Palestinian Resolution Exposes an Illinois Baptist Blindspot

This past week I attended the 2014 Annual Meeting of the Illinois Baptist State Association.  Some of you are probably wondering what the heck such an event entails, but please, muscle past.  I want to skip the discussion of what we Baptists do when we hang out and move right on to a specific resolution that was passed regarding the Palestinian Church.  

A resolution* was passed calling upon Illinois Baptists and churches to be active in ministering to Palestinian children, to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian Church as a whole, to pray for government officials and other leaders in Israel and the West Bank, and to pray for Palestinian people in general.  Nothing at all is objectionable in these resolutions.  However, as I listened to the hurried process, I couldn't help but think of how blind we are.

Just the night before during a corporate prayer meeting, it had been mentioned that Muslims outnumbered Southern Baptists in the state (not that there aren't other evangelicals) and I happen to know that my denomination will very soon lose the only missionaries we have in Illinois who are exclusively focused on reaching Muslims (not that there aren't a few other workers ... just a few though). And yet, this resolution was entirely focused on the Palestinian People in Palestine. Consider the following:

Palestinians in Chicagoland

• Population Estimate: 85,000
• Palestinians are primarly located in Chicago's Southwest suburbs including Bridgeview, Oak Lawn and Orland Park. They are predominatly Muslims and may be the largest Arab diaspora in Chicagoland.
• While there is a portion of the Palestinian community that is traditionally Christian, there are very few evangelicals and no known churches in Chicagoland intentionally seeking to reach Palestinian Muslims. New Engagement/Planting Efforts Needed: 80.

Our research team has estimated that as many as 80 new gospel engagement/church planting efforts are needed among the Palestinian diaspora in Chicagoland. It stands as one of the greatest evangelistic needs in our state and yet it was entirely ignored by a well-meaning resolution committee and a ballroom full of Southern Baptist leaders.  I suppose a few others may have considered this but the proceedings were rushed along very quickly.  There was really no time to call our attention to the diaspora peoples.  After all, we couldn't possible sacrifice our precious Common Core or Concealed Carry discussion time.

Followers of the Lord Jesus, may we not be blind to the presence and continued movement of diaspora peoples among us.  The endless migration of peoples from one end of the earth to the other and back again is perhaps the most impressive human force in the world today.  The least reached people groups on the planet have cousins in Toronto, siblings in Toledo, and classmates in Taipei.  The extent to which we do not notice is an important measure to revealing just how out-of-step our churches, mission agencies, and denominations may be with the leading of the Lord of the Harvest.  In 1974 Ralph Winter chided the global Church for our people blindness.  His prophetic challenge is just as appropriate today.

[*NOTE (Nov. 11, 2014)- In light of some of the feedback I have received, I want to emphasize that I did support the resolution that was presented.  It was a good one and, for someone like myself that is so passionate for the nations, perhaps the most important.  I'm actually quite grateful that it was brought forward and regret that we didn't have more time to consider it.  So, actually, I mean no disrespect to any individual or group associated with the resolution or even the program procedures.  My use of the first-person, plural pronouns in the article is intentional.  This is a self-critique of my own "tribe" because as I travel around the world speaking, teaching and writing and challenging all manner of evangelical groups to address their blindness to the presence of diaspora peoples among them I do no want to be guilty of pulling my punches within my own family.  As the prayer meeting at the Illinois Baptist annual meeting reminded us so well, certain things should simply not be and I believe that 2000 years is long enough for peoples to be without the gospel especially here in Chicagoland where we have the ability to take it to them. I am grateful for the strong responses that this article has generated and pray that the Lord uses it to not only lead us to greater engagement among Palestinians (here and there) but among all peoples.  As always, I appreciate my readers and my respectful critics.  My we ever be as iron sharpening iron on our way to the Master.]

Southern Baptists and Baptism

Well, I found this to be interesting.  Some of you will know why.

For the rest, just enjoy the read ...

Between The Times: "LifeWay Research released a study yesterday demonstrating that a slight majority (52%) of the Southern Baptist pastors they polled believe that any professing believer can participate in communion. Only about a third of those polled (35%) believe that baptism is prerequisite to the Lord’s Supper. Still others advocated other positions, which are less relevant to this post. (The poll also had some interesting statistics about how frequently Southern Baptists celebrate communion, but that’s another topic for another day.)"

Where are you on this?

Muslims Outnumber Southern Baptists in Illinois

Photo by: Steve Evans

For what it's worth . . .

According to a recent report - The US Religion Census 2010 - there are now more Muslims than Southern Baptists in Illlinois.  Here's a quote:

Muslims have become the third-largest religious group in the state after Roman Catholics and independent evangelicals. Not to mention, the fastest-growing one.

The Chicago Tribune published an article on the religious data for Illinois here.  You can also find the nation-wide summary findings here.  One must ask how seriously we should take any mission agency broadly focused on Chicagoland which pays little or no attention to the presence, needs, and divine opportunities presented by such a massive and rapidly burgeoning Muslim community.

The Illinois Baptist: Should the Southern Baptist Convention change its name?

Just by way of announcement, the most recent issue of the Illinois Baptist is out and features several pieces related to the possible Southern Baptist name change. My own piece is presented in a kind of point / counterpoint fashion in the issue. I encourage you to check it out and let me know your thoughts. Lord willing, you will hear more from me on this issue in the coming days/weeks.

The Illinois Baptist – February 13, 2012 : Should the Southern Baptist Convention change its name?: "Shakespeare famously declared, “A rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.” However, if we called them “poisonous death blossoms” I doubt many of us would venture a sniff. The point is that it is fundamentally wrong to claim that names and naming are insignificant. We read of God naming things at creation and of Adam quickly following suit; we see the Lord changing names of key figures in salvation history to mark life-changing moments or signal divine promises; we hear of God’s command that we should revere His Name and not take it in vain; and we cherish the promise that our own names are written in the book of life. Clearly, from a Biblical perspective, names matter. And so we must ask: Should our Southern Baptist Convention change its name?"

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.

5 Challenges for the Illinois Baptist State Association: Introduction

Been putting this off for too long.  Last month, I had the honor of speaking at the weekly chapel service of the Illinois Baptist State Association (IBSA).  This is a small gathering of prayer, worship, and Bible study that the Springfield-based missionaries of the Southern Baptist Convention enjoy.  I was asked especially to share with IBSA from my experience representing them at Cape Town 2010, the 3rd Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization.

My goal in sharing was to seek to bring to these IBSA leaders what I felt that God was saying to our part of the Church.  In the end, I felt led to bring a series of 5 challenges to IBSA.  Though I felt somewhat intimidated in front of these leaders -- all sort of "outranking" me in our denominational structure -- I felt it was important to share with confidence and to avoid any hesitations.  This is, I believe, what God's Spirit is saying to us.  These are His challenges to us.

The feedback was very positive and I left deeply encouraged.  There was even something of an encore and plenty of fruitful conversations that followed.  Now that it has been a few weeks, I want to post these challenges publicly.  If you are a follower of Christ involved with the life of IBSA, you will be especially interested in my posts during the next few days, as I plan to simply post the 5 challenges as 5 posts over the next 5 days.  If you are not involved in IBSA, you may still be interested to know what our small segment of Southern Baptist brothers and sisters in Christ are talking about.  It is actually quite relevant to you as well.

Today, let me just close my post by directing you to a scripture that I brought before the IBSA last month as our launching pad.  It comes from 2 Corinthians 9:8--

"And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work."

Of course, I presented this text in the wider context of chapters 8-9.  I would encourage you to reflect on these two chapters and consider how Paul speaks about the purpose of God for want and plenty in the Body of Christ.  Especially read 8:10ff.  Paul assumes association and collaboration in the body of Christ.  Paul believes that the plenty of the Corinthian Christians is designed by God for the sake of meeting the needs of Jerusalem Christians -- and vice versa.  His assumption is clear:

God has designed and decreed want and plenty in the body of Christ to demonstrate to us all, in an utterly convincing way, that there is one Body and that no single part of it has all the gifts necessary for advancing the gospel and finishing the Great Commission.  That is, if we want to be in the will of God, collaborative mission and kingdom partnership are non-negotiable.

Indeed, God is able to make all grace abound to us, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, we may abound in every good work.  But if that's not our experience, if instead we see only need, lack, inability to carry on the work of our mission for a lack of human, financial, or other resources what does this indicate?

The experience of perpetual want in our mission seems to point to a kind of disconnect between us and the body of Christ.  God's primary means of meeting our needs is through the Church.  But if our view of the Church is too small, narrow, weak, flimsy, or whatever -- well, we should not be surprised by our enduring neediness.  It isn't that God hasn't made provision.  It is that we are able or willing to connect with His means -- the body of Christ.

That's enough for now.  I would guess that most will not have read this far anyway.  But do take a look at the blog during the next 5 days.  I want to present 5 challenges to IBSA that flow out of the principle that I've just elucidated.