Can you follow Jesus and stay within your community?
Posted by: Jacob Friesen
Church: Gospel Mennonite Winnipeg
Date: June 23rd, 2011
A few weeks ago we met as leaders to review our shared Low German ministry in Bolivia. We wrestled deeply through the principals of a book entitled “When Helping Hurts”. How to alleviate poverty without hurting others and yourself. We were reminded that the greatest poverty is broken relationships and that our key ministry is one of reconciliation. From these discussions Darrell Kehler is drafting a “philosophy of missions, vision and strategy” paper that we will discuss in fall.
Just when you’ve wrestled things through and come to a bit of an understanding, something else shows up that adds to the joy or complexity of understanding how God is working in our world and what it means to join him in this journey.
The attached article challenges a traditional approach or thinking about how God works in and with culture and community. What do you make of it?
The core point I hear is that we have tried to convert people to J+esus AND to our version of culture – a way of seeing the world and particular practices. The question he has asked is, “what does the gospel look like in a particular culture” without all the baggage. Sounds like a Luke 9 and 10 approach to me, (take nothing – become vulnerable and become learners) and the story we see worked out in Acts where the Jewish believers suddenly discover that the Gentiles don’t have to look like Jews.
I think we need to understand that it is not cultures that we are trying to transform, but peoples souls for eternity. I read this devotional this morning.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
This Morning’s Meditation
C. H. Spurgeon
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“Art thou become like unto us?”—Isaiah 14:10.
HAT must be the apostate professor’s doom when his naked soul appears before God? How will he bear that voice, “Depart, ye cursed; thou hast rejected me, and I reject thee; thou hast played the harlot, and departed from Me: I also have banished thee for ever from my presence, and will not have mercy upon thee.” What will be this wretch’s shame at the last great day when, before assembled multitudes, the apostate shall be unmasked? See the profane, and sinners who never professed religion, lifting themselves up from their beds of fire to point at him. “There he is,” says one, “will he preach the gospel in hell?” “There he is,” says another, “he rebuked me for cursing, and was a hypocrite himself!” “Aha!” says another, “here comes a psalm-singing Methodist—one who was always at his meeting; he is the man who boasted of his being sure of everlasting life; and here he is!” No greater eagerness will ever be seen among Satanic tormentors, than in that day when devils drag the hypocrite’s soul down to perdition. Bunyan pictures this with massive but awful grandeur of poetry when he speaks of the back-way to hell. Seven devils bound the wretch with nine cords, and dragged him from the road to heaven, in which he had professed to walk, and thrust him through the back-door into hell. Mind that back-way to hell, professors! “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith.” Look well to your state; see whether you be in Christ or not. It is the easiest thing in the world to give a lenient verdict when oneself is to be tried; but O, be just and true here. Be just to all, but be rigorous to yourself. Remember if it be not a rock on which you build, when the house shall fall, great will be the fall of it. O may the Lord give you sincerity, constancy, and firmness; and in no day, however evil, may you be led to turn aside.
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I think this says alot.