Presbyterian Outlook: Presbyterian mission in a flat world

Presbyterian Outlook: Presbyterian mission in a flat world -- free registration required to read the full article

Scott Sundquist writes in the first of a three part series on mission:

"History is not the story of those who “sense” there is a problem. We all sense that there are problems in governments, societies, and churches. Everyone knows it and everyone complains about it. History is marked by those who have the clarity to see when it is time to act, those who understand why we must act, and those who can then communicate how to act.

Very few Presbyterians are pleased with our denomination’s involvement in global mission at present. Very few people are pleased to know that at one time we had more than 2,000 full-time missionaries serving in the world (1959) and now we have fewer than 240. This is not a matter of theology or ideology. This is a general frustration with the present missional and cultural context in which we find our churches and ourselves. The world’s needs and the Gospel imperative both point to the obligation to move forward with greater innovation, participation, and creativity. This is not the time for a single prophetic leader to come forward and say, “This is the way.” This is the time when all men and women of goodwill, committed to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, hold hands and say, “Come, let’s all move forward together. Step in the river and let’s go to the promised land of mission.”

The promised land of mission is a place where Chinese, Koreans, Brazilians, Costa Ricans, Nigerians, and Kenyans are already there to greet us and welcome us. Our future in mission is led by our past faithfulness in mission. Mission today is messy, unorganized, and powerful. It is like the Holy Spirit of the living God: unpredictable, but powerful and transformative. In the words of New York Times reporter and commentator, Thomas Friedman, the missional world is “flat.” All people now have access to participation and innovation in mission. It is not just the number of adherents who are now heavily weighted to the South—thank you, Mr. Philip Jenkins—it is Christian mission that is basically a non-western enterprise with greater participation and access by second- and third-world Christians. ..."

Our future in mission is led by our past faithfulness in mission. God certainly works in amazing ways, and sometimes, to our way of seeing things, ironic ways.

The Great Ends of the Church were first proclaimed by the Presbyterian Church of North America nearly 100 years ago, at a time when the mission field was quite active in the Presbyterian Church. The first of these set the tone for what the Presbyterian Church saw as its reason for being: The proclamation of the Gospel for the salvation of humankind.

These Great Ends were adopted by the successor denominations, the United Presbyterian Church in the USA and our current denomination, The Presbyterian Church (USA). The General Assembly Council has adopted the six Great Ends as its mission statement.

Am I concerned that the earthly leadership in mission has moved out of the United States and Europe? Not at all! God, who is, after all, in charge, has called leaders in every time and place to carry on the work of the Church. It seems that we may now be called to follow the lead of our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world.

I am looking forward to reading Scott Sundquist's other articles in this series.

Part 6 -- And the exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world

How many of us have been told by parents, teachers or others in authority that “actions speak louder than words”? Ron Sider in The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience makes this point in a stark way: Why is the divorce rate higher in the evangelical churches than in other churches? What kind of a message are we sending when our public behavior is so much at odds with what we profess on Sunday?

Why are our churches in conflict? Why do opposing groups in the PC(USA) publicly ridicule not only different opninions, but the people holding such opinions? If we are ambassadors of Christ; if our witness to others consists of how we behave toward each other; are we effectively exhibiting the Kingdom of Heaven?

What did the early church do that was so compelling to those who saw them in action?

^{Ac 2:42} They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. ⁴³ Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. ⁴⁴ All the believers were together and had everything in common. ⁴⁵ Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. ⁴⁶ Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, ⁴⁷ praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. – NIV

What was it they had that others did not? Perhaps we need to look at the theme which pervaded Jesus’ ministry and was a major part of the ministry of his followers:

^{1Jn 3:11} This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. ¹² Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. ¹³ Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you. ¹⁴ We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. ¹⁵ Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.

^{1Jn 3:16} This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. ¹⁷ If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? ¹⁸ Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. ¹⁹ This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence ²⁰ whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

^{1Jn 3:21} Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God ²² and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. ²³ And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. ²⁴ Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us. –NIV

If we dealt with one another in love and dealt with the world in love, the world would have a far better idea of what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. And, as it was during the early years of the Christian Church, seeing such a loving, caring community can be powerful evangelism.

Part 5 -- The promotion of social righteousness

Early in Jesus'’ ministry, he read from a scroll in the Nazareth synagogue. In doing so he announced himself as the one whom the selection from the Scroll of Isaiah foretold:

^{Isa 61:1} The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
^{Isa 61:2} to proclaim the year of the LORD'S favor...

The Isaiah passage goes on a few verses later with a clear statement of where the Lord stands:

^{Isa 61:8} “For I, the LORD, love justice;
I hate robbery and iniquity.
In my faithfulness I will reward them
and make an everlasting covenant with them. -- NIV

The Lord sides unequivocally with the oppressed.

During the final week of Jesus'’ earthly ministry he taught his followers many parables and told them of what was to come. Among his illustrations was the following:

^{Mt 25:31} "When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. ³² All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. ³³ He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

^{Mt 25:34} "“Then the King will say to those on his right, '‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. ³⁵ For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, ³⁶ I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

^{Mt 25:37} “"Then the righteous will answer him, '‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? ³⁸ When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? ³⁹ When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'’

^{Mt 25:40} "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'– -- NIV

It isn'’t enough to believe that Jesus is the Anointed One and to preach the Good News. Our preaching is measured by the practice to which we put it. An oversimplification of the difference between the liberal and evangelical churches is that the liberals tend to concentrate their efforts on social issues while evangelicals tend to concentrate on preaching the Gospel. My own personal sense is that this is not a useful distinction between liberals and evangelicals. There is a distribution of beliefs and practice in all churches, and I suspect that there is more overlap than people believe. What both sides need to accept is that this isn't an either/or situation; Scripture makes that crystal clear.

Isaiah spoke out on behalf of the Lord to the politicians of his day in terms quite harsh:

^{Isa 10:1} Woe to those who make unjust laws,
to those who issue oppressive decrees,
^{Isa 10:2} to deprive the poor of their rights
and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people,
making widows their prey
and robbing the fatherless.
^{Isa 10:3} What will you do on the day of reckoning,
when disaster comes from afar?
To whom will you run for help?
Where will you leave your riches?
^{Isa 10:4} Nothing will remain but to cringe among the captives
or fall among the slain.
Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away,
his hand is still upraised. -- NIV

Not only are we called to work on behalf of the poor and oppressed, but when we see political structures that lead to oppression, we are to speak prophetically to our leaders. It would seem a little presumptuous to speak the way Isaiah did, but letters to legislators or governors or presidents are always appropriate. When the offenders are corporate leaders it is no less imperative that we speak from our faith and knowledge of what the Lord requires (Micah 6:8).

Our failure to do so calls into question our commitment to following Jesus.

Part 4 -- The preservation of the truth

^{2Ti 4:1} In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: ² Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. ³ For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. ⁴ They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. ⁵ But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry. –NIV

By the mid first century doctrinal creep was starting to complicate the proclamation of the Gospel. The teachings of Jesus as passed on by the Apostles were starting to shift as the people found them inconvenient or just plain too hard to follow. The beginnings of Gnosticism gave Paul and John much to write about, and much of what would become the New Testament was being written to counter heresies.

Today we are dealing with issues not that much different than the early Church, but these issues are complicated by the vast increase in knowledge over the past 2000 years. We have people who do not believe that resurrection is possible, that the supernatural cannot happen, that sexual standards are outmoded in a modern society, or that the Atonement was unnecessary.

In an earlier posting I told of how the Resurrection is the basis of my faith. Without it, nothing else makes any sense, and I might as well sleep in Sunday morning. With it, though, comes more than I bargained for: The Incarnation, Sin, Atonement, Repentance, and a host of other things that I must also come to grips with – all because I believe that God raised Jesus from the dead, defeating the power of sin and the grave for all time.

So how can we know what is true? As reformed Christians the Word of God alone determines what we believe – the written word and the Living Word – and they are in accord.

How can we know if what we are taught is true?

^{1Jn 4:1} Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. ² This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, ³ but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

^{1Jn 4:4} You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. ⁵ They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. ⁶ We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood. --NIV

Since our beliefs are determined by Scripture, one should be suspicious of any doctrinal assertion that requires one to ignore the Word of God, or to set it aside as irrelevant, or even to dismiss it as outright fraud. Since the Reformation, the Scriptures have been available in our own language and are accessible to all believers. We are the first line of defense in the Preservation of the Truth and knowing Scripture is the key to sound doctrine.

Part 3 -- The maintenance of divine worship

There are many passages in Scripture that describe aspects of the worship of God, but not much in the way of a comprehensive list. One of my favorite passages is in Micah:

^{Mic 6:6} With what shall I come before the LORD
and bow down before the exalted God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?

^{Mic 6:7} Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousand rivers of oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

^{Mic 6:8} He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God. -- NIV

Micah, speaking for the Lord, clearly states that the Lord is more concerned with what is in our hearts and the way we follow His law than he is with the outward trappings of worship. Does this mean that we don’t need to worship God in a corporate way? Not at all. God requires our worship and devotion, but all the offerings we make, all the prayers we say, all the hymns we sing, and so forth mean little if we fail to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.

We Presbyterians, who love decency and order, describe what should take place in worship in Chapter II of The Directory for Worship:

• Prayer
• Scripture read and proclaimed
• Baptism
• The Lord’s Supper
• Self Offering
• Relating to each other and the world
  

This list is a pretty good distillation of what corporate worship should consist, and with the exception of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, could characterize personal, family, and small group worship experiences.

In the second of the Great Ends (shelter, nurture and spiritual fellowship) I did not dwell much on fellowship, but the last of the main elements of worship as defined in the Directory for Worship seems to cover that nicely. In fact, corporate worship should also provide shelter and nurture to the family of faith, although the second great end should not be limited to the Sunday worship service.

Presbyterians leave the responsibility for providing worship to the pastor, with the concurrence of the session. The pastor has sole responsibility for the choice of scripture, preparing and preaching the sermon, the prayers during the service, the choice of music, and whether or not to use art, drama, or dance during the service. (Book of Order W-1.4005) All other aspects of worship, including the approval of the sacraments, rest with the session.

The one thing the pastor and session have little control over is the most important aspect of worship – what is in the hearts of the worshippers. The challenge is to order worship so it nurtures an individual and corporate sense of justice, mercy, and humbleness in the presence of the Lord.

Part 2 -- The shelter, nurture and spiritual fellowship of the children of God

Sheltering the children of God, to me, is not protecting them from the world or keeping them safe from controversial ideas. But it IS providing a place where believers with robust faiths as well as believers who have more fragile faiths can be together as a community, learning, worshipping, fellowshipping, and mutually nurturing each other.

I was baptized at the age of 10 in a Presbyterian Church. I remember my parents promising to bring me up in “the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” Our denomination dropped that phrase along the way, but baptisms today still involve not only the parents making promises to bring their child up in the church, but the congregation also making a promise to support the parents and teach this newly baptized member of the family of God.

How are we nurturing our fellow Christians, especially those who are still searching? Too many times and in too many places I have heard visitors asking “What does this church believe?” and being told “Well, we tend to be all over the map when it comes to beliefs, so don’t worry about it.”

Beau Weston, a professor of Sociology at Centre College in Kentucky, as well as a Presbyterian elder, had this to say in the April 2004 issue of Presbyterians Today:

“Weston says Christians always tell pollsters that what they want is "good music and good preaching," but "what they really want from religion is religion."

"Liberal churches that work hard to accommodate the secular world by offering a refined, intellectual, reasonable faith," Weston told Christianity Today, "keep losing people to the even more reasonable pleasures of the newspaper, the golf course, and the warm bed."”

This article is about the growth of evangelicism in congregations of the PC(USA). The title is “Presbyterian Evangelicals – They just might be on to something.” I recommend you read the whole article.

Dr. Weston (who is also a blogger) spoke at my home church on the characteristics of growing congregations. He noted that strict churches tended to grow while non-strict churches tended to lose members. “Strict” in this sense does not refer to harsh discipline or requiring members to “toe the line”, but rather telling prospective members up front that “this is where we stand as a church.”

You don’t nurture a beginning swimmer by tossing them in the deep end and seeing how they perform, any more than you nurture a new believer by telling them to come up with what works for them in terms of theology. The “nurture and admonition of the Lord” applies not only to children, but those who are young in faith and even those who are mature in their faith. If they are seeking answers, we should be able to provide them with answers. If we truly shelter, nurture, and fellowship with the believers in our home congregations then we provide a place where faith can flourish.

Part 1 -- The proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind

This is the first of the six Great Ends, and it may be the most controversial. Our evangelism efforts have been neglected over the years, and many have gone so far as to discourage evangelism efforts among non-Christians in general and Jews and Muslims in particular.

The Great Commission places no limits on where and to whom we proclaim the Good News:

^{Mt 28:16} Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. ¹⁷ When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. ¹⁸ Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” – NIV

The Presbyterian Church, in the newest of its confessions, “The Brief Statement of Faith”, mirrors scripture with its clear statement on evangelism and social responsibility:

“…The Spirit gives us courage
to pray without ceasing,
to witness among all peoples to Christ as Lord and Savior,
to unmask idolatries in Church and culture,
to hear the voices of peoples long silenced,
and to work with others for justice, freedom, and peace.” -- Book of Confessions 10:4

The Witness and Evangelism Among People of Other Faiths page on the PC(USA) web site acknowledges the fact of our calling and provides some compelling reasons why we need to take this call seriously. The International Evangelism page has this to say:

“Through modern technology, the world has become a Global Village. However, many people still have not heard the Gospel and a significant number of ethnic groups still do not have a self-sustaining Christian church. PC(USA) partners around the world continue to ask us to join in their evangelism and church development efforts.”

Scripture, the Book of Confessions, the Book of Order and the PC(USA) website are in accord regarding evangelism (as it should be!), so why is the idea of evangelism so difficult to accept?

During Marj Carpenter’s year as General Assembly Moderator in 1995, she came and spoke in Jefferson City, Missouri. Her talk was on Mission (no surprise there…) and she told of mission 100 years ago. Presbyterians have historically had a three-pronged mission strategy involving evangelism, medicine, and education. Since then our mission efforts have diminished overall, but the evangelistic efforts have diminished the most. Her call to the PC(USA) was that it was time to reclaim our historic role in evangelism. Ten years after Marj Carpenter was moderator, mission budgets are still inadequate and as individuals and as a church we are just as uncomfortable with telling the Good News to the unchurched.

The Great Ends of the Church -- Introduction

In 1997 the Office of the General Assembly, the General Assembly Council, the Presbyterian Publishing Corporation, the Board of Pensions, the PC(USA) Foundation and the Presbyterian Investment and Loan Corporation recommended to the 209^th General Assembly that the denomination enter into a 6 year study of the Great Ends of the Church. The www.pcusa.org web site is somewhat difficult to navigate when it comes to past General Assemblies, but the 210^th General Assembly began a two year celebration of the Great Ends of the Church:

“The great ends of the church are the proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind; the shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God; the maintenance of divine worship; the preservation of the truth; the promotion of social righteousness; and the exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world.” – The Book of Order G-1.0200

The Presbyterian Church in North America adopted the Great Ends in 1910, according to the Book of Order. In 1958, when the Presbyterian Church in North America united with the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, giving rise to the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, this statement was incorporated into the new constitution and when the UPCUSA united with the Presbyterian Church in the United States in 1983, healing a rift that had lasted since the Civil War era, the Great Ends were made part of the Constitution of the PC(USA).

These six statements describe a healthy church – one which realizes that not only must the Gospel be preached to all, but that the people who have responded need to be nurtured, that worship correctly done is as important as preserving the truth, that justice for God’s people cannot be ignored, and that our individual lives and our corporate actions should show the world what the Kingdom of Heaven is like.

What will follow in the next six postings is not intended to be an exhaustive treatment of the Great Ends of the Church, but rather my own personal feelings about aspects that particularly move me.