek to mobilize others to enter into partnerships within and outside of the denomination, within and outside of the nation? Putting all the obvious (or at least they should be obvious) practical considerations aside, let's consider the deeper, theological impetus for engaging in and committing to global partnerships as individuals, churches, ministries, agencies, and denominations.  Here's Paul:

“I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.  I pray that you may have power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:16-19, NRSV)

Paul’s prayer declares that it is impossible for local bodies of Christians to reach (or even significantly approach) spiritual maturity without engagement in genuine relationships with other Christ-followers outside their local group.  We can point out at least four theological foundations for global partnership in this text:

1. The Desired Result is Spiritual Maturity – note Paul’s “so that” in verse 19.  Everything that Paul is praying is “so that” something will result in the lives of those for whom he is praying.  It is “so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” Which is a wonderfully evocative way of speaking of spiritual formation, maturity, sanctification -- i.e. God’s work to transform us into the image of Jesus Christ.
2. The Cause of the “So That” – It is clear that Paul believes that when a disciple of Lord Jesus is enabled to comprehend and know the multidimensional, knowledge-surpassing love of God, the result is spiritual maturity -- the “so that” of verse 19.
3. The Essential Conditions of Comprehending – Note that Paul’s prayer assumes that this comprehending and knowing of God’s love is only possible together "with all the saints” (v. 18).  This fellowship is presented here as a necessary condition for which Paul is praying on behalf of his readers and without which, the Apostle is convinced, grasping the love of God and thus spiritual maturity is an utter impossibility.
4. The Plurality of You – The Biblical demand for partnership comes into full relief when we recognize that the “you” of Paul’s prayer (v. 16, 17, 18, and 19) is plural (by the way, a nice benefit of global partnerships is having friends that speak languages which use plural forms of "you".  Thanks, Nepalis, for "timiharu"!) That is, the “you” being rooted and grounded in love in verse 17 is the local body of believers that has received and is now corporately reading Paul’s epistle.  Thus is it a local body of believers for whom Paul is praying in verse 18 when he says, “I pray that you [all] may have power to” comprehend and know the love of God. It is this plural "you" then that must enter into relationship, dialogue, and indeed partnership “with all the saints” – Christ-devotees from outside that specific community – “so that” spiritual maturity may result in their body.

What we are left with is an inspired prayer that sees spiritual maturity as only attainable when local bodies of disciples are engaged in meaningful partnerships with other communities outside their immediate context.  That is, we may say confidently from this text that any given mission team, church, agency, denomination, or Christ-centered business will be unable to be all that God would have them be as evangelists, medical missionaries, church planters, Bible translators, campus ministers, educators, relief workers, worshippers, intercessors, disciples, or whatever apart from the pursuit of global partnership as a corporate spiritual discipline.  Or, to put it positively:

The active pursuit of ever-deepening global partnerships by local bodies of Christ-followers enables those communities to better and increasingly comprehend and know God’s love which results in dramatic spiritual transformation and growth.

This is true, I assume, because there is actually only one body of Christ in the world (4:4) with one triune God indwelling, ruling over, and guiding that whole body (4:4-6).  That the gifts of Christ are distributed among all parts of that body (4:7ff) further testifies to the fact that it is when that global body is peacefully bonded together (4:3), pursuing and gradually arriving at the unity of faith (4:13) that the family of Jesus Christ in the world functions as it should (4:16).  It is when the whole Church builds itself up in love (4:16) – which it cannot do outside of the exercise of the spiritual discipline global partnership – that it “grows up in every way
into him who is the head, into Christ” (4:15).

How Missionary is Your Church? (An evaluation)

By © Salim Photography/ www.salimphoto.com

The following comes from David Bosch's Transforming Mission.  Usually, I post extended quotations on my Scatterings blog, but felt this was worth posting here.  I found the list personally challenging as I reflected on my career as a pastor and church planter.  I encourage you to do a bit of self-examination of you are leader in a local church.  Forget about your seating capacity and offering plates for a moment.  How does your church measure up to Bosch's keys below:

Manifestations of the Missionary Dimension of a Local Church

1. True worship

2. Hospitality and welcome to outsiders

3. Pastor doesn't monopolize ministry, treating members as mere objects of pastoral care

4. Members equipped for their calling in society

5. Structurally pliable and innovative

6. Doesn't defend the privileges of a select group

7. Intentional and direct involvement in society

8. Moves beyond the "walls of the church" to engage in mission in areas of evangelism and work for justice and peace

So, how about it? How "missionary" is your church really?  Also, I'd be interested to hear from you if you have points to add.  What would you add (or challenge) to Bosch's list?

"Dullness become God" - Sinclair Lewis, Contextualization, Diaspora, & American Churchianity

Okay, it's not really what Sinclair was writing about in his 1920 masterpiece, Main Street, but, I can't help but draw the parallels.  Of course, you'd have to read all the preceding chapters to really appreciate it, but chapter 22 of his novel is a work of genius. I have included an excerpt below that I believe could just as easily describe the dominant American Evangelical Church culture of today as it described the American prairie town of a century ago.  And read on to the excerpt describing first generation Scandinavians and you will see something so hauntingly similar to what I see occurring in the diaspora churches today. Sadly, it is also what is happening as people from various cultural backgrounds come to Christ and learn, within a generation or so, to forsake and forget all the beauty, uniqueness, and richness of their own cultures in favor of some kind of safe, monotone, legalistic, American Churchianity.  In Lewis's words, it is "dullness become God".

It is an unimaginatively standardized background, a sluggishness of speech and manners, a rigid ruling of the spirit by the desire to appear respectable. It is contentment… the contentment of the quiet dead, who are scornful of the living for their restless walking. It is negation canonized as the one positive virtue. It is the prohibition of happiness. It is slavery self-sought and self-defended. It is dullness made God.

A savorless people, gulping tasteless food, and sitting afterward, coatless and thoughtless, in rocking-chairs prickly with inane decorations, listening to mechanical music, saying mechanical things about the excellence of Ford automobiles, and viewing themselves as the greatest race in the world.

She had inquired as to the effect of this dominating dullness upon foreigners. She remembered the feeble exotic quality to be found in the first-generation Scandinavians; she recalled the Norwegian Fair at the Lutheran Church, to which Bea had taken her. There, in the bondestue, the replica of a Norse farm kitchen, pale women in scarlet jackets embroidered with gold thread and colored beads, in black skirts with a line of blue, green-striped aprons, and ridged caps very pretty to set off a fresh face, had served rommegrod og lefse—sweet cakes and sour milk pudding spiced with cinnamon. For the first time in Gopher Prairie Carol had found novelty. She had reveled in the mild foreignness of it.

But she saw these Scandinavian women zealously exchanging their spiced puddings and red jackets for fried pork chops and congealed white blouses, trading the ancient Christmas hymns of the fjords for “She’s My Jazzland Cutie,” being Americanized into uniformity, and in less than a generation losing in the grayness whatever pleasant new customs they might have added to the life of the town. Their sons finished the process. In ready-made clothes and ready-made high-school phrases they sank into propriety, and the sound American customs had absorbed without one trace of pollution another alien invasion.

And along with these foreigners, she felt herself being ironed into glossy mediocrity, and she rebelled, in fear.

Communion or Disunion? | Sexuality/Gender

I do not belong to the Roman Catholic Church. However, I find this so-called "shift" in the Catholic community disturbing. Stories like this concern me about the times in which we are living. Seems to me that the author, Mary Hunt, is not a Catholic (or a Christian for that matter) in any meaningful sense of the word. She doesn't seem to have any sense of Scriptural authority or belief in basic historic Christianity. Anyway, I would greatly appreciate insight from my readers who may have a better perspective on such things.

Communion or Disunion? | Sexuality/Gender | Religion Dispatches: "The egregious breach of decency that led a Catholic parish priest to deny Communion to a lesbian woman at her mother’s funeral has received widespread and well-deserved condemnation. Even the Archdiocese of Washington DC admitted that the priest had violated their policy. In a little note, a vicar promised Barbara Johnson and her family that he would celebrate a Mass in memory of her mother. They deserve sympathy for their loss, a full-blown apology from the institutional Church, and time to deal with their grief in peace."


Addendum:


Thanks to Nate Taylor for referring us to a helpful article on this.  Check it out here: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/2012/03/01/the-priest-and-the-lesbian-communicant/  I also want to reference here the letter of apology that came from the Archdiocese.

Quadragesima - A Reflection

The Church has now begun an annual season of reflection, confession, repentance, fasting and seeking the Lord Jesus.  Traditionally known as "Lent" or "Quadragesima", this period of 40 days leads up to the Holy Week, Good Friday and our annual commemoration of Christ's Resurrection.  You may not be observing Lent in a traditional way, but I hope that you are doing something during this time that the Spirit of God can use to draw you closer to Himself.  I also hope you will take a moment to enjoy Adam Young's lovely little video called 40 to set you in the mood.

Without Thee, I Cannot Live: A Theology of Nominating Committees

Today I was praying for the Nominating Committee of our local association of Baptist churches and a thought or two came my way.  Do you know what a "nominating committee" is?  Basically they are the group in an organization responsible for getting other people to agree to fill voluntary positions and offices.  It's a rather thankless task to be sure.  On another level, however -- on a more spiritual level -- there is something else going on.  Something that I think we do well to ponder.

There is under-girding and thus birthing and sustaining the existence of such a thing as "nominating committees" in Christian circles a truth so central to our lives that it seems all other truths may just hang on it like ornaments on a tree.  It isn't the same thing which gives rise to "nominating committees" outside the Church (or at least it shouldn't be).  Outside it is this, "There are jobs which must be done and positions which must be filled; we need a group whose sole purpose is to berate, guilt, or sucker people into filling those posts."  No! In the Church it is another thing:

"Without Thee, I cannot live!"

Say again?

Consider:

"'Without Thee, I cannot live!' Whatever our small practice, belief, or experience may be, nothing can alter the plain fact that God, the Spirit of spirits, the Life-giving Life, has made or rather is making each person reading these words for Himself; and that our lives will not achieve stability until they are ruled by that truth." (E. Underhill)

Can the follower of Jesus doubt this? Without God, we are hopelessly lost are we not?  Is not our complete and utter dependence upon Him perhaps the uppermost reality governing our lives?

Sure, but what has that to do with "nominating committees"?

Well, only the truly loyal readers have made it this far in a post about "nominating committees" (which is really about God), so let me reward you with a parable:

A little girl goes to school.  Her lunchbox in hand having been lovingly prepared by her attentive and thoughtful mother.  At lunchtime, the girl devours the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, small bag of Cheetos, pickle spear, oatmeal cookie and juice box.  The banana, however, gets tossed into the garbage.  Same as always.  The girl isn't a fruit lover.

And this is a picture of us.  Saying we need God; saying in a voice of triumphant piety, "Without Thee, I cannot live!" Then proceeding to open the lunchbox of what God has prepared.  We pick through and consume what we desire and chuck the rest. We never stop to consider the far greater wisdom of a Parent who has prepared these things (all these things) for us.

So . . . "nominating committees"?

Ah, yes.  Here we are. Well, what exactly has God prepared for us?


1Co 12:7-19 ESV  To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.  For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit,  to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit,  to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.  All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills . . . .  For the body does not consist of one member but of many.  If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body.  And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body.  If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?  But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.  If all were a single member, where would the body be?

And also . . . 

Eph 4:4-7 ESV  There is one body and one Spirit--just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call--  one Lord, one faith, one baptism,  one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.  But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.

God has provided a Body.  The Church. And my point is simple (though I've certainly taken the scenic route to get here).  When we presume that we do not need the Body, when we arrogantly cut ourselves off from noses or fingers or kidneys,  when we foolishly set out to conquer the world as solitary ears or hair follicles or even as a covenanted coalition of knuckles,  then we (to brazenly mix metaphors) are chucking items from the lunchbox carefully and lovingly prepared by our Parent, the Father.  We may say "'Tis but a speckled banana," or (switching back) "merely an ear lobe" but in the act of chucking we are not simply saying, "I don't need bannanas or ear lobes or church planters or Christians who care about the homeless or ESL teachers or "black" churches or "white" churches or Pentecostals or Calvinists or __________ -- No, we are saying something far different. Something much more serious.  We are saying, "Without Thee, I will be just fine!" For when we reject what He, in infinite wisdom and love, has prepared, we reject Him.  But really, we are dead without Him. As a friend of mine is fond of saying, "Without Him, we cannot move an inch!"

So it is upon this foundational truth that all great Christian "nominating committees" through the ions of salvation history have been built.  Or, at least, should be.  Why? Because it is the noble task of the "nominating committee" to say to the Church (or to their little corner of it anyway),

"Everyone, this is Sam. He's a deacon down at XYZ Church. God has given him such and such gifts and experiences.  You need him and Sam needs you, and we'll all be richer, fuller, healthier and happier with him in the lunchbox."

Over and out.

What if this was Church?

Discovered this video online. I think it does a good job of bringing balance to what is often pretty out-of-whack in the American church scene. Thoughts?

Leaders in India Gather to Address Corruption - Lausanne Movement

Applauding this ...

Leaders in India Gather to Address Corruption - Lausanne Movement: "On September 2, 2011, Christian leaders from across India gathered together in Bangalore in an unprecedented and historical meeting to discuss the issue of corruption particularly in the church. Named “Operation Nehemiah”, the meeting aimed to “bring together concerned senior Christian leaders in India to deliberate on the issue of corruption and to create a united movement with a vision to make the Indian Church corruption-free.”"

Andrew Jones' C1-C6 "Informality Scale"

I appreciate Andrew's reflections on contextualization and his joining me in answering John McArthur's anti-contextualization rantings.  You can read what he's written yourself here.

Just for fun, you may also find his "Church Informality Scale" humorous.  Which best describes your church? Both churches that I pastor are somewhere between C3 and C4:

OK, a little off topic but still related:

Here is another kind of C1-C6 scale that I created to measure your church's formality or informality. Don't take it too seriously, but how would your church service rank?

THE CHURCH INFORMALITY SCALE

C1 - Courtroom. The most formal. Assigned seating. Silence while being addressed by a robed official sitting higher than everyone.

C2 - Corporate business meeting. No agenda deviation. High dress code but more interactive.

C3 - Classroom. Orderly but interactive within boundaries. Semi-formal dress. Leadership from front.

C4 - Coffee Shop. Interactive but people seated and orderly.

C5 - Club. No seating. All casual dress. Fully interactive.

C6 - Children's birthday party. No dress code. Interactive games and activities. Food. Laughter. Gift-giving.

5 Challenges for the Illinois Baptist State Association: #2 Giftedness

Sorry that I've kind of dropped the ball on posting on this topic. I had fully expected to have more time than I did during last week's travels. Anyway, let me get right back into it.

What I'm doing here is a series of posts that originate from a message I shared at the Illinois Baptist State Association last month to a number of the missionary leaders.  I'm sharing with you my 5 challenges to IBSA (our state-level association of Southern Baptists) that I believe represent something of what God is saying to us, especially in the wake of Cape Town 2010 -- the 3rd Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization.  You can read challenge one here.  Now let's move on to the second:

2. Illinois Baptist State Association must create (in our individual minds, hearts and in our corporate ministry structures - including reporting systems, evaluation methods and more) new categorizations of value that transcend the smallness of finances, formal education, technology, and "measurable" results.

When I was at Cape Town 2010, I had the privilege of eating dinner one night with Ruth Ndaruhutse of Rwanda. Here's the story:

In the midst of my first full day at CT2010, I was wandering around the convention center looking for a place to eat my dinner. To be completely honest, it felt a bit like high school. I—young, relatively unknown, naturally shy, and easily intimidated—scanned a giant ballroom packed with Lausanne delegates. My eyes landed on a half-full table of Nigerians and one Rwandan, Ruth Ndaruhutse. I timidly took one of the empty seats at the table as Ruth was getting ready to leave. We exchanged a few pleasantries and then, to my delight, she settled back into her chair. Ruth sighed in a kind, motherly sort of way and began to tell me her story.

Ruth Ndaruhutse is Rwanda’s national coordinator for the Pan-African Christian Women Alliance. In the capital city of Kigali, she spends her days ministering to women who have been victimized in various ways by the genocidal massacre of 1994. She and her team take care of widows, orphans, rape victims, and others and teach skills that empower them to earn a living. She teaches them about forgiveness and reconciliation. She teaches them about Christ. In other words, she incarnates the Savior in a truly remarkable way.

Over dinner, Ruth took her time with me. Imparting to me what I’m certain was only a shred of her spiritual giftedness. She had persevered right on through the unspeakable tragedies of her country. She told me about the losses and the pain—unimaginable stories or cruelty and evil. I had to ask, ‘How, sister? How do you do it? How do you forgive?’ She replied with profound simplicity, ‘You cannot grieve for 15 years. You cannot stay in the past. You have to hope for the future —so, it’s like that. It’s like that.’

Ruth and so many others have helped me to see that one of the great lessons of Lausanne III is that, as taught in Ephesians, the Spirit of God has distributed the gifts of grace to each Christian in the whole Body of Christ (Eph. 4:7). Consequently, one of the keys to the pursuit of equilibrium in the Church is to recognize this global giftedness and our tremendous individual need of it. This requires the creation in our minds and hearts of new categorizations of value that transcend the smallness of finances, formal education, and technology. Fung challenged Christians to:

Think beyond just money terms. God’s resources are more than money. In the global family, as the body of Jesus Christ, many of us will bring different gifts. Some will bring and model faithfulness in the context of suffering; and some will model perseverance in the context of poverty and injustice; and some will model godly leadership in their context; and some will model critical theological and missiological reflection beyond the Western paradigm; and some will bring years of experience of commending the Lord Jesus Christ in the context of another world religion. And all of us will contribute together and we will bring a fuller understanding of what it means to be the whole Church bringing the whole Gospel to the whole world.[i]

The Cape Town Commitment states:

We urgently seek a new global partnership rooted in profound mutual love, mutual submission, and dramatic economic sharing without paternalism or unhealthy dependency within the Body of Christ across all continents. And we seek this not only as a demonstration of our unity in the gospel, but also for the sake of the name of Christ and the mission of God in all the world.[ii]

So this is the view of global equilibrium in the Church from the perspective of CT2010. It is a view that recognizes both the corporate richness of the body of Jesus Christ and the poverty of isolation. In it, there is no room for the participation in God’s mission of a fragmented and fighting Church—‘a divided Church has no message for a divided world’.[iii] We must humble ourselves to the reality of giftedness in Christian brothers and sisters that we did not expect to be rich by developing a more biblical understanding of what is valuable and by acknowledging our own personal poverty. And we must do this all for the sake of the gospel and Christ, our only center.

In IBSA, we must find practical ways to recognize, value, and utilize the diversity of gifts that exist throughout the body of Jesus Christ.  IBSA must recognize that we need people like Ruth. We must know that we are rich when she comes to the table and poor when she does not.

How do our current attitudes and structures in IBSA blind us to certain kinds of giftedness?  What do our current structures say about what we value? How can we change so as to not be cut off from so much of God's richness?

---

[i] Fung, ‘Partnership’.

[ii] The Lausanne Movement, ‘The Cape Town Commitment’.

[iii] The Lausanne Movement, ‘The Cape Town Commitment’.

5 Challenges for the Illinois Baptist State Association: #1 Diversity

Yesterday, I introduced a new series of posts that originate from a message I shared at the Illinois Baptist State Association last month to a number of the missionary leaders.  My plan is to present here, over the next several days, a series of 5 challenges to IBSA (our state-level association of Southern Baptists) that I believe represent something of what God is saying to us, especially in the wake of Cape Town 2010 -- the 3rd Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization.  So, without further ado, here is challenge number 1:

1. Illinois Baptist State Association must intentionally and diligently seek to bring as much diversity to the table as possible.

Cape Town 2010 was one of the most significant gatherings of Christians the world has ever seen.  In terms of sheer breadth of representation, it was the most diverse gathering of Christ-followers in history.  More than 4,000 selected participants from nearly 200 nations represented practically every sphere of the Body of Christ.  This was accomplished as the fruit of a rigorous process of seeking to draw Christian leaders from every segment of the global Church.  A kind of selection grid was put in place to guide this process:

- 60% of participants were to be under the age of 50; 10% under 30
- 35% were to be women
- 10% were to come from the marketplace

Beyond this, strict quotas were enforced that ensured that the majority of participants really were from the majority world.  My own table group at Cape Town was a microcosm of the global Church.  Six people from six nations.  Four men. Two women.  Three over 50.  Three under.  One under 30.  The benefit of this diversity is perhaps hard to explain, but it was unmistakable.

I've mentioned before my encounters with a number of people there.  The richness, depth.  One of these individuals was a woman from Uganda, a nation now in turmoil.  Both of us young leaders.  Both intrigued by what God is doing among diasporas.  Even now, we are seeking God's will for our ongoing collaboration and partnership in mission.  Our meeting was providential.  God is only beginning to reveal to us his intentions in the long-term relationship that has been forged.  And yet, without this intentional will to represent the breadth of Christ's body, neither of us would have been there.

I compare this with an experience a close friend of mine shared recently.  He had been asked to go to a meeting within our Southern Baptist Convention.  The meeting was to be focused on missions strategy in the U.S. -- how do we plant more churches and reach more people groups?  My friend went to this meeting stunned to discover that his was one of only two black faces in the room.  Nearly everyone was a white American.  The impression he got was that the perspective of immigrant, non-white Christian leaders was not valued.

Is it?

Do we recognize that God has distributed his gifts throughout the body of Christ and that no one segment of it can truly know it all, do it all, or even dream it all?  Or is Illinois Baptist State Association rather dominated by white, American-born, males who are unaware of the richness in Christ's body that they are depriving themselves of?

A few years ago, the two Karen-speaking (Burma) churches in our state association were invited to perform at the state convention.  They sang and even did some baptisms.  It was great, but this isn't the same thing as truly bringing people to the table.  The leaders of these churches, who carry with them a depth of faith and richness of gifts and experiences that most of the rest of us do not, need to be recruited, mobilized, raised up, cultivated -- brought to the table.  Who God has made them to be must be leveraged for the sake of the to-big-for-any-one-of-us mission to which the Spirit has called us.

In our gatherings, committees, hiring practices, trainings and events, team, and more we must seek out this diversity.  If God has truly distributed the gifts of the Spirit all over the Body (and He has, Eph. 4), do our actions prove that we hunger for all of the gifts, experience, value, and richness that God has ordained?  If not, it is no wonder we experience such want in our mission endeavors, for we have cut ourselves off from God's supply -- the body of Christ.

Orlando 2011: Hwa Yung Calls Complaints Against Cape Town 2010's Diversity Unjust

Tonight's presentation by Malaysian Methodist Bishop Hwa Yung was excellent.  I will not delve into all of it, but I wish to highlight one important comment that he made regarding Cape Town 2010, lest it go unnoticed.

Bishop Yung referred to the fact that there had been a number of complaints against CT2010.  The accusation was that the third Lausanne had been representative / multicultural / international only on a superficial level.  That behind-the-scenes, Western Caucasians were really controlling everything.  I have mentioned this before in my blog.  I had heard that at one point some even considered staging a protest during the final Communion service.

Tonight, Bishop Yung, himself from the majority world and a key player in the design and planning of CT2010 had this to say, "I do not find these complaints to be justified."

I had heard previously from Doug Birdsall that the Bishop felt this way, but I was very glad to hear him say it publicly. Hopefully now some of these accusations could be tempered.  In particular, I believe it is important that those responsible for generating them take at least a moment to consider, ponder, search their hearts.

My Own Research into this Controversy

For my part, I had been aware of the complaints to which Bishop Yung referred before even returning from Cape Town.  Later I came across an article by Tim Stafford in Christianity Today that served to add some steam to this issue. Then in December, I was asked by Beth Snodderly and Scott Moreau to write a chapter on CT2010 for a book they were editing for Regnum.  My research took me deeper into the controversy.  Eventually, I came across some reflections by missiologist Rene Padilla that seemed to express this same sentiment.  I have just now noticed that the reflections have now been taken down from the Micah Network site.

What I would like to see happen is for this particular controversy to give way to peace and a spirit of unity.  To that end, I offer below and excerpt from my CT2010 chapter that I hope can be helpful in addressing the concerns that have been raised:

The Will to Represent: Pressing towards the Whole Church

While I was in South Africa for the Congress, a friend and teammate of mine was invited to attend a national consortium focused on church planting and evangelism in the United States. This was a relatively small, invitation-only event organized by some leaders in our denomination. My friend is an immigrant to the US from East Africa and was struck by the fact that in a meeting presumably focused on reaching all people groups in the nation, he was the lone African. In fact, besides himself, a small handful of Korean leaders, and one African-American, the other participants at the meeting appeared to be American-born, Caucasian men. It was likely an unconscious and unintentional thing for the organizers. Other immigrant leaders were perhaps invited but unable to attend. My friend may not have noticed a Russian or Polish pastor, a Hispanic church planter, or even a woman amid the crowd. But the point is that in that meeting and countless other Christian meetings like it throughout the history of the family of God, little to no effort was placed in intentionally trying to represent the Church in its wholeness.

Here is where CT2010 has broken the mold, although it was not the first Christian meeting to do so, following in the historic tradition of Lausanne 1974 and Manila 1989, two of the most representative Christian gatherings in history. Beyond that, we may assume that other gatherings of Christians have exercised great intentionality in seeking to be as representative as they could be. However, it is safe to say that nothing on the scale of Lausanne III has ever been either attempted or accomplished. During the opening ceremonies, Doug Birdsall called the Congress ‘the most representative and diverse gathering of Christian leaders in the nearly 2000-year history of the Christian movement’.[i] The figures were impressive—more than four thousand carefully selected on-site delegates representing 198 nations, an additional 100,000 people reached through 650 fully interactive GlobaLink sites in 91 countries,[ii] and a less formal, social networking system called the Lausanne Global Conversation that allowed countless individual Christians from all over the world to read papers, watch session videos, offer feedback, and even create their own content to share with the global Church. Plenary and multiplex session presenters were likewise carefully chosen so as to pursue both excellence in content and a broad representation of the global Christian community. In addition, a rather complicated selection grid was designed in order to help ensure that more of the Church in its wholeness would be represented than ever before. At minimum, 60% of participants were to be under the age of 50, 10% under age 30, 35% women, and 10% of the delegates were to come from the marketplace.[iii]

When a friend of mine, a female pastor from Germany, learned about what she referred to as a ‘quota system’ for selecting participants, she was initially disappointed. ‘I want to be here because I deserve to be here, not because of some quota’, she told me. However, as she reflected throughout the week, she realized that without such a system she simply wouldn’t have been invited to attend. As a young leader under 40, I knew that the same was true for me. Yet all those traditionally marginalized segments of the Church—the young, women, disabled peoples, laity, ethnic minorities, and others—truly belong at the table. In fact, as we have seen from Ephesians, they are needed. That the CT2010 Participation Selection Committee, led by Hwa Yung, understood, prioritized, and actually accomplished bringing them to the table in a historically unprecedented way will stand as a lasting part of the legacy of the Congress. What is more, this intentional effort to represent the breadth of the global Church must also be appreciated as one of the truly significant contributions of Lausanne III to the cause of Christ.

CT2010 modeled for the Body of Christ what it looks like to pursue the biblical ideal and mandate of gathering the Church in its wholeness. This was done in continuity with the two previous Lausanne Congresses, but to a degree of thoroughness which surpassed them. Taken together, the example of the Lausanne Movement’s three global Congresses now resounds as an unambiguous call to the global Church to ‘go and do likewise’. The mantle of responsibility has now clearly fallen upon the delegates of CT2010, many of whom are key influencers of churches, denominations, and organizations around the world, to pursue the same kind of breadth of representation in the committees, leadership teams, consultations, and conferences that they are and will be a part of. If this is done with faithfulness by a significant number of Christian leaders, it will signal the dawn of a new era in the history of Christ’s Church and its partnership in mission.

Before leaving this section, something must be said with regard to the voices of dissension that have openly criticized the Lausanne Movement at this very point for not being representative enough in the planning and implementation of CT2010. Of the more notable critiques on this issue, Latin American missiologist Rene Padilla specifically pointed to the plenary session focused on evangelism strategy as being ‘made in the USA’ and reflecting ‘the obsession with numbers typical of the market mentality that characterizes a sector of evangelicalism in the United States’.[iv] Wrote Padilla, ‘All too frequently Christian leaders in the North and West, especially in the United States, continue to assume that they are in charge of designing the strategy for the evangelization of the whole world’.[v] Still others lamented the fact that Roman Catholic, Orthodox, or other non-evangelical Christians, while present as official observers, were not invited to serve as delegates to the Congress.

Doug Birdsall, in response to such critiques has offered the following:

It is a stretch to suggest that the program was planned by Westerners and then sent to the rest of the world. The program chair was Ramez Atallah of Cairo, Egypt. The program director was Grace Mathews from India. The twelve International Deputy Directors from the twelve regions of the world were involved at every stage, including hosting of 20 pre-Congress consultations. The program represented the consensus of hundreds of leaders from around the world. A group of leaders from across Africa met annually in Cape Town for the last three years under the Chairmanship of the Anglican Archbishop of Uganda, Rev. Dr. Henry Orombi to ensure that the program was global in scope and also African in nuance. Two thirds of the speakers were from Africa, Latin America and Asia. They shaped the program. The leaders of the worship team were from South Africa and from Jamaica. It is a slight to these global leaders to overlook their rich contribution and suggest it was planned by the West.[vi]

Added Birdsall:

“There were many participants from churches related to the WCC - including Bishop Hwa Yung the Methodist Bishop of Malaysia.  There were many Catholics and Orthodox who were there as participants from many places around the world.  There was indeed a smaller group of observers who were officially deputized on behalf of the Vatican, the WCC center in Geneva, and the Orthodox Patriarchs.  I met with all of them twice during the Congress.  They all expressed their desire for more involvement with Lausanne and their desire for ongoing discussions.”[vii]

The criticisms nevertheless are of tremendous value in that they soberly remind us that CT2010 did not fully arrive at the biblical ideal as presented in Ephesians, a fact that Birdsall himself would readily admit. Nevertheless, we cannot deny that with the third Congress, the Lausanne Movement pressed in more closely to it than anyone ever has.

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[i] Birdsall, ‘Cape Town’. A significant disappointment that must be noted was the shutting out of some 200 Chinese delegates by the government of that country. Though prevented from attending, the delegation nevertheless rejoiced in the face of their persecution and accepted the Chinese government’s decision with humble and hopeful submission. See The Lausanne Movement, ‘The Third Lausanne Congress Opens’, online: http://www.lausanne.org/news-releases/the-third-lausanne-congress-opens.html, 16 October 2010 [accessed 31 December 2010].

[ii] The Lausanne Movement, ‘The Third Lausanne Congress Opens’.

[iii] T. Stafford, ‘Teeming Diversity: The Third Lausanne Congress Demonstrated That Global Evangelicalism Has Been Transformed’, online: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/december/6.34.html?start=2 , 1 December 2010 [accessed 31 December 2010].

[iv] C. R. Padilla, ‘Reflections on Cape Town 2010: Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization’, online: http://www.micahnetwork.org/en/story/reflections-cape-town-2010-lausanne-congress-world-evangelization, 2010 [accessed 31 December, 2010].

[v] Padilla, ‘Reflections’.

[vi] Birdsall, D. Email to Cody C. Lorance. 9 January 2011.

[vii] Birdsall, Email.

3 Crucial Things that are Impossible Apart from the Body of Christ

     Some of you, it is conceivable, may be waiting for me to post something to this blog.  I've not been doing so lately because I've been buried in writing for a couple projects.  Anyway, I do want to share something with you to kind of tide you over until I can get back to regular writing.  The following reflects some of the thoughts that I shared last Sunday night in house church at TIBM and is actually an excerpt from a chapter that I'm writing for a book the will come out next year.  I hope you're an Ephesians fan! Enjoy:

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     In Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, which served as the primary Scriptural focus of Cape Town 2010, one gets the impression that if a follower of Christ wishes to have anything approaching a meaningful relationship with God, they must become deeply enmeshed with the life of the Church in its wholeness.  It is, in the language of the Apostle, the Church who has received “every spiritual blessing” (1:3) and that has become “the fullness of him who fills all in all” (1:23).  The Church is his “body” (1:23), his “workmanship” (2:10), a company of “fellow citizens” and members of “the household of God”(2:19), a “temple” in which the Holy Spirit dwells (2:21-22),  and Christ’s own bride, the object of his tender care and nourishment (5:32).

 

     What is more, it is clear from Ephesians that at least three things, and those of paramount importance, are possible only within the context of the whole Church.   First, making known the “manifold wisdom of God” to the invisible realm of evil spiritual “rulers and authorities” is something that God has purposed to do “through the Church” (3:10-11).  This is accomplished as peoples from many divergent and often mutually hostile nations and cultures become one body through the peace-making cross of Jesus Christ (2:12-3:10).  Consequently, the more wholeness is realized among the nations and peoples of the earth through the blood of Christ, and the more he himself is manifested as the peace of the Church that truly joins us together as one new humanity, the more awesome the resulting display will be of God’s wisdom to the demonic spiritual realm.  According to John Piper, in his exposition of this passage at the Congress, “There isn’t anything greater that can be said about the global Church of Jesus but that, through the death of the Messiah, God has created a people in whom he means for his infinite wisdom to be manifest to the cosmic powers of evil” (Piper, 2010).

     Secondly, it is only “together with all the saints” that Christ-followers can find the strength to comprehend the multidimensional love of Christ and, through that, to be “filled with all the fullness of God” (3:18-19).  Such love, we are told, “surpasses knowledge” (3:19) and thus lies outside the grasp of a divided and fragmented Church.  But when Christians from every family on earth, “rooted and grounded in love” and indwelt by the Spirit, join together in partnership and communion, the breadth and length and height and depth of divine love is brought into full relief, God is glorified, and we are filled (3:14-21).

     Finally, we see that outside the context of the whole Church, genuine spiritual maturity is likewise impossible.  Paul exhorts us to “maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” for a very practical reason (4:3).  There is a single, universal Church and only one Holy Spirit (4:4), but the grace-ministering gifts of Christ are varied and have been distributed to Christians (4:7) far and wide.  Doug Birdsall’s vision of Cape Town 2010 being an “international gift exchange” (Birdsall, 2010) is exactly what Paul argues is always and at all times required.  He says that all the saints are to be equipped.  All are to attain to the unity of the faith.  All are to become spiritually mature.  But this is possible for none unless the whole body is “joined and held together,” “each part working properly” and thus promoting the growth of the Church in the love of Christ (4:16).  I dare not presume that all the gifts and manifestations of God’s grace exist within the confines of my own local, denominational, or even national church.  I need the whole body.

My Top 3 Complaints About Cape Town 2010

Okay ladies and gentlemen, it's time to take the gloves off.

Really, I've been too nice and cuddly regarding Cape Town 2010, the historic 3rd Lausanne Congress. Even before the congress had begun, during the event itself, and certainly since it closed, I've been hearing a number of criticisms and complaints from delegates and observers.  Why, just yesterday, I sat for a while with a friend and heard him relay complaints that he had heard from others.  Well, so as not to be outdone, I've decided to join the fray.  No more warm and fuzzy.  Here it is, my top 3 biggest complaints about Cape Town 2010:

3. Advocating our causes by diminishing others

I have noticed (not only at Cape Town, but it stood out to me there) that there is a dangerous tendency that we missionary-types have.  That is, we have a tendency to speak about our particular callings and passions as if they were the only legitimate ones out there.  That is, someone who is passionate about the urban poor tends to diminish those working in rural Tibet.  The ministry focused on Muslims speaks as if those trying to reach Hindus are somehow less spiritual.  The person with a ministry dedicated to combating human trafficking can't understand those who are passionate about church planting.  And so on.  I will refrain from giving specific examples, but they were numerous.  May the Lord rescue us from thinking that every part of the body of Christ needs to be just like us - "if the whole body were a cross-cultural church planter working contextually among Hindus in diaspora, where would the body be?" (1 Cor. 12:19)

2. Lack of integrity regarding the Lausanne Covenant

Well, I hate to say this folks, but unfortunately, I saw evidence of a serious lack of integrity regarding the Lausanne Covenant at Cape Town 2010.  Now, I find this to be particularly serious because many of us who are in the trenches (some far more so than myself) came to this gathering hoping for two things (among others).  First, we were hoping for the great diversity of the global body of Christ to be represented.  But second, we were hoping that those who did come would share the core convictions of the faith as expressed by the Lausanne Covenant we were all required to affirm.  This unity around essentials and diversity in a wide range of other issues was to help create an atmosphere of unity in diversity, one fertile for collaboration.  Unfortunately, while I assume that every delegate indicated in the application process that they did indeed agree with the Lausanne Covenant, the reality was that some did not.

At the end of the day, I don't know the number.  However, I can see them falling into two major categories.  The first are those who signed the Lausanne Covenant and seem to essentially believe the statements therein, but nevertheless do not necessarily believe that an individual who likewise does so is actually a Christian.  That is, there is a failure to distinguish properly between essentials and non-essentials of the faith.  Members of one delegation in particular expressed this in their words and behaviors towards me.  One individual actually accused me of leading a cult.  When asked if they could acknowledge that since we have both signed the Lausanne Covenant, we actually share the same core and essential theological convictions and, upon that basis, may treat one another as brothers and sisters in Christ, some were unwilling.  I find this extremely sad.

The second category is much worse.  These are those individuals who signed the Lausanne Covenant but who simply didn't agree with it.  In particular, I met delegates who essentially rejected this statement from the covenant,

"Yet those who reject Christ repudiate the joy of salvation and condemn themselves to eternal separation from God." 


What makes this so sad is that such individuals have adopted a dishonest strategy for being selected as delegates for the congress.  Whatever commitment they may have towards Christ, it apparently doesn't require the kind of scrupulous honesty that Christ calls us to.  They may find this to be a very small price to pay in order to get their voice heard, but I find it simply sad.  Participation in the Lausanne Movement is voluntary, and I believe that those who choose to be involved ought to do so with the utmost integrity.

1. Complaints

Of course, my biggest complaint of all was simply the fact that people were complaining so much.  Now, don't misunderstand me. It wasn't the majority by any stretch.  There wasn't a spirit of bitterness hanging over the convention center.  But I happened to be in situations in which I heard a fair amount of what complaining was happening.  Some complained that they weren't fairly represented, some complained that the "whole church" wasn't really there, some complained over issues of gender, some over issues of content, some over race and ethnicity, some over theology, and on and on.  And I kept thinking . . . really?!?! Why? Let me give you one example.

One night, I was coming into the main auditorium for the evening plenary session.  I was looking for a place to sit and found a table at which a friend was sitting. I walked to that table and asked to sit there.  They all said sure but, "you may not want to, we're [John] Piper-bashing over here." My heart dropped into my stomach as I sat down.  I thought, maybe I don't want to sit here. It simply amazed me that a group of Christians (it wasn't the whole table) would be engaged in something that they could describe as the "bashing" of another Christian at such a time and place as the 3rd Lausanne Congress.  I felt a little angry actually.  Why can't we just set aside this one moment in our lives in which we'll refrain from "bashing" each other?  It doesn't matter what you think of what Piper preached, it really doesn't.  I didn't think every sermon and presentation was a home run either. But I chose to trust that everyone came and shared out of a love for Christ.  I chose to trust God to superintend the proceedings of the congress.

So, I felt saddened by this.  I heard after the congress that during the final Holy Communion service that one small group of delegates had considered starting a protest to voice their dissatisfaction with things.  When I heard that, I just thanked God that He didn't let it happen.  I was, at that service, having a very important moment with God -- a moment that I believe will resonate with me for the rest of my life.  I believe that thousands around the room were having a similar encounter with God.  Such a protest would have been so damaging to me at that time.  Perhaps these individuals considered that and refrained for that reason.

Is it weird, am I so strange to choose to take a position of trust?  Is it naive and unchristian for me to assume that the Lausanne leadership really and truly wanted to honor Christ in the congress?  That God cared so much about the event that He was really involved in everything?  Because that is the position I took from the beginning to the end.  That doesn't mean that I wasn't exercising discernment throughout.  I was.  I was thinking critically about everything.  Not everything was great.  Some things were flawed.  The fingerprints of sinful humanity were on everything.  But so was the Spirit.  And so I wonder, why weren't people able to just put a moratorium on bitterness for those few days in Cape Town?

I suppose that someone might say that I'm saying this from my cozy position as a white, male Westerner -- a privileged one.  Maybe so.  But I will say that the vast majority of the complaining I have heard has come from my fellow white, male Westerners.  Sometimes they even complain "on behalf" of their non-white, non-Western friends.  How nice of them! But then I wonder if that simply represents a new kind of Western paternalism.

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Okay, my complaints have been lodged.  I hope you realize that while I do feel strongly about the things I've mentioned, my overall feeling about Cape Town 2010 was one of tremendous satisfaction.  I believe God worked in remarkable ways through the leadership and delegates to accomplish something truly historic and life-changing.  Also, please note that my "top 3" are not really complaints about the program of Cape Town 2010.  On the contrary, these are really disturbing observations that I believe God allowed me to make while interacting with the body of Christ in general in Cape Town.

Blessings!